3D Steroscopic

Me and Po

Home Sweet Home... The Art Building

That water bottle as some nice coconuts

Recreating Cameras and Lights in Maya (Widget)

Original

reproduction

45 Degree's

Maya Lighting 3 Point Lighting

No Lighting

1 Point Lighting

2 Point Lighting

3 Point Lighting

2nd Paper

No Paper Submitted.

2nd Paper Outline

Equal and Opposite Reaction

-Thor-
- In order for Thor to "fly" with his hammer, it must be thrown with such force that upon landing, it would demolish anything it comes in contact with.

- Thors hammer is unwieldable by anyone except him because he has the strength of a god.
- Explore the weight of the hammer. (Made from a Neutron Star)
- This incredibly heavy hammer seems to have little to no impact on anything it is laid upon.

-Wanted-
- Ability to shoot guns one handed with no recoil whatsoever.
- Average recoil on a .44 magun round is 18.5 pounds. Explore how much force an average human arm can withstand without moving.
-Shootout in the Warehouse where he is dual wielding pistols with no recoil is a good example.

-Casshern The Robot Hunter-
- Casshern and Neo humans are able to sustain great amounts of force without being affected by it.
- Fight scene just after casshern obtains his suit.
- Neo Human is able to effortlessly block all of cassherns attacks with little to no effort or reaction. Casshern is able to punch through metal.

Character Animation

Animation was shot with a point and shoot, I used a Plasticine clay stegosaurus and other plush animals. As I was shooting the animation I realized I had made a huge mistake trying to shoot a quadroped walk in stop motion. I was really afraid that it was going to turn out terrible as I kept forgetting where each leg was going, but it didn't turn out half as terrible as I was expecting.

Reverse Video Reference of Walking

The Laws of Physics in an Animated Universe - Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children

Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children

For my Physics of animation term paper I have chosen to take a closer look at Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, a futuristic Sci-Fi world where Cloud Strife fights not only against his own regret for being unable to save a loved one from being murdered, but also against a madman hell-bent on destroying the world. This was a feature length film that was directed by Tetsuya Nomura, character designer for the original PlayStation videogame. Advent Children originally released in 2005, it has since then been re-released in different regions with a number of different cuts all the way up until 2009. I chose this movie because I enjoyed the original videogame and I thought they did a good job of expanding upon the universe, while still keeping within the pre-existing guidelines that had been established in the videogame. Taking place in a world that follows many of the same laws as our own, these laws are seemingly cast aside by the protagonists and antagonists to create a more interesting animation.

Cloud Strife From Original Game Wielding Buster Sword

Cloud in Advent Children, Wielding Buster Sword

Superhuman strength and ability’s are a commonplace for our Hero’s. Possibly one of the most notable things that stands out at first glance, besides Cloud’s hairs ability to withstand the forces of EVERYTHING is the fact that he carries a 5 foot by 1 foot long steel sword with him and wields it effortlessly with one hand. Assuming that the sword is solid, it would weight around 150-200 Pounds and be completely impossible to wield. As it stands, having a 200 pound weight should have him toppling over. Throughout this movie Cloud is seen not only wielding it, but he doesn't compensate for the weight by contorting his body in any noticeable way to shift his center of gravity over the base of support.

Other aspects of Cloud are superhuman such as his reflexes. During one scene Cloud is seen riding his motorcycle towards the city and has his first encounter with the Silver Haired Men. They are his “younger brothers” and they want to know what he did with “Mother” the creature from space that was used to enhance all of them. During this fight scene, not only were various laws of physics broken that had to do with momentum, clouds face was able to deflect a bullet shot from point blank range with little damage being inflicted to his being. I could dismiss this as “just how people were in this universe” but later on in the movie, after the final fight, Cloud is shot by Yazoo, the same character that shot him earlier from father away in the chest, and the shot had a devastating effect on cloud. He dropped to the ground, and for an instant you thought that he might be done for.

Head Wound - Not a problem

Should Wound - Almost fatal

Coupled with his super strength and toughness comes human reflexes that are unable to be preformed by mere mortals. Throughout the entire movie Cloud is able to reflect bullets with his sword. According to my research, a bullet smaller cartridge travels at around 600 feet per second, and most traveling at anywhere between 1,200 to 3,000 feet per second. After seeing how a human reaction time is somewhere around 300 milliseconds, he would be unable to recognize where the bullet was going to be and act quickly enough to deflect it with his surfboard of a sword.

Although these scenes pertain to a single character, you better believe that all the main characters have these superhuman abilities. In the fight scene shown below: Tifa, Clouds love interest and childhood friend is able to dish out and withstand a flurry of fists and remain unaffected much like her male counterpart. She also retains an electrical current that she had received from being punched by her opponent that dissipates from her finger tips even though she has been grounded for a while. Finally; the amount of time that it takes her to travel to the apex of her arc on her "Finishing blow" to Loz at the end of the clip is significantly shorter on the upstroke then how long it takes for her to finally land again. We know that time is related to the height of the jump, and that the parabolic arc will be the same on both ends.

During the last Fight Cloud and Sepheroth are seen fighting atop the old Shinra building, a corporation that use to torment the city. Each slash of their swords becomes more outrageous then the last, and their actions build up to an impossible, yet flashy climax!

At times during the movie the characters follow normal arcs when they are either jumping or thrown back, but when they attack, arcs can be ignored and their directions can change drastically. During this fight both cloud and Sepheroth have the ability to lunge at will and defy gravity. They are able to sore great distances without losing momentum. At 2:26 in the above clip, both Sepheroth and Cloud are able to somehow maintain contact with the platforms they are each on, and even sidestep, even though they are both horizontal. The only explanation is that the force that they are both exerting on each-other by clashing swords is pushing them both against their respective platform, but even then I would think the pressure would have to be constant for this sort of thing to work. In the end, Sepheroth grows a Giant wing and is able to truly levitate/fly. In this universe, as long as you have something that represents flight, you can fly.

