Building a Scene in Maya

Science Fact or Cinematic Fiction

No term paper is being submitted.

Outline for Second Term Paper

1. Introduction
1. Action/Reaction principle - for every force there's a simultaneous actionary and reactionary force of equal magnitude and opposite direction
2. Movies in the superhero genre break this law to demonstrate the superhuman abilities of their heroes
2. Superman Returns (2006)
1. Superman takes several bullets from an automatic weapon to the chest. Instead of suffering mortal wounds, they simply ricochet off of him.
2. More impressively, next Superman takes a bullet to the eye.  Superman's eye is able to not only stop the bullet, but crush it, rather than ricochet like the previous bullets
3. Superman's body should correctly be penetrated by bullets. Instead, his body exerts enough force to send bullets flying away and/or crush them.
3. Iron Man (2008)
1. Iron Man arrives to fight terrorist in Gulmira in a dramatic fashion, falling onto the ground at an incredible speed.  The ground should generate enough force to destroy Iron Man's body, but his body remains intact.
2. Iron Man flies away at a rapid speed when he's hit by a missile, sending him careening into the earth.  This time, he hits the earth with so much force that he creates a crater, yet Iron Man miraculously survives unharmed
3. Iron Man's suit can't protect him against the huge force the earth generates when he hits it at high speed, yet he survives.
4. The Avengers (2012)
1. Iron Man and Thor have a confrontation that escalates to a full blown fight. During this confrontation, they are able to exert powerful amounts of force with minimal effort
2. Iron Man and Thor both launch themselves very high off the ground, eventually flying, after barely exerting any force on the ground
3. Thor headbutts Iron Man, barely drawing his head back. Despite the lack of anticipation, Thor generates enough force to send Iron Man tumbling a great distance.
5. Conclusion
1. Superhero movies are notorious for breaking the laws of physics, especially the action/reaction principle
2. Reason: It's more fun, less violent, and establishes the magical/superhuman nature of the superheroes

Character Animation

I made my film in conjunction with Samantha Lo and Jonathan Apilado.  I started with planning the sequence in a storyboard, although in the actual production there was a lot of improvisation and experimentation in the animation.  I crafted the exterior of the club as well as the interior. In the actual production we used the storyboard as a guide for the camera angle and compositions as well as the overall story. We used a tripod and shot straight ahead, trying to move the fruit as slowly and incrementally as we could. Keeping track of all the fruit in the more busy scenes was very challenging. Getting the fruit (or pieces of the fruit) airborne was tricky, so we had to use thread to varying levels of success as well as trying to create platforms from cardboard. It turned out the fruit would swing wildly when lifted into the air, but that added motion blur so it actually smoothed the fast action. In a couple of frames it was necessary to use our hands to get their desired effect, so we had to photoshop those out. 

I animated the tangerine, Jonathan animated the banana, and Samantha animated the onion. Samantha animated the tomato entering the club, and I animated the tomato approaching the stage and jumping up and down. The fruit club patrons were largely a group effort. In the first shot and the scene with the banana peel I animated the blackberries, Jonathan the mango and the apple, and Samantha the strawberries. In the last shot with the tomato's entrance, we switched and Jonathan animated the blackberries, I animated the strawberries, apples, and mango. We edited the film in after effects together. 

I tried fixing some frames in another file.

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Reverse Video Reference of Walking

A: 

http://youtu.be/gQmHdqt38VA

B: 

http://youtu.be/D4_0mYo9Pjk

C: 

http://youtu.be/k_eaN9d9o_k

D: 

http://youtu.be/p6H6ryEa0UQ

The Laws of Physics in an Animation Universe

            Film is a stunning medium capable of capturing the imagination and making the implausible seem possible.  To engage an audience, films must prioritize story above all else.  Thus, story reigns supreme in film and nowhere is the believability of stories stretched as much as in animation.  Animated films create an entire world from scratch, where choice is intentional and every element subservient to the story, including the physics of the world.  The physics could be realistic, but then there would be no point to animating the film over shooting it in live action. The physics of Wreck-It Ralph intentionally diverge from real world physics in order to invoke the feel of a video game and to create a fantastic, engaging, and humorous world.

