Monday, May 14, 2012

Creating Stereoscopic 3D Images





 Please use the Green and Magenta 3D glasses for all of these images and the video.

Glenn studying alone in the Hugh Douglas Hall

SJSU Game Dev Club room

SJSU University Theatre

Maya

Stop-Motion

Because Blogger converted the video into low res, the 3D effect is barely visible. So here is the image frames:

Tuesday, May 1, 2012

Building a Scene in Maya

 G and P

One-Point Lighting

Two-Point Lighting

Three-Point Lighting

Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Science Fact or Cinematic Fiction


Introduction

Giant and tiny scaled characters have differences in their motion of movement.  Additionally, the environment, such as buildings, around them are key references.  Some medias use special effects to create slow-motion on their subject to show the difference in scale.  The medias defy the physic of scale despite the usage of special effects to show scale, but their scaled reference appeared to be physically inaccurate.  I will use the examples from Johnnie Walker, Shuffle! Memories, and Media Impact.


Johnnie Walker's catwalk commercial

In one of Johnnie Walker’s commercial, there are female models in gigantic scale strutting through the city in a catwalk fashion.  If we observe the scenes more closely, the sizes of the women are inconsistent in different scenes, at some point they are smaller and sometimes they are bigger. Despite their size, they strut in normal speed as if they are not giants.  This commercial records the women’s walk and use green screen record of the real life city.  The green screen city building is an instant point of reference to perceive these women are giants.  However, in another perspective, since they were meant to perceive to be giants, by making them walk in a normal walking motion speed of a normal size human, the scenes may feel like they are walking on a tiny city in a tiny land.  To create an effect for both perspectives to be correct, the commercial would have to make the women feel really giant scale by using size measurement and slowing down the motion speed.

First, we need to find their actual scale in each scene by using their city as a frame of reference and make sure their sizes are consistent.  There are some measurable scene references, assuming most business buildings are 10 feet tall per windows.  Base on the first scene of the city's 16 feet tall commercial building, they are about 150 feet tall.  The fifth city, they are about 70 feet tall.  In Paris city, their height are somewhere at the Eiffel Tower's top floor, which is 896 feet tall.  They are about 900 feet tall in that scene.  In the New York scene, based on the orthogonal I measured, they are somewhat at 80% height of the Empire State Building, which means they are about 1000 feet tall.

Assuming that the women do change sizes each city scene they cross; their speed in different scenes will differ in slower motion.  We can assume their height is 5.6 feet.  Their common full strut cycle with both right and left foot is about 1 second.  Their strut speed assumes to be 0.5 mile per hour (mph).  We can use the city building height reference to divide by 5.6 feet.   In the first city, 150 divided by 5.6 equals to about 28.  Size equals speed, area equals scale.  28 divided by 3 equals about 9.  Their strut cycle motion should look about 9 times slower to make a realistic feeling of 150 feet.  Despite that, their stride still cover larger distance and speed than the normal size.  In the fifth city, 50 divided by 5.6 equals to about 13.  13 divided by 3 equals to about 4.  Their strut cycle motion would look about 4 times slower in that scene.  In Paris, 900 divided by 5.6 equals to about 161.  161 divided by 3 equals to about 54.  Their strut cycle motion looks about 54 times slower.  In New York, 1000 divided by 5.6 equals to about 179.  179 divided by 9 equals to about 60.  Their strut cycle motion looks about 60 times slower.  The latter calculation may make the women looks super slow, but they their stride moves in a large area.  At least it would perceive how truly giant they are instead of them walking on realistic miniature models.  Interestingly, there is an animation, Shuffle! Memories, does the opposite effect of this Johnny Walker commercial.


