Folk-Poke Dissertation For Animation

FOLK-POKE
Dissertation on Maldivian Myths,

Conceptual & Technical Solutions for
3D Animation
MAUROOF IBRAHIM
TERM FEBRUARY / JUNE 2010
FACULTY OF MULTIMEDIA CREATIVITY
LIMKOKWING UNIVERSITY OF CREATIVE

TECHNOLOGY
JUNE 2010
BACHELOR OF ARTS (HONS) IN ANIMATION
AMDD3521  Dissertation for Animation
Title : Dissertation on Maldivian Myths,

Conceptual & Technical Solutions for
3D Animation
Submission Date : 11th June 2010
Academic Supervisor : Nur Leila Khalid, Marvy Rey Sotto

Noorhayati Saad
Name : MAUROOF IBRAHIM
Student No. : A271025
Term : February / June 2010
THIS DISSERTATION REPORT IS PREPARED FOR

LIMKOKWING UNIVERSITY OF CREATIVE TECHNOLOGY
IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT
FOR
BACHELOR OF ARTS (HONS) IN ANIMATION
LIMKOKWING UNIVERSITY OF CREATIVE TECHNOLOGY
FEBRUARY / JUNE 2009

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First of all, to Allah, who made all things possible. Al'hamdhulillah.
A special thank goes to my helpful module facilitator, Miss. Nur Leila Khalid. The supervision and
support that she gave truly helped with the progression and smoothness of the dissertation.
Mr. Marvy Rey Sotto, for the guidance in the production stages, storyline conceptualization and
refining elements of animation to give a better understanding of visual communication to the public.
Furthermore, for his spiritual support and enlightening throughout author’s study.
Mdm. Noorhayati Saad for her informative assistance in awakening us to the future prospects of the
animation industry.
My grateful thanks go to the participants of both interviews; especially Mr. Liem Nguyen for his
contribution. Great deals of appreciation go to the participants of the questionnaire and the Focus
group discussion.
I would like to thank all my classmates for sharing knowledge and making my time of study
enjoyable.
Another vote of admiration goes to my family for their never ending support in my studies especially
my mom and dad, my aunts for finding people for interviews about the myth and of course my dear
siblings.
Lastly For his endless care and love, I thank my best friend.
Thank you!
_____________________________
The main idea of writing this report is to assist the author in executing his final project which is
based on a Maldivian myth called ‘Kandumathi Elhun’ or strange happening which occurs at sea. The
storyline contains elements which refer to the myth and the author has made a comedic story based
on some fundamentals of the myth. The author conducted research regarding topics related to his
final animation such as technical issues such special effects of water simulations, glowing orbs and
lighting for night scenes for proper execution in the development of animation. Furthermore, to
bring the feel of local content of Maldives, research on conceptual issues were done to understand
depict the myth of ‘Kandumathi Elhun’ in creation of the story, characters and the environment.
Other topics which were researched included cinematography, comedy in animation and issues
regarding animation targeted to children to enhance the effectiveness of animation.
There are various methods used to collect the data, respectively by qualitative and quantitative
methods. Qualitative methods of analysis such as literature reviews, interviews with an industry
expert and focus group discussions were done. Among quantitative methods were analysis of online
questionnaire survey on concept of the story and visuals. Additionally, S.W.O.T analysis for market
research was also done to evaluate various aspects of production and animation quality as
benchmark guidance.
Qualitative research will cover a very wide area of dissertation. First is the literature review covering
issues about the key research topics. The information derived for analysis were from the internet
and wide range of e-books since the author had no difficulty accessing the roaming knowledge data
base online and almost anything can be found online. Interviews were done with an industry expert
to troubleshoot technical issues about production and another interview with Maldivians to rectify
conceptual issues about the myth. Focus group discussions were done to clarify and understand
other people’s opinion on the storyline, characters, morals and what they would like to see in his
animation. Focus group research will give alternative solutions for production if any changes need to
be implemented later on.
Quantitative Analysis will cover the results derived from online survey about different areas of the
animation such as character designs, environment and information about how other people view
different types of animations and its impact on them. Besides that, S.W.O.T analysis was done, as
mentioned above to evaluate the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats to the author’s
animation in the animation market. It will also help in adaptation of techniques to increase the
effectiveness of animation overall.
Finally, a finishing conclusion with key information gathered to note what this research was able to
cover with regards to author’s objectives.
_____________________________
I | Acknowledgement ............................................................................................................
II | Abstract ...........................................................................................................................
III | Table of Contents............................................................................................................
1. Introduction ................................................................................................................... 1
2. Aim and Objectives ......................................................................................................... 3
3. Key Research Questions.................................................................................................. 4
4. Findings .......................................................................................................................... 5
4.1 INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................ 5
4.2 TARGET AUDIENCE ........................................................................................................... 7
4.3 QUALITATIVE RESEARCH .................................................................................................. 8
4.3.1 Literature Review ...................................................................................................... 8
4.3.2 Interview Feedback Summary ................................................................................. 53
4.3.3 Focus Group ............................................................................................................. 71
4.4 QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH.............................................................................................. 76
4.4.1 Online Questionnaire feedback summary ............................................................... 76
4.5 MARKET RESEARCH ...................................................................................................... 100
4.5.1 S.W.O.T Analysis .................................................................................................... 100
5. Conclusion .................................................................................................................. 106
Index .............................................................................................................................. 110
REFERENCES ....................................................................................................................... 110
BIBLIOGRAPHY .................................................................................................................... 131
APPENDIX ........................................................................................................................... 132
6. Project Design............................................................................................................. 135
6.1 PROJECT TIMELINE ....................................................................................................... 135
6.2 3D ANIMATION MAJOR PROJECT 2 .............................................................................. 135
Folk-poke Dissertation for Animation
Dissertation on Maldivian Myths, Conceptual & Technical Solutions for 3D Animation
Mauroof Ibrahim, A271025, BA (Hons) Animation, Faculty of Multimedia Creativity
This research will focus on various concepts of fairytales and myths by Maldivians, similar patterns in
storytelling of the specific Maldivian myths called ‘Kandumathi Elhun’. Finding information about the
happenings of this myth and researching on the occurrence to bust this myth is one of the many
objectives. Along with a brief history of Maldives, the author will discover how to take elements
from the folklore to create a short animation film capable of entertaining children and young people.
The research will also reflect on aspects such as how to create original content with regards to the
story; technically and conceptually hence it represents Maldivian Elements. Research on how to
make characters, environments will be studied and with this information derived will to help the
author create content distinctively.
Even though the story is based on a horrific phenomenon, the author wishes to twist this tale into a
comedy and take the full potential of animation to make an audience laugh. Ways to depict comedy
in animation and effective facial expressions will also be studied.
Another important sector of research is based on the effect of animation on children, to find the
effectiveness of animation and the drawbacks of showing certain types of violence in animation.
Author noted that understanding how to successfully combine all these elements is essential to
make the animation work and people to appreciate the work as original content.
Determining the problems that may come on the production arena and finding solutions for such
predicaments will be covered using systematic research methods. These include the articulation of
specific softwares to make the characters, special effects, environments and methods of rendering
so that the author could achieve the visual look as seen in Pixar movies. The research will also cover
how to technically do the above mentioned.
Chapter: 1. Introduction
Since new technology keeps on emerging, it will be fun and challenging to see what the animation
markets offers with respect to one’s own creative ideas. Adhering to one single way of production
such as using only 3D Studio Max, at this stage might be lethal, due to time constrains and therefore
the research will also focus on how to attain smooth workflow between animating programs, tools
and plugins.
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Lastly it will be a guide to show what can be achieved, learned and shared to produce an interesting
animation with a hint of comparison to professional animation industry outputs. This is a research
which can help the author in the production of his animation at a huge scale.
_________________________________
Chapter: 1. Introduction
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The main outcome of this dissertation will provide guidance in the process of making the final major
project in the following semester, Major Project 2.This research will act as a foundation for technical
and conceptual solutions when creating 3D Animation short film.
1. Discover the story behind Maldivian Myths to create conceptual elements for animation.
2. Learn how to create fun characters with distinctive cultural traits of Maldives.
3. Understand the application of art styles mimicking industry quality output.
4. Learn optimum ways to create stunning environments and special effects.
5. Study the workflow of rendering and compositing in terms of cinematography.
6. Understand the impact of animation on Children
Chapter: 2. Aim and Objectives
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Great animation are all about getting the strategy right and then executing that strategy effectively.
It is very important to know where you stand, and equally as importantly where your competitors
stand, in order to make the best decisions. That's when it's right to use key research questions in
order to focus on potential problems that might come across and deal with them systematically.
These research questions are divided into technical and conceptual quandaries to find solutions
likewise.
1. How to make water react (splash, ripple, flow, wave) when a certain reactor is introduced?
2. How to make a mystifying glowing orb in 3D?
3. How to light up a sunset and night scene?
4. What are the possible rendering methods to create a Renderman©-Pixar style shading in 3D
Studio Max?
1. What are the beliefs in Maldivian myths in relation mysteries at sea?

2. How to successfully execute comedy mood in terms of facial expression, anticipations and
body language?
Chapter: 3. Key Research Questions
3. How to decipher messages of morality from simple animations?

4. What are the factors to consider when making animations targeted to children?
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Research and analysis for dissertation were done using four methods. Firstly, a questionnaire was
prepared with questions regarding the conceptual art and style of animation to be used and the role
of animation in delivering moral messages to the public. This was done to evaluate the favoritism
between animation styles and understanding of the impact of animation on children. It was a
challenge to put both conceptual themed questions along with social scientific questions because
the author had to find an interesting was to introduce the whole concept of the story in relation with
Maldivian myths, comedy, violence, moral message and target audience. Therefore the questions
were divided into two sections.
One section deals with the concept and art of the 3D animation the other dealing with impact of
animation to children. So it had to be designed in such a way with examples of art so that the
respondents can visualize what they have been asked for. The answers were later analyzed to
extract information. The results were compiled as pie charts and percentages along with brief
explanation and comments from the author, to make it easier to compare the understanding levels
of respondents. Most of the respondents happy and willing to answer the questions once they knew
it were something about 3D animation. Some were very excited. Others were and eager to know
when this animation is going to be released. It was an opportunity to comprehend how most view
3D animation currently and where it’s heading in the near future.
Two separate Interviews were done. First interview dealt with people who were working in the field
of Animation. The author presented questions about technical and conceptual problems which he
wanted to clarify about. It was a hindrance to get in touch with some people or get an approval from
them for interview invitation because their schedules where busy. So much so few of the interviews
had to be made through online contact, either because they were unable to reach by means of
reasonable transport or they didn't want to spend too much of their time on a chatter. However this
Chapter: 4. Findings
was an opportunity to get information from professionals who have broad background knowledge
on what they are doing. The major comments, tips, tricks, ideas, advice and information derived are
analyzed and summarized in the Interview feedback summary of the report. The second part of the
interview summary is about the myth and it will cover conceptual issues regarding the story. It was
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easy to get in hold with the attendees of this interview because the author had close relations to
many people who had witnessed the strange phenomenon that will be depicted in the animation.
A Focus group was done to find the strengths and weaknesses of the story and also to find other
peoples perspectives. For better analysis, few people were brought into discussion to share their
information. An online conference was done with seven attendees to discuss about the designs and
much of the storyline alternatives. This study is articulated and looked deep into to understand the
alternative possibilities, if ever changes come into call.
Lastly, there is a S.W.O.T analysis to compare similar animations to find strengths, weaknesses,
Opportunities and threats for the animation to be done in the fore coming semester.
_____________________________
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Folklore contains elements of surprise and humor. It also has elements depicting the environment of
Maldives, the characterization of costumes worn in Maldives to show distinguishable identity. The
story deals with a fisherman and as the saying goes every Maldivian has the blood of fishermen.
Initial target of this animation is Maldivians.
Since the animation is a sort of a comedic gag, as a general rating, this animation is targeted to
children of age between 6 and 17. The author believes that he can achieve a universal bond through
the moral story of this animation. Therefore it is to entertain them, the children. However, it can be
still enjoyable to anyone who loves comic and comedy at the same time.
The report would especially help animators, animation students, and people who are producing,
designing and comedy based animations with a sudden twist. It can also help people who want to
understand the impact and implications animation of children and finally for those who love to learn
about other folklores. It is a statistical guide for the above mentioned audiences.
_____________________________
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Further investigations and findings on folklore, technical and conceptual solutions have to be done in
order for a comprehensive evaluation. Reviewing will actually act as a refining filter for the
information gathered on quantitative research earlier. Achieving documentary evidence on the
truths of folklore, how people work in the animation industry, their techniques, and strategies and
how it has been received by the public, ranging from the producers to users to the susceptible
readers who seek information, is of great necessity. As accordance to the key research questions,
the author will focus on finding information related in solutions on the technical and conceptual part
of animation in this sector so that the reader can easily follow the production workflow on
animation and the prospects of this entire research. The secondary sources will act as a augment to
the qualitative analysis done. The main reason of going through written document is to cover the
topics listed below.
1. Maldivian History and Myths
2. Creating Comedy Mood
3. Cinematography of Sunsets and Night scenes in 3D
4. Special Effects
5. Optimized Rendering using V-ray
6. Animated Violence and impacts on Child behavior

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Maldives is a country made up of a collection of small islands, situated on the equatorial line,
geographically below India, in the Indian Ocean. Maldivians are known as the people of Maldives
and their ethnic origins are very unclear till date. Though it is believed Maldives were settled by
people who came from South Asia.
'The origin of the first settlers of the Maldives still remains a mystery. The historians date
early settlers back to 5th century BC with the Aryan immigrants coming from the
neighboring countries India and Sri Lanka.' (Maldiveisles.com 2010)
Figure 1: Hassan Nooreddine II Iskander King of Twelve Thousand Isles and

Sultan of the Maldives (1938)
Source: (maldiveisle.com 2010)
Research (ibid.) shows that the Maldivians were Buddhists before the country embraced Islam. After
the conversion to Islam, the Maldives avowals of a recorded history that is rich and colorful. The
system of government ruling was a monarchy with Sultans as sovereigns though Sultanas or queens
ruled on rare occasions. Traders from Arabia, India, Sri Lanka and Persia visited the Maldives to
exchange goods. Slaves were also brought from Africa. Quite often, sailors were shipwrecked in the
treacherous reefs of Maldives either because the reefs were shallow and difficult to sail through or
the foreigners are not aware of the formation of the reefs in Maldives.
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The author notes that these visitors contributed much to the language and culture and ethnic origins
of the Maldives. However, the visitors influence did not change the identity of the country as a
secluded haven virtually unknown to the rest of the world.
There were times when Maldives was also invaded by other powerful nations of the world, in their
coopted attempt to colonize. Among them, the most well-known invasion and ruling were from the
Dutch and later the British. Neither of them ruled Maldives for long because the country was majorly
used as a port for ships which travelled through the Arabian seas into the Indian Ocean to reach the
southern part of Asia. More like a resting ground for travelers.
Answers.com (2010) summaries this in its Columbian Encyclopedia, the foreign invasions stating
that:
'Starting in the 16th century, with the coming of the Portuguese, the Maldives were
intermittently under European influence. In 1887 they became a British protectorate ... [and]
Maldives obtained complete independence as a sultanate in 1965, but in 1968 ... was ended
and a republic was declared.'
It wasn’t until 1965 that Maldives declared its true independence. It was a treaty signed by the
prime minister of Maldives at that time with the ambassadors from British. Ellis et. al. (2006)
mentioned in their book about travel guide to Maldives that, it was in July 26 th 1965 Maldives gained
independence with the agreement by then prime minister Ibrahim Nasir and the UK High
commissioner in Ceylon.
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Figure 2: Agreement that gave Maldives independence (1965, July 26)
Source: (maldivesroyalfamily.com 2010)
Ibrahim Nasir, later became the authoritarian president (Statemaster.com 2005) since 1968, was
removed from office and replaced by the more progressive Maumoon Abdul Gayoom in 1978.
Gayoom was elected to a sixth five-year term in 2003 and after almost 30 years of his presidency,
Mohamad Nasheed rules Maldives as of 2008.
Figure 3: Maldivian National Flag soaring in the capital city Male’

