New ceramics modeling

Creating Stereoscopic 3D Images

Lighting a Scene in Maya

Building a Scene in Maya

Stop-Motion Character Animation

I am using a web-cam, photoshop and a program call monkey jam to create this sleepy kitty  stop-motion  animation. First I use my web-cam to shot 14 photos of the stuffed animal 's post, then I edit them in photoshop to remove my hand. After that I use the program monkey jam to pull all the photos together.This animation didn't take me a lot of time to finish it because I had experience in created a student film before. Since you may interested, here is one of the clip in the film.

Reverse Video Reference of Walking

1st Term Paper

Physics in "Rio"

Rio is a 3-d fully animated film that was done by blue sky released in 2011, the story centers around a nearly extinct domesticated macaw named Blu who is living in a Moose Lake, Minnesota with his master Linda. Before an ornithologist Tulio came to invite Blu and Linda to Rio for helping to reproduce the number of his kind, Blu has never met another macaw and learn to fly. Therefore, Linda takes the offer and fly to Rio where Blu first meet Red-crested Cardinal named Pedro and his Yellow Canary friend Nico. In Rio Blu and Linda first set foot on Tulio’s conservation center, and meet Jewel who is a cynical independent blue macaw trying to escape the conservation center. However, Blu and Jewel are captured by a boy named Fernando and a Sulphur-crested Cockatoo named Nigel to the local smugglers’ hideout. Later on they manage to escape the hideout and ending up in a jungle. From there they meet lot of friends in the jungle and the city of Rio, at the same time they have to avoid being capture by Nigel again.  Although the entire movie is fun and entertaining, the creators twisted the laws of physics in order to fit the story and create a visual interest. Therefore, throughout the entire movie there are lack of gravity, living organisms can be stretched much more than in reality, and Action/ Reaction exaggerations, the laws of physics in the movie is twisted and exaggerated.

The first twisted law of physics in the movie about Rio is lack of gravity. The first example is that bird in the movie Rio can stay in the air without slapping their wings. When Blu and Linda finally arrived in Rio, Blu first meet his two new friends Red-crested Cardinal named Pedro and his Yellow Canary friend Nico.  Although they slap their wings in the air most of time when they first appear to meet Blu to talk about how to get the female, they are dancing Tango in air without slapping their wings for 2 second. Even they are light-weight bird, according to Principia, Newton explain the force of gravity in the following sentence. Every particle of matter in the universe attracts every other particle with a force that is directly proportional to the product of the masses of the particles and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them. (http://physics.about.com/) Base on this explanation, our earth is the biggest masses of the particles, everything on the earth should be forced to pull down to the center of the earth. Therefore, even a light-weight bird, it will still fall on the ground if the bird don’t flap its wings.

 

The second example is two macaws Blu and Jewel pull a huge rock with a rope and Nigel lift up a bird cage with his wings. In the scene when Blu and Jewel chain together in the jungle and try to break of the chain with a 50 pounds rock, the animator exaggerated the strength that Blu and Jewel have. As a normal macaw, the strength that it has does not stronger than a 10 years old kid. If Blu and Jewel can lift a 50 pounds rock, it means the gravity in Rio’s universe is very low. Therefore, they can lift the 50 pounds rock like a 1 pound toy.

Same as the scene when Nigel lift up a bird cage with his wings. Macaw’s wings are very fragile, not like human arms have strong muscle and bones. If Nigel had to lift up the bird cage with the real gravity turn on, he would broke both of his wings and himself.

The third example is a small monkey falling faster than a big bird Nigel. Although two objects with different weight will hit the ground at the same time after they both meet the terminal speed, in Rio’s universe the gravity is a lot of difference. In the scene when the small money is lifted up to the air and drop to ground, and Nigel stop slapping his wing, the small money drops faster than Nigel. Base on the Newton’s discover:  force = weight x acceleration, let say the small money is about 1 pound and Nigel is weight about 2.6-3.7 lbs. Base on the force = weight x acceleration, Nigel should fall faster than the small monkey before they meet the terminal speed. Therefore, in this scene the small monkey should not drop faster.

 

The second physics law is unique is unique in Rio’ universal is living organisms can be stretched much more than in reality. In the scene when Nigel is interrogating the information out of the small green bird, he squeeze a little bird until its eye pop out. In reality, we cannot squeeze a bird until the eye pop out like a squeeze ball. Bird have bone structure, if we squeeze the bird like that, all of its bones will be broken and may come out of the body. Because the animators need to create a visual interest, they exaggerated living organisms can be stretched as a squeeze ball. 

The other example of this statement is in the scene when a Baby Toco Toucan pull blu’s tongue out about 5 inches and snap back to him. Normally, a Macaw ‘s tongue cannot be pull out like a rubber band, a macaw's tongue is dry, slightly scaly, and has a bone inside it. If Baby Toco Toucan pull blu’s tongue like that, it will snap out Blu’s tongue. Therefore, the art director decide to break the law of physics in order to entertain the audience.

The third example is when all the bird were manage to escape the plane, there was a bird that is being crazy and running circle without the head moving. In reality, it will broke its neck and dead instantly. However, in order to show the audience of how the smugglers tortured it mind, the art director decided to put it in. Because of using the extreme stretch, we can feel the pain of the bird that suffer in the cage, and able to taste the freedom after it is released.

The third physics law that they broke is created an action/ reaction exaggerations scene. In the scene when Blu and Jewel are chased by Nigel on the roof top using a piece of steel metal to  bounce up and down without any platform on it. In this scene the steel metal is like a bouncing ball with life in there. Normally when an object is bouncing, the highest point of each bouncing will be decreased. However, in this scene, the bouncing steel metal not only didn’t decrease on each bouncing, but also jump forward without a platform. Therefore, once again the physics law is broke to fit the storyline in Rio.

Then in the scene of the ball bounce in the air with Blu and Jewel, the action and reaction is  exaggerated. When the birds travel with the ball, each of the hit bouncing is exaggerated. For example when ball hit the yellow and green beach ball, the beach ball doesn’t have enough reaction when it is hit. According to the Newton’s third law of motion it states that any time a force acts from one object to another, there is an equal force acting back on the original object. (http://physics.about.com/) Therefore, when the yellow and green beach ball was hit, it should travel a long distance, not just drop on the side.  

Rio is a 3-d fully animated film. Because it is an animated film, the law of physics can be broken to fit the storyline as interesting as possible. Therefore, the audiences will be distracted, and won't be notice that the law of physics is broken. Although the law of physics is broken in this movie, it certainly make the movie more interesting.