Lighting a Scene a Maya (Revision)

Build a Scene in Maya (revision)

Notes

"Building a scene in Maya" and "Lighting a scene in Maya" homework are in Older post.

Thank you

Science Fact or Cenematic Fiction

Falling Scenes in Hollywood Movies

Whenever I have free time, I like to go watch movies at a theater. I usually pick an action movie to watch because I love action; and I expect to see good and exciting action scenes from the movie I am watching. Especially nowadays when moviemakers have advance technology to help them create scenes that they wouldn’t be able to create before and help them make the scene look believable and convincing to the audience. Every time when I’m watching an action scene from some good action movie, I usually forget and ignore that what happens in the movie is impossible in the real world. Most people get suck into the excitement and do not realize that sometimes what they are seeing and believing from the movie, is impossible in the real world. One of the most popular types of action sequences that we have seen in movies are sequences where something or someone is falling such as: a character falling from a building, a hero kicks a bad guy and the bad guy falls to the ground from a fifty-story tall building, or a girl is falling to the ground and our hero jumps down to save her. Most of the time when we are watching these scenes, we believe it looks real because the moviemakers make them appear convincing. However, it does not mean that these falling scenes are correct and on the contrary they generally do not follow the principles of physic. Many movies have to ignore the principles of physic such as: rules of gravity or rules of falling objects, by exaggerating the action. Sometimes for dramatic purposes movies have to slow time on the falling sequences. Either way, if we scrutinize these scenes and analyze on how they apply the rules of physic especially through the notion falling objects; we will find that movies typically violate the rules and applied the principles of physics artistically for story and dramatic purposes.

Before I talk about scenes from movies, I would like to refer to Galileo’s law of falling objects and Newton’s laws of gravity. The law says that the earth’s gravity pulls a heavy and light object down to the ground at the same rate so that both objects hit the ground at the same time. Heavier objects which has more mass are pulled towards the ground with twice the force will also accelerate twice as slow, which is inversely related to lighter objects. That is the reason why two objects with different weights or mass will impact the ground at the same time when released from the same height. The falling scenes from the movies that I will talk about will refer to these principles. The first scene I want to talk about is a falling scene from Matrix Reloaded.

In the climatic scene of the Matrix Reloaded, Trinity is fighting an Agent in a tall building. She jumps out of the window and falls down to the ground. At the same time, Neo is flying from the top of another tall building from a couple of miles away. He flies with super speed and catches Trinity before she hits the ground. The whole falling scene is last for one-minute and thirty-seconds. In reality, Trinity’s fall should not be more than five to six seconds and yet it contradicts with Neo's thirty second sequence to fly over to Trinity and save her before she impacts with the ground. According to the properties of the speed of sound, in dry air at 68 F, sound travels about one kilometer in three seconds and about one mile in five seconds. Even if Neo is able to fly at the speed of sound, he still should not have enough time to catch her before she hits the ground. Or one may say that it is impossible for Trinity to take at least thirty seconds to fall from a building unless it was in extreme slow-motion. It would be more plausible if Neo is in a building next door and flies out of the building before Trinity is falling in order to catch her. The relationship of the falling speed and flying speed does not make sense or add up.

Another movie that has a similar error with the principles of falling is Spider-man. In the Roosevelt Island bridge scene, the Green Goblin releases Mary Jane and a cable car full of children from the top of the Roosevelt bridges. Spider-man is standing on the edge just a couple feet lower watching them fall. A few seconds after the cable car and Mary Jane falls; Spiderman jumps down and attempts to save both of them. Eventually, Spider-man successfully saves them by first catching Mary Jane and then swinging his web to catch the cable car afterwards. According to the rules of falling, Mary Jane (MJ) and the cable car should be falling at the same speed. In the movie, after they were released, it took Spider-man four seconds to run and jumped down to save them. After he grabbed MJ, he took another eight seconds to swing his web through the air to save the cable car. In reality, both objects are gaining acceleration and descending at the same rate. The height of the bridge is probably equal to the height of a fifty stories tall building. Therefore, it should not take more than twelve seconds for the cable car to hit the ground. Moreover, if we notice closely from the sequence of the movie, after Spiderman catches MJ in mid-air and swings to the other side of the bridge to save the cable car, the audience will see that the cable car had only just reached the top of the bridge. In other words, Spider-man got to the cable car’s initial point where it was released after he grabbed MJ, which is wrong since both objects are falling at the same speed, the cable car should have fallen a much more significant amount of distance already. What this means is that the cable car is falling slower than Mary Jane, which is a violation of the principles of falling.