Source: (thiswaymaldives.com n.d)
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All countries around the world have a tale to tell. The tales usually are tailored to suit the folks of a
country and some tales are imaginary legends which people tend to believe are true over time.
Likewise Maldives also is of no exception. Maldivian folklore tales and myths generally roll around
some distinctive areas and they have significance to why so. Although this part of literature review
will focus more on mythical stories about the Maldivian seas, it is of equal importance to know other
myths as well.
Firstly there are myths about the origin of Maldives and how it came into existence. There are only a
few authentic books and sources regarding the matter. However a book by Romero-Frias Xavier has
an exceptionally thorough study on the local behavior and ancient myths. It describes (Romero-Frias
1999) the main myths of origin are reflecting the dependence of the Maldivians on the coconut tree
and the tuna fish. A legend says that the first inhabitants of the Maldives died in great numbers, but
a great sorcerer or ‘fanditha man’ made coconut trees grow out of the skulls of the buried corpses of
the first settlers. Therefore the coconut tree is said to have an anthropomorphic origin according to
Maldivian lore (ibid.). The coconut tree occupies a central place in the present-day Maldives national
emblem.
Figure 4: Maldivian National Emblem
Source: (maldivesroyalfamily.com 2010)

‘For the coconut palms there seems to be no restrictions. It is found almost everywhere and have
contributed significantly to the local lifestyle, even earning the status of the national tree.’
(Thisismaldives.com 2010) adds to the importance of coconut tree in the culture. The myth must
have a correlation to the biological significance it brings to the well-hood of the country (ibid.).
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The tuna fish (Romeo-Frias 1999) is said to have been brought to the Maldivian waters by a mythical
seafarer (maalimi) called Bodu Niyami Kalēfanu who went close to the Dagas (the mythical tree at
the end of the world) to bring this valuable fish. The author could not find any article to back-up the
story of this myth.
This is just one myth about the origin of Maldives. The author noted that the ethnic origin being
somewhere from Sri Lanka, there could be possibilities on the movement of Srilankans to Maldives.
Further (Majid 2010) reviewing led to the find that the first known origin of Maldivians was from the
lunar dynasty of Sri lanka named Lord Koi mala the King. He settled in an island and named it
Rasgetheemu, but later through many incidents came to Male’ and ordered his father who was the
King is Srilanka to ship men to live with him.
Figure 5: Maldivian images of the Buddha in a buried temple excavated on Thoddu Island in Ari Atoll. Such finds of pre-
Islamic relics are systematically vandalized and destroyed.
Among the other famous legends Source: (maldivesroyalfamily.com

and myths 2010) tales in Maldives.
comes the most popular
They are about evil spirits and their interaction with the islanders. These stories contain always a
lesson in some form or the other. Certain actions became necessary in order to avoid trouble with
the spirit world. Propp (1984) denotes that these patterns of behavior, like the importance of
keeping a secret, as well as the avoidance of certain areas of the island and of inauspicious times,
were an essential component of the ancient popular spirituality.
Propp (1984) accords that the Maldivian spirits can take human form, even if it is not known
whether they have a human origin or not. While in human shape, the malevolence of those spirits is
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often masked by beauty and youth. Certain Maldivian evil spirits (handi) have the appearance of
charming, beautiful women. Some people believe they are Jinns or Genies (Jinns). ‘Many Maldivian
people are convinced of the existence of various spirits (Jinns), and such forces as the evil eye…’
(Hussain, 1991: p103) strengthens Propps implication.
Adams (1865) also predicted that, ‘These stories about female spirits have their origin in the ancient
Dravidian mother-goddess worship and they point to the ethnic origin of the Maldive people.’
(p.408)
‘Other evil spirits which are the subject of many folk stories in the Maldives ‘fureytha’ are
crude monsters coming from the ocean waters. The tales about sea monsters are part of the
local cultural background, which is characterized by the oceanic environment in which, along
the millennia, the Maldivian culture developed.’ (Hussain, 1993: p 88)
Author recalls of such stories told by his grandparents and the relativity between the cultures
adhered due to the belief in the existence of such spirits, creatures and monsters. It has positively
localized thoughts within the country, bringing within original content. Negative aspects of these
beliefs are that elderly people are not willing to accept logical explanations busting of these myths
and they rather stick with their country folktale as comfortably even though it effects religious
beliefs as well.
Holidaysinmaldives.com (2010) pointed out that people of the Maldives follow certain spirits like
Dhevi, Vigani, Baburu Kujjaa, Fureytha, Avahtehi and Jinni as their gods and goddesses. Whereas
Hussain (1988) agrees stating that, ‘…these range from tales about jinnis and other supernatural
beings to accounts of seafaring, health and sickness, and animal fables. A rich fund of such folk tales
exists…’ (p. 86)
The review will focus on mythical phenomenon on local flora and fauna next. There is the myth
about mysteries at sea. Often people tend to see fireballs. ‘Aligulha’ (Rasheed 1998) or fireballs are
another of those inexplicable phenomena from the spirit world. Numerous sightings and tales have
been told, even in our own times and many fishermen have told tales about these fireballs.
Moreover there is a pattern of similarity in the fireballs' behavior. They tend to suddenly appear out
of nowhere. In comparison to the description above, Kew (2010) describes something similar that,
‘.. fireballs, are apparitions from the world of ‘Jinns’—spirits under the guise of flame [and]
an engaging fisherman motored up to our boat and described a phenomenon he’d recently
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witnessed while working with his crew...One twilight, he was tormented by one of these
‘Jinns’ appearing as a fireball, first clinging to the mast then jouncing atop the sea surface
aside the ship, taunting its crew.’
The two authors concur on the same point that fireballs do exist but is seen widely by local
fishermen. The author feels that these fireballs are not actual fire, but some sort of light produced
by a natural cause. Nevertheless the peculiar myth about the appearance of the fireball is a trigger
to another unexplainable event at sea. In conjunction with fireballs another phenomenon commonly
experienced among seafarers is ‘Kandumathi Elhun’. The author investigated why so.
Figure 6: A fireball depicted by a Maldivian artist at deviantart.com
Source: (lockaduda.deviantart.com 2007)
‘Many have claimed to have been victims of ‘Kandumathi Elhun’ where your ‘dhoni’ (boat)
appears to be travelling for hours but actually stays in the same place. Or the dhoni may be
travelling in circles although the compass indicates otherwise. During these experiences,
people claim to see dead bodies and coffins floating nearby. A place notorious for this
phenomenon is the channel around Hanyaameedhoo and Eriadhoo in Ari Atoll.’ (Rasheed
1998)
‘These things just cannot be explained with existing scientific explanations. It depends on
what you believe and what you want to believe. Fantastic things may materialize if you wish
or expect it to happen, “a folklore expert said. "Because there is magic inherent in all of us”.’
(Rasheed 1998)
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To prove if it really does occur, further reviewing was done only on ‘Kandumathi Elhun’. Masters
(2006) questions that,
‘I have heard people talk about this. *From+ people who have actually been in this situation.
But how well has this information been collected and disseminated? Has there been any
attempt by Maldivians to understand this phenomenon or is it yet another unknown and
unexplained occurrence left to the ‘fanditha verin’ (sorcerers) for the mere reason that it is
not readily explainable?’ (p.240). The statement denotes of the incidents but an explanation
for the incidents have been unattainable so far.
Maldives.4t.com (2004) has defined ‘Kandumathi Elhun’ as a phenomenon uncharacteristic to the

sea and known to afflict seafaring travelers. It (phenomenon) manifests in diverse forms; a glowing
ball of light, a dead body with the shroud, a ship full of lamps, breakers, reefs or even a heavy
shower of rain. (It should be noted however, that in all cases the rainwater is salty!) When possessed
it manifests, usually in one of these forms, around the vessel. In extreme cases, it is known to even
manifest on the vessel itself. If the possession is from the rear of the vessel, the speed is favorably
affected while; a forward manifestation drastically reduces it.
Besides, blogs on the internet has some valuable information. One blogger by the name Moyameeha
(2007) says that, ‘…and sometimes shows supernatural powers by means of Kandumathi Elhun and
Vigani Erun (Apparitions) or Kandu Fureytha (Crude Sea monsters) or even Rannamaari (Sea Monster
as like the Seven headed hydra in Greek Mythology but having one head instead of seven)....these
are the amazing seas..’ describing his view of Maldivian seas.
Fortunately, the author came across an explanation where a Maldivian blogger suggested the
relation between Lantern fish and Bioluminescence. The explanation made a foundation on the
beliefs of the myth and may act as a scientific remark.
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Figure 7: Bioluminescent Beach
Source: (ohjoy.org 2009)
Unfortunately (Fish 2009) have never got the chance to see a real lantern fish, or any other fish that
lit up deep in the ocean yet and wondered how they are able to emit such light. This phenomenon is
referred to as ‘Bioluminescence’, in which a compound called ‘Luciferin’ is oxidized with the help of
Luciferase enzyme that results in a molecule which emits light.
He claimed that the nature of Luciferin (Fish 2009) and Luciferase may differ from species to species,
but the reaction is analogous. Those underwater organisms that exhibit this feat, have a special
organ in them called the photophores capable of emitting light. Again complexity of this organ varies
from species to species; it could be just a bunch of glandular-like light emitting cells packed together,
a simple glandular cup that holds bacterial culture (mostly vibrio or photobacterium cultures) that
produces light, or the photophore may also have lenses to focus the light, a color filter, or an
adjustable diaphragm of pigment cells.
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Figure 8: Bioluminescence observed in Jelly fish
Source: (gakuranman.com 2007 / io9.com 2009)
‘There are several hypotheses formulated as to why these fishes emit light; most believe the
light is used to capture food, or as a defense mechanism against predators. Bioluminescent
algae are (almost certainly) what Maldivians see when they encounter so-called
‘Kandumathi Elhun’ in which the ocean seems to glow’. (ibid.)
This is just the brink of the explanation. Author will interview people who claimed to have been
manifested by this phenomenon to find out more and the answers derived from them will be
summarized in the interview feedback summary to find the co-relation between these two analytical
findings.
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Comedy is a term spoken widely by everyone and yet, few know the meaning behind the word
comedy. One of the most concise definitions about comedy was found in the Columbia Dictionary.
According to Columbia Dictionary as cited by Answers.com (2010), the definition of Comedy is
‘fictitious work that aims principally to provoke laughter. In contrast to tragedy, which seeks to
involve in profound emotions and sympathies, comedy attempts to entertain mainly through
criticism and ridicule of human behavior and institutions. Although usually used in reference to the
drama, in the Middle Ages comedy was associated with vernacular language and a happy ending’. In
comparison to the definition above, it is a common ideology to say that comedies have happy
endings. Scott (2005) introduces his idea of comedy stating that,
‘On the one hand, comedy is reasonably graspable literary form, most properly applied to
drama that uses stock character types in a scenario where some kind of problem must be
resolved. Comedies end happily, often concluding with communal celebration such as a feast
or a marriage. We might add that we would expect a comedy to be funny, and that during
the course of its action no one will be killed.’ (p.1).
Author notes happy endings are a common base for most comedies though contemporary forms of
comedies show otherwise.
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When planting comedy in film, it is essential that the soul of a good comedy is met. Successful
comedy has more than the laughable literature and actions, but a good comedy material must
contain some other very important elements. Creativity for instance is a must. People don’t like to
see the normal watered-down concepts all the time.
‘In fact in television and films as well there is very little ‘new’ and innovative stuff out there
and even when new stuff does come out the producers seems to want to change it so much
it isn't funny…*or+ have we all gotten so lazy that we can't challenge ourselves to figure out
new comedy?’ (Caleb 2007)
In agreement to Caleb, Soyouwanna.com (2008) implies that, despite the old rule of show business
where tragedy and timing is comedy, a good comedy is not an easily achievable. Likewise, the great
comedy films encompass some kind of subversion, be it cross-dressing, political incorrectness, or the
mocking of disasters. It's the challenging traditional values that make us giggle uncomfortably in our
seats. Also a quotation goes ‘Sex and Creativity is often seen by dictators as subversive activities’
(Jong 2010)
There (Squidoo.com 2010) are various forms or genres of comedy, ranging from Satire, Parody, Black
comedy, scatological humor, Comedy of manners, Romantic comedy and Screwball comedy. Each of
these norms has a unique way of delivering comical message through voluminous art mediums
known to men. However, the author intends to concentrate on the Screwball comedy and how it can
be depicted in animated short films.
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There is a vast amount of information regarding the proper execution of comedy in Animations, for
both 2D and 3D. Highlighting the most stringent outlines and rules is the central attention in this
section of the review.
‘Comedy is assumed to be at the core of the most animated films, seemingly, its intrinsic but
largely uninterrogated vocabulary. Theories of comedy have proliferated ever since
humankind started to laugh, and no one is any closer knowing why human beings make
absurd noises in response to the innumerable things that amuse them’ (Wells 1998: p.127)
He denoted that almost all animations are made for laughter and main reason of making animations
is to make people laugh. Animation is quite a flexible form of art medium, and intricate techniques
as described in the following paragraphs are used to make animations appealing and fun to watch.
The anticipation to laugh when watching an animation is practically semi-automatic.
Figure 9: Master of comedy Charlie Chaplin
Source: (thewordofna.wordpress.com 2009)
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Shaw (2008) explains that comedy can be attained in animation by very important techniques. They
are created by exaggerated expressions and by studying their timing. She also points that leaning the
great masters of timing like Charlie Chaplin, Laurel and Hardy, Buster Keaton, Phil Silvers as Sgt Biko,
or Tommy Cooper, Eric Morecambe of Morecambe and Wise, and Jaques Tati’s Monsieur Hulat
because their incomes depended on getting a laugh. They knew how long to hold a look, or when to
put a shrug, or an eye movement to convey a big moment.
Technical implementation of this technique is elaborated very clearly by Shaw. Cartoon (Shaw 2008)
‘takes’, comedy dashes, eye-lines and blinking plays critical roles in bringing the comic within an
animation.
Shaw (2008) further clarified that, ‘If you are doing a ‘take’ as in a comic reaction, the character can
anticipate, pulling their head down, hunching their shoulders, and then turn their head toward the
action…*and+ concentrate on the body movement first and the expression at the end…gives more
impact [but+ the expression on the face should only change at the end of the move…*though+ it can
be extended with a small anticipation.’ (See Figure 10)
Figure 10: (a) daydreaming (b) Distractio: Something causes her to glance left. (c) Nothing has registered, she has
returned to to her original pose. (d) Realisation. The jaw drops and eyes widen. (e) Anticipation. The girl hunches down,
so the next move will have more impact. Note: the pony tail is following the movement down. (f) Action and reaction!
The arms swing in the opposite direction to the head so to counter the weight shift. Courtesy of ScaryCat Studio
Source: (Stop Motion: Craft Skill for Animation 2008)
Comedy (Shaw 2008) dash can be fun to try, with big anticipation pose and then rushing with speed
lines but are conventionally used in 2D. Good eye-lines make the character alive and think about the
focus of the characters vision of distance. It is quite a good idea to blink when the head moves, for
example the character might take a blink as the head draws back after a ‘take’. (ibid.)
‘Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnson, veteran animators at the Disney Studios, suggest that
Disney understood that the fundamental principle of comedy was that, ‘the personality of
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the victim of a gag determines just how funny the whole incident will be’ (Thomas &
Johnson 1981: p.32).
In relevance, Wright (2005) confirms that, ‘the funniest comedy develops out of a character’s
personality’ (p. 182)
Additionally Wright (2005) stated that, ‘in comedy we set up situation, increase in tension,
and suddenly we’re stopped dead by something unexpected. Emotion gushes out, tension is
relieved and exploded into laughter… *And] it will work if you set up the gag right.’ (p. 181)
Extremity seems to be the key to provocative comedy. Supplementary to extremity is the energy of
the comedy. Some useful (Wright 2005) factors about energy and attitude of audience and states,
whether the situation is tragic or funny depends on the audience’s attitude, whether that attitude is
dominated by pity or animosity. The experts claim that kids naturally laugh at cruelty and boasting.
They laugh when a hoax is played or when others are in some way made uncomfortable. Of course,
in children’s media we need to consider good taste and good role models as well as use common
sense in what we want children to see. Humor for kids is politically correct, but that does not mean
it’s boring!
Generally for any comedic animation, author concludes affirming with elements required to make a
good comedy that, foremost, is the phenomenal happy ending. All comical animations must possess
some form of happy ending. These happy endings can be changed depending on the target audience
for the animation. Next are the creativity and the twist brought about in characters personality
through the storyline. Often contains subversive components such as political mockery, cross
dressing, provocative actions and language, adding to the much noted flavor of comedy. Extreme
actions, exaggerations and takes should be present as well as most importantly; timing which
conjunction to the tragic fun it brings to the audience.
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Figure 11: (left) Kung Fu Panda defying laws of physics (right) Ice age, characters with extreme actions
Source: (filmofilia 2009)
Author also observed that animation comedy is different from other forms of animation because of
the characters personality. The comedy uses motion and misuses the laws of physics therefore
create the unexplainable energy to laugh (Figure 11). Learning from reference is the way to develop
the understanding of animation and the relation to comedy such as watching old silent films from
the great masters of comedy. These tactics can be applied in 3D Animation, environments and films.
Nonetheless, if you are making an animated comedy for kids there are no specific restrictions but be
careful on showing what we want them to see. Wright (2005) quotes ‘Never write down to the Kids’
(p. 182)
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The animation will have scenes that may range from sunset to night. Proper lighting of the scenes
can help deliver believable ambience and atmospheres for the animation. Doing night scenes and
scenes with limited lighting is a challenge in cinematography. Pulling out a good shot is not always
easy. This section of the review will look at some of the ways in which animators use to light up the
scenes which are taken at night and sunsets using 3D Studio Max and After Effects. Apart from
technical solutions in creating the lighting and mood plus cinematography will cover some of the
very important principles of composition.
Considering that the scene in sunset, it is set on an open environment and in this case the open sea.
There are water reflections and to take care of when doing the lighting so that the water and the
environment has relation to each other and not seen as two different objects having different
properties. Both the water reflections and the lighting have to match to make a convincing
environment.
The first technique discussed requires two softwares to create the sunset. Even though there might
be backward incompatibility between the programs, this method makes a stunning 3D sunset using
Dreamscape and 3D Studio Max. It is crucial to get to introduce into newer programs since the
animation market is not build entirely on 3D Studio Max. Dreamscape is a sophisticated plugin for 3D
Studio Max which helps to create super realistic lighting for environments without having to use the
traditional method of scene lighting inside the program itself.
Pop explains in his (CGtutsplus.com 2009) tutorial about creating sunsets that Dreamscape uses a
light called Sun to create the first light. Using the Environment Panel (Keyboard shortcut ‘8’), and
assigning the Dreamscape plugin into the Atmosphere is the next step. Afterwards, adjusting the
Atmosphere Parameters is all what has to be done in order to create the scene.
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Author recalls the time needed to make this type of lighting is fairly less compared to several lighting
adjustments needed when using lights such as Omni, Target lights and Skylights in 3D Studio Max.
Restrictions to use plugins only arise when the workload has to be shifted into different computers
which do not have the plugin installed. (eg: University Computer Laboratories)
Figure 12: Adding the Dreamscape plugin to the atmosphere and adjusting the setting to create a sunset.
(Source: cgtutsplus.com 2009)
Clouds, Haze, Daylight settings can be adjusted to the users preference. The plug-in is really easy to
use and gives a wide range of options to control. Moreover, this plugin also can produce very alluring
seascapes and will help reduce the production time. Although author is familiar with a few methods
of making realistic waters in 3D Studio Max, this is also one of the methods to experiment.
There are more steps to create the sea than the lighting. Pop’s (ibid.) tutorial covered how to make
the sea water by playing around with the Material using the Dreamscape plugin. Dreamscape adds a
material called Dreamscape: Sea Material to the Material Editor. Before assigning this material to
anything such as a plane, create an Adaptive Mesh using Dreamscape and then place a Camera to
shoot the scene. Then adjust the Wave settings under the Adaptive Mesh Parameters.
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Figure 13: (left top) Creating Adaptive Mesh, (right top) Adjusting and assigning the camera to the Adaptive Mesh
(left bottom) Wave Parameters (right bottom) Material for the Mesh
‘Lastly In the “Material Editor”, under the “DreamScape: SeaMaterial Parameters” rollout,
set the “Sharpness” value to ‘10′, change the “Sky Color Type” to “DreamScape Sky”, and the
“Underwater Color Type” to “DreamScape SubSurface”. *and+ In the “Bump Map” slot, add a
“DreamScape: Sea Bump” map to add more details to the waves. Assign this material to the
“Sea Surface”.’ (Cgtutsplus.com 2009)
Figure 14: Material for the sea water

