Stereoscopic 3D Images

GREEN/MAGENTA of me



RED/CYAN King Library


RED/CYAN SJSU

Lighting a Scene in Maya

ONE-POINT LIGHTING


TWO-POINT LIGHTING



THREE-POINT LIGHTING-this was the hardest, I think because my shapes are thin and at weird angles. You can see the white trim though, so I'm happy!

Building a Scene in Maya

Second Term Paper

Science Fact or Cinematic Fiction?: Super Troopers, Dodgeball, and Zoolander

Within the filmmaking industry the realism of live-action films has always been of main focus, at least in most movies. There are some exceptions in movies where there are superheroes or aliens that can bend the rules of physics. When those characters do this we, as the audience, can believe such drastic physics mistakes because the characters are not human. When it comes to a movie that encompasses human beings doing something physically impossible, that is where a movie can go wrong. As human beings we want to view a film that we can relate to in real life, when the boundaries are crossed and a human does something impossible, our believability level changes and it becomes comical most of the time. The movie industry has picked up on incorrect depictions of physics being funny because it is used frequently in comedy films. It has proven to be a good money maker and good entertainment. Three comedies that have incorrect physics, whether it is on purpose or not, are Super Troopers, Dodgeball, and Zoolander. These movies are analyzed with Newton’s third law in mind and there has been found to be certain scenes where the third law is questioned. It is up to the viewer to decide if the directors made a conscious choice to defy this simple physics principle or not, but the bigger question is: Does it make the comedy movie better to do this?

Newton’s third law states that for every action force there is an equal reaction force in the opposite direction. Action is described as a force exerted by one object on a second object. Consequently, reaction is defined as a force exerted by a second object back on the first object that is causing the action. The reaction is equal in magnitude, but opposite in direction.

For the most part, all three of these comedies are very accurate and realistic when it comes to Newton’s third law, but there are moments that a mistake is made and it then becomes very comical. Some movies will intentionally violate physics laws such as action-reaction for comical effect. The movie Super Troopers was directed and acted in by Jay Chandrasekhar, who also brought audiences the comical movie Beerfest. Super Troopers involves five Vermont state troopers who love goofing off and pulling pranks on people, rather than actually doing their job. There is a scene where they are practicing in their shooting range and Mac comes out wearing nothing but a bulletproof cup. Mac wants Thorny to shoot him to test out the cup. Thorny shows Mac how tiny the bullet he is going to use is and, risking being shot, Mac goes far away to have Thorny shoot him in the groin. Thorny aims and shoots and when it luckily hits the cup, Mac goes flying backwards. First of all, the gun that Thorny uses is a hand gun and the bullets that come from these guns are usually large caliber bullets that travel at low velocities and are relatively easy to stop, unlike large caliber Magnum bullets that are heavy and have a fast velocity. It is said that getting hit by a large caliber bullet is relative to getting hit in the chest with a baseball bat. The bullets used in this scene are small caliber bullets, which would result in an even slower velocity and are able to be stopped much easier. With that said, getting shot with a small caliber bullet and at the distance of about 20 feet, Mac should not have flown that far. The energy of the small caliber bullet would not exceed the weight of its target, which was the cup that a 150 pound man was wearing. The action force of the bullet had a lower magnitude than the reaction force of the cup and Mac. Since Mac and the cup have a higher mass, the reaction acceleration is slower.

The movie Dodgeball, directed by Rawson Marshall Thurber, had many well-known comedic actors such as Ben Stiller and Vince Vaughn. The movie is about a group of misfits who enter a Las Vegas dodgeball tournament in order to save their cherished local gym from the onslaught of a corporate health fitness chain. In the movie there are many instances where an object is thrown, such as wrenches and balls, and the person’s reaction is really exaggerated. Since we have already covered an object hitting someone with the movie Super Troopers, than I would like to discuss a different action-reaction incident within Dodgeball. In the beginning of the movie there is scene where Justin Long, who plays Justin, a skinny, mousy boy, reminisces about an embarrassing moment that he had when trying out for the cheerleading squad in his high school. He gets up to the stage-space where he is going to perform and the male cheerleader judge, who must feel threatened by him, decides to give him a really heavy girl to lift above his head. Justin looks worried, but since he wants to make the team he puts on a team spirit smile and lifts her above his head with not much effort. There is a point where the weight gets to be too much and she falls on top of him, but the fact that he was able to lift her is what is impossible. He weighs about 130 pounds at most and she probably weighs about 300 pounds. When he goes to lift her he doesn’t bend his knees or anything. His actions do not give him enough energy to even lift something 100 pounds let alone 300. Justin’s weak action force would have had a reaction of a greater magnitude force of the girl and he wouldn’t have been able to pick her up.