Shuffle! Memories. Episode 12

Shuffle! Memories is a Japanese animation.  In episode 12, most of the characters were shrunk to presumably 3 inches by a culprit, an ancient mirror.  While the majority of the casts shrunk, one of the teenage girl characters, the red hair girl, remains in her normal-size which is about 5 feet tall.  The shrunk boy must try to gain attention with the red-hair girl by jumping above her on the right time wherever she approaches beside them.  Unfortunately, the shrunk boy miscalculates his fall and fell into the red-hair girl’s chest, which stalled their time from striking back at the culprit.

The scale of motion speed is not realistically correct.  In the shrunk characters’ point of view, their motions are in normal speed.  The shrunk boy's fall is very slow compared to the frame he takes to fall from one point to another.  When they see the red-hair girl, she moves in super-slow motion and her voice has very low frequency than her usual high pitch voice.  In the red-hair girl’s point of view, all the motion speed is normal world speed.  Even if she sees the shrunk boy, he is in normal speed.  Awkwardly, the shrunk characters does not gesture any faster.

In perception, the sequence is physically wrong because the girl is not a giant to begin with.  Without knowing the content of the story, we can easily perceive that the characters went to the giants’ world like “Jack-and-the-Beanstalk” trope.  The red hair girl's scale is normal-size of about 5 feet.  Therefore, she should still remain moving and speaking in her usual normal speed, not in super slow-motion.  Perhaps because the other characters were shrunk, the red-hair girl’s voice amplitude is wider.  It might be fine that she sound low pitch, but not talking slow to the shrunk characters.

There is hardly an accurate reference to measure the shrunk characters.  However, we can measure the scale from the red-hair girl.  If the red-hair girl is a giant, we can measure the scale in reverse.  The red-hair girl is about 5 feet tall.  5 feet divided by 9 equals to about 0.5, this makes the shrunk characters are around 3 inches.  The shrunk boy can fall down faster or slower depending on how their world’s mass work.  It is most likely that their mass is small when they were shrunk.  If that is true, the boy would fall slowly because of air resistance.  Furthermore, he spreads his arms and legs while falling.  However, both point of views between the red-hair girl and the shrunk boy should remain the same.  The red-hair girl should see the shrunk boy fall in certain speed; likewise, the shrunk boy sees himself fall in that same certain speed as the red-hair girl sees him.

            When we fast forward the animation 3 times faster, the red-hair girl actually walks in normal motion.  If the red-hair girl is a giant, she is simply 9 times taller of the normal-size, in which, she is 45 feet tall.  We can assume why the animators decided this effect to exaggerate how enormous the normal-size red-hair girl is to the shrunk characters.


Media Impact's Massive series

In Media Impact’s Massive series, in all their series, the entire female actresses roam on a paper, plastic, miniature models with some water to serve as lake and river.  Unlike the Johnnie Walker commercial, the background scenes were not recorded from real life buildings.  These films are done by several private media studios and community in joint collaboration using small props, special effects for collapsing debris, water lake splash, and explosions in certain motion speed to make the women feel really colossal as possible.  Despite the special effect of destruction, the reference scale is not correct.  The destruction are slowed in motion, but the giant's movement and their building drop speed remains in normal-size speed.

In most perceptions, the series seem to be about adult women playing with toy buildings and creating an illusion of being large in scale.  This include their special effects looking like decorations.  To get most of the perception of both women and buildings to be large, we must first measure their scale.  According to the average paper buildings' window, most buildings are 100 feet tall.  The women tends be more than 10 times bigger than the buildings.  Therefore, the women are about 1000 feet.  Assuming most of the women are 5.6 feet tall in normal size, they should move 60 times slower.  For the buildings, they fall like a normal-size brick drop.  The buildings should fall slower.  The collapsing debris and explosion should be slower with the buildings.  Almost all debris flies out of their explosion are 0.5 seconds pass double of the building’s height.  Even if the effects are slower than the falling buildings, it is still too fast.  This is the same for the lake splash; the water should splash up slowly and should not shoot straight up like a geyser. 


