Recreating Cameras and Lights in Maya

Actual Photo:

Maya re-creation:

Different angle:

Extra Credit: Lighting a Scene in Maya

1-point lighting:

2-point lighting:

 3-point lighting:

Building a Scene in Maya

Second Term Paper

No term paper is being submitted.

Outline for the Second Term Paper

Live Action Movies: Wave Goodbye to Realism

I. Introduction:
- Many live action films struggle to make some concepts believable in real life. A concept several films fail to capture realistically is the concept of waves.
- Transformers attempts to bring robots and danger into reality, but the physics of shockwaves fall flat and fail to convince the audience of any danger or realism.
- Mortal Combat: Annihalation is a sci-fi film, but could have still pulled off believable supernatural powers if they used waves realistically.
- Watchmen is the most realistic of all the movies, however the explosion in the ending does not behave as it should in reality.

II. Waves in Transformers
- In the opening scene, the helicopters shoots beams and missiles causing explosions. A shockwave results from such explosions and hurls cars into the sky, yet the humans remain on the ground still running away. They should be flying as well.
- After Bumble Bee's rejection at the dealership, Bumble Bee sends out a frequency that shatters all the car windows. It is unlikely that the same frequency could cater to all the different densities and and materials of the dozens of cars. If it did occur, a increasing frequency would be needed to cause resonance in all the cars and they would shatter at different times.
- When an autobot crash lands to earth, the shockwave goes through a building destroying glasses, however no one inside is harmed.

III. Waves in Mortal Kombat
- High frequency soundwaves are difficult to feel physically. In Mortal Kombat, Sindel uses her high pitch scream as a weapon to explode landscape and destroy people.
- She destroys mountain landscape, but leaves mere mortals unscathed.
- Even if it were possible, the effects would occur in intervals due to wavelength, but there is a constant stream of impact on the mountains.

IV. Waves in Watchmen
- The explosion in the ending scene is believably powerful, however the behavior is irregular.
- Usually a wave will have a large explosion, cause a shockwave that pushes out, then it creates a vacuum inward.
- In the explosion, the sequence of the blast begins with a shockwave, creates a vaccum effect, creates a stronger shockwave, then the explosion follows the shockwave.

V. Conclusion
In conclusion, live action movies have a difficult task of bringing fiction into a world of realism. Some effects can succeed even if it is not possible by having correct physics. Most films did a good job with their effects, but some did not do well in displaying waves. Films like Transformers, Mortal Kombat, and Watchmen each showed an aspect of waves that were done wrong. By studying these mistakes, film makers can better fix them and get the audience to buy into their universe.