Extra Credit: Lighting a Scene in Maya

Took the Initials from the Previous Post and threw them into light

One Point Lighting: Spot Light

 Two Point Lighting: Ambient Light

 Three Point Lighting: Directional Light

Building a Scene in Maya

My Initials with Default Lighting

(Used the Disney Tomorrow Land Font for reference)

Third Term Paper: Scores

          Hey All! Due to swamps of work from Ani 115 and 117a, I have sadly decided to use the better of my 2 scores from previous Term Papers to count as the Third term paper.

           Term Paper 1 Score: 85/100
           Term Paper 2 Score: 90/100

           Thank you for viewing and hope you have a good night! (or day)

Outline for the Third Term Paper

Term Paper 3: Outline

Practical Effects for monster sets and scenes

by Alyssa Raven

Intro: When watching Pacific Rim and Inception, the viewers become encapsulated and mesmerized by the impossible believability of the scenes. Though parts of the films are CGI generated, the most iconic scenes are shot with Practical Effects.

Thesis: Though CGI Elements make it much easier to add almost impossible special effects to a movie, practical effects bring a completely different level of believability. Using Practical Effects ultimately helps immerse a character’s believability into a fantasy moment.

Paragraph 1: Pacific Rim

-       Built the Giant Robot Head Mechanism’s from scratch (not CGI generated)

-       Actually tossed and jerked the actors around inside the rig

o   Added a realistic quality to the character’s acting (felt like a punch or fall)

o   Physically felt exhausted to move the heavy robot.

-       Had real fire, cars flip, and hydraulics match for when the monsters shook the ground

Paragraph 2: Inception

-       Created a rotating corridor on a series of wheels and tied the camera to the rig

o   This made it appear that the characters were in place while the room moved

-       Created this effective illusion of manipulated gravity

-       Characters just walked and wrestled about in the rig (but had to be careful of large drops)

Paragraph 3: Why don’t studio’s use this method over CGI?

-       Very Costly and Time consuming (sometimes takes years to go from concept to fabrication)

-       Taxing on the actors

o   Ton of constant movement and tossing around

  

Conclusion:

 Pacific Rim and Inception were noted as having “stunning special effects” but after analyzing the scenes, we found that Practical Effects are what really promoted that feel of awe.

Thesis: Though sometimes a very costly method to use in movie making, Practical Effects such as enormous rigs and set designs are a full proof way of creating authentic physics and believable actions within a scene.

Character Animation: Catch Me

Stop Motion Character Animation

"Catch Me"

By Alyssa Raven

              Even though the animation is fairly short, I'm rather pleased with how it turned out. The for the first stage of the process, I thought of what two "characters" I could bring to life. I saw several clips of previous students using clay and action figures, which were both pretty cool. Eventually, I that I wanted to have some fun animating a creature and plat around with some imaginary poses and actions that could possibly go with it. I remember as a kid, rolling my Beanie Baby up into a ball and pretending thats how it got around. I tried to play with the same principle in the planning stage as well as create a quick story with it.

              Once I had a rough idea of the characters and story, I started messing with the placement and camera angles until I found a position very suitable. You don't see it in the film, but I used tape on the walls and the carpet to mark where everything should be for the poses. At that point, I honestly just experimented. I tried flipping the character, having it do head nods, moving the arms and legs to see if it could support itself, etc. The "Hawkmon" figure was less of an issue, but keeping certain parts such as the tail and back up proved to be a challenge. To solve this I used Q-Tips for support. 

              Theres actually quite a bit of pictures I didn't use (had around 400) which is why you see the lighting change in some areas. Painting out the Q-Tips and my hand also took a bit. Overall, however, I'm really glad that I was able to get the "roll" off motion for the character. If I had to fix it though, I would definitely fix the ball roll at the end and add more in-betweens, but the skunk is about where I want him to be in terms of his character. I hope you all enjoyed the small clip and at least got a little chuckle or grin out of it!