Building a Scene in Maya

Special Effects in Animation and Live-Action

My first two term paper scores were both above 80; I will not be writing a third term paper.

Outline of the Third Term Paper

Introduction

-          Comparing the visual effects of tornadoes in the movies Twister and The Wizard of Oz

Twister

-          Computer-generated effects by ILM (new tech for 1996)

-          Fairly realistic

-          Some of the ways in which the tornadoes interacted with larger objects (like trucks) wasn’t accurate

-          The protagonists of the film would have never been able to outrun or survive being in the center of the massive tornado

The Wizard of Oz

-          Tornado created using practical effects (with cloth wrapped around chicken wire)

-          Pretty realistic (even was featured on The Weather Channel)

-          Characters would not have survived being in the twister

-          The house would have been destroyed if it had really been tossed by a tornado

Conclusion

-Very different approaches to depicting tornadoes

            -Both successful in realistic appearances, not as realistic in interactions with characters and objects

Stop-Motion Character Animation

I created this stop-motion animation at my house using an old Yeti toy I had lying around. I quickly drew up a plan for my animation (pictured below) and got to work. Some of the photos ended up looking funky in the end, because I had to remove hands and I am not that adept in photo manipulation in Photoshop. Then I messed around with timing a little in Windows Movie Maker and voila! 

The animation plan

The labeling of the strength cup