Lighting a Scene in Maya

Single Area Light for Key Light

With Ambient Light

 

With Rim Light

Stereoscopic 3D Images

Building a Scene in Maya

Reverse Video Reference of Walking

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The Laws of Physics in an Animation Universe

The Incredibles is Disney Pixar’s sixth fully computer animated film, released in 2004. It is a story about superheroes that are forced to live in secrecy because of the amount of damage they caused to the city and people. One family of superheroes in particular, the focus of the movie, has a hard time trying to integrate into a town of regular humans. Having to move to a different part of town every time their powers are exposed prevents them from coping with a normal life. Bob Parr, the father and main superhero, yearns for a taste of the glory days when he was Mr. Incredible, going around saving citizens.. After years of having a boring desk job at an insurance company, Mr. Incredible is excited when a secret government agency approaches him and recruits him for help after losing control of their experiment robot weapons. We later find out that this company is actually run by genius inventor Buddy Pine, a former fan club president of Mr. Incredible, whose hopes and dreams as a kid of becoming a superhero were diminished when he dubbed himself Mr. Incredible’s sidekick. He attempts to help, but ends up getting in Mr. Incredible’s way as he causes more trouble. He is discouraged by Mr. Incredible to be a superhero. With the advances in computer animation, it is easy to get caught up in the fantasy world that they portray. Movies like The Incredibles, with their exaggerated caricature forms, reminds the viewer that this is a make-believe world. It adds to the comedy and play-like nature of the movie. There are many scenarios in this movie that are perceived as believable because of  the way in which these scenarios are animated. The laws of physics in the real world pertain to the laws of physics in this movie, yet certain situations are exaggerated and the laws are bent for comic relief. I will examine these laws and provide examples from the scenes they relate to.

The most prominent aspect of physics that is also the most overlooked is the law of gravity. In the opening action sequence, when Mr. Incredible is making his rounds of saving the day, one scene in particular shows a man attempting to commit suicide by jumping off a high rise building. He jumps and falls at a realistic rate, such as what you would expect an object falling in the real world would do. When Mr. Incredible leaps from the adjacent building, however, the laws of gravity are bent a little. We follow him as he makes the jump. The angle of view shows us that Mr. Incredible jumps straight through the air. He appears to fly horizontally with little to no fall in trajectory as he catches the falling man and crashes through the window on the same level. This is generally overlooked because him being a superhero, it is accepted that he can somehow defy gravity for certain situations with his super human strength. This is evident when he proceeds to pull trees from the ground and lift cars above his head with ease. Yet when he meets his arch nemesis for the first time, he jumps off a waterfall cliff into a large pool to escape. This fall, similar to the man attempting to commit suicide, has a realistic look and the timing is pretty accurate. However, his superhero status once again is exaggerated when he jumps off another cliff at night on a secluded island. His leap was made to appear very heroic as he jumps into the air. His path of action, however, doesn’t follow the rules of paths of action as his jump slows in the air and he begins to drop.

Other paths of action follow a more natural looking path. One example is when the son, Dash, is running away from the evil henchmen in the jungle. He grabs onto a tree vine and is launched in the air on a perfect arc with a realistic look and timing of the fall. Even objects thrown throughout the movie have the characteristic arc of paths of action with real-life timing. The time it takes to reach the highest point equals the time it takes from the highest point to the landing. Simple paths of actions during light hearted moments appear realistic as well. When Buddy is ejected from Mr. Incredible’s car in the beginning of the movie, his path of action is small and simple,  yet conforms to the rules of paths of actions.

Some examples of the laws of physics being bent were meant to display the more comical aspects of the movie. The scene in which Mr. Incredible grabs his boss by the throat and throws him through a wall is one of those scenes. As the camera pans over, it reveals that the boss has actually been thrown through four walls and is hospitalized with broken bones and wraps all over his body. Of course no one would survive such a crash. Once the viewer realizes the boss is okay, it becomes more for comedy. In a sense, the viewer is happy with the result because the boss is portrayed as this cold, mean person, and got what he deserved. Other action/reaction moments in the movie are more of the subtle, unnoticed moments, but help in conveying a more realistic feel. Many people get punched throughout the movie, and each time, the person getting punched reacts in a consistent manner; their face gets squashed and their heads rebound back to the center.

Squashing and stretching is an essential key to making animations appear realistic. Again, this movie displays many examples of squashing and stretching that most viewers either take for granted, or simply do not notice, but can’t explain why certain things appear real. Many characters jump in the air for a certain amount of time, but when they are about to land, you can clearly see the stretching as the person prepares for the landing. Once the person’s feet touch the ground, the body then squashes or compresses, so the body can absorb the fall. Elastigirl, Mr. Incredible’s wife, can literally stretch her body to great lengths, so when she is shown jumping or landing from a great height, her stretching is extremely exaggerated. Once her feet touch the ground, her body then contracts to its normal length, absorbing all of the impact and providing a smooth jump.