Zoolander, directed and starred in by Ben Stiller, is in my opinion one of the best goofy comedies there has been in awhile. That is saying something since it was made in 2001. Ben Stiller plays Derek Zoolander who is a clueless fashion model at the end of his career. The evil fashion guru Mugato, played by Will Farrell, decides to hire Derek to hypnotize him into killing the Prime Minister of Malaysia at the Derelicte fashion show. During the hypnotizing session, Derek is forced to view the classic hypnotizing methods like the repetition of words, images, and of course a spinning spiral. The messages in the session are telling him that child labor is good and that he needs to kill the Prime Minister. When Derek questions this he is shocked by electricity. At the end of the session, that is said to be weeks long from his friends, but only seconds to the movie viewer, he is shown in a blue body suit at the beginning of a runway. He quickly power punches at a faster than human speed and screams. With this same speed he does a cartwheel, a round-about kick, a jump kick, and lands in a fancy position close to the ground near a fake Prime Minister. From his crouched position he then jump-flips over the dummy of the Prime Minister and rips his head off. This whole sequence is defying Newton’s third law. With the speed that Derek’s arms were going with the first fist punch, he should have been lurched forward from his own arms action force. When Derek did his cart wheel his feet were moving so fast that he should have been lifted and flown off the ground from the action force. As for the flip over the Malaysian Prime Minister, even though he crouched down before jumping, it was too powerful and far of a jump for it to be realistic. The action force of Derek pushing off the ground would have been too weak for the reaction force to be as strong as it was. Even though this looked incredibly unrealistic that is what made it funny. At the end of the movie Derek never did kill the Prime Minister because his friends stopped him at the last moment.

In life we can rely on Newton’s third law no matter what, but when we sit down and watch a movie, that is our chance to expand our imaginations and experience a life where Newton is not always there to remind us we are on earth. It is not just the comedies that mess with physics, but if anyone in the film industry is allowed to do this it is them. I believe that if we were to take the bending of physics principles out of comedies than many situations would not be as funny. They are put there for a reason. This isn’t to say that we rely on correct physics not to be applied to our movies, but to a certain extent we accept the bending of rules. Super Troopers, Dodgeball, and Zoolander are just some of the movies that have changed physics for comical reasons and Newton’s third law is no exception.

Outline for the Second Term Paper

Science Fact or Cinematic Fiction Outline

I. Introduction

A. Discuss physics in movies

B. Newtons 3^rd law

C. Thesis: In the movies Super Troopers, Superbad, and Dodgeball Newton’s third law is questioned.

II. Super Troopers

A. Not too much action in a comedy

B. Description of scene: Shooting other cop with a bullet proof shield

C. What happens: Gun and reaction after a bullet hits someone

III. Superbad

A. Description of scene: either booze stealing scene or Seth being hit so many times

B. What happens: Catching flying booze with no effort and being hit by a car with not much reaction to heavy objects

IV. Dodgeball

A. Description of scene: cheerleader scene or the last scene with the dodgeball

B. What happens: A skinny boy lifts a very heavy girl and a dodgeball flys a man backwards really far.

V. Conclusion

A. Summary of physics in movies and Newton’s 3^rd Law

B. Restate thesis

Character Animation

FARM FABULOUS!


In my apartment I didn't really have much to work with, so I decided to take a trip to Grandma's house to look in our old toyboxes. Much to my dismay, I found that my little cousin had picked through most of the good stuff and went home with them. I did manage to find some farm toys though. I used SAM animation again and arranged my characters in the spots I wanted. I was blown away by how much time it took to make just 7 seconds of work. When I had 7 seconds, I decided to add more by having a frog slide by with a "The End" sign and have the animals follow after. I really decided to take my time with each movement and I think it paid off. I think I could of made it easier on myself if I chose fewer characters to have to move around, but it looks good with so many! I realize that I didn't have very flexible characters, but I tried to make them look as flexible as possible. I came away with 76 frames. I made several attempts to export my video and always had the dismay of having it cut off by youtube. I went into Facebook and found I could embed from there and I hope it works! Enjoy!

