Extra Credit: Lighting a Scene in Maya

 One Point Lighting

 Two Point Lighting

Three Point Lighting

Building a Scene in Maya

Special Effects in Animation and Live-Action

My first two term paper scores were 90 and 87; I will not be writing a third term paper.

Outline for the Third Term Paper

I. Introduction

A. Introduction to fire special effects in animated films
B. 2D animated films require drawing fire frame by frame
C. Comparison between fire in the 2D animated films Bambi (1942) and Howl's Moving Castle (2005)

II. Body

A. Bambi (1942)

-Introduction to Bambi, and specifically the forest fire scene
-Fire created by cel animation, drawn frame by frame
-Unrealistic mass of fire
-Unrealistic flickering, static fire sometimes, broken particles should snap away from the main fire
-Timing of fire
-Color
-Believability

B. Howl's Moving Castle (2005)

-Introduction to Howl's Moving Castle, and specifically Calcifer, the fire demon character visually seen from the fire place.
-Calcifer is a character portrayed as a fire.
-Characteristics aside, animation of fire is mostly realistic, though there are some technical areas
-Fire flickers are sometimes drawn round, and not sharp.
-Timing
-Color
-Believability

III. Conclusion

-Both films are hand drawn cel animation, yet they both have fire drawn differently.
-The believability of fire is still there despite technicalities of the animation drawings.

Stop-Motion Character Animation

A curious tiger discovers a junkyard playground.

For this assignment, I looked around the house for toys and stuffed animals to use. I gathered what I found and took the story from there. I set up a "playground" with the toys I found and set up the camera as well. The stuffed tiger was the most articulated of all the plush animals I found, but even then the tiger had a hard time holding itself up and kept flopping over. I had the most fun with the tugging of the cloth. I used tape behind the tiger and the objects in the set to hold the objects in place especially when objects were tipping over, or if I had to stand the tiger up in some way. I tried giving the plush tiger a bit of a curious and playful personality. For the Tiger's scampering and pounce away, I used objects to hold the tiger up underneath. The cloth the tiger was dragging was convenient in hiding the Tiger's body and the objects used to suspend the Tiger in the air. I grew more confident in animating as the scene progressed. Overall I had a lot of fun!