Momentum and impulse are some of the laws of physics that were consistently realistic throughout the movie. Every object in the movie, from rocks to cars, obeyed the laws of inertia and momentum. Again, it was the subtle details throughout the movie that provided a sense of realism in a non-realistic world. Cars have that characteristic jerk that a person feels when coming to a stop. You can even see the car’s inertia wanting to “pull” the car forward. Even some unnoticed moments help in conveying the realism in the movie. When Mr. Incredible is in his car, changing into his superhero outfit, his chair slides to the right as the car is on autopilot. You can see his weight shift to the left as it slides. When the seat settles, his inertia shifts his weight to the right, then back and forth as it settles, similar to a water balloon settling on a table. Being an action movie, there are numerous occasions where an impulse is applied. Looking back at the end of the opening action sequence, a bomb destroys part of the train overpass. In order to save the train from going over, Mr. Incredible holds his ground and braces for impact. When the train crashes into him, the large impulse causes the front end of the train to bend inward, as if crashing into a wall. The passengers’ inertia causes them to go flying in the air for a brief second as they fall forward. Mr. Incredible then applies a large force over a large time to slow the speeding train. It eventually comes to a halt, hanging over the broken section of the bridge. Other examples of impulse can be seen later in the movie, when the robots attack the city. One of the robots goes hurling towards a building at a high rate. The weight and acceleration of the robot causes the building to crack and break upon impact as the impulse stops the robot. It would not have been as believable if the building were to stop the robot, but left undamaged. 

When analyzing computer animated movies, it is quite clear that the animators paid a lot of attention to the details that make this movie life-like. It makes sense as animators used a lot of video reference for their animation, so the realism would come natural if they followed the video references closely. Upon further examination of the characters, however, it is clear that they were meant to be drawn with the exaggerated caricature features, instead of human-like features. One must ask, then, as to why they would pay so much attention to the physics involved in the movie, if the characters weren’t meant to appear life-like? For one, the characters’ look adds to the light-heartedness of the movie itself. But having a set of rules that every character follows helps create this sense of a real world. For the non superheroes, the laws of physics apply to them normally. By having this basis for character reactions in this world, it allows the movie to accentuate the super powers of the superheroes as they bend the rules of physics. Although they can’t bend every rule, or they can’t bend the rule for a long period of time, it allows the viewer to appreciate their superpowers. By applying them in a real-world or life-like situation, it lets the viewer compare it to our reality and see that what they are doing really is superhuman.

Outline of First Term Paper

The Laws of Physics in Disney Pixar’s Incredibles (2004)

I.      Introduction

a.     Introduce movie

b.     Thesis statement – The laws of physics in the real world pertain to the laws in the movie, yet certain situations are exaggerated for comic relief

II.    Laws of Gravity

a.     The laws of gravity act on all characters – man committing suicide falls at a realistic rate

b.     Some characters defy gravity through superhuman strength – Mr. Incredible lifts cars and other heavy objects, Dash runs on water through excessive speed

c.     Path of action – objects and characters launched in the air appear to follow the physics involved with projectile motions, and don’t seem to be exaggerated

                                               i.     Dash launched in the air from grabbing onto a rope

                                             ii.     Mr. Incredible throwing objects throughout the movie

                                            iii.     Buddy ejected out of the chair

III.  Action/Reaction

a.     Mr. Incredible’s boss gets thrown through many walls, and survives the impact on all of them

b.     People get punched, reacting in a realistic ways

IV. Squash and Stretch

a.     Certain situations exaggerate stretching of characters to add to effect – Mr. Incredible stretches as he tries to squeeze out of tight fits

b.     Characters that land from being in the air have the squash and stretch typically scene by humans jumping

V.   Momentum

a.     Everyday objects with weight display the subtle laws of physics and inertia – cars coming to a stop

b.     Mr. Incredible stops the train from going over the broken track (Impulse)

VI. Conclusion

a.     All characters obey the general laws of physics, with the exception of the superheroes

b.     Laws of physics obeyed by everyone to extenuate the super human abilities of the heroes

Stop Motion Animation of Falling

i keep forgetting to post these.... good thing my mom woke me up to drop her off at bart...

in this animation, i used a yard ruler to get the measurements right. i just simply laid out a black velvet cloth on the floor, used a book as my "floor" and set up a simple light from the right. i angled my camera to get the full "height" from where the apple starts. i was initially going to just have it drop once, but it wasn't enough photos, so i just made it appear to bounce. i kind of messed up because the apple either shifted a little to the side, or i may have knocked the camera a little and didn't notice until afterwards