PS I have given the link to my youtube one just in case this one does not work for you:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rnk6DwOfAcg

Reverse Video Reference of Walking

CLIP A


CLIP B


CLIP C


CLIP D


CLIP E

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).

Term Paper #1

The Laws of Physics in an Animation Universe: In the movie Men in Black

The 1997 film Men in Black came to theatres and became a huge hit. Men in Black is a live-action film that deals with the concept of humans and aliens. It takes place on earth, but in this earth, aliens without homes have immigrated here disguised as human beings to blend in. The Men in Black (MIB) are in charge of keeping the aliens a secret and protecting earth from evil aliens. When human beings have accidental encounters with an alien on earth the MIB come around and flash humans with a “neutralizer”, which isolates the electronic impulses in the memory part of the brain to erase what they just saw. In the case of the aliens, they try to abide by the rules of physics and humanness on earth to blend in, but they clearly have difficulty. This paper will discuss what the aliens have done to defy physics, where the MIB have tended to show super human abilities, and besides the aliens and MIB, how the laws of physics are true to objects on earth.

In the beginning of the movie Will Smith, who plays Jay, is seen chasing a normal looking man. We soon get a hint that this man is actually alien when he jumps off a bridge with ease with not enough squash and stretch. When we don’t see very much squash and stretch after a long fall, humanness is questioned. The creature jumped an estimated 25 feet, but the way he landed made it look like half that height or less. When the alien was falling, he was in a state of weightlessness and in a normal human position, but when he needed to have a strong squash due to the force that impacted him, he only slightly bent his knees and ran off. If the alien had not landed on concrete, but instead a giant pillow, than his reaction to his impact would have been normal. This is due to the principle that says maximizing impact will minimize the force of impact. The alien then jumps about two stories from the ground and then climbs up, what looks like the remaining five stories. Evidently, in this world aliens are not impacted by gravity or the laws of physics.

There are other cases where aliens are in no way like humans. A pawn shop owner, Jeebs, is being angrily commanded at by Tommy Lee Jones, who plays Kay, to show him the alien guns he has hidden in his shop. Jeebs refuses and Kay shoots him in the head. Green slime splatters everywhere in a splashing motion that is done well, with no twinning. After the explosion, there no head is to be seen, but quickly, a tiny chipmunk voice is heard faintly growing deeper as well as a new head reforming on Jeebes body. Apparently aliens can grow appendages back after being obliterated.

Edgar, the villain of the movie, is an alien that is similar to a giant cockroach. When he crashes into earth, he squeezes into human skin that is about 5 times smaller than his size. He must have molding abilities because there is no way that it is possible for this to occur. Let alone for human skin to act like a costume and expand and form like spandex over an alien body. If this isn’t strange enough, he also came in a spaceship that is completely smaller than his body as an alien. In his human mask, he has super strength when he pushes his spaceship out of a hole with hardly any effort. According to Newton’s law of acceleration, the greater the mass of an object, the less it accelerates when acted on by a force. Believing that the human the alien slipped into is say, 200 pounds and the spaceships is well over a few tons. Taking the laws of physics into consideration, Edgar should not be able to move his spaceship. Edgar’s super strength is contradicted when in another scene he his is trying to open a little metal encasement that holds diamonds. He bangs it around and twists, but for some reason he is too weak to open it. He finally manages to open it, but it took too much effort for the strength that he should have had. For the most part, the aliens show us that they are unique and not human in this movie. They can do things on earth that humans cannot, but they try to act and obey the laws of physics that earth supposedly has. Sometimes, during pressing moments in the plot, the MIB tend to have super human abilities like the aliens.

