Creating Stereoscopic 3D Images

At first I wasn't as interested in this assignment. Then, when I start doing it. I love it so much that I end up making a lot.

Extra Credit "Lighting a Scene in Maya

 Light 1: Directional Light

 Light 2: Ambient Light

Light 3: Spot Light

Building a Scene in Maya

Second Term Paper

No term paper is being submitted.

Second Term Paper Outline

I - Introduction

Growing up as asian, I've endorsed myself in many action films involving creative and good fight especially in films that were acted out by Jet Li, Donnie Yen and Jackie Chan. However, Ever since I started doing animation, I've been noticing some mistakes of action/reaction in theThe Master, Flash Point and Thunderbolt that were acted out by my three favorite action heroes.

Usually, the main mistakes that I saw were weak action that created stronger reaction. 

II - Body

A. The Master

a. In one of Jet Li's film, The Master. At the beginning when Jet Li master was in a fight with his old student, the jump kick of the student shouldn't send the master flying that far towards the screen. 

b. At 20:24, part two of the movie, In a fight scene of the caucasian girl. One of the guy lifted her up and threw her on a table yet she flew over so easily that it seems unconvincing. 

c. In part three of the movie, at 13:53, the master was in a fight with a bunch of caucasian kung fu fighters. However, the kick that he did to one of the fighter didn't seem strong enough to cause a major reaction. 

B. Flash Point

a. In the chase scene of FlashPoint 28:43, Donnie Yen caught up to one of the gangster brother but he was held back when the gangster caught a kid as hostage and threw her from the kitchen to the street. The action or strength that it took to throw a kid even with a muscle man wouldn't throw her about ten feet long. That's even more than olympic record.  

b. At 1:17:13 when Donnie Yen had to fight the last Vietnamese-Chinese gang brother. During the submission scene, the brother lifted Donnie up without needing any strength at all. The obvious part is that the brother was on one knee and lifted Donnie up high in the air while he also stands up at the same time. 

c. 1:20:43 Donnie Yen did a leg grab submission to the gang brother but the leg grab didn't seem that convincing. Usually, it you want to take down a person who's standing using your legs, you have to at least grab some where above their knee to actually trip them. Donnie in this scene was barely grabbing the gang brother's shoes yet the brother fell down immediately. 

Jackie Chan's Thunderbolt

When Jackie kick the pervert at the beginning in scene 10:21 Most of the kick now doesn't seem real as well. The actor reacted before the kick even touch their face

C. Thunderbolt

a. In 10:22 Jackie follow up a round house kick with a spinning round house kick to the other pervert . Once again, the actor reacted before the kick comes straight at him. The camera angle made it seem as if they were hurt by the kick. 

b. At 10:25 - 10:26, Jackie punched the first pervert twice and he faked it twice by moving his head back and forth. The fast forward of the fight scenes made it seem more believable but the amount of the punch didn't seem strong enough. 

c. At 33:44 One of the gang member jump from the top of the stairs to kick Jackie but jackie kicked the gangster feet in midair which in turn changed the direction of the gangster's fall. It wasn't believable at all that a kick which seem that weak could have change the direction of someone jumping at you. In reality, the gangster might have turn but the way he jump toward Jackie should have had some more forward movement that pushes him forward as well. 

III - Conclusion

Most of Chinese Action movie doesn't show the reaction by cutting it out while adding in new shots. They also fast forward the action shots and it helped made the movie more believable in an intense way. However, no matter how fast or slow they can cheat movement, the eyes is the beholder of reality. The Master, Flashpoint and Thunderbolt acted out the by Jet Li, Donnie Yen and Jackie Chan show some of these subtle physics mistakes of action/reaction  in their fight scenes. Although most of the time it was entertaining, sometimes even one mistake of physics would made it easy to pick on even if these movies were A movies.   

Character Animation

I don't have toys at home so I just walk around the house to find something. Luckily, my brother went around and found small things that he likes so I used most of his bought stuff from our trip to Mexico to make a film. My mom happened to have see through boxes that she grabbed from her work place so I took out the cap and made a transparent layer. This layer helped with lifting the turtle up while I take a picture. 