Adjusting the camera angles and the placing of the elements is up to the creator. Author will be able
to create something close to the image shown below when the methods are followed correctly.
Although the waves look very rough, the parameters for the waves can be attuned to show a calmer
sea. By far, this method generates the type of Renderman © art style in Pixar animations.
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Figure 15: Sunset created using Dreamscape and 3D Studio Max
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Amongst the few online tutorials available to create the sunsets, another very interesting method of
creating the mood was the traditional method by using the inbuilt lighting system in 3D Studio Max.
During the interview, Mr. Nguyen suggested the author that anyone could create the feel of Pixar-
look using the features inside the program itself, it will be very helpful to know how a sunset can be
done without using any plugins. Additionally this method also uses the Video Post feature the author
wanted to learn more about and actually how to create an animated setting sun.
The sun is made (Wijaya n.d) using a cylinder and an Omni light placed inside the cylinder to create
the light. However the cylinder must be textured using bright Diffuse color like yellow to make it look
like a sun. The water can be created on a simple plane, then by applying Raytrace and Bump
Material. Bump can be animated to form the waves. Nevertheless this method lacks the realism; the
author was looking for besides this method does not produce 3D images for professional output.
Nonetheless Video Post feature is explained in Wijaya’s (ibid.) method and creates glow to the
objects. To use this feature, simply assign a number for the Object under the Object Properties, G-
buffer. Video Post can be found under Rendering Menu. The steps which follow afterwards are very
technical and can only produce results when rendered. The glow effect is not visible without
rendering the scene and therefore the author remarked it as a disadvantage over the Dreamscape
method.
Figure 16: (left) Assign an ID for the object you wish to glow (right) Video Post feature
Source: (escalight.com n.d)

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The technical method described (ibid.) was opening Video Post and to click Add Scene Event button.
Click OK to accept default setting (View from Camera).
‘Then Click the Add Image Filter Event button. From drop down list choose Lens Effect Glow.
Click Setup button. In Filter, use Edge to make glow effect appear only in object
surroundings. Then click OK. Finally, click Add Image Output Event button. In opened
window, click Files button, then choose filename, folder and animation format. When
finished, click OK. In Video Post window, you will have a series of Video Post event like image
below. Finally, click Execute button to render the animation.’ (ibid.)
The resulting output is not as appealing as the other methods. Author denoted even though 3D
Studio Max has some inbuilt features some plug-ins work in favor of production and often create
beautiful work. Understanding the backbone workflow inside the program is essential but the power
of catalytic plugins should not be neglected altogether.
Figure 17: A Test Render using Video Post glow

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Night scenes have limited lighting as mentioned before and the technical methods vary from sunset
scene or any other scene which contains brighter lighting. Author feels that the most difficult part of
making a good night scene is managing the composition and making things inside the scene visible
enough without making the scene awfully bright. People should be able to recognize objects quickly
if a night scene is established successfully.
The author revised some online tutorials about creating convincing night scenes similar to that of
night scenes in Pixar movie, the Monsters Inc.
Figure 18: Night scene lighting as seen in Monster Inc by Pixar © movie.
Source: (theanimationempire.blogspot.com 2008)
The rendering for the night environment is done using a renderer called V-Ray. V-ray will be
explained in the next section of the review. There are five simple steps in making the lighting.
(Cgdigest.com 2008) states that, the rendering method is for creating lighting mood for exterior
night rendering. The article covered some basic instructions which can be applied overall, though the
tutorial was showing an exterior of a house at night.
Conversely, these lighting principles are applicable for almost all exterior night. The amount of
ambience and placement of the light can be decided depending on the environment design and
location.
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The artist (ibid.) described that the first step is choosing an image of a night sky and placing the
image inside 3D Studio Max Environment Slot. In the Render setup dialogue box, assign V-ray as a
renderer.
‘In the V-ray settings, check global illumination, select lightcache for secondary bounces,
irradiance map for primary. In the global switches tab, make sure that ‘default lights’ is
unchecked. Last but not least go to the V-ray environment slot and check “GI environment
(skylight) override. In the slot right beside put a gradient (dark blue in the upper slot, a
lighter blue in the middle and a pale orange or purple in the lower position)’ (ibid.)
Figure 19 below shows the image of the options the author tested using 3D Studio Max.
Figure 19: Screenshot of Natural Light options to assign in V-ray to make night lighting
Once setting up the environmental lights are done, further lights, such as artificial lights from lamps,
stars, or the sky can be added and adjusted. For the purpose of the tutorial, the artist has used
spherical lights to fill up his scene and varied colors, intensity, tints and the sphere radius of the
light. The artist also claimed that, the important thing to keep in mind at this point was that artificial
light can look different from one case to another depending on many factors (intensity, color
temperature, size of the space that is actually lit, etc.) Therefore avoid putting a light source and
instance (A way of duplicating objects while maintaining original properties in 3D Studio Max) it all
over the place.
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Figure 20: (left) Placement of lights (yellow spheres), (right) Resulting rendered image
Source: (cgdigest.com 2008)
At this point (ibid.) the lights are not spreading out. Planar lights in V-ray system can be used to
spread lights coming through geometrical objects like windows. Author’s intending to produce
glowing orbs and therefore he comprehends that V-ray sphere lights can be used to generate almost
all the environmental lighting he articulates to use in the production.
The last step is color grading using After Effects. Though the tutorial explained in terms of Adobe
Photoshop, the same touches can be brought about using After Effects. The end result is an
astounding beautiful night exterior. Provided the author follows the same techniques, he can expect
to see the same results though the environment is based at sea. There are other renderers such
Mental Ray having the capabilities similar to V-ray.
Figure 21: The difference between the normal render and adjusted image (right) using filters
(Source: cgdigest.com 2008)
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This method refers to the Daylight Illumination system found in Mental-Ray renderer in 3D Studio
Max. Polygonblog.com (2010) claims that it can mimic the real world sun. Mental-Ray is a renderer
which comes along with 3D Studio Max and doesn’t need to be installed separately onto the
operating system unlike V-ray plugin. Mental-ray is a demanding plugin despite the competitive third
party plugins from various vendors.
This method worked pretty well, when author ran a series of test renders even with the default
settings in 3D Studio Max version 2010. The process of creating the 3D ocean with night lighting is
very simple though the result seems complex.
Before creating anything, (Polygonblog.com 2010) the default renderer has to be changed from
Default Scanline Renderer to Mental-Ray Renderer. The ocean is created using a plane followed by a
Target Camera to set the view of the scene over the plane. Then Arch & Design Material: Water,
Reflective Surface material is assigned to the formerly created plane. Figure 22 shows the steps in
attaining the material and assembling the Daylight lighting system to the scene.
Figure 22: 1. Click ‘Get Material’ button and select (double-click) ‘Arch & Design (mi)’ from the list. 2. Select the ocean
plane and assign the material to it. 3. Select template from the drop-down list: Water, Reflective Surface
Source: (polygonblog.com 2010)

However, the Daylight Illumination system cannot be found in the default lighting system in the
creating panel, instead the Daylight Illumination system is the system panel. The light must be
placed in the top view. The following Parameters mentioned in Polygonblog.com (2010) can be
applied on the Light Modifier to get a rough lighting effect initially.
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‘Sunlight: mr Sun, Skylight: mr Sky (A new dialog appears. 3ds Max suggests that you use mr
Physical Sky. Just click YES. If the dialog doesn’t appear, apply the setting manually
(Rendering > Environment… > Common Parameters > Background > Environment Map
Position: Manual (this setting allows us to place the sun manually, instead of using real world
location and time)’ (ibid.)
The author notified that the method used in the mental ray lighting system is very efficient
compared to the traditional lighting method to create the sunset. The whole beach and environment
can be simply created using the Daylight Illumination system. When tested, the render time is also
significantly better despite the complexity of the rendered image. Figure 23 below shows the default
test render author did during the study. The total render time was less than four seconds.
Figure 23: First test Render
Horizon values can be adjusted (ibid.) under mr Sky Advanced Parameters, Ocean color can be
changed by changing the color of the material, size of the waves can be adjusted by playing with the
Ocean lume Settings. Moreover, Hue and saturation of the sky can be manipulated to give the feel of
the daytime the author desires. Interestingly the Sun (light) created before can be moved around to
produce different times of the day and Haze can be introduced to produce the feel of realism.
Author studied that breath-taking changes can be brought through the Mental-Ray exposure control
which allows the user to control the saturation, colors, overall lighting similar to that of a digital
camera. The user interface is pretty self-explanatory and through time and study a person can get
very engaged in mental ray capabilities likewise that of V-ray Renderer.
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Figure 24: Test render of Night Lighting
The author was able to create the above image, see Figure 24. with the help of this method. A
combination of all these methods can deliver a great looking night scene for the animation.
Understanding different techniques and making the best of each technique will also create original
content. The study of lighting for both sunset and night scenes has resulted in obtaining harmonious
solutions able to mock once again the Renderman © style visuals in Pixar animations.
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The project contains mystifying glowing lights or orbs. The fisherman is curious to touch the glowing
light because of the beauty of it. Therefore the author also reviewed online tutorials on how to
create a beautiful, magical orb.
The simplest method reviewed to create glowing orbs was by using Mental-ray renderer and making
a material out of Arch & Design (mi). In agreement to Polygonblog.com tutorial reviewed for night
lighting, Tribalwar.com (2004) mentions the same techniques that,
‘Definitely add a Glow to the object, could even put a point/Omni light in the middle of the
object but Self Illumination, Glow and Radiosity should do what you want without any need
for real lights’
Figure 25: Test render of Glowing Orbs
To create the glowing orb (Polygonblog.com 2010) create a sphere then in the Material Editor get
the Material called Arch & Design (mi) and assign this material to the sphere. Set the Material Diffuse
Color as pure white. Scroll down to Self Illumination (Glow) settings and ON the Self Illumination,
with Luminance value of 1000. Then create an Omni light and place the light inside the sphere.
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Since Omni light is a standard light, the Photographic exposure settings has to be changed.
‘Change the mr Photographic Exposure Control settings, Physical scale: Unitless: 1500 [and
then go to Omni Light Modifier Panel] and apply the following parameters to it: Multiplier:
20 and Decay to Type: Inverse Square and set Start to value 10. [Lastly] Drag and drop the
Glare shader (Rendering > Render Setup > Renderer > Camera Effects > Camera Shaders >
Output > Glare) to an empty material slot in the Material Editor (make sure to select
“instance” when asked)’ (ibid.)
Author tested out a combination of both methods and was satisfied with the result he achieved. The
technical solution for the glowing orbs was simple. Further adjustments can be depending on the
optimization needed when rendering the final animation. Mental-ray capabilities and V-ray
capabilities run in close combat with each other and choosing the Renderer with the most
experience will determine the quality of the animation in the next semester.
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Water can be made and animated using several methods, but attaining simulations of water when
something is interacting with water is different. Here the author will investigate methods in creating
water simulations because the fisherman and the monstrous fish interacts with water therefore
splashes and ripples will be created.
For creating simulations such as mentioned above, the easiest approach is using reactor built inside
3D Studio Max without using third party plugins. The aim of this review is to get information about
the capability of the software without external plugins though there are many plugins available and
author will also look into the possibilities of using them for this matter briefly.
The effect of water and how to simulate the interaction between 3D boat and a water plane,
creating the waves, ripples and particle splashes is evaluated in this section. The idea is to execute
this technique in the animation.
Cangelosi (2009) showed in his tutorial that, after creating water plane, Reactor was used to create
the simulations and Particle System was used to create the dynamic displacement of water. The
plane is created with many small segments thus it can show modifications when needed. For testing
purposes of the water plane reaction, a sphere is created as the testing object as shown in Figure 26
below.
Figure 26: Creation of water plane and testing object (sphere) Figure 27: Creation of Water Space Warp
Source: (max.cgcookie.com 2009) Source: (max.cgcookie.com 2009)
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Then under the Helpers Panel, choose Reactor (ibid.) from the dropdown menu to find Rigid Body
Collection (RBCollection). Create the RBCollection controller in the Viewport. RBCollection is used to
assign the object(s) which are responsible for the simulation (the sphere in this care) as stimuli.
Under the modification Panel for the RBCollection, Pick the sphere to Add it to the RBCollection
Properties. While the sphere is selected, go to Utilities Panel and enable reactor. Afterwards change
the properties of the reactor (sphere) Mass to any value desired.
Lastly, as in Figure 27 in the Space Warps Panel, (ibid.) and from the dropdown menu, once again
select reactor and choose Water as the reacting (receiver). This enables to create a Mesh which can
show the simulations as well as act as the Mesh deformer for the water plane. Then, change the
values for subdivisions of the Water if you wish to a larger value so it will be able to form smoother
reactions. From this point simulations to the water can be created.
While water is selected, (ibid.) once again go to Utilities and choose reactor and then Havok1. Finally
start testing simulations. Just keep checking simulations after clicking create Animation by changing
values of either the sphere or the Water Space Warp. Once you get a nice simulation for the warp,
connect the water place to Water Space Warp using the Warp Binding tool. Repeat the steps until
you get the simulation desired.
Figure 28: Simulations of plane with sphere using reactor