Materia

Aside from the fantastic physical acts these characters are able to achieve, Magic exists in their world. "Materia" is crystalised energy that has been harvested from the earth. Originally  these gemstones were socketed into a characters equipment and it imbued them with magical ability's such as casting fire, or summoning a monster to help fight. In this movie, it would seem that these gemstones can now be absorbed into a character in order to become usable. Seeing as Materia was never used by any of the characters in the traditional way from the past, I am only left to assume that the new villian have some sort of special ability which allows for this absorption  The game made use of a "Mana" system in order to cast the spells. If you didn't have enough Mana, you were unable to cast the desired magic. In this movie, it's hard to tell if this law is being followed or not as there is no physical indications of how much Mana a person has left. Regardless  the characters are able to manipulate matter and create various elements, and even create supernatural beings such as Shadow Fiends and Bahamute, a giant dragon which descends from the heavens and ravages the city.

Bahamute

The fact that this dragons wight is enough to smash buildings and crush the ground as he walks on it leads me to believe that flight would be incredibly unlikely/impossible using wings such as those. From the look of them, they are no where near the shape of an airfoil and wouldn't even come close to generating enough low air pressure on top, and high air pressure on the bottom to facilitate lift. This also helps support the "Symbols of flight, cause flight." theory as stated from before.

After all is considered, the world feels fairly realistic and as long as you can suspend your disbelief for the more action packed sequences you'll be able to get sucked into their world and enjoy the experience. The liberties that were taken in this movie are minute in my eyes and successfully compliments the feeling of the movie as a whole.

Outline Paper 1

Introduction

• Introduce "Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children" (126 Min)
• CGI Animation
• Hypothesis: Taking place in a world that follows many of the same laws as our own, these laws are seemingly cast aside by the protagonists and antagonists to create a more interesting animation.

SuperHuman Strength and Ability's
Hypothesis: Main Characters disregard physical limitations that "Normal" people in the movie have.

• Ability to lift Gigantic Sword's, Motorcycles, pews, and other objects with ease.

A) Cloud Fight

• Cloud Shot in the Face, small indication (14:08)
  Cloud Shot in shoulder and he's severely wounded (108:03)
• Cloud Blocking Bullets with a Sword in Forest Fight (51:50) (http://hypertextbook.com/facts/1999/MariaPereyra.shtml, speed of a bullet)
• Cloud Slices Buildings in Half (70:38)

B) Tifa Fight

• Tifa Fight Scene, thrown everywhere. (35:00)
• Withstands punches that throw her across the room
• recoil

C) Regular People

• "Regular" people are tore to shreds during Silver Haired Men Attack.

Disregard for Gravity and Mass
Hypothesis: Chacters are able to disregard gravity and laws of momentum in their universe.

A) Loz Fight

• Falling at the same rate (82:35)
• Loz falls off speeding motorcle and is at a stand still. (84:20)
• Loz Stops motorcycle with Foot (51:04)
• Prolonged Hangtime in most battles
• Loz Turns motorcle around with own bodyweight. (84:45)
  

B) Bahamute Fight

• Barret ISN'T a pendulum when he is thrown and grabs onto a ledge (76:45)
• Characters are able to Change direction in mid air (87:40)
• "Jump boost"
• Vincent floating

C) Final Fight

• sidestepping on a horizontal surface (weightless in freefall...) (100)
• Flying with 1 Wing (102:20)
• Omnislash scene (103:50)

"Magic"
Hypothesis: Characters are able to create and manipulate matter from nothing.

A) Controlling Elements

• Introduce Materia (43:50)
• Casting "Thunder"
• Controling the weather (Thunderstorm) (97:40)

B) Summoning

• Summoning Shadow Fiends
• Summoning Bahamute (66:14)

C) Transfiguration

• Septheroth Returns (96:25)
• Curing sickness

Conclusion

• Laws are intentionally broken throughout the film in order to reinforce the hero's plight and make the action more entertaining.

Stop Motion Animation of Falling

This video was created by taking a series of photo's of paper that I had cut out to look like Tetris blocks. The falling motion slows out at as the block leaves the "Magic grip of the player positioning it. I think it's rather successful at feeling like the pieces are falling down to the bottom of the screen via gravity. After I shot all the photo's using a camera I imported them into flipbook and timed them out and created a title and credits card. Finally, I exported and added music. Overall the project was enjoyable!

Video analysis of path of action

Yep.. That's a Parabolic Arc alright!

 Jump with Tracking.

5 Jumps.

Tracker video analysis of falling

Ball Drop Test!

I'm in the picture!

I'm also in the video!

Video Reference

Fourth Down at Half-time

Mini-Portfolio

Hello! My name is Race Oswald. I'm an Animation / Illustration student at San Jose State University. I enjoy modeling and painting more than anything. I'm currently taking Ani 115 and Advanced Modeling this semester. The last Science class I took was Biology, and the last physics class I took was during my Jr. year in high school. After school I'd like to work in the industry for a while and one day possibly start my own business creating mobile apps and games.

Hobbies and interests outside of art include: San Jose Bike Party, Longboarding, hiking the Bay Area, brewing beer, and videogames.

This was the portfolio that I turned in at the end of Ani 114.

I don't have any videos of my work on this computer at the moment so instead; here's a video of my friend being thrown to prove I know how to upload video's.

The First Post

"The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits. "

First post, lets do this!