My process for this at first was to use Premiere Pro to compress my scene but Premiere is never good at editing photographs. Instead, I went back to Photoshop Animation and it was a ton easier. It was more convenience because I could erase the see through plastic cap in the pictures I took to made the turtle lifting its body possible.  

Reverse Video Reference of Walking

Clip A

Clip B

Clip C

                                    Clip D

The Law of Physics in an Animation Universe

Dang Nguyen

Physics of Animation

Professor Alejandro Garcia

October 9, 2012

                                               Unstable Law of Physics in Nacho Libre

Nacho Libre, written and directed by Jared Hess is an action-comedy film (based on the real story of Fray Tormenta, a real life Mexican priest turned Luchador for twenty three years to support the orphanage children he directed) that takes place in a small town of Mexico. It tells the story of a monk, Nacho, who was berated by those around him and eventually donned a mask to follow his dream of becoming a Luchador. His other purpose of becoming a wrestler was to impress sister Encanacion who became the tutors for the children of the Monastery and to tell the Friars that he is more than just a cook. Also, he wants to earn money so the children that he feeds can have better meals daily. Being a comedy movie, in order to enhance the humor of the film, the laws of physics in the movie were twisted using some CGI effects. Some of the exaggerations of physics that were made so obvious in the movie defied the laws of Action and Reaction, Inertia, The Odd Rules, and Path of Action. 

The laws of action and reaction (A Newton’s law of physics stating that for every action, there is an equal amount of reaction) were twisted heavily in all of the fight scenes of the movie. For example, at the beginning when Nacho had to grab the orphanage’s chips for the children. He was attacked and robbed by Esqueleto during the process. Instead of giving away his chips, Nacho fought back but Esqueleto lifted him from his Friar’s rope and threw him off his motorcycle. It didn’t seem convincing that Esqueleto can lift Nacho through that position with that amount of strength. Esqueleto, who weigh around 110 pounds were applying a small amount of force (action) to lift Nacho who seems to be around 200 pounds over his own motorcycle (reaction). In reality, it would have taken a lot of muscle strength and a further standing position to lift something that is 200 pounds. 

Likewise, when Esqueleto was fighting with Nacho as a teammate against the monkey wrestler, Esqueleto applied a small amount of force (action) to pull himself over the rope (reaction) after Nacho who was submitted by the monkey tagged him in the ring. The amount of applied strength that Esqueleto used to lift himself over the ring should not have allowed him to fly that high in the air over the rope. Esqueleto should have pushed himself further back while pulling really hard on the rope then maybe it would be possible to jump that far into the ring. Similarly, when the monkey opponents entered the ring, they also used a small amount of action that allowed them to jump with huge reaction up in the air and into the ring.

 Then, during the all out free for all competition of many wrestlers to choose to see who can go against King Ramses, the huge black masked Luchador, Silencio, spinned Esqueleto and El Chino by grabbing onto their heads didn’t seem as convincing. Silencio spinning of the other two should have been faster  to actually lift the other two wrestlers feet above the ground.

A lot of the small amount of action that lead to huge reaction were very consistent throughout the movie and especially in the ring. However, when it was outside of the ring, such as the part where Nacho wanted to climb over the vine wall in order to enter King Ramses party, he couldn’t do it, but if he can lift himself up a rope in the ring, why can’t he lift himself up over the wall? To further my point, there was a scene in which Nacho climbed a huge mountain to reach the eagle’s egg. If he can climb a mountain, for sure he can climb a wall. The law of action and reaction is not consistent. All of the characters in the ring seem to have acquired super power. 

Another law, created by Newton,the law of inertia (a law stated that an object moves with constant, uniform motion until acted on by an unbalanced force) was also incorrect in the movie. In the example of the fight with the monkey wrestlers. One of the monkeys was jumping up on Nacho’s back while Nacho was close to the corner of the ring. Then, the monkey jumped to the corner of the ring, and jump back to Nacho with a neck twist submissive move using his feet. In this scene, the jumping of the monkey was a uniform motion. However, the unbalanced force was the landing part. The monkey did not kneel down or follow through with his action when he landed on Nacho’s back or the rope, instead, he simply touched the parts and bounce around weightlessly. It is like how we hold a toy and make it jump around as kid. Even real monkeys aren’t able to do that. However, one part of the path of action that was used correctly was the part when Nacho rode his motorcycle over a small cliff. Nacho, or the stuntman that did the scene did fly with the motorcycle as he landed. It was actually one of the scenes that didn’t use CGI effects. 