Source: (max.cgcookie.com 2009)
Thought the method makes very optimal simulations of water, the author found that the method is
laborious and time consuming. To make small changes, there are a lot of Parameters to take into
account. Finding an alternative solution is crucial because time is a factor in any production.
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Previously, the review was on reaction of water to create waves or ripples. Other than these
simulations, it will be wise to understand how to create various types of liquid interactions to
enhance the effect of response to stimuli. Realflow is a plugin for 3D Studio Max and Maya used to
create realistic water simulations and used in wide scale industry animations. Basic introduction of
Realflow will enable the author to jump-start in creating the animations he wants to articulate later.
This part of review will focus on initially jumping into creating a quick fluid simulation and discussing
a bit about the interface.
Since Realflow works as separate software (Schilling 2009), the objects can be modeled using 3D
Studio Max and then imported to Realflow system to create the simulations you want. Different
types of Emitters, Daemons, Forces and Meshes can be, created inside the software and when the
simulations are done, exported back into 3D Studio Max. The animations of the simulations are also
exported along with the files. For a final touch, the objects can be assigned with Materials using
mental Ray or V-ray in 3D Studio Max and rendered.
Figure 29: A simulation done using Realflow 4 by Eric Schilling
Source: (cgtutplus.com 2009)
McKay (2009) gave a useful pointer in his tutorial about using Realflow, stating that the Realflow
mechanics will basically do what the particles or emitters are expected to do in real world but they
are not physically correct, therefore a lot of times, we can’t just create a simulation and assume it to
be correct. These simulations may look good in default settings but it might have to be adjusted
according to the need in animation. Moreover, he advised that when modeling in Realflow, make
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sure that the models are scaled smaller, because the program can simulate the reactions much
better when they are small in size but not too small.
The author noted that an advantage of using Realflow is that the simulations are easy to make and
adjust unlike using in 3D Studio Max because the program is designed for such work. There are lots
of physical attributes to play with to create a realistic simulation of water.
Some of the adjustments include (ibid.) Collision surface of the object, Velocity of the emitter or the
fluid. It is always a good idea to make the fluids a bit chaotic and random maybe by adjusting the
tolerance of the particles so when spilling out, the particles move around a bit better. Simulations
are cached and that adds to the working speed to the Realflow program. If you want to create a
volume (just one simulation of fluid group) splashing, changing the emitter to Volume will disperse
the emitter in a collection of splash.
Figure 30: Realflow’s capability of fluid simulation
Source: (realflowforum.com 2010)
‘Specify your folder directory in Preferences to know where you are saving the files and the
Realfow scale tends to be a little bit different from Max or Maya, therefore be aware of it
and also about the frame rates. You can also change the world coordinates X, Y, Z to match
3Dand simulation methods to Adaptive or fixed but Adaptive is better… 40-60 sub frames
are good’ (McKay 2009)
Though there are few preferences to play with reducing the complexity of the program author
remarked that the program can go unstable and crash if the settings are altered too much. The
fundamentals of Realflow should be learned well and the animation has to be planned, where the
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author intends to put these simulations. Further study is required and practically experimented
before executing the usage of Realflow in the project. The solutions gathered here for water
simulations whatsoever was able to act as foundational information and would guide the author
considerably.
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There are several ways in which the renderer can be tweaked to get the optimum render time,
depending on the complexity of the 3D being created. Hence the animation contains exterior open
environments with subtle detailing; the author will focus in getting the rendering optimization
methods used for such 3D scenes in 3D Studio Max. A general optimization method might work well
though the differences have to be observed and studied before implementing onto the final
animation.
One of the best methods of optimization is found in the V-ray plugin Manual. These methods will cut
hundreds of megabytes used for renderings, as well as time. V-ray Manual (2010) states that, in the
V-ray Render Setup, the Common Parameters can be set to low resolution and disable the check box
for Rendered Frame Window since people won’t use this feature most of the time. Next, in V-ray:
Frame buffer options; disable the box Get resolution from MAX which will create savable previews
using V-ray Frame Buffer (VFB). Optionally VFB can also be turned off to save even more memory.
Furthermore in the System rollout, found in the V-ray settings, tweaking is crucial (ibid.) though the
settings may vary from project to project. There is an option called Max. Tree Depth, where higher
values will consume more memory while rendering and speeds up the rendering time and vice versa.
Another option under System rollout is Face/level Coef. where the value is scene dependent and
works analogously as Max.Tree Depth like higher values speeding up the rendering.
V-ray Manual (2010) also indicates that an important setting is the Dynamic Memory Limit, if the
system having a Quad Core processor running a 64-bit operating system along with 64-bit 3D Studio
Max and V-ray, the values of Dynamic Memory Limit can be raised to three thousand megabytes.
(The default value: four hundred). Lastly options for Render region division where the buckets for
Irradiance map and Brute force are done in pre-passes in sequence; 64, 32, 16… *and+ in most cases
64 works best because the smaller the bucket value the longer it will take for render.
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This method is tedious yet is a great way to save memory of low end machines. The author observed
that it is essentially a two part process, and is dependent on the type of Global Illumination (GI)
being used. (Global Illumination controls the overall lighting exposure settings). Initially inside
Indirect Illumination (ibid.) for V-ray Settings, GI can be enabled and setting the primary GI as
Irradiance Map and Light Cache as the secondary as discussed previously when making the night
scene lighting review.
The technical procedure followed afterwards is explained in the V-ray Manual (2010) mentioning
that,
‘Go to V-Ray: Global switches and check the box Don’t render final image. Next go to the
Indirect Illumination tab and check the boxes Auto save and Switch to saved cache/map.Now
render. Once the rendering is done you might be asked to open the files, do so. Go back to
V-Ray: Global switches and now uncheck Don’t render final image. Now you won’t see it
doing anything besides rendering. Optionally, you can combine this method with others, like
turning of the VFB, again to save even more memory’ (p.2)
If by tweaking the machine by the method above gains an increase in speed, because the method
was to be followed on low end machines, it would definitely gain a higher rate of speed in the high
end machines. Author denotes that both the methods could be tested on a simple scene to find
which one works best before finalizing which optimization method to use in most of animation
scenes.
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There are instances when a scene often has many similar objects or just one a very high polygon
count model, if so VrayProxy is a great way to save memory.
(ibid.) explained that,
‘Select the object you want to use, right click and choose V-Ray mesh export. depending on
what you want, change some of the settings. Remember to check the box Automatically
create proxies. This makes sure an instance is placed in your scene. VrayProxy can be
combined with an amazing plugin called VrayScatter which automatically places as many
instances as you’d like in your scene.’
Figure 31: Usage of VrayProxy to create several objects as proxy references
Source: (3DMax V-ray Optimizing Memory Usage for Rendering 2008)
Author has experienced using normal proxy methods in file replacement in 3D Studio Max. The way
around with the procedure is daunting because the technique needs time to get familiarized.
Besides, if proper file management is not maintained, then this method might end up quite fatal to
the whole project. Misplacing the files often led to unpleasant results and causes the program to
crash on itself. Yet VrayProxy method is less of a hassle than the inbuilt proxy system in 3D Studio
Max.
Even so, regardless of all the technical methods, the quick way to speed up the render times is
restarting the program before rendering for the final output. Restarting the program causes the
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cached up memory to be freed and therefore the author has witnessed the speed increases
considerably at times when rendering.
Optimized animation needs low polygon bases characters and environments. Nonetheless there are
circumstances when the objects are high polygon and contain lots of details. The animation which is
going to be produced might have some of the objects which need detailing like the monstrous fish
and the boat. The author will review on some of the steps he could follow to attain a good rendering
speed if there are high polygon objects and characters in the animation.
Shaw (2010) states that, instead of using standard Ray trace textures it is always wise to use the
materials provided by the V-ray plugin which are compatible. Resizing the normal diffuse textures
such as pictures, bump maps, alpha or specular map to a maximum size of two thousand pixels in
any direction. This will make the initial loading way quicker. Also decreasing the blue filter within the
opacity maps can give added speed when rendering.
‘If your renders suddenly spike on complex scenes check the RAM on the render farm
servers and if it’s gone into virtual RAM that’s going to add substantially to render times. In
short keep polygon counts as low as possible.’ (Shaw 2010)
Though the animation might have low polygon characters, the author foresaw impending
predicaments in rendering animations on V-ray for the reason that it is mostly used in producing
architectural rendering and still images. Reviewing on animation rendering with V-ray led to the
understanding that even low polygon environments might fail to render in V-ray.
On a forum about animation and V-ray rendering problems called V-ray-materials.de (2008) the
author found good solutions. The forum implied that, turning OFF Detailed Enhancement under V-
ray settings and increasing the value for Adaptive Amount to 0.85 along with a value for 1 for Global
Subdivision can reduce the rendering time drastically. Moreover decreasing the Subdivision value to
default and reducing the Sampling value as low as possible, Medium Preset for Irradiance map and
using World Scale of 10 cm for Light Cache would make a huge difference. All the methods can help
in getting the best rendering time possible for the author if the problem arise so.
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As author have noticed youngsters of different ages watch and comprehend animation in different
ways, depending on the length of their attention spans, the ways in which they process information,
the amount of mental power they invest, and their own life experiences. These variables must all be
examined to gain an understanding of how animation and violence affects them. The review will
concentrate on animations impact based on age-wise groups of children.
Infants (children up to 18 months old) can pay attention to an animation or TV show for short
periods of time, but the attention demands a great effort and infants are usually more interested in
their own activities. Even when they do pay attention to the television, infants likely miss most of
what adults consider to be program content. Lotus (n.d) stated that the good news is infants and
toddlers don’t need television to distract them. Besides children can learn to entertain themselves or
play with your supervision.’
Figure 32: Toddler playing with toys while watching TV
Source: (gadgetell.com 2009)
Moscovitch (1998) studied that they experience it primarily as fragmented displays of light and
sound, which they are only intermittently able to group into meaningful combinations such as
recognizable human or animal characters.
Some research has focused specifically on how violent content affects infants, but there is some
evidence that infants can imitate behavior from animation when that behavior is presented in a
simple, uncluttered and instructional manner.
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‘No child under age two should watch television at all, the Academy of American Pediatrics
advised in 1998. Doctors blame TV for increasing aggression and obesity in children, now
they add ADHD risk to early TV use.’ (Lotus n.d.)
Author remarked that parents should take responsibility and should not put the child at risk knowing
that television can’t baby sit nor cant any cute animation show. The amusement of looking at
animations just because you loved the show does not necessarily pass the same effect on the child.
Children do not become full-fledged viewers (Josephson 1995) until around the age of two-and-a-
half. As toddlers, they begin to pay more attention to the television set when it is on, and they
develop a limited ability to extract meaning from television content whether it is a simple movie or
an animation. They are likely to imitate what they see and hear on television. Coherently
Oppapers.com (2005) stated that,
‘Toddlers have a strong preference for cartoons and other animations that have characters
that move fast, there is considerable likelihood that they will be exposed to large amounts of
violence.’
Hence, the author denoted that the viewing patterns children establish as toddlers will influence
their viewing habits throughout their lives.
At the preschool age (three to five years old), children begin watching television with an exploration
approach. They actively search for meaning in the content, (Godaycare.com 2010) but are still
especially attracted to vivid production features, such as rapid character movement, rapid changes
of scene, and intense or unexpected sights and sounds. The author remarked that these principles
could be applied to the animation to attract children of preschool age group.
Animated violence is accompanied by vivid production features, preschoolers are inclined to seek
out and pay attention to violence - particularly animated cartoon violence such as in Power Rangers,
He-man.
‘It is not the violence itself that makes the cartoons attractive to preschoolers, but the
accompanying vivid production features with super-skilled, powerful, exaggerated masculine
or feminine characters.’ (Josephson 1995)
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Author recalls his preschool ages, fascinated with animated cartoons, with robots slashing and
attacking each other until recently enough to realize that this cartoon was Transformers. Moreover,
with this preference for cartoons, preschoolers are being exposed to a large number of violent acts
in their first debut day without being able to put the violence in context, since they are likely to miss
any subtlety conveyed mitigating information concerning the animation’s real motivation and
consequences. Freeonlinesearchpapers.com (2009) claimed that preschoolers behave more
aggressively than usual in their play after watching any high-action exciting animation content, but
especially after watching violent animation.
Elementary school age (ages six to eleven) is considered a critical period for understanding the
effects of animation on aggression. At this stage (Josephson 1995); children develop the attention
span and mental ability to follow continuous plots, to make inferences about hidden content, and to
recognize motivations and consequences to characters' actions. However, they are also investing
increasingly less mental effort overall in their viewing and it is mental effort that determines
whether children will process television information deeply or merely react to it in an unfocused,
superficial way. If the author wanted to show morals in his animation, the target age of six to eleven
will have a concise cognitive in understanding on storylines than motives.
Figure 33: Animated Violence in the game Manhunt2
Source: (digitaljournal.com 2008)
LA Times (2003) supported Josephson’s claim describing the children’s behavior that, by age eight,
children are more likely to be sensitive to important moderating influences of animated content, and
will not become more aggressive themselves if the violence they see is portrayed as evil, as causing
human suffering, or as resulting in punishment or disapproval.
‘At ages 6 to 11, elementary school children still watch cartoons but also begin watching
more adult or family-oriented programming than they did when they were younger. They
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also develop a surprising taste for horror movies, perhaps deliberately scaring themselves in
an attempt to overcome their own fears.’ (Moscovitch 1998)
However author observed that, they are especially likely to show increased aggression from
watching violent animation if they believe the violence reflects real life, if they identify with a violent
hero (as boys often do), or if they engage in aggressive fantasies. Yet, to the extent that they are
desensitizing themselves to fear and violence, they are also very likely becoming more tolerant of
violence in the real world. The sense of grown-up mentality starts to thicken within the child.
During adolescence (age 12 to 17), the middle school to high school years, children become capable
of high levels of abstract thought and reasoning, although they rarely use these abilities when
watching entertainment, continuing to invest little mental effort yet again. Their attention wanders
elsewhere as Josephson (1995) stated they watch less animation than they did when they were
younger, and watch less with their families. Their interests at this age tend to revolve around
independence, sex and romance, and they develop a preference for music videos, horror movies,
and (boys particularly) pornographic videos, which deal with these topics, although usually in
negative ways.
Moreover (Khan 2002) reported that adolescents in middle school and high school are much more
likely than younger children to doubt the reality of animated content and much less likely to identify
with animated characters. Author denoted that the small percentages of those who continue to
believe in the reality of animation and to identify with its violent heroes are the ones likely to be
more aggressive, especially if they continue to fantasize about aggressive-heroic themes. Though
instances are limited, animated violence has the power to corrupt a formidable amount of
adolescents.
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Figure 34: Teenagers spend more than 87 hours an year on porn
Source: (current.com 2009)
‘Their superior abstract reasoning abilities and their tendency at this age to challenge
conventional authority make adolescents particularly susceptible to imitating some kinds of
animated violence, crime and portrayals of suicide. However, these imitative acts affect only
a small percentage of adolescents.’ (Khan 2002)
In conclusion a world in which violent television, media, animation and entertainment is pervasive
and children are susceptible to its effects, parents are the best mediators of their children's viewing.
There are a number of ways parents can limit their children's exposure to violence. Restricting the
amount and types of programs children watch is probably the most effective and common means of
mediation for children of all ages. Although, there are also strategies that are specifically appropriate
for children at different ages. Under normal conditions, parents probably do not need to worry too
much about their infants being negatively influenced by animation, although they might want to
limit their exposure to violence or other portrayals it might be dangerous for an infant to imitate.
Author commented that it is certainly true that animated violence does not account for all the
causes of children's aggression, and it is also true that some children are a great deal more likely to
be affected by animated violence than others, and that it is these children who are likely to be
potentially more aggressive anyway. But the effect of animated violence leads these ‘at-risk’ children
to be even more aggressive than they would otherwise be. And although the group especially at risk
might be a minority of viewers, they are likely to be the majority of aggressors often the active
among the others. This fact makes them, and the violent content of animation, worthy of our
attention. For those parents whose children have been acting up-a-notch recently might want to be
careful of what they have been watching.
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_____________________________
The author did two interviews based on two sides of a production, so the information gathered will
be focused. One interview was made with questions containing conceptual clarifications, especially
to gain further knowledge on the myths and stories about the myth of ‘Kandumathi Elhun’. The
conceptual based interview was held with people who have experienced unnatural phenomena in
the waters surrounding Maldives. The answers collected from the interview will guide in the
designing process of characters, environment and polish the storyline since story is majorly based on
these happenings but twisted to fit into comedy genre.
The next interview was made with questions on technical aspects and troubleshooting to find
unswerving solutions from well-known industry artists and animators regarding complications the
author might have when he moves into the software in the animation process. This interview will try
to cover some very important technical information on fundamentals of animation and areas of
interest to author, such as modeling, lighting, texturing, animating, so on and so forth.
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There were four participants involved in the interview sessions. Each of the participants were
interviewed individually via telephone calls that were recorded. Additionally each of them has
encountered the mysterious ‘Kandumathi Elhun’. Among these four people, three of them were local
fisherman and a female passenger who was travelling.
One of the participants was Ms. Shaheera, aged 52 years, living with her family in the Capital city of
Maldives. Subsequently, Mr. Mohamad Is’haq, aged 48 years who was a fisherman as well as a boat
captain was also involved in these findings. Another fisherman from the same island, H.dh
Kulhudhufushi located at the northern district of Maldives and Mr. Ali Reza, aged 45 years also
contributed to these findings. Lastly Mr. Moosa Saeed aged 64 years, from another island which was
also from the northern district, living in H.dh. Makunudhoo who claims to experience a certain
repeated event every time he travels via sea to anywhere in Maldives. H.dh is an abbreviated form
for one of the northern atolls among the nineteen politically divided atolls. The answers for the
interview will be summarized and presented in the same order the interviewees have been
introduced.
The first question asked to all the attendees were, where they were heading and which area of the
sea, specifically the name of the sea they were travelling on when ‘Kandumathi Elhun’ happened.
Ms. Shaheera answered that she was on ‘Kashidhoo Kandu’. ‘Kashidhoo Kandu’ (Kadu means sea in
Dhivehi) is known to be one of the roughest parts of the Maldivian seas. This area of the sea has
always caused numerous traumas to the passengers and wrecks to boats.
Lyon (2003) claims that there are dive-able wrecks in this area because many vessels have swerved
off and ended on the reefs of Kaashidhoo Kandu and continues to describe that it is inevitable to
avoid when going to certain areas of Maldives because it stretches across the middle latitude of
Maldives. As for the other members, Mr. Is’haq was on his way for fishing one night, travelling
through the East of his island, and the name of the sea as he recalls is ‘Iruvai Kandu’. Mr. Reza was
travelling at another location, and he mentioned a name by which the islanders know the area of the
sea. ‘I don’t know how to tell the name of the sea we were in when I first encountered a strange
happening, but we have a local name by which we call it “Naa’Gotta”, somewhere outside a hundred
miles to the west of this place.’ Mr. Saeed had a different story to tell and he said it doesn’t matter
where he is travelling or which part of Maldives he is in, as long as he is on the sea, he experiences
strange happenings every time he could recall his first encounter. His first encounter was in a sea
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called ‘Kandu-Veli Kandu’. It can be derived from the answers that, there are mysterious happenings
occurring and also proves that ‘Kandumathi Elhun’ is not entitled to happen at a specific location of
the sea. It can be anywhere in the sea.
Information gathered from the findings of the phenomena, created curiosity that the author pledged
to discover further if it the phenomenon was subjected to happen at a specific time of the day. As in
many legends and myths, time of the day play a very important role in the story. The interviewees
were asked about what time of the day this occurred for them. Ms. Shaheera said it was at night but
she can’t remember the exact time. Mr. Is’haq told it was sometime around eight to nine at night. In
case of Mr. Reza explained more of the environment and said that it happened sometime about
eight o’clock at night, when the red clouds of sunset descend completely but Mr. Saeed is still going
through unexplainable occurrences regardless of the time. The author changed the question for him
and asked about the time of the incident when it happened for the first time in his life. He then
replied glumly that was a night indeed around eight o’clock when he was in a boat named
‘Roshanee’. It is quite evident from these answers and shows that the myth only occurs at night. It
maybe because the glowing lights are more visible at night and people can’t really judge the
surrounding waters in the dark and takes normal sea creatures of organisms as strange.
The next question was to know if there was anyone else who has previously experienced this
phenomenon onboard and the reaction of the people who saw it for the first time. Ms. Shaheera
laughed and replied that she didn’t know because she was just a passenger on the boat and no one
told her what was going on. She was quite blurred to say the least. Mr. Is’haq was the captain of the
boat and he remained steadfast and calm while Mr. Reza, being real happy to elaborate himself said
when it happened for the first time in his life, there was no one on the boat who had gone through a
similar incident. They were just watching what was happening because they didn’t know what was
happening. But after the first encounter, occurrences became quite often and we were the ones to
tell others on the boat that we are in the situation of ‘Kandumathi Elhun’. Mr. Saeed was the eldest
person among the four interviewees and his answer reflected that. He said that there were other
people on board who had experienced, but he was more experienced with this event than anyone
else.
On the other hand, people usually remained calm in comprehending what is going around them
because they have no control over it. A panic attack seems out of the place because as far as the
statistics show, there have been no recorded fatalities or injury to one’s life in the history of similar
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events in Maldives. Elders tend to say if anyone gets the glowing lights from the front the boat, they
might be doomed till dawn or eaten by a humongous fish. Nonetheless, this parody needs to be
evaluated.
In addition, each of them were enquired of how was the initial citing, what they observed or see
which led to understand something eerie was going on. Ms. Shaheera was eager to start her story
and she actually recited the story before asking this specific questions. As she stated, she was in an
open fishing boat (There is no covering or a sheltered place in these fishing boats). When it started
to rain, the crew of the boat covered the women with a linoleum cover and the crew was holding it
at the edges. Since she was sitting near one of the edges of the boat, she could see something which
looked like a string of decorative red light bulbs floating next to the boat. She said ‘It was very red’.
But she didn’t tell anyone about it and not even the crew. Once she came home back to Male’
(capital city), she told someone that she saw something like that. Then they replied it was
‘Kandumathi Elhun’.
Mr. Is’haq said, ‘As usual we were going for lure fishing one night, we went past between two islands
by the name Ke’la and Dhah’faru and almost twelve miles out of Maldivian geographical borderline.
We noticed that there are too many glowing objects around us. We realized we have got into
‘Kandumathi Elhun’. Then we saw that lights were coming on and off near to the boat every time we
try to lure fish...similar to that of lanterns. We could not catch any fish afterwards until the sunrise.
This was my first time experience.’
Second time when he experienced ‘Kandumathi Elhun’, they were travelling in the Maldivian
western seas, somewhat eighty miles outside the borderline. By the time they had reached halfway
through the route.
‘We saw that ‘thing’ coming’, as Mr. Is’haq referred. It had something similar to glowing barnacles. It
came close to the boat, then far, then again here and there. It affected the driving speed of the boat
greatly because they could see from the GPS (Global Positioning System). Sometimes there might
even be drizzles of rain and it tastes like salt water.
However, the story and explanation from Mr. Reza was different. He introduced the sighting saying
that, they were people who go fishing using the method of “Leynu elhun” (a method by which a
fishing line is thrown and the boat is driven to lure the fish). They were luring some lines to catch
fish. Suddenly it started to feel that the lines were being hooked to many fishes almost all at once.
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They pulled in the lines to find nothing caught; it was just an empty line with no fish. They lured
again, and it seemed that fishes were biting the hook so they pulled the line in to see no catch
whatsoever. It was then they started to realize something unusual was happening. I am not sure
whether it was because of lure fishing. To their amazement, some weird looking corals began to
surface on top of the sea water after a while. Mr. Reza also added ‘I think, up until the horizon as far
as we could see!’
Mr. Saeed was afraid to explain his experience but finally got rid of his nerves and said in a shaky
voice that it was a starkly night. First they felt as if the boat was sailing on shallow water and started
sailing in circles. After that, it started raining. Mr. Saeed chuckled and said, ‘one of our crew cursed
or vowed to the open sea loudly…he said: ‘Go to your mother’ and he hit the water. The all what was
happening stopped and we started laughing.
Author discovered some common pattern from the findings. It all occurs at night, and people see
glowing lights resembling warm red bulbs appearing randomly on top of the sea water. These lights
can go on and off. The phenomenon generally has started with a form of rain having the taste of salt
water, followed by the appearance of lights. Another important point noted is that it occurred at
fishing points or places used to do lure fishing and it is impossible to catch any fish during
‘Kandumathi Elhun’, until dawn.
The fifth question was simple. Having heard such bizarre things can happen, it made the author
ponder if he was in their position what would his response be. The question was if the respondents
scared and about how they responded. Once more Ms. Shaheera said with laughter that she wasn’t
scarred. She said ‘I thought it was something related to rain since I have never experienced such a
thing.’ Mr. Is’haq gave a similar reply saying that he wasn’t scarred but he should be. But Mr. Reza
was scarred. ‘Yes, I was scared when it happened for the first time.’ He continued and answered
that, when it started to occur more they just took it as a joke. He has experienced it more than one
night any many times now and conversely happenings vary from time to time. Mr. Saeed was not
scarred at all. Most of the people who saw ‘Kandumathi Elhun’ were not scarred either because they
had little knowledge of what was happening or because they knew the routine of how to go around
the problem.
If so, there must be knowledge or story passed from other people had experienced the occurrence.
Therefore the next question was about the relationship behind the story telling and the actual
happenings to see if myth concurs or not. The interviewees were asked if they were able to
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comprehend what type of phenomenon they were going through with regards to stories told by
elderly Maldivians. Ms. Shaheera simply said ‘No, not before I came home.’ proving that she knew it
nonetheless through someone afterwards. Mr. Is’haq confirmed what elders have told and what
happens are quite similar and true. Mr. Reza had an insight for himself and announced he had more
than his share of knowledge about ‘Kandumathi Elhun’. He happily insisted to elaborate.
There are several ways it can occur. What he has mentioned previously during lure fishing was one
of the ways. There are other variations to this event though. On other occasions, he has seen
something which looked like a fireball. As for the fireball sighting, it was one night when they were
anchored and resting on a lagoon. They saw something which looked like a fireball appearing
randomly and then just disappearing. Mr. Reza said, ‘since it was the first time for me to see glowing
lights, I didn’t know if it was another particular type of ‘Kandumathi Elhun’. What we thought was
that they were just seafarers travelling at a distance.’ But then, something appeared near their boat,
which looked like a toppled over ‘bokkura’ (a small fishing boat usually able to carry three persons-
majorly used for reef fishing) floating and drifting towards us. Then they knew it was ‘Kandumathi
Elhun’. Mr. Saeed confirmed too, saying that generally speaking he knew it was something unusual
and that what he encountered was one of the events from the myths.
Substantial information and stories revealed regarding the myth of ‘Kandumathi Elhun’ and how it
occurs have more similarities than differences. Findings reflected on the agreement that the stories
are true and it does happen the way the elders have told them. In inference, Maldivian tales and
myths are commonly based on true stories and events, but the author advocated it could be altered
to build up drama end epic-ness.
The seventh question was about security. The author asked them if they followed orders from a
superior or were they working on your own instincts. Ms. Shaheera has no initiative at all. She said ‘I
didn’t tell anyone about it and I didn’t do anything about it. I was just watching…’ Mr. Is’haq being a
captain, the author already had predicted his answer. He said that he tried to take action based to
the advices or stories told by elders. Mr. Reza acted on his own instincts. Mr. Saeed said
affirmatively a simple ‘No!’ Based on their replies the action taken was minimal and what can be
done is also minimal but seems like basic instincts is the best way to go with such events unless
someone orders so.
The following query was to know if they have come across other myths or mysterious events in their
lives. Ms. Shaheera said a humble ‘No’ and the remaining respondents said that they had faced
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countless events numerous times. This is due to the fact that Ms. Shaheera was a woman and the
rest are fishermen who tend to work at the sea all day. They are prone to attacks and mysterious
events than a woman taking a trip every once or twice a year.
Next, all the members were asked to describe the things they saw as briefly as possible. Ms.
Shaheera recalled ‘I saw lights which looked like a string of warm colored bulbs. Apparently crew
informed later that it was at the back of the boat so the boat went faster than usual.’ Mr. Is’haq said
that, there are many ways it could happen in agreement with Mr. Reza. One of the ways which he
has witnessed was, some small glowing objects (often resembling residues of dead jelly fish or pieces
of it) which float on top of the water. Sometimes they see women carrying pots of water on top of
their heads floating on water. And other times, they might even seem like there are bulbs lit over the
boat. They literally float on top of the water. It was roundish and the color is like that of a warm red
bulb. It appears and behaves quite randomly in different parts of the boat and sea. When it starts to
dawn the lights slowly vanish.
Mr. Is’haq continued, ‘If we see the lights from the front of the boat, our boat will be stalled and if
from the back, our boat will move faster than it would normally do.’ Mr. Reza gave explanations of
the glowing lights the way he saw them. He said that as for the fireball, it does not resemble a
normal fire or fire flicker. It looks like a ball of glowing radium in blue-red color. It didn’t produce
smoke nor did it make separate streaks of flames. Rather, the lower side had a red color and turned
blue at the top. It was not under the sea, it was floating on top of the water. Sometimes after the
appearance of the glowing light, there were times when it starts to rain and it would be like the taste
of sea water. If you see these things from the front of the “dhoni” (fishing boat), the boat might
seem like it is travelling, but actually it doesn’t. I have been in the sea for almost thirty five years and
I have seen things like these so many times. Usually after the sightings of the fireball, you might see
things like corals floating on water, and something big surfacing causing the water to become
shallow.
Sadly Mr. Saeed experiences events every time he travels by sea if he recalls his first encounter and
he also told the reason for this is unknown. He gloomily said explained his first encounter briefly
saying that it was when he was sixteen years old. He was lure fishing for red snappers. The islanders
call this method as ‘Rey Vadhu’ (Literal meaning: Night Lure). He started hearing a call of a rooster
followed by calling of crows. Then the rooster started calling loudly. He told the people in the boat
but they could not find any sign of a bird or creature and he was the only person hearing it. He
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insisted to move from that location and sail back to home island. When they returned home,
everyone had caught a high fever and they waited in the island until the morning. He added, the
boat also gets hauled. If from the front then the boat can go forward very fast and if from the back
then the boat stops moving.
Unbelievable as it may sound, the answers act as proofs. If people were making up stories, then the
author wonders why they have the same story telling curve. Except for Mr. Saeed, all of them saw
glowing reddish lights resembling bulbs, which mystically has the power to haul boats, sometimes
from the front and other times from the back causing the boat to decrease or increase the speed of
the boat to some degree or completely. The lights are also able to float on top of the water, the
water then become shallow and other things might seem to come into illusion. The author thinks the
trigger for this event might be night fishing.
In the later stages of the interview, the tenth question was about how to escape the event. Ms.
Shaheera said that since she didn’t know and the men didn’t want the women to get scared, neither
did they talk about it or informed them of what was going on. She didn’t know what they did and
she didn’t do anything specific. Mr. Is’haq gave a spiritual answer. ‘We tried to read something good,
like hymns or verses of Quran. We can’t do anything specific.’ While Mr. Reza was very optimistic
saying that he didn’t do anything since it didn’t do anything to them either! The author expected a
specific answer from Mr. Saeed due to his knowledge and experience; he replied coolly this time
‘Black magic!’ without going into details of the process.
It was funny to realize that the easiest way around with certain things is just to remain calm. Trying
to play with things which you don’t know might end up in either ways of the two ways, dead or alive.
The author moved to the last two questions asking them why they think ‘Kandumathi Elhun’
happens. Ms. Shaheera gave her thought and replied that she think it is because of ‘Jinns’. (Spirit
beings) and laughed. She requests to let her know the reason it happens if the author ever does find
the reason. Mr. Is’haq and Mr. Saeed said they don’t know the reason behind the trigger of the
event, but Mr. Saeed suggested it might be due to wave currents. Mr. Reza however had one of the
most unexpected answers to tell. He warned ‘How and why this actually happens, I don’t know but
as the elders say ‘Do not excrete (either urinate or defecate) at the time of sunset to the sea (or
anywhere)’. Unfortunately since we are fishermen, we have no option but to excrete to the sea. And
I think that’s why things like this happen! Meaning if you do that, the phenomenon will occur! I think
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it is not of ‘Jinns’, but rather it is due to a big ‘Fureytha’ (monster) that dwells in the depths of the
sea.’
Two of the members didn’t know the reason behind it and two members had a rough idea. It is a
combination of hypothetical answers which needs to be scientifically proven and discovered. The
author agrees partly with Mr. Reza, and considers that this monster he refers is actually a huge fish,
maybe a whale or a lantern fish. It is not logical to think that whales or lantern fish has affiliations
with ‘Jinns’ but it may cause a change in wave current intern causing the shallowness of the water.
The glowing lights also might be barnacles from the whale or lantern from the lantern fish though
these conclusions are also merely suppositious.
Lastly the final question asked was if there is anything we could do to stay away from horrific,
mysterious things in our everyday life. Ms. Shaheera said that she doesn’t know and that’s that. Mr.
Is’haq said ‘We pray and say good things and that’s the only way out of it. I cannot say it’s from
‘Jinns’ but I can say it might be a natural phenomenon. Therefore, one thing is for sure and it is that
this event is not because of ‘Jinns’. Mr. Is’haq and Mr. Reza both agree on the same this point. Mr.
Reza gave another option and that was quite a witty solution. He said ‘Do not excrete into the sea at
sunset!’.Mr. Saeed also suggested performing a prayer and specifically morning prayer which is in
agreement to Mr. Is’haq.
Since all of the Maldivians are Muslims, they have only one direction to ask for protection in any kind
of calamity and it is true for any human irrespective of race and religion. Praying or asking help from
a higher being is the ultimate cry. It is also because there are things which humans have no control
over and these things are controlled by unknown forces. Good ethics and practices keep people
away from harm in most cases.
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As a terminal summary of this interview, the author notes some few pointers about conceptual, and
storytelling facts about ‘Kandumathi Elhun’.
 It occurs at sea and only at night.