            The first law of physics is Wreck-It Ralph concerns the inconsistence of gravity.  Often the gravity is similar to our real world gravity, but there are many instances of characters either floating weightlessly or plunging downwards.  It is as if each character has gravity independent of their environment including other characters.  The Nicelanders of “Fix-it Felix, Jr.”, including their titular hero, often experience a momentary lack of gravity.  For example, during the Nicelander’s 30^th anniversary party, the Nicelanders are dancing in Felix’s loft.  Felix gets on the dance floor and jumps up in the air, springing up quickly yet experiencing a noticeably long amount of hang time. His jump until he reaches the apex is believable, given he has a jump magnification of two (12 inch jump height/6 inch push height), his push time would be three frames (6 frames jump time/2) if we ignore his floating once he reaches the apex.  Felix spends eighteen frames near the apex of his jump, floating weightlessly above the ground.  After almost an entire second of hovering, Felix plunges downwards to the floor, landing in the splits position within three frames.  Since everything except Felix’s weightlessness as the apex is fairly accurate to real world physics, the audience knows that the arbitrary gravity was intentional.  This choice in having Felix defy gravity is a throwback to classic 8-bit games and shows the audience that the game and its denizens are from a different era.  Not only that, it is humorous and shows off the character in all his old school glory.

            Another instance of inconsistent gravity occurs during a conflict between Ralph and Vanellope von Schweetz as they race for the “Hero’s Duty” gold medal.  The two characters fluctuate between long hang times at the apex and extremely fast drops.  When Vanellope grabs the medal, Ralph pulls the branch down and catapults her upwards.  Once she reaches the apex Vanellope spends an impressive seven whole frames flailing around, momentarily weightless, trying desperately to grab her medal.  Realistically gravity will not allow someone to spend that much time in the air, but it is comical so the audience does not notice.  Later in the same sequence Vanellope jumps from one branch to another, descending about twenty feet with each jump with around ten frames of time for each fall.  We can calculate the realistic distance she could descend in that time with 10 x 10 x 1/3 inch = 33 inches, or about 2.75 feet.  Vanellope falls extremely fast.  The arbitrary gravity of Wreck-it Ralph is arbitrary, but it is okay because it allows this sequence to alternate between fun, fast paced action and slow moments that give the audience much needed clarity.

            The second law of physics in Wreck-it Ralph is exaggerated action and reaction.  Characters in the film often utilize exaggerated action/reaction to display magnificent and superhuman feats, such as super-speed and super-strength.  The first instance that will be discussed is the sequence in which the Nicelanders discover Ralph is missing, and Felix rushes to the dump to find the titular anti-hero.  Felix is standing still and in less than a second, is sprinting across the field, covering about 50 yards in a mere 31 seconds.  Felix’s sprint is an incredible 79 miles per hour, compared to the top human running speed of about 27 miles per hour.  A large component of running speed is the force a human can apply to the ground.  Elite runners can apply up 800 to 1,000 pounds to a single leg during a sprinting step, therefore Felix must be exerting well over that to achieve his ridiculously fast speed.  Felix must be exerting a much greater force to the ground than is possible for a normal human as he runs to achieve his speed.  This moment heightens Felix’s panic and helps the audience understand his mood.