Besides from Newton’s law, there are other rule of physics that isn’t consistent during the movie. One of them is the is the odd rules (a rule in physics in which stated that anything that follows a path consistently by the force of gravity pulling it down or other forces that applied to it will follow the distance of 1,3,5 frames). At the beginning of Nacho’s training to become a Luchador, there was a scene where he tried to stop a bull. When Nacho entered the ranch and taunted the bull by wearing a red cape, the bull ran towards him and hooked him right up in the air. As Nacho was sent flying, there were no hang time or hanging on the apex of the fall. Then, when he fell down, he landed on the ground hastily. In reality, there was suppose to be hang time of Nacho in the air and he should be falling down moving slowly and then faster as he land closer to the ground. 

Finally, the path of action (A law stated that an object would follow a parabolic arc whenever the object is sent forward.) was not realistically executed in the movie. For example, in the fight with the monkeys. When Esqueleto lift up one of the monkeys and threw him outside the ring, the monkey didn’t follow the consistent path of action that every object follow through an arc. Instead, the monkey flew in a straight path and landed onto the audience that were watching outside the ring. In reality, in order to make the monkey fly that far out to the ring, Esqueleto have to throw the monkey up higher in the air or threw him with more force.

Another example similar to this theory is the last fight between Nacho and Ramses where Nacho performs the Eagle Dive. In this scene, Ramses was running from Nacho’s final move outside the ring. Nacho lifted himself up in the ring’s corner rope, held his hand above his head and then fly towards Ramses like an eagle grabbing its prey. Nacho didn’t spend a lot of force to jump all the way up, instead, he flew towards Ramses through a straight line passing all the audiences around the ring like an eagle. In reality, if the move is possible, Nacho was supposed to either pushed himself really hard or jump really far with kangaroo muscular legs to be able to fly that far. Also, he would have to fly super fast rather than spending about one minute in the air. 

Overall, Nacho Libre defied many law of physics throughout the movie. In order to enhance the action and the comedy, the law of action and reaction were twisted so many times. There weren’t that many convincing action to create the huge reaction. It felt as if every wrestlers in the movie have super strength. Then, the odd rules and the law of inertia further the unrealistic physical realm of the film. It made the characters in the movie landed after a huge jump without following through and using the the 1,3,5 frames to make a consistent path of falling. Also, the same can be said to the path of actions that were used in the film such as when Esqueleto threw the monkey wrestler outside the ring or when Nacho did his eagle dive move. However, through all the faulty, fake physics realm in the ring, there was one scene such as the motorcycle flying off a cliff that seems to be the most realistic of all scenes. Therefore, I can conclude that the only time the creator make movie unrealistic was in the wring. Overall, it was a fun movie to watch because the physics were fake. 

First Term Paper Outline

Unstable Gravity and Force in Nacho Libre

I. Introduction

a. A comedy, a small special effect type of film.

b. The law of gravity somewhat follows the rule of life

c. gravity, strength, and spinning aren't stable in the movie. 

II. Action/Reaction of strength 

a. the skinny guy lift the monkeys up in the air with no problems 

b. the nacho stealer lift Nacho Libre up from behind with little to no strength require

c. the wrestlers jump over the rope just by lifting themselves slowly. 

III. Law of Gravity

a. Bull training, Nacho flew too high and landed too fast

b. Heavy Nacho stomping on the wrestler's back but nothing happen 

c. The fight with the monkeys. They jump and fly everywhere without problems

IV. Unrealistic and miscellaneous scene

a. action reaction are unstable. Nacho can't jump over wall but he can jump over rope

b. He sniff out beans through his nose.

c. Car riding off a cliff but he fall without the car

d. During the all out competition, the huge guy in black took two guys and held them on his head. He spin both of the guy but his spins were so slow yet the guys feet were up in the air. 