In the beginning, when Jay is running after the alien that could jump and climb buildings, he attempts to get to the top of the building that the alien climbed up. This building is at least 7 stories high. He doesn’t try to climb the outside, but he sprints to the top from the inside. Yes, humans can sprint and get to the tops of buildings, but can it be done in 30 seconds? This is the amount of time that is shown in the movie. In real life, this would be setting a world record. The fastest recorded time of a man that ran up the Empire State Building’s 86 floors, was 9 minutes and 33 seconds. 86 floor/12= 7.17 floors. So, 9.33/12=.77 seconds and these are stairs that zigzag straight up, while Jay had to run the whole size of the floor before ascending up. There is no humanly possible way that it can be made in 30 seconds. Jay was super-human at this time.

There is a time where Jay hits an intergalactic glowing ball accidently; sending it flying through the building hitting destroying things as it goes. It is going at super speeds. When it comes to Kay he snatches it with no harm done to his hand. He is seen holding a metal contraption on the back of his hand, which could have helped bring the ball to him, but he should have been knocked down or had his hand broken for the amount of high speeds it was going. Newton’s law of inertia talks about how an object moves at a constant speed until acted on by a force. The force, in this case, was Kay’s hand. The object would have reacted, but had a large follow-through, since Kay’s hand was a weaker unbalanced force.

Close to the ending, Kay demands Edgar to eat him because Edgar had eaten his gun and Kay wanted it back. It was a drastic measure for such a tiny problem, but Edgar eats him with pleasure. Kay is in his stomach for about 4 minutes. An average person in good health can hold their breath for 2 minutes, but 4 minutes is pushing it for Kay, who didn’t seem to be preparing himself for the journey. In fact, he used most of his energy and breath yelling at the creature to eat him. When he explodes out of the stomach he is very conscious and not searching for air. Also, at the start when the creature does eat him, he should also have been punctured by the sharp alien teeth that are seen. Kay must have super lungs and skin to be able to survive such a journey. Even though the aliens and MIB tend to show signs of super abilities, objects tend also to obey the laws of physics on earth

Jay and Kay jump in the MIB mobile to stop Edgar from leaving earth with the galaxy. The MIB mobile is not an ordinary car because it can transform itself to have giant jet engines by pressing a red button. Jay presses this while they are in the tunnel with traffic and they speed all the way onto the ceiling of the tunnel. Ignoring the fact that this technology does not exist in cars and that it may not be designed to go upside-down, this could be feasible. If the car is going fast enough and creating enough downforce that the force weighs more than the vehicle, the car could drive upside-down. This is counting on the tunnel being perfectly cylindrical and long enough for the car to reach high speeds, which the movie seems or pretends to makes happen.

Another moment where laws of physics are correct, is when a baseball player hits a baseball all the way to outer field. The baseball has a nice parabolic arc in the perspective of it coming straight for the camera. It gives a first person view of the ball headed straight for them, towards the foreground. Even with this perspective, the arc is very believable. If you estimate the “fourth down at half time” rule on the arc and know that it is coming towards the foreground it tends to straighten out as it comes towards the camera.

Right after this scene Kay and Jay shoot down the spaceship that is in the shape of a giant disk. The way that the spaceship falls down is very realistic because of its shape. Since spaceships spin, their direction is always changing, which when interrupted by say, a space gun, causes it to fly in a different direction. Since the force of the gun pushed the spaceship, the spaceship will then push back at a right angle from the force. That is why the spaceship seemed to move in the other direction. Since the spaceship was wrecked it moves downward in a wide circle and arcs back up. Gravity pulls it downward again and it swoops back down in a wide arc and smashes into the ground. The falling of the spaceship was very real, but the crashing was not. Kay and Jay are standing right near where it crashes and the huge pile of dirt and debris is headed straight for them. They stand still and the spaceship comes to a stop right in front of them. There is just a poof of dust surrounding the air and huge concrete boulders and metal pipes all around them. How were they not hurt, let alone covered in dirt? This scene was purely done with the movie essence in mind.

Men in Black is clearly a fictional movie that relies on the rules of physics to be bent in order to make the movie exciting and keep audiences captivated. Aliens having super human abilities and so do the MIB, who at times possess out-of-this-world abilities. All of this is part of the excitement and helps keep the imagination alive, but for the most part, in order to captivate your audience, there is a need for more realism than fiction and “Men and Black” does a great job at encapsulating this. This movie is one that is recommended to watch for its comedic and semi-true physics.