Conclusion

Both Johnnie Walker and Media Impact left their giant characters in normal-size human speed might have intended to show that giant women are strong enough to move in normal motion.  Especially, Media Impact is to emphasize the strength in the women's scale using many special effects to slow destruction.  In Shuffle! Memories, the animation might try to emphasize how huge the normal-size girl is in comparison to the shrunk characters by making the normal-size moves and talks super slow.  All three media in common show massive strength and size of the female character in either scale by defying the physical scale with effects.


Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Science Fact or Cinematic Fiction Outline

Science Fact or Cinematic Fiction Outline

Introduction
Giant and tiny scaled characters has a difference in motion of movement.  Additionally, the environment, such as buildings, around them are key reference.  Some media use special effects to slow-motion the subject to show the difference in scale.  However, some media may defy the physic of scale despite the usage of special effects to show scale.

Johnnie Walker's catwalk commercial.
  • The female models in giant scale strut through the city.  Although, the women's size are inconsistent in different scenes.  At some point they are smaller and sometimes they are bigger.  Despite their size, they strut in normal speed as if they are not giant.
  • There are some measurable scene reference.  First city's 16 feet commercial building, about 160 feet.  Eifel Tower's top floor, 896 feet, 80% tall of Empire State Building, 1000 feet.
  • Assuming that the women does change sizes, their speed in different scenes will differ in slower motion.
Shuffle! Memories.  Episode 12.
  • In the animation, most of the characters was shrunk to about 1 inch while one of the girl character remain about 5 feet of her normal-size.
  • Physically, the shrunk character may fall faster. The normal-size girl should still remain move and speak in her usual normal speed, not in super slow-motion.
  • In the shrunk character's point of view, they fall slow; the normal-size girl moves in super-slow movement and her voice has very low frequency than usual.  In the normal-size girl's point of view, the shrunk characters and herself are at normal speed motion.  Awkwardly, the shrunk characters does not gesture any faster.
Media Impact's Massive series.
  • All the female actress roams on a paper, plastic, miniature models with some water to serve as lake and river.  There are special effects for collapsing debris and explosions. 
  • According to the average paper buildings' window, most buildings are 100 feet tall.  The women tends be more than 10 times bigger than the building.  Therefore, the women are about 1000 feet.
  • The special effects are slowed in motion, but the giant's movement and their building drop speed remain as normal-size speed.
Conclusion
Both Johnnie Walker and Media Impact left their giant characters in normal-size human speed might have to show the women are strong enough to move in normal motion.  Specically, Media Impact is to emphasize the strength in the women's scale.  In Shuffe!, the animation might try to emphasize how huge the normal-size girl in comparison to the shrunk characters by making the normal-size moves and talks super slow.  All three media in common show massive strength and size of the female character in either scale by defying the physical scale with effects.

Monday, April 9, 2012

Stop-Motion Character Animation

The Mighty Duck and Lego Technic Show

 

     My brother John and I picked out two toys that have many torques as possible that can pose.  One is a toy of Check "Grin" Hardwing from Disney's Mighty Ducks.   The other is a LEGO Technic figurine of an ice skater possibly a snow native tribe character from the Bionicle series.

     John had to deal with some rotoscoping for Grin's walking since it was difficult to balance him in some movements since his legs are unsymmetrical.  The rotoscoping isn't perfect so it could be obvious to figure out which frames was edited.

     I worked on the ideas and snapping shots for the characters' movement.  John worked on moving the characters to pose the gestures according to my ideas, in a sense the two characters meet and begin their dance performance on the same stage like the theater play.   Afterwards, he compiled all the images in Adobe Photoshop and compiled them into clips in Adobe Premiere to make the music video.

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Reverse Video Reference of Walking

Clip A
"Yes, yea, yes, yea!"

Clip B
"I'm on guard patrol."

Clip C
"Be very wery quiet, I'm hunting wabbit."
 

Clip D
"Cha lala lala!"

Reverse Video Reference of Walking - Fukkireta
The several fast forward takes of my mistakes in the rain and wind!
The first 4 already shown above, the soda cans were my distance reference.