V. Conclusion

a. The laws of physics in the movie were exaggerated at certain place for comedic goal. 

Stop Motion Animation of Falling

Click on the image above to see my stop motion animation.


I had a super wide format for this video but when I exported it, it squished the side therefore it is currently in bad quality. Basically my idea was to make myself like Angry Bird the game and shot myself as the bullet for the slingshot towards the ball and make it fall. First, I took pictures of a ball I had at home on a white piece of paper. I set my camera to use flash and shot the ball. The flash took away the shadow so it was easy to use to wand and laso tool in photoshop to crop the ball out. I then set up the ball so that it sat on a green box to make it a platform for the ball to sit on. Then, I took some reference of a ball falling but all I had was just a boring scene of a ball dropping when it was pushed away. However, I somehow stumbled upon Angry bird when I was looking through my apps and use the idea for a stop motion Angry Dang (the title sounded too cliche so I changed it to Angry Ball at the end which makes no sense). The video compressed above is a squished from the sides because I was using size 68X17 inches to make it a wide format. Little did I know the size were too big and it lagged my laptop when I tried to export it.

These are the plannings. I also took a picture of myself as the bullet for the slingshot. Then I decided to paint a background similar to Angry Bird Style but with my own designs and color choices. 

After many tries to compress my images. I have to change to 720X180 pixels in the Gif option and now it works. 

Video Analysis of Path of Action

Tracker Video Analysis of Falling

Video Reference

Mini Portfolio

I've never draw until I my last semester as a senior in high school, February 2006. I was lazy and I had finished all my high school class requirements. All my friends were taking Advance Placement courses and I was just messing around in track and field and cross country practices. One day, I was hanging out with my neighbor Viet playing Yu Gi Oh cards and started drawing some of the cards while Viet showed me some of his drawings. I started to draw some of the cards that he drew. After I was done with the drawing, I was impressed that it looked almost exactly like the card. Then, I continued drawing some more and showed my friends. However, I was bored at drawing animes so I looked up on the internet to find some portrait drawing examples and began copying them. Then, when I showed Diep, the girl above my drawings, she asked me to draw her. As a sucker for cute/pretty girls and having a crush on Diep I drew her. Then, came other girls requests to draw them... Then those win win situations made me a better artist. My laziness and uninspired self found something that I can do for hours and hours (drawing, not girls, the girls add the extra motivations). My high school teacher told me that it was passion. I thought of it as scoring points... The painting above was done after 3 1/2 years I've started painting/drawing. About the time after 113A with Cameron Chun.

 

I did this piece because I told my friends that the reason why I am an Illustrator is so that I can become an artist to make money for a living. Some of my passionate friends who Illustrate said that they do this because of passion and was mad at me for saying that I want to make money out of this career. I've asked other passionate friends who said they are passionate about what they do and they replied with "I love drawing and I don't do it for money." After years of training at SJSU, and years of searching and asking myself why I want to draw/paint for a career because rumors stated that there is no way I can move forward and become a better artist if I don't love what I do, I've came to a conclusion. Illustration is not entirely my passion. I can draw/paint but there are more to life than spending hours just drawing/painting everyday which waste most of the time I could spend learning about something else. Money is needed because there is no way I can make a living without money and I've never thought of doing anything for money. Passion seems too strong of a word as I don't have too strong of a feeling of what I do. I like to learn many things in life such as making good conversations. I guess everyone has different opinions about their love of a career. I'm starting to have more interest in painting environments. It is super fun. Once this last year at SJSU is over, I wish to design/paint environments for a living. 

I can't upload my video for some odd reasons so here are the links to my video on my blog. 

Intro to 3D Animation

If the Video did not show up, here's the link to where you can watch one of my video. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSOMAkNij38&feature=plcp

The First Post

Sup, 

I'm Dang, why Dang? just a fun name I picked up when I was in fifth grade when my friends couldn't pronounce my first name correctly. They asked me if they could call me by my middle name which is Dang. I said yes and I've been known as Dang Nguyen ever since. I never really care if people tease me because of my name because I chose it that way. It's a good name to remember. What's my first name? Learn Vietnamese names and you'll find out.