            Later in the film, King Candy sentences Ralph to be imprisoned in Candy’s “fungeon”.  Ralph attempts to flee, but he is trapped in a castle and encased in a gigantic cupcake covered in gooey icing, hobbling his movement.  All hope appears to be lost, when the hero launches himself through the exterior wall, plunging downwards to safety.  This feat would be impossible in our world.  Granted, the castle, like everything else in Sugar Rush, is made of candy, so it might not seem like it should be strong.  However, seeing as how the candy can be used for building structures ranging from vehicles to racing tracks to even castles, we can assume the candy’s strength is similar to the materials they are substituting for.  Therefore, we can assume the walls of King Candy’s castle have strength similar to masonry materials such as bricks and stones.  There is no way for a normal human to create the force necessary to break through.  Ralph is capable of producing extremely strong action forces that can overcome the reaction force of the wall, breaking through to make his escape.  Even if a human body could produce the necessary force, they would need steel bones to not have their body broken on impact.  Exaggerated action and reaction gives Ralph superhuman strength, reminding the audience that he is a video game character, not an actual person, and creating a hilarious scene.

            A third law of physics in Wreck-it Ralph appears to be the lack of conservation of matter.  In this world, matter can be both created and destroyed, with no indication of where the energy necessary to accomplish either feat is coming from.  First, objects tend to spontaneously appear simply for the convenience of the characters.  One noticeable instance is during the registration for the following day’s race.  King Candy as well as the rest of the racers are empty handed, and within less than a second, they have all pulled large, thick coins from behind their backs.  These coins obviously would be too awkward for the characters to comfortably carry in their clothing, so one can assume that the coins magically appeared.  Another example is when Felix is trying to escape imprisonment in the Fungeon.  When Felix discovers the bars on the window are a little loose, he hits them with his hammer in an attempt to knock them out, forgetting that his hammer magically fixes things.  As his name would suggest, Felix not only fixes the bars, but hilariously causes them to increase in size and strength.  It is feasible that the bars mass simply expanded, giving them their size, but since they were proportionally much narrower before Felix hit them, they would have to be paper thin to reach their new size.  Felix could definitely destroy the bars in that case, so in order to gain strength in proportion to their growth the bars would have to gain mass.  Felix did not have any materials to add to the bars, so they must have gained newly created mass.  At the end of the movie, Vanellope is finally able to cross the finish line and restores her code.  Soon she finds herself ascending into the air, surrounded by magic pixel dust, clothed in a newly created frilly dress, tiara, and scepter.  This is the most clear instance of matter creation, since the audience actually sees the plucky heroin magically clothed in her nee garments.   While these events are impossible in our world, they are quite common within the world of video games, which is the world the Wreck-It Ralph is trying to invoke.

            Next we have matter being destroyed.  In our world, matter cannot be destroyed, but in Wreck-It Ralph it’s quite common.  The most hilarious example of such an occurrence is the “double stripe” branches on trees in Sugar Rush.  When Ralph finds himself launched into this new Candyland-themed world, he is surrounded by whimsical striped trees.  He spots his coveted gold medal atop a tree, and races to fetch it before the mischievous Vanellope can steal it from him.  On his way up the tree, Ralph repeatedly encounters the double-stripe branches, which magically disappear when touched, presumably destroyed on contact.  Later on King Candy paints a horrific nightmare of the future for Ralph should Vanellope win the race and become a racer: the players will assume that Vanellope’s glitch makes the whole game broken and “Sugar Rush” will be unplugged.  Being unplugged will destroy the world of Sugar Rush, dooming everyone in the game to homelessness, except for Vanellope, who will be destroyed due to her glitchiness.  Sugar Rush appears to be vast world full of sugary goodness, yet in King Candy’s prediction of the future, it all disappears in a whirling vortex until there is nothing left.  In this terrible view of the future the world is literally being destroyed, therefore the matter must be destroyed, also.  In the real world, matter cannot be created or destroyed, but the difference here is that the worlds depicted in Wreck-It Ralph are not real.  The worlds are within video games, and the fact that matter is created and destroyed with no explanation is very reminiscent of how objects will randomly appear and disappear in video games.  The entirety of each world is a video game, so matter can freely appear and disappear.

