Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Creating Stereoscopic 3D Images

Here's my three, three-dee photos. Set up for red/cyan magic viewing glasses.
The Spartan Warrior
 The Tired Animator, with leaves.
 Gloomy Day. Rain comes to Play.


I also tried creating one using maya. It's a still from an animation shot I did.

3D photo of a 3D animation.

Monday, November 26, 2012

Recreating Camera and Lights in Maya

 First, here is the original image I used a reference. [Image 5938]


And my rendition using Maya.


And a second angle, I call it 'sunset'.


Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Extra Credit: Lighting a Scene in Maya

Here are my initials in a little scene. The inspiration comes from Left4Dead, a popular zombie killing game. However it turned out a little more gruesome than expected. I modeled the fire-axe in ANI51, an intro to 3-D modeling course. The axe was later loaded into the game and was usable. Zombie choppin'!
1 Point
2 Point
3 Point

Monday, November 12, 2012

Tuesday, November 6, 2012

Outline for Second Term Paper

I. Intro
     A. Animators exaggerate the reactions to actions in their films for both a humorous effect and to make scenes more interesting than they would be using real-world physics.
     B. Introduce three films for examples, one from each major animation studio.
          1. Tangled (Disney)
          2. Madagascar (PDI/Dreamworks)
          3. The Incredibles (Pixar)
II. Body Paragraphs
     1. Tangled
          A. Toward the end of the film, Flynn is placed on cart (that acts like a seesaw) and is launched over a castle wall.
          B. Exaggerated launch height and distance to help Flynn escape in a unique way and opens up for the gag of him perfectly landing on the back of Max, the horse.

     2. Madagascar
          A. When the four animals crash land in crates on the shore, Alex goes to greet Gloria in her crate. She kicks it out and knocks Alex high in the air and backwards.
          B. The reaction to the initial kick is humorous and much brighter than having Alex writhing in pain from a hippo's kick.

   3. The Incredibles
          A. Mr. Incredible, though he's meant to be super-humanly strong, throws his tiny boss through four layers of cement walls.
          B. No real-world human can throw another human through a cement wall. This reaction is part of the imagination of the film and makes allows Mr. Incredible to be who he is and his powers more great.

III. Conclusion
     A. Animated films break our real-world laws of physics to make for more interesting, comedic and exaggerated scenes.
     B. Since they are animated, we can accept these over-the-top reactions. If they always used "real" physics these films would be boring and possible more gruesome.

Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Character Animation

Here's a little story of a man on the edge.


I created this short piece using simple figurines that I purchased from Target. The camera is a point and shoot digital camera. So I posed the characters (holding them in place with tape and a Lego ground piece) and set up the camera in various angles, using a tripod when necessary. I'd move the characters and just press the shutter button on the camera, being extra careful not to accidentally change the position or bump the tripod too much. Once I took all my stills, I doubled them (to mimic shooting on 2's) and opened and compiled the sequences using Quicktime pro. I'm not sure how to add sound so I used title cards for the scripted lines. It's a random animation but fun to create none the less!