The last scene from another movie that shows a violation of the principle of falling is from Batman Forever. In the climatic scene, Dr. Chase and Robin are being held as hostages and they are both hang about 100 feet above the ground. The Riddler pushes a button that causes Robin to fall first and about two seconds later, the Riddler pushes another button to drop Dr. Chase to the ground. It takes Batman a few seconds react and as he jumps down and accelerates with greater speed until he reaches them both and saves them. If everything in the movie is to follow the rules of physic, then Batman needs to be super fast or he must be able to stop time in order to save both of them. In reality, he probably has less than five seconds to save them. However, in the movie, Batman jumps down into the hole and he was able to reach Dr. Chase and save her life first. It takes about ten seconds until Batman can grab her body and put a rope on her to save her life. After he saves Dr. Chase, he continues flying down the hole to save Robin. This sequence takes about twenty seconds, starting count when Robin fell. Robin spent time in the air for almost thirty seconds and the movie did not even show him in slow-motion. It is obvious that the whole sequence was slowed down but it is still convincing enough to make audience believe. They both should have fallen to the ground and died because, according to physics, objects of any size will fall to the ground at the same rate if the objects fall from the same height. In the movie, Batman jumped after they had already fell. It is impossible for Batman to reach them because Batman cannot fall at a greater speed. Although if he could, he should have saved Robin first and then Dr. Chase because of the fact that Robin fell first.

Movies nowadays regardless of how much budget they have, without a good study of physics could cause the scene to feel unbelievable to the audience. It is understandable that many directors have to distort or bend the rules for dramatic and story purposes; otherwise every character that I have mentioned above would have died. It would be sad to see our hero who could not save the girl he loves, or it would be bad if all good characters died from falling. However, I think moviemakers still have a lot of work to do whenever they are shooting a scene because they have to take into account the principles of physic. If the audiences have no knowledge about simple physic, they would never know that these scenes applied the principle of physics incorrectly. These violations are only from the principle of falling. There are more scenes that actually violate other rules of physic, such as rules of action and reaction, rules of force, etc. It is good for us as an audience to be able to distinguish what is reality and what is fiction.

**I have switched from Batman to Batman Forever, and Speed to Matrix Reloaded.**

Lighting a Scene in Maya

Building a Scene in Maya

Outline for the Second Term Paper

I. Introduction – Three different movies scenes that applied to the principle of physic incorrectly.

a. Tim Burton’s Batman (1989) : the falling of Batman and Kim Basinger in the climax scenes.
b. Speed (1994) : the jump of the bus across the gap of the highway.
c. Spider-man(2001) : Mary Jane is saved from falling by Spider-man.
d. Thesis statement: For story telling and dramatic purpose, many scenes in movies, especially action scenes, have to violate the principle of physics.

II. Batman (1989) – the falling of Batman and the girl.
- According to the Second law of Newton, it is impossible for Batman’s grabbing hook can save them from such a big amount of force.
- Explanation and support

III. Speed (1994) – the jump of the bus across the gap of the highway.
- According to the force of gravity rules, it is impossible for the bus to jump across the gap of the highway.
- Explanation and support.

IV. Spider-man (2001) – Mary Jane is saved from falling by Spider-man.
- According to Galilao’s law of falling object, Spider-man couldn’t have saved MJ from falling.
- Explanation and support.

V. (There might be one more scene from a movie if my paper isn’t get to 6 pages).

VI. Conclusion
- Summary
- Restate the thesis.

Stop_Motion Animation

Mid-semester Survey

"This is to certify that I completed the anonymous mid-semester survey for Art/Physics 123 and am requesting the five points of extra credit.As a student at San Jose State, I understand the university's Academic Integrity Policy (http://info.sjsu.edu/web-dbgen/narr/catalog/rec-2083.html)."

Analysis of Walking

The Laws of Physics in an Animation Universe.