 The initial sign is loss of catch if you are catching fish.
 Pouring of drizzling rain which tastes like salt water.
 Usually warmly lit, red glowing light orbs appear randomly on top of sea water and the boat.
 The sea becomes shallow.
 If the lights glow or if the shallowness of water occurs from behind the boat, the boat gains
speed and if from the front, the boat loses speed or stops.
 To escape this phenomena, nothing much can be done except praying.
 The tragedy lasts till dawn and everything returns to normal.
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The author got the chance to interview, Liem Nguyen, a graduate from the prestigious Sheridan
College known for their animation program, living in Winnipeg, Canada. He is a 3D Animator, 3D
Modeler, and the founding member of Pixel-reborn.com featured in Animation magazines including
‘3D world’ and websites such as Animationarena.com and Fungwee.com. He had worked on several
well-known titles in Hollywood feature films, shows and the gaming industry platforms.
Nguyen was interviewed through online contact at the beginning of May 2010. The author was
fortunate to have met Mr. Nguyen and he personally insisted to contact him if further quandaries
occur in the next semester during the production. The first question raised was if about his
experience in the animation industry and how long he has been working the industry. He answered
that he has been working in the animation industry for over 12 years now. In that time, he had the
fortune of collaborating with other talented artists from around the world on a variety of projects.
Some of these include visual effects for feature films such as Superman Returns, The Core and
Matrix Reloaded; video game cinematics, models for Ghost Reacon 2, Need For Speed Underground
and animated children's shows such as Henry's World and God Rocks, broadcast identities for the
SuperBowl and the NBA Finals; and pre-visualization for multi-million dollar architectural projects
around Canada. The author was extremely impressed by the experience Mr.Nguyen had in the
animation industry and it would remarkably help in getting substantial technical solutions which are
discussed in the later part of the interview.
Animation industry is open for many forms of art styles and creative ideas. Nonetheless, all
animations can be categorized into either 2D or 3D. Author wanted to know what is the most
appreciated and effective genre of animation, methodically. Mr. Nguyen response sounded very
neutral. He answered that there are advantages and disadvantages to both methods. What it all
boils down to is the ability to tell a story that connects with the audience. Over the years, there
have been great films done in both mediums - 2D and 3D. They all have the common thread of
engaging characters, beautiful designs, composition and storytelling. 2D animation is done with
pencil and paper while 3D is done with a computer; both are merely tools, which in the hands of any
talented team of animators can effectively bring a story to life.
Author remarked that no matter what method of Animation it could be, what determines the
acceptance is the quality of the animation overall. A good animation should contribute to great
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storytelling and memorable character and environment designs where the audience can connect
themselves to it when they are watching the animation. However, the questionnaire results indicate
that people loved to watch 3D animations more than 2D animations there days.
In order to be a great animator, discipline is the key. Mr. Nguyen was forwarded a question
regarding experience as an animator, what are the things that a great animator should do and avoid.
He advised that, “If you think of reaching your dream of becoming an animator as a journey, it's a
good idea to be fully equipped and prepared before venturing out.” The first step for him was simply
research and wanted to learn as much as he could about the animation world. This included
borrowing animation history books from the library, renting animation classics from a video store,
subscribing to animation magazines, checking out animation studios online and talking to some
animators at the National Film Board headquarters in my city. This is something all animators should
do if they want to succeed in the industry.
Nevertheless, there are also cautions. He continued on the note that one should avoid a common
misconception that they will have a lot of variety and creative input in the design of a film or video
game when they work in a studio environment. In fact, he stated that you're a small but vital part of
a larger vision. For example, your specific job might be to clean up the motion capture or perhaps
model a character based on conceptual artwork provided to you. However, working in a team can
still be a very rewarding experience and you get a chance to really excel at the one thing you do.
Don’t be discouraged at first. Instead, try to excel at your role and learn as much as you can from
your teammates. As you gain more experience and knowledge, you will eventually get a chance to
expand your role and provide more input.
It was understood that animation industry has very strict guidelines and sometimes what we may
encounter can be unpleasant. Enduring tough times can increase in the sustainable development of
an animator and positive motivation will lead you further.
The next question was specific on the technical side of animation and biased to the development of
authors animation. The author has planned to make his animation look like a Pixar-style animation in
terms of visual quality therefore he wanted to know what renderers could achieve the output
visually similar to Pixar quality in 3D Studio Max. He stated that, if you are patient enough, you can
achieve similar results with all the tools built into 3D Studio Max. It is because 3D Studio Max has
control over many variables such as lights, textures, depth of field, motion blur, so on and so forth.
Nonetheless, the strength behind Pixar’s work is they have artists who are classically trained and
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grounded in the fundamental arts. For instance, the artists who light the scenes understand the
principles of lighting, color and design. The artists who model the characters may originally be
sculptors. Learning the specific software or plugin is relatively minor compared to having a strong
foundation in the principles of art. Mr. Nguyen’s answer was brilliant. All that needs to be accounted
for is the understanding of principles of art to make a good composition. Pixar has mastered these
techniques in delivering outstanding, state-of-art animations for decades.
The production timeline for the author has roughly about fifteen weeks and considering that the
animation has to be done single handedly, the author retorted to ask Mr. Nguyen on any advice if
the author was the to achieve a good quality of animation in a short period of time. He advised that,
to become a good quality animator, one has to practice animating! Unfortunately, you can’t achieve
good quality in a short period of time. It's easy to get caught up in the many animation books to
read, online tutorials to learn, cartoons to study and so forth. These are all helpful, but you won't
make any progress until you sit down and really focus on just animating. Grab a simple rig and move
it around - try to act out a scene and convey some emotion with your character. You will find that
animation is hard work, but keep practicing!
Getting knowledge is one thing, but to counter the knowledge we gain, once must always experience
the knowledge gained practically. In other words, educating about animation will give you wisdom
about the process, but it will not give you experience unless you try out the animation process
yourself. To make better animations, we have to focus on maintaining experience and education at
the same level. The more knowledge we get the, it’s always time to bar ourselves into experiencing
the real process and by doing so, makes an animation good. Author notes the well-known proverb,
‘practice makes it perfect.’
There are many types of renderers used in 3D Studio Max and the question was to know about
specific renderers and its use in bringing appealing visual quality. The question was on what renderer
Mr. Nguyen suggests the author to use if he was to achieve a Pixar-like look. He suggested that, if we
are using 3D Studio Max, we can try the V-ray plugin produced by Chaos group. They offer realistic
results in fairly short render times. Chaosgroup.com (2010) explains that the V-Ray rendering system
has a rich set of features such as Core Architexture, Geometrical Handling, Image Sampling methods,
physically accurate Illumination, Shaders, Camera Effects, Huge frame buffer and many more. Author
feels that V-ray will definitely help in making 3D look better considering all the features it has got
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and all the inbuilt systems and extras which come along with the plugin. Hence, it is a worthwhile
product to invest.
Mr. Nguyen added that another renderer for 3D Studio Max that he used while working on features
films was called Brazil which can be downloaded from the website Splutterfish.com.
Since the animation has lights or glowing orbs, or fireballs, author inquired on what plugins could be
used to produce glowing orbs, and simulations on water such as ripples, waves and splashes. Mr.
Nguyen clarified that, within 3D Studio Max, it could be possible to their in-built Video Post feature
to add glowing effects to any objects in the scene. Author experimented on the Video Post feature
to produce the glowing effects on a sunset scene in the literature review section.
As for the water, he clarified that, “a simple approach would be to use standard particle systems for
splashes. More specifically, you can try the Superspray emitter and adjust the radius, speed, size
and randomness of the particles. Adding space warp modifiers such as gravity and wind will increase
the realism.” Similarly, Space warp modifiers can also be applied to the water surface to create
ripple and wave deformations, which can be animated. 3D Studio Max also has Reactor built in
which allows you to simulate natural phenomena using physics and collisions. This was a plus point
for the author since everything which needed to be done for Special Effects can be done within the
program itself without having to download or purchase additional plugins and softwares. It will also
decrease the problems during rendering, often caused due to incompatible plug-ins.
Having tackled with most of the Special Effects, the author went into areas he might have difficulty
in animation such as body language and facial expressions of characters. Therefore, the author asked
about the methods he could use to express exaggerated expressions of anger, anticipations, fear and
‘takes’ of a character in 3D Studio Max.
Since the question had many areas to be covered in a single answer, Mr. Nguyen gave an overall
solution for the inquiry amplifying that “My general approach to creating exaggerated character
expressions is to apply a Morpher Modifier to the character’s head”. This allows characters to
modeled with different expressions (or phenomes in speech) and map them to presets in the
Modifier. The character’s head can then be animated blending between the various expressions.
Another helpful tip was to place a mirror in front of yourself and use your own facial expressions as
reference as you model keeping in mind to be as extreme as you can! Fortunately, the Morpher
Modifier was a technique the author had learned previously, so the remaining work goes into
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understanding the extremities of facial expressions and applying it on characters. Author also
commented that unfortunately for any animator, there is no easier way than studying from actions,
reference, acting and experimenting.
Another main concern for the author was the realization of different work-flow methods and having
a planned work routine saves a lot of time. Even though work routines may differ from person to
person, there could be some great planning ideas from industry experts. The question was raised
about general production work flow in 3D Studio Max in terms of Character Modeling and
Animation. Mr. Nguyen pointed out the following steps.
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The workflow of a typical production is as follows:
1. Conceptual Art: Defining the style of the character, brainstorming exploring different possibilities.
2. Gathering Reference Material: Online images, books and research so that your character can
have details grounded in reality.
3. Modeling: Make sure you use the concept art and research you have collected.
4. UV Unwrapping: This step prepares the model so that it can be texture mapped properly using 2D
programs such as Photoshop.
5. Texturing: You can create multiple maps such as Diffuse, Bump, Specularity and Opacity maps.
6. Rigging: There are different ways to approach this step. You can use a custom rig if you know how
or one of the prepared Character Studio biped rigs in 3D Studio Max
7. Animation: If animating a short film, make sure to prepare storyboards and an animatic in order
to have a general idea of the layout and timing of each scene. Don’t be afraid to act out your scene
in real life or use live action footage as reference.
8. Lighting and Rendering: Lighting up the scenes and using Optimized rendering methods as
discussed previously.
These steps will be implemented in the production timeline for the next semester. Giving time
according to the procedures will enhance to work flow and help tackle problems systematically.
The animation short film has two characters and elements from the scene and the author wanted to
clarify about alternative solutions on modeling characters and elements provided it could help in
cutting down the time of production. The enquiry was on alternative programs that could be used
other the 3D Studio Max to create Tropical Plants, a monstrous fish and a Cartoonish looking Human,
all of them editable in 3D Studio Max later on.
“You can use almost any 3D Software these days…Maya, Softimage, Blender, Z-brush, Sketch-up,
etc.” Most have the ability to export in various formats such as OBJ or 3DS that can be imported into
3D Studio Max. However, one should keep in mind that the integrity of the Model and extra data
such as Textures, UVs, Rigs, lights, Cameras and Animation may not export properly.
The author has experienced such problems before regarding incompatibility of exported 3D
materials during his productions but these incompatibilities can be troubleshooted quite easily and it
weighs over other problems in huge scale productions. Using other programs designed for specific
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jobs such as Z-brush for modeling can help speed up the work flow if the person is not really good at
modeling in 3D Studio Max vice versa.
The next question was conceptual and Mr. Nguyen had a difficulty understanding what the author
was portraying in the story. The question was about what other ways the author can retain the
essence of the myth if he changes the day time of the myth. Further explanation was given to Mr.
Nguyen with a description of the myth, stating that the story describes glowing lights and about a
huge fish. Therefore the question was rephrased and asked if it would affect the story telling of the
myth if the author changes the timing of the event (to sunset) or to any other time of the day and
also could a director or producer change these elements when making films based on true stories.
Mr. Nguyen replied “Sure, you can change details such as the time of day or location if you think it
will help the story. Directors take creative freedoms such as that all the time, even with films based
on true stories. In your case, the fish glows so it may not be as effective if it occurred during the day.
However, it doesn’t make a lot of sense why the fisherman would be out at night. Perhaps you can
start your film with the fisherman setting out in the morning and through the passage of time, have
the film end at night. This can also give you the opportunity to display your lighting skills in both
scenarios.”
His suggestions made author think more into alternative solutions and the suggestions given was
quite workable plus convincing. Furthermore, it does not affect the original storyline and does not
deviate from certain facts about the myth which the author wants to depict in the animation. A
focus group discussion was done to get a better idea on alternative solutions on conceptual
problems.
The author’s perception on showing certain types of violence to children is in appropriate and thinks
likewise for his animation storyboard. Therefore he asked if he were to execute the violence
depicted in the story, how he can properly execute it. For instance the monstrous fish jumps and
bites the fisherman at the end of the story. He advised that the violence could be simply implied by
not showing the actual biting. Instead freezing it on the frame just before the fish bites him or by
cutting away into the credits are some ways to execute the violence.
Carrying on with the questions, author asked what he should be careful about when putting violence
in animations made for children. Mr. Nguyen cautioned that we should definitely be aware of any
violence that we put into our film since it will limit our audience. In this specific case, he doesn’t
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think that the author is showing any extreme violence. Besides, if the author is planning to use this
as a portfolio piece, it may not matter as much. However, to get maximum exposure, he
recommended showing it off at film festivals, competitions, online forums, websites, etc. Although
there might be certain restrictions to these events such as the amount of violence you can show.
The last question was about the strengths and weaknesses in the story and whether Mr. Nguyen
could understand the moral of the story. He commented that, the strength of the story is that it is
very simple and easy to understand. The characters are interesting and the punch line is humorous.
As a student short film, the scope of the project is realistic and achievable. By keeping it to one
location with only two characters, the author can complete it on his own and within a short time
frame. He also said that he had seen a lot of student films that are very ambitious that never get
completed.
In terms of weaknesses, the story is a bit unoriginal and predictable. Nonetheless, he does get the
moral but he thought it is inappropriate. Perhaps it is because the moral, “All that glitters is not
gold” was taken too literally. He claimed that it actually meant, “Appearances can be deceiving”.
Feasibly a more fitting moral would be “You shouldn’t rub it in” meaning, the fisherman would have
lived if he had not tried to further upset the fish once he was already safely on land.
Knowing the strengths and weaknesses of the story was very helpful and getting the advices from an
industry expert was more than overwhelming. All of what Mr. Nguyen was taken into consideration
and the author felt quite content with the shared information. The interview ended with Mr. Nguyen
wishing author good luck with his project and reminding to update Mr. Nguyen on progress of the
production.
_____________________________
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Focus group is a discussion between a small group of people to exchange ideas, comments and
solutions for most types of work. Unlike interviews, focus group discussions are done similar to a
conference but open to arguments and debates or even votes to choose between ideas. This section
of the dissertation will emphasize on finding alternative solutions, improvements, pin-pointing
weaknesses of the storyline, character designs and environment designs.
The discussion was carried out online, using Google Wave technology, very much like an online
seminar where attendees discussed in real-time. Google Wave (Wave.google.com 2010) is a new
web application for real-time communication and collaboration. Ten attendees from different
countries, namely Abdollah Kheitan from Iran, Munawwar Ibrahim, Mausoodha Ibrahim, Faizan and
Aisha from Maldives, Malak Idris Faour from Palestine, Samitha Maduranga Amarasinghe from Sri
Lanka, Jumana Satti from Sudan and Mohamad Senjab and Weaam Senjab from Syria participated in
this conference at mid May 2010.
After a small introduction to each other, the discussion started with an explanation of the term
‘Kandumathi Elhun’ because most of the attendees were not Maldivian and they needed to know
the concept and myth which the story was based on in order to have a better understanding. Upon
explaining the myth, Ibrahim added that the myth does not need to have a scientific relevance since
the story was made for animation. Hence, the author clarified that animation has no physical
boundaries and requested everyone to give alternative solutions on concept development as the
conference proceeded. A written summary of the story was then passed.
Faour, Faizan and Ibrahim inquired whether the glowing lights mentioned in the story are fireballs,
because they thought fireballs were a better choice compared to glowing lights. However, in
comparison with the interview information gathered with the people who encountered ‘Kandumathi
Elhun’, the author begs to differ with the focus group attendees since glowing lights have a greater
correlation to the myth than the stereotypic fireballs. Fireballs tend to flicker and produce smoke,
whereas the glowing lights never does as far as the myth is concerned.
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The moral of the story was “All that Glitters is NOT gold”. The author asked the attendees if they can
clearly derive this moral after reading the story. Most of them understood and a few thought
otherwise. Ibrahim disagreed and replied that if by implying the glowing light was gold, the
fisherman would want to take the light home rather than poking it with his fishing rod and moreover
the fisherman was only curious. Mausoodha added that if the moral was “All that glitters is not gold”
then the fisherman should want the glowing light. In agreement to Ibrahim Faour said if the author
could find a moral message regarding curiosity, for instance, “Curiosity killed the fisherman” it might
complement as a moral of the story.
At this point, author inquired if anyone had other morals in their mind and suggested the moral
given by Mr. Nguyen, “Do not rub it in” during the technical interview. Persistently, Satti said she
had better understanding with the initial moral of the story.
Amarasinghe insisted on some morals he derived from the story was “Think twice before you poke”
and “Think before you jump” where both morals are focused on ones thinking ability. Furthermore,
Ibrahim and Samitha decided that having the word “Poke” in the moral message will fascinatingly
make sense for the future generation because people are using Facebook (an online social
networking website) to poke each other.
Faour once again in disagreement stated that it would take away the concept of glitter from the
moral and it is more logical to go for moral about curiosity and boredom since the fisherman was
bored and later curious about what was happening around him. She also added quotations from
Dorothy Parker, “The cure for boredom is curiosity” and “There is no cure for curiosity”. Satti
enquired if the story has to have an actual proverb or quote. Subsequently, the author has the
control over what he wants to deliver to the audience; therefore he confirmed all it needed was an
open moral message analogous to what a mother would say to a child acting on curious instincts.
Another interesting suggestion from Faour was “Curiosity killed the cat, but for a while I was a
suspect” by Steven Wright. Contrariwise, Ibrahim replied to Faour that, in fact curiosity can’t kill
anything. As to conclude, the author asked if keeping the initial moral was the best choice and
henceforth all the attendees agreed to keep the initial moral of the story unharmed.
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After discussing on the moral of the story, all attendees were given a digital illustration of the
storyboard. No one had difficulties in understanding the storyboard with regards to storytelling.
Author noted that it was vulgar for him to put the fish as eating the fisherman and he requested to
give opinions on depicting the fate of the fisherman in an alternative fashion.
Mausoodha commented that if the author portrays as the fish eating the man, then it will be too
violent. She said there is no need to show the eating action because the fisherman is already scared
of the fish. Besides the author can show that the fisherman running all the way to home. Mausoodha
said “When he enters home gets a slap from his wife once he tells the story to her”. Both
Amarasinghe and Ibrahim imposed that the fisherman does not deserve to die, but Satti denoted
since the animation was going to be partly comedic it could be done so. The author reasoned that
the fisherman was eaten by the fish, but not dead because he mocked and upset the fish. The
discussion was now open to debate on how the story should roll after the fisherman gets safe on the
ground. Ibrahim suggested that the fisherman could be surrounded by glowing lights, and Faizan
approved the idea adding “he sees some fireballs!”
Satti idealized her imagination describing that, “Yeah, like he swims to the shore and right before he
gets out of the water he sees more lights?” Amarasinghe enhanced the concept and proposed to
show as many lights as possible, rotating and revolving randomly around the boat then starts eating
the boat so the fisherman runs to safe grounds. Therefore what attendees were claiming was that
the fish could never come to the shore to bite the fisherman, instead the lights could follow to the
shore. Ibrahim elaborated his idea saying “fishes could slowly narrow him down like a herd of lions
closing on a prey....it will end him engulfed with the light!!!” because the fish has the light. Author
could use this idea as an alternative solution instead of depicting a susceptible death. The trickiest
element to play around is death due to the fact that the animation was targeted to children.
Satti, being the sarcastic among the lot, told that the fisherman could be stuck in the fish and pry
open its mouth and swim out to shore. All the attendees were thrown aback and laughed irresistibly.
The author marveled on the sense of comedy there. Ibrahim added his supplementary to the Satti’s
comedy by stating that when the fisherman opens the mouth he sees more light therefore returns
back into the mouth of the monstrous fish and the scene closes with a black fade then the scene
reopens with slight gain of lighting inside the fish’s belly to show more fishermen like him. Faizan
kept on commenting “More lights”. Weaam and Mohamad loved the joke. A vote was cast and on
Satti’s and Ibrahim’s idea which won by a landslide.
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Next, a digital sketch of the fisherman character design, which was voted most by the survey, was
passed to the attendees do discuss on the character design. Mohamad remarked why the fisherman
looked so imprudent and Kheitan thought that the fisherman design looked funny because of the
way he looked. However, Ibrahim thought the character looked too stupid. Kheitan advised that the
fisherman should not be dirty because that would have a bad influence on the children who are
watching the animation and Weaam commented that the fishermen should be slim due to their job.
Nonetheless Satti and Aisha said that the character does suit his personality and moreover, it was for
animation therefore it is alright to make the character distorted or exaggerated. Author agreed with
Satti by denoting that this was for animation purposes taking physical boundaries out of context and
then making unbelievable ...believable. Ibrahim suggested being careful while exaggerating the
character to show his dumb-look. Rather than showing the rabbit tooth the fisherman possesses all
the way through the animation, maybe the author could show the tooth right after the fisherman is
terrified.
The author wanted to rectify how to depict local identity of Maldives in the fisherman’s character
design. Amarasinghe suggested a coconut tree tattoo but author disagreed since it is rare to find any
Maldivian fisherman with a tattoo on. Kheitan implied to put Maldivian flags on the boat and giving
him a coconut to drink with Maldivian flag popped to the side of the coconut.
Amarasinghe agreed with Kheitan and said to give the fisherman some coconuts to drink while he is
on the boat. However, along with the author, Ibrahim and Weaam mentioned that the idea of giving
a coconut to the fisherman was ludicrous considering the time he goes out for fishing. Weaam
thought of giving sharper eyes to the fisherman while Satti wanted some tuna around the fisherman.
At this point Ibrahim intervened and brought in some new storyline ideas. Author gave him a chance
to tell his version of the story, stating that animation is beyond limits.
Ibrahim said “ok then…imagine him going out to fish, but he is upset, because everyone is
celebrating Eid (festivities after the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan) [but he has to go fishing
because there is no food at home]...there are fireworks behind him in Male' (capital city of
Maldives)…with the flag, but his location is like that Funadhoo island near Male’, so when he sees
the fish’s light and he kind of gets annoyed and pokes or hits it....then u know!!” Author commented
that then, he has to go into further research on technical aspects in creating elements such as
fireworks, which is not coped in this dissertation.
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Continuing with the conference, Kheitan said to write ‘Maldives’ on the fisherman’s T-shirt with the
flag of Maldives underneath it. Mausoodha wanted to put a pointed type of hat with laces to tie
around the head. Satti wished to make the fisherman wear a tourist T-shirt similar to those shirts
that have the name of the country and a picture which represents the country such as the example
of Twin towers for Malaysia. Likewise Weaam enhanced the idea by saying to put “I Love Maldives”
on the T-shirt. Author noted that this was a simple but effective solution.
The next topic discussed was about the design of the fish and how it can be improved to show traits
of Maldives as well and to make it more scary looking however keeping the comedic sense. The
attendees were given a digital sketch of the fish which gained the highest votes in the survey. Satti
and Weaam suggested making the fish look stupid as that of the fisherman. Mausoodha thought
that the fish was scary due to the big eyes. Author theorized that it would then make the whole
country injudicious. Giving a ‘pencil’ moustache and making the fish fancy was a hilarious idea given
by Satti but it was irrational. Kheitan said to make eyes look really stiff, and Amarasighe reckoned
the fish to have blunt teeth. Last of all Ibrahim said the design does not require the fish to essentially
have sharp teeth. “The size of it is enough exaggeration…make the fish grin like a shark”.
Last topic to wave (term for using Google Wave) was about changing the timing of scene setting
from Night to sunset. While Weaam said it is too romantic and Satti advised that the author might
have difficulty showing the glowing lights if it wasn’t night. Ibrahim improvised and stated that the
fisherman could only see the lights after sunset. Author coincided with Ibrahim and remarked that
he could show the setting sun and afterwards all the scary events occur. Then Ibrahim denoted,
“Sun-down, Moon-up Classic Cartoon”
Concluding the focus group, the author got very creative and innovative responses from all the
attendees and was able to view the storyline, character designs at a broader spectrum. It also helped
to find alternative solutions for topics requiring changes. Author also realized that sharing views
from people with different cultural backgrounds affects the quality of the research in a positive way
because it gives so much more perspective.
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5
The author distributed the questions through an online survey. The survey is questions and multiple
choice answers regarding what people think and feel about the animations done currently. The
questionnaire contains questions about conceptual designs, visual treatment and queries about the
impact of animation on public, especially children. The questions will guide the author in deciding
what he would use and narrow down on elements he would execute in the animation. (The set of
questions given to the respondents is included at the end of this dissertation). A total of 61
respondents participated in this questionnaire. The survey link was published on the internet
through Facebook.com, where everyone can see and access to the link at a go. Below are the results
of this survey.
0%
10% 6%
10-16 yrs
23%
17- 20 yrs
21-25 yrs
26- 30 yrs
30- and above
61%
Over 60 % of respondents are of age between 21 and 25 because the survey was distributed on
Facebook.com and emailed to authors online contacts using Windows Messenger. Most of them are
youths who use Facebook.com on regular basis therefore they were the ones who readily clicked the
online survey link as soon as it was published. The reason might be because people of these age
groups spend a lot of time online and also on social networking websites such as Facebook.com.
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6
The next majority of respondents range from 17 to 20 years with a 23% and the cause it also
likewise, but this time the survey was de-saturated as the link was passed through friends.
People of mature ages, that is; of age 26 to 30 were not so keen or interested to follow the link and
complete the survey even though it was open to everyone. This might be because they have a busy
schedule and the time they spend online on social networking websites are lesser than the other age
groups. They only bar up to a 10% of the whole crowd.
The least amount of responses was from the age group between 10 to 16 years of age with only 6%.
Only four responses among sixty one people who participated. This is because teenagers spend most
of their time on studies, and only uses Facebook.com when they are bored. Moreover, they are not
interested to take surveys at all. The mere word ‘survey’ sounds like a study to them and apparently,
it disgusts them, which resulted on least response from this age group. Most of them avoided the
link at all costs.
There was no response from ages above 30. This is because they are usually offline, working at
offices or other places where free time is limited or web browsing to certain websites are limited.
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7
31%
Male
Female
69%
There were lesser females who willingly participated in the survey. They were only around twenty of
them. The author published and passed over his account which contained more females than males.
The link was also passed through some of author’s contacts you were males which also on the other
hand made the female count lesser. The percentage of females which took part was only 31%.
The number of Males who took part in the survey is 69% because of the above mentioned reason.
Additionally they were interested in animation and animated movies more than females. They were
more than ready to answer the questions because they are excited to know something about
animation. If the survey was about something more feminine, like cosmetics, of course this survey
would have no male responses contrary to topic.
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8
17%
15%
12%
10% 10%
9%
6% 6%
5%
4%
3% 3%
Comedy
Adventu…
Action
Docume…
Romance
Fantasy
Family
Horror
Crime
Sci-fi
Musical
Thriller
Respondents were asked to pick their most favorite movie genre from a list of twelve common
genres of movies in the industry. The reason why they were given to choose only a few genres is to
keep the results integrated and condensed. This will give somewhat a controlled result with
precision.
Among the genres, the four most watched types of movies were Comedy, Action, Romance,
Adventure and Documentary. Comedy genre having the highest score percentage of 17% with
respect to the remaining eleven genres. While Action genre got 15% and Romance genre got a 12%,
both Adventure and Documentary genres got 10%. Roughly, with comparison to the Comedies and
Thrillers, it can be said that Fantasy genre is liked by half of the respondents.
Family, Horror, Crime genre movies are not the taste for everybody. This might be due to the choices
made by the age group between 21 to 25 years. That means respondents of this age group do not
fonder these genres much. It takes around 6% of respondents for each of the three genres
respectively.
The least favorite movies are Sci-fis, Musicals and Thrillers with only 4 to 3%. It can be due to the
lack of advertisement and also because these types of movies are the least produced genres of
movies in the industry. Moreover, the audience for movies like this is limited and very selective too.
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9
21%
30%
2D
3D
49%
Another way to categorize Animation is by how it looks visually. In terms of animation, there are two
major ways animation is made.
One way is known as 2D, where the animations are drawn, colored and animated using traditional
techniques where it looks like a simple line drawing. A more technical definition of 2D is 'flat', using
the X & Y (horizontal and vertical) axis’s, the image has only two dimensions and if turned to the side
becomes a line. Animations such as Tom and Jerry, Bugs Bunny, Cinderella and even the
contemporary cartoons like Power-puff girls and Chowder are all 2D based animations.
21% of the respondents find that 2D is commoner than other types of animation. Most of the home
theater cartoons and animations are still 2D, like animations shown on Cartoon Network and
Nickelodeon. This percentage contributes to that.
3D is more common these days and it is form of animation which is done using softwares. The
animations have depth and look more compelling. 3D adds the 'Z' dimension. This third dimension
allows for rotation and depth. When compared with 2D, it’s essentially the difference between a
painting and a sculpture. Animations such as Toy Story, Finding Nemo and Up are 3D animations.
Though short 3D animations are made, it is found mostly in high budget productions and they are
usually feature films. Anyhow, 49%, almost half of the respondents watch more of 3D animations
than any other type of animation. It shows that the 3D animation industry is being acknowledged
and recognized by people.
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0
Mix media is found in all the recent live action movies produced these days. They mix a combination
of 3D with live footage or mix 2D elements with 3D. Some of the well-known animations with mix-
media are Spirited Away, Spirit and Treasure Island. Even the latest Disney’s animation ‘Princess and
the Frog’ is a mix between 2D and 3D. This type of animation is as common as 2D, with a close 31
percent.
20%
29%
1-3 mins
3-10 mins
10-15 mins
51%
51% of the respondents think that an animation short movie should be around 3 to 10 minutes. It is
because a lot of animations we see on the internet or television is about as along as 3 to 10 minutes
and confusing these as animation shorts. These are called cartoon episodes than shorts. Often these
animations are done for commercial value.
20% said that it should be 1 to 3 minutes long and another 29% said it should be more than 10
minutes, up to 15 minutes. The author does not agree with an animation being longer than 15
minutes as an animation short movie. It could be said as just animation with an omission of ‘short’.
On the other hand author agrees with the respondents who said an animation short should be 1 to 3
minutes because an animation short should be able to entertain people within a short period of
time. Usually these shorts are aired on television in the intermission between two shows or
programs. It is a common form of entertainment technique used to spread public awareness
messages and useful information regarding life.
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1
23% 23%
18%
12% 10%
7%
2% 2% 1%
Beaches
1%
Islands
1%
Coconut tress
Vast open seas
Fishing boats
Water bungalows
Thatched houses
Forest
Tall buildings
Exotic Animals
Mountains
This question was raised because the author wished to know how he can execute elements of
design, conceptually in the animation so people can recognize the geographical identity of Maldives.
This also shows information on how people understand Maldives; therefore a proper environment
design can be achieved in the animation.
The respondents picked answers from a multiple choice. There were two things included in the
choices which Maldives does not have at all. They are mountains and exotic animals. Nevertheless
there were a negligible 1% of people who thought Maldives has mountains and exotic animations.
The highest point of land reaches an estimated 1.5 meters from sea level. The wildest animals you
can find in Maldives are cats.
Having noted that, the majority of people envision Maldives having the right elements in right
abundance. Beaches and islands got a percentage of 23. Next came coconut trees and Vast open
seas with 18% and 12% respectively. Geographically, seas occupy the largest area which covers 99%
of Maldives. Other than that, fishing boats and water-bungalows were present in the thoughts of
some people. Even though water-bungalows are only present in resorts but often people tend to
think otherwise, so much so to think that natives also live in them.
It would be more accurate to say natives live in thatched houses than water bungalows in Maldives.
While people think forest and thatched houses exist by only 2%, jungles are present in almost all
islands except in the capital city of Maldives. What you can see in the capital city, Male’, (one island
among one thousand nine hundred islands) are tall buildings and the statistics reflect that too. It is
only 1%.
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2
Animation Quality
7%
22%
13% Special Effects
Storyline
18%
20% Memorable Character
Designs
Moral messages
20%
This chart shows what lures people to watch animations. The respondents were asked to pick in
their opinion what is the three most important attributes of animation. Animation quality, Special
effects used in the animation and the storylines play the most important role in luring audiences to
watch it. With nearly 20% for each, Animation quality being the highest, author need to pay proper
attention to these production elements when doing his animation.
Character designs are also very important. 18% of the respondents say so. Virtually the closest
attention to be given in an animation, after the factors mentioned above, is in developing a good
memorable character or characters. Sometimes these characters become so attached to the
audience that they talk about it in everyday life. For example in this trend is seen in the Final fantasy
series, though it is a game, the character designs and CG (computer graphics) animation is one of the
reasons acclaimed by thousands of people around the globe.
A good storyline often has a moral message behind it because there animations are based on real
life problems and relates to the feelings of the audience. Having a good moral message often helps
people to remember certain animations and this is very important when doing animations for
children. 13% of the respondents want to see moral messages in the animations they watch. Having
a good moral brings everyone to the entertainment screen in many cases.
Environment design does play a part in developing the storyline and character, but it only if it
augments with the other factors well or when it jives with the remaining factors. A stunning
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3
environment design will not sell an animation if other factors are neglected. 10% of the respondents
agree that it is the least important thing to consider. All what has to be done is make it believable.
54%
46%
Thin Fisherman
There were some base character designs done for the fisherman. The initial sketches will be used to
further develop the character during the production stages. A sketch of a thin looking fisherman and
a fat looking fisherman was shown to the respondents in the survey.
46% liked the thin fisherman and 54% liked the fat fisherman. I could be because the thinner looking
fisherman looks more fragile and a tad bit serious. While the fat fisherman looks dump, funny and
totally lost. So the respondents clicked on the character which made them laugh when they saw it.
The character seems to be more memorable because of the pose which actually describes the
personality of the character. Below are the initial sketches of both the fishermen.
8
4
41%
26%
15% 18%
A
D
C
B
Similarly, respondents were also asked to pick their choice of a monstrous fish. This time they were
given four choices and only sketch named ‘B’ for the fish was an original sketch from the author.
Amazingly, an astounding 41% of the respondents liked with the sketch ‘B’. But the fact that this
sketch was from the author was kept a secret. It was originally drawn with reference to other images
listed in the same question. The images were taken randomly from the internet.
Sketch ‘C’ received an audience liking of 26% while and sketch ‘A’ and ‘D’ got the lowest rating, 15%
and 18% individually. The character design of sketch ‘C’ will be taken into consideration when
developing the character furthermore. Below are the sketches shown in the survey.
i) A ii) B iii) C iv) D

