Outline for the Third Term Paper

Introduction

Tornadoes are a special effect featured prominently in Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs and a recent stop-motion animated episode of Adventure Time, “Bad Jubies”. In this paper I will explain the different ways these effects were created and how effective they are in their respective animations.

Body

Adventure Time

• What is the effect
• A storm-cloud character has tornadoes for arms
• Arms are made of a cloth-like material wrapped around some underlying structure, they are attached to the character’s rig in a way that allows them to rotate. While filming the episode they rotate the arms a bit each frame to make them look as though they are spinning.

• The effect is successful because
• The effect fits the style of the show
• The tornado arms help the character emote and interact with his environment. He is initially angry but then calms down, when he does the tornadoes stop spinning and become cloud arms that look like his main body. He also uses one of his arms to pick up a book which spins around the tip of his arm, suspended by wind.

Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs

• What is the effect
• A massive tornado made of spaghetti and meatballs wreaks havoc
• Spaghetti twister made in maya
• Twister is made of many solid strands animated in unison, with several layers of particle effects added on for smoke etc

• The effect is successful because
• The effect fits the style of the film
• The effect is visually entertaining
• The effect helps tell the story

Conclusion

These effects are not simply eye candy but are crucial to the story in their animations. In each of these animations the creators of the effects had to work under considerable design limitations. In “Bad Jubies” the main constraint is the medium of stop motion animation, but in Cloudy the design constraints are mostly self imposed due to the near limitless possibilities of 3D animation. By working under consistent design limitations and having strong visual direction to guide the designs, the creators of each animation produced effects that fit in well in their worlds. Had the creators of Cloudy opted to create a more realistic tornado (even one made of spaghetti) it would have taken away from the scene, not enhanced it.