Senior Project – Visual Arts and Computer Science Interdepartmental Stand Alone Complex: Open Your Eyes Juneui Soh Advisor: Prof. Striegnitz Stand Alone Complex:: Goal: To make a production level of a short film with post-production method and interactive particle system from Maya MEL script. ::What and Why Particle System? Greenscreen:: ::Post-Production (future work) ::Shatter System ::Paint Effects Sample shatter system Left one is the very beginning of shattering process. And the first shape got deformed into many particles. Stand alone means something that has no dependencies. We as human beings are separated physically. The film is about it. A human loneliness, finding identity, and self- consciousness. The film talks about three characters’ struggles (complexes) of being Stand Alone. They try to find who they are with different thought processes. It is like all of us have different ideas about who we are and what we are thinking about our life. A particle system is a computer generated graphics techniques for simulating fire, explosions, smoke, falling water, fog, dust, hair, and abstract visual effects. And these techniques are used for representing each character’s thought process. There will be three different particle systems to show/describe each one’s different mental process about their “Stand Alone” status. A shatter system deforms an object into many particles. This projects was specifically focused on improving particle system, which used Maya’s generic algorithm, but instead of using generic surface shatter system, randomly generated cutting plane will cut (deform) an object till the condition reaches the base case (check a minimum distance from the cutting plane to the surface of the object). With this improved cutting plane system, user can deform the organic object easier and better. Greenscreen is specifically used for this project, since (base on the topic) each character needs to interact with the particle system. The character part of the film was already recorded earlier this term by HVX- HD camcorder. This part will go over the process called “key out (take out the green part) ” to be collaborated together with the particle system. This process will be done in Adobe AfterEffect. A very important final step of film making. During this process, I will put visual effects on top of the original version of the film to make a final version of it. This will be done in next term. I adapted an abstract particle system into Maya’s Paint Effects, which make users to draw a generalized particle system like a preset-brush in Photoshop. So, user can change the properties of programmed Paint Effects and texture map to have a different look of abstract particle system. One of the product looks like the picture on the left side. Special thanks to my Parents, Prof. Striegnitz, Prof. Orellana, McLeod Sims, George Kershaw, Rachel Feldman, Conor O’Reilly, and All of my DKE brothers. Further more info on my website, Vision:: Because “Stand Alone Complex” is about an abstract topic, the three characters start with silhouettes, and the time goes by, each character will slowly find their identity. This will be shown by increased opacity of their actual body details. And these silhouette characters will have their own unique background, which is a particle system. They will think and interact with each one’s particle system actively.