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5
Ratatouille 26%
Toy Story 22%
Wall-E 21%
Finding Nemo 14%
Monsters Inc 12%
The Incredibles 5%
This question posed a comparison to pick from respondent’s opinion, what was the most appealing
Pixar© Animation title. The question had choices of the Pixar’s© most successful animations to pick
and the question allowed people to pick any two they liked most. The reason to ask this question is
to find what visually appealed people so that the author can try and achieve something visually
similar in his animation.
26% of the crowd wowed on the visuals of the animation movie Ratatouille. It was indeed a movie
done with great care and the animation quality was brilliant with respect to what was available at
that time.
Toy story received a runner up on this poll and got 22% of the people jaw-dropping when they
watched Toy story. This animation was the first benchmark of 3D animation and the beginning of 3D
feature films into Hollywood. The remarkable movie won several awards a decade ago.
Wall-E was a fabulous, touching Disney.Pixar© Animation movie. This movie was as crazy and great
as the other two above and got almost the same percentage appeal to that of Toy Story with a close
21%.
Finding Nemo and Monsters Inc got 14% and 12% respectively. Maybe this is because the recent
movie titles from Pixar have overcome the quality of its former releases, thus making people vote for
more recent titles than early.
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6
The author is still perplexed and contemplating why The Incredibles got such a low acceptance. The
animation was prodigious. Maybe it was not so phenomenal to everyone. It got only 5% of people
drooling over it and the author remains as one of them.
The author also performed self-observations on these titles and the observation summary can be
found in the self-observation section of this report.
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7
95%
3% 2%
Yes, It can be Books are most No, It is not