            Alternatively, it is possible that matter is not created or destroyed in Wreck-It Ralph, and there is true conservation of matter.  When Vanellope’s princess dress appears, she is surrounded by magical pixel dust.  It is possible that these particles are used to create her dress.  The same ethereal particles appear when Cy-bugs die and double-stripe branches disappear, suggesting perhaps they are changing their physical state rather than matter being destroyed.  King Candy’s prediction of Vanellope’s fate should she win a race shows the world breaking up into pixels as it is destroyed.  Perhaps instead of being created and destroyed, matter in the form of pixels freely organizes itself, appearing and disappearing as objects are created and destroyed.  However, the number of pixels shown surrounding Vanellope as well as shown when the many objects are being destroyed does not seem to accurately represent the mass of the objects being created and destroyed.  Additionally, there are no freely floating pixels to support this theory for the prison bars and gold coins.

            The physics of Wreck-It Ralph are obviously not realistic.  However, by bending and even breaking the rules of physics, the animators effectively create a unique set of laws for Wreck-It Ralph.  They are arguably arbitrary, except for the fact that in all cases, the physics are serving the story, whether it is a plot point, character development, or even just to make a sequence funnier or more exciting.  Wreck-It Ralph may have its own set of unrealistic physics, but never do they take the audience out of the movie, and never are the changes pointless when related to the story the film is trying to tell.  The physics of Wreck-It Ralph may not be realistic, but they are believable within the context of the world. 

         

I did deviate from my outline a bit.   I included too many scenes in my original outline so I took a lot of them out, and picked completely different examples for the action/reaction paragraphs.  I don't think I really had a good grasp on action/reaction and jumping until the lectures from last week, so I was able to find examples that better supported what I was trying to say.

Outline of the First Term Paper

1.       Introduction

a.       Introduce Wreck-it Ralph

b.      Thesis: The physics of Wreck-it Ralph intentionally diverge from our real world physics in order to invoke the feeling or a video game and to create a fantastic and humorous world.

2.       Lack of gravity

a.       Nicelanders hover

b.      King Candy hangs in air

c.       Felix floats in air and floats back down

d.      Ralph’s medal floats from the ceiling to him

e.      Weightless code room

f.        Vanellope dangles from a thin twig held only by her clothing,

3.       Exaggerated action/reaction

a.       Ralph can carve into the ground by punching with his bare fists without harming himself

b.       Ralph smashes through ceilings and walls throughout the movie, but lands normally

c.      Ralph can easily push a car along with his hands

d.      Vanellope is capable of many acrobatic feats with very little strength to propel her

e.        Vanellope is able to land on Ralph’s head and it acts like a trampoline

f.      Vanellope’s car is made of cake, yet can break through glass with no damage to her car

g.         Vanellope stops her car, yet it doesn’t launch Ralph

4.       Conservation of matter (or lack thereof)

a.       Felix dies and reappears

b.      Cy-bugs disintegrate upon death

c.       Turbo disintegrates upon death

d.      Calhoun pulls her gun and cruiser out of nowhere

e.      Racers in Sugar Rush pull coins from nowhere

f.        Felix makes the bars on the window grow larger with his hammer

g.       Vanellope’s dress magically appears on her

h.      Ralph’s sacrifice causes Sugar Rush to be restored to its pre-Cy-Bug state

i.         In Sugar Rush, “double-stripe” branches vanish on contact

j.        Coins are destroyed within the trophy

k.       When game is unplugged world is destroyed and disappears completely

5.       Competing hypothesis—True conservation of matter

a.       Cybugs disintegrate into a visible dust

b.      Felix’s matter reorganizes to form him

c.       Medals/coins disappear and reappear

d.      Worlds seem to break into pixels—might be imploding rather than disappearing

6.       Conclusion

a.       Countless entertaining and creative examples of fantastic physics

b.      Laws of physic are intentionally broken and recreated to suit the story and entertain the audience