Law of Physic and Gravity in The Matrix
The principles of physics and animation has been used in making movies, especially in action fantasy movies that the stories are based on imagination. To make the scene look convincing to audience, movie makers need to use the good combination of fantasy and reality to apply their movie. In The Matrix, the movie has used special effects to help make the movie exciting and dramatic. There were characters using special power such as running along walls and jumping across buildings. They were running in super speed and dodging bullets, yet we still believe what the character did in the movie are realistic. What we have seen in the movies are all the imaginations that are considered impossible. The director’s task is to make these imaginations look real and convincing to audiences. However, most of the time we see characters break the rules of physics, like in The Matrix, the director did not follow every rule for dramatic purpose, but many scenes in the movie still look very convincing as if it is possible in reality. Therefore, we can say that, in The Matrix, the director has bended all rules of reality for adrenaline pump ups while still maintaining a balance of realism.

In the Matrix, for excitement purposes, the movie does not always follow the laws of physics. Main characters in the Matrix have super power. They can do things that normal people cannot, one of those is super speed. Characters like Neo and the Agents have super speed. They can move so fast that they can even dodge the bullets. One scene in the movie, Neo dodged the bullets shot by an Agent. He lean his body backward until he was parallel so that he may dodge bullets that were fired at him. In reality, bullets travel too fast for the human body to react. The only way Neo can dodge the bullets is to move before the bullet is being shot. We heard the sound of gun shots before Neo moved his body. That means, in reality, he was not supposed to be able to dodge those bullets. However, he moved in super speed but we still can see him because the scene was shot in super slow motion. This technique of shooting makes the scene believable. Another great example of not obeying the law of gravity is in the scene when the characters do super jumps. Normally in physic, jumping is done by pushing downward on the ground as it pushes upward on you. Push force determines how high you could jump. According to the third law of Newton, to determine the average force exerted when jumping is Jumper’s weight. In the first chasing scene on the rooftop between Trinity and an Agent, jump Magnification occurs from the jumper crouch (squash) and then jump. Assume that his push height is 1, he jumps 10 feet in the air, so his Jump Magnification is 10. The agent’s weight, let’s say, he has just an average weight of 150 pounds, so his jump force is 1500. We saw the Agent did not crouch before he made the jump, therefore, he should not be able to jump 10 feet high because crouching is essential for jumping to make the force reaction from the ground. The same rule applied to Morpheus when he is fighting Neo in the training room. He jumped about 10 feet in the air without crouch. Without crouch, the body cannot make action force to the ground. Without action force, there is no reaction force back to the jumper.

Another example of the movie not obeying the law of gravity is in the opening scene when Trinity performed her signature move. She jumped straight and kicked away a police officer while she is floating in the air. This scene, it looks convincing and audience cannot really notice. She kicked the officer and the officer’s body is pushed away by her kicking force. While we are seeing his body kicked away, Trinity is still floating in the air at the same position. This scene is wrong from the rules of gravity. According to the rule of action-reaction of mutual repulsion says “for every action force there is equal reaction force in the opposite direction.” When she kicked the officer, there is action force to the officer, and there is also reaction force push back to her at the same amount of force. Her body was supposed to have moved back in the opposite direction. The same rules also applied to the other jump that I have mentioned before. Another example in the movie that falls into the same rules of action-reaction principle, for instance, punching through walls. In reality, when you punch or push to a wall, we exert push force onto the wall. There will be reaction force push back to you. However, the wall has greater mass, so normal people cannot destroy a wall with their bare hand. Back into the movie, a character is able to punch through wall. That means the push action force that he send to the wall has greater force than the wall’s mass. That’s why the wall was destroyed.
There is some exception in some scene that the movie did not really follow the physic’s rule but still look convincing. The scene when Neo doing the first jump and he fell to the ground from the height of 40 to 50 story high building. In the movie, it takes him about seven seconds in the air before he hits the ground. The movie using slow motion and bird eye view composition (looking down from the top of the building) for the scene so the audience sees him falling away to the ground. According to the Odd rules of gaining acceleration in animation, the speed of falling is suppose to increased by odd numbers in every progressing frames. In reality, he would have fell faster than what we have seen in the movie. However, for dramatic purposes, the director used slow motion to slow down the falling speed a bit and yet the falling still looked convincing.

Many scenes in The Matrix bent the rules of physic and gravity, but to maintain the reliability and believability to audiences, the movie has to obey the rules in many situations. The characters in the movie have super human power. They can jump super high, move super fast, and super strong. These imaginations would not look convincing if the movie has not followed some rules of physic, for example when Trinity jumped across the building, those buildings really far from her jumping point. To convince the audiences to believe in what they are seeing, she has to run to accelerate the speed that would allow her to have enough action force to jump across to the building to the other side. Another example from the same sequence when she is jumping across the building, she flies through a window and land onto the ground and continues rolling on the ground before she could get up. The law of Inertia says that “an object moves with constant, uniform motion until acted on by an unbalanced force.” If she jumped through the window and landed on the ground without rolling, it would not look convincing to the audiences because the audiences could not feel the pull of gravity and push force of gravity on her body.

Another jumping scene that looks convincing to audience is in the last Neo’s fighting scene with Agent Smith. Neo did a backwards somersault jump about 10 feet high into the air and leave agent Smith hit by a train. According to the natural motion of jumping, swinging the arms raises the center of gravity. That means if the jumpers swing the arms when they are doing a jump, they can jump higher and further. This jumping scene in the movie followed the law of motion and gravity, therefore Neo’s somersault looks really realistic and convincing.

In most action movies, to make the movie more exciting and more dramatic, they exaggerate the actions, just like in the principles of animation, they are using slow motion and squash. Many principles of animation are applied in the movie to support the believability and made the movie more excited. In the Matrix, the movie uses a lot of super slow motion when characters moving in super speed. Movie maker uses squash when their characters jump and land on the ground. They can punch through walls and dodge bullets. Although these action sequences are impossible in reality, but when the movie makers has combined the principle of animation and then exaggerate it, if it is used properly, it adds believable to those actions. For instance, when Neo performs super speed dodging bullets from an Agent, we cannot see the movement if it actually happens in reality because the motion would be too fast. We could not have seen what is happening. Therefore, using slow motion and animation is very important in these kinds of scenes, yet the movie maker also cannot forget to apply the laws of physic as well, which makes these action scenes look convincing. Exaggeration is also used in jumping scenes. When an agent jump across the building, even though, he did not crouch and the path of action of his jump was a little awkward, it still looks convincing. That’s because when he landed, it shows his impact and squash and exaggerate by break the ground causing by his action force of landing.

Physic of gravity is very important and essential in making a movie. If the director wants the action scenes in the movie look convincing, they need to apply the law of physic into their movie. However, if the movie follows every single rule, it would lack of excitement and drama. In term of telling the story, for instance we have super human characters who can break all rules of gravity, the director do not have to follow the rules. They just have to make sure that each scenes and sequences are convincing enough to make the audiences believe on what they are watching.

Physics in The Matrix

I. Introduction – There is no spoon in The Matrix! Ignore the laws of gravity and physic is necessary in making an exciting movie.
a. Every laws of gravity can be bent, others can be broken! – Have to break laws of gravity to make the movie more excited.
b. Follow the rabbit! – Makes unbelievable believable by follow the laws of gravity.
c. Exaggeration! – more exciting!
d. Thesis statement: Bending all rules of gravity for adrenaline pumps up, however the movie still need to follow some rules to make it believable to the audiences.

II. Everything can be bent or can be broken: To make an exciting action movie, movie makers have to break all rules of physic and gravity
- Super speed
- Super jump
- Punch through walls
- Run on walls
- Dodge the bullet…or when you’re ready, you don’t have to.

III. Follow the rabbit: To make all super power in the movie looks believable, they have to combine super powers with the laws of gravity.
- When super human characters land on the ground after super jump.
- Everybody fall the first jump!

IV. Exaggeration: Many principles of animation are applied in the movie to support the believability and made the movie more excited.
- Slow motion
- Squash
- Breaking walls

V. Conclusion
- Summary
- Restate the thesis.

Video analysis of path of action

The previous image is a little hard to see, so I tried to put another bigger image. Hopefully you can see the image clearer.

Tracker Video Analysis of Falling

Here is the image of the falling bottle I used on the Tracker to track the falling.

Video Reference

The following videos are bottle of water drop I've done for Physics for animation class. The first two dropped is a bottle filled with water. The last three dropped, water is filled only half bottle.

Mini-portfolio

Hi everyone, my name is Joe Tirasuwan. I'm an Animation/illustration major. I came from Thailand and I've been here in the USA for almost seven years. This semester, 'm taking two studio art classes which is 113b and 114. I love to draw and I want to be the artist working in entertainment art as a conceptual artist.

Images above are some of my art work from 112a, 112b, and 113a class.

Physics of Animation!!!

My name is Thanade Tirasuwan, you can call me Joe. This is my blog for my Physics of Animation class!