effective when it effective effective due to
has simple lessons the scarcity of such
animations
Animations are becoming a medium used to educate children. Since the beginning of television
entertainment, several methods of educative programs were shown on televisions. The author
wanted to clarify whether these animations proved to be effective in educating children. If so, then
the education system can be speculated an animation could be given a consideration in replacing
certain curriculum, lessons and activities since the multimedia industry in becoming so huge.
2% of the respondents disagreed with animation’s effectiveness in educating children because they
think that these types of animations are scarce. 3% of the people would still prefer books over
animation. But this tells one thing for sure and that is, soon books could be replaced with effective
techniques of multimedia and combined with animation to act as an alternative.
Majority (95%) of people agreed that animation available in the market has proven to be effective in
educating children but when it has simple lessons. Complex education and higher levels of education
cannot be entertained with animation because it might destroy the skill of literature from children as
they grow up. Animation like this is very subjective and targeted mostly for young children where we
can try to impale some moral into them while they enjoy cartoons or programs.
8
8
27%
33% Humor
Vivid colors
Cute characters
11%
29%
This question is formulated to focus on definite elements within the animation. The author will
consider these elements in production. Respondents were to decide which of these elements are
essential to put in the animation since the target audience for the animation is young children.
Moral messages were the most important thing to reflect. One third (33%) of the people decided
that a good moral message has to be in an animation because we want our children to grow up with
good ethics. Since television and internet is inevitable, we have to be careful of the message we put
in the animation. It will later have a direct or indirect effect on the child.
A sense of humor and cute characters will be adored by children and that has to be in the animation.
29% of people said the characters should look cute or adorable. Humor strikes next to a cute
character design with 27% of people agreeing that it should be also present.
Lastly, 11% of the people said, they want to see vivid colors in these types of animations. It is not
essentially expected to have vivid colors but it depends on the story and characters, therefore as far
as the above mentioned elements are taken into action, vivid colors will remain only an option.
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9
11%
Screw-ball
15% 41%
Hack and
Slash
No-blood
33%
The author has a storyline which has some form of violence and he wants to clarify what type of
violence is acceptable, if ever to be implemented in future productions.
Screw ball type of violence is the most acceptable form of violence with 41% of respondents
agreeing on. This type of violence is present in Bugs bunny cartoons where it is always about tricking
someone and goofing around, with exaggerated forms of funny attacks. It is acceptable because this
type of violence is more playful and people like to be playful at the same time naughty by nature.
Hack and Slash is another type of violence often depicted in cartoons such as in Tom and Jerry. It is
mostly about hitting and running and the cycle repeats until one of the characters wins. 33% of
people accept this type of violence in animations. Sometimes the animation does not have to have a
protagonist or antagonist. It all depends on the storyline and the message you want to deliver to the
public.
There are some animations which do not show blood even though the characters are designed as
humans and real animals. They only portray problems and how they get along with the problems.
This type of violence can be seen in X-men cartoons, He-man and in a lot of early Disney cartoons
where heroes fight and kill the evil. Typically the target audience is children but leaning towards
teenagers. 15% of the people accept violence such as these.
The least type of violence acceptable is No-death with 11%. These animations do not let the
characters die no matter what they go through. These animations can be difficult to digest and often
9
0
have gruesomeness. Some can even carry onto extreme violence and still characters don’t die.
Examples of this type of animation are Billy and Mandy or Ren and Stimpy.
9
1
The first five figures (Maleficent, Ursula, Scar, General Woundworth, Orochimaru) are the names of
characters which most of the respondents wrote to have frighten them. Some of the answers were
nullified because they did not answer the question and some wrote names of good characters or just
the animation title.
Figure 37: Scar - The Lion King
Source: (dynamo-
xr.deviantart.com 2007) Figure 39: Orochimaru - Naruto /
Naruto Shipuuden
Figure 35: Maleficent - Sleeping
Beauty Source: (nikki-
kineko.deviantart.com 2008)
Source: (phpbb.acclaim.com
2008)
Figure 38: General Woundworth -

Watership Down
Source:
(thegeneral.shiningsquirrel.com
2009) Figure 40: Finding Nemo- Fish

with the Light
Source: (icmcreative.co.uk 2010)

Figure 36: Ursula – The Little
Mermaid
Source: (antisteez.com 2010)

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2
Figure 47: Valle Paraiso – 3D

Figure 44: Jack the Pumpkin King Short film
Figure 41: Jafar - Aladdin - The Nightmare before the
Christmas Source: (youtube.com 2006)
Source: (grincha.deviantart.com
2008) Source:
(heavenzhell.glogster.com 2010)
Figure 42: Humbert the

Hunstman - Snow White and the
Seven Dwarfs
Source: (disney.wikia.com 2010) Figure 48: Chucky- Seed of Chucky
Source: (wya.deviantart.com
Figure 45: Skeletor - Heman and 2007)
the Masters of the Universe
Source: (comicvine.com 2008)

Figure 49: Rasputin- Anastasia
Figure 43: No-face - Spirited Source: (ermthegreat.webs.com

Away 2007)
Figure 46: Zombies – Resident Evil
Source: (revenant- Source: (onelastcontinue.com

wings.deviantart.com 2008) 2009)
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3
Figure 50: Cruella De Vil – 101 Dalmations Figure 52: Coraline’s Mother - Coraline
Source: (yahooka.com 2009) Source: (www.moonbattery.com 2009)
Figure 51: Old Hag – Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs Figure 53: Los Trolls - De David el Gnomo
Source: (disney.spiderpaws.com 2007)
Source: (forojovenes.com 2009)
The results show that the characters which people found the most frightening actually don’t have
exaggerated features such as extruding bones, noses or any part of the body. Amazingly enough they
look really simple yet the elements of evil is sustained through expressions in the animation.
The reason why the character was frightening was because of the personality and also due to the
way they reacted in the story. The personality shift is from humanity to animosity. Besides that, all
these characters reside in dark gloomy places, usually secluded from the rest of the people. Their
intentions are very cruel and affect the behavior of protagonist characters in favor of them at the
beginning of the stories. These characters also have a charming quality to blindfold good characters
to persuade them into their traps or plot.
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4
Moreover the author recognizes the similar color schemes used in these characters such as purple,
black, red, grey, faded green and tones of blue. These colors are dull and give the feeling of
oppression and havoc to the character. The author intends to use similar color schemes on the huge
monstrous fish in his animation to enhance his evil character.
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5
Here again the first five characters are the names of the character that made most people laugh.
Source: (freedominion.com 2003)
Figure 54: Mojo Jojo – Power Puff

Girls Figure 59: Randall Boggs -
Monsters Inc
Source: (dragoart.com n.d)
Source: (Imdb.com 2001)
Figure 57: Hades – Hercules
Source:
(lilbounce1234.glogster.com
2010)
Figure 60: Tom and Jerry – Tom

Figure 55: Yzma the Evil Advisor- and Jerry
The Emperor's New Groove
Source: (iwritenewyork.com
Source: 2007)
(sirdonnerboldsbagatellen.blogsp
ot.com 2008)
Figure 58: Joker – Batman (The

Dark Knight)
Source:
(goofybeast.wordpress.com
2008) Figure 61: Jafar - Aladdin
Figure 56: Captain Hook – Peter Source: (grincha.deviantart.com

Pan 2008)
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6
Figure 62: Tobi– Naruto

Figure 65: Grim – Grim Figure 68: Yeti – Monsters Inc
Source: (vaindzer.wordpress.com Adventures of Billy and Mandy
2009) Source: (wired.com 2001)
Source: (dragonart.com 2009)
Figure 66: Gir – Invader Zim

Figure 63: Madara - Naruto
Source: (buzzyworld.com n.d)

Source:
(madaraclub.deviantart.com Figure 69: Prince Charming –
2009) Shrek 2
Source: (dailymail.co.uk 2007)

Figure 70: Iago – Alladin

Figure 67: Dr. Drew L. Drakken –
Figure 64: Henry. J Waternoose -
Kim Possible
Monsters Inc Source: (aladdincentral.org n.d)
Source: (angelfire.com n.d)
Source: (Imdb.com 2007)
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7
Figure 74: Grundel Toad –

Thumbelina
Figure 71: Bride – The Bride Source: (theneitherworld.com

2009) Figure 77: King Bohan – Heavenly
corpse
Sword
Source: (dressofyourdreams.com
Source: (gamespot.com 2009)
n.d)
Figure 75: Lady Tremaine –

Cinderella
Source: Figure 78: Cartman - South Park
Figure 72: Stewie – Family Guy (fishywishesandbutterflykisses.bl

Source: (forum.byr.edu.cn n.d)
ogspot.com 2010)
Source: (open.salon.com 2009)
Figure 79: Plankton – Spongebob

Figure 76: Starscream –
Squarepants
Transformers
Figure 73: King Julian –
Madagascar Source:
Source: (geewun.com 2009)
(karmental.wordpress.com 2008)
Source: (mrbones.kockar.org n.d)
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8
Author noted the main difference between the protagonists characters that made people frightened
with the ones who made them laugh, is that bright colors and the happy facial expression they all
have with a sense of mischief. Some characters even look very friendly and cute.
Their evil personality gels along with their funny personality. Their role in the storyline often has
gags and they undergo a lot of unexpected hilarious obstacles before they can reach the attack the
main character. Sometimes they themselves get into trouble. Usually they are not keen characters
and lack the brilliance of wisdom.
If the fish were to be converted into a funny, but an evil character, references could be taken from
the characters above. When modeling and texturing the fish, author could use bright colors and
funny facial gestures. In agreement with the focus group suggestions along with the survey author
wishes to implement the dump-look to the monstrous fish though its nature is Evil. The main
objective of the animation is to make the audience laugh at the same time keep them at curiosity.
_____________________________
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Figure 80: Maakana show
Source: (hilath.com 2010)
Maakana (Stork) show is a popular 3D animated talk show formerly aired on the private owned local
channel, Villa TV (VTV), in Maldives. This show is focused on political mockery and subversive issues
where politicians are characterized as different types of birds and most of the people in Maldives
find it very entertaining due to the political holocaust in Maldives. The show is usually aired once
every week on Friday nights at 10 pm Maldivian time. After the first few shows, the fan base became
huge and the demand for the show grew due the need for entertaining comedic mockery. Political
arguments fired amongst parties are shown very ironically and often biased to certain political
parties. Due to current violations, the contract between the former TV channel and the show was
recently terminated and was bought by the government to air on the government owned TV station,
Television Maldives (TVM).
Nonetheless, in terms of animation, storyline, character designs, environment designs, rendering,

lighting and audience this animated TV show is the only benchmark on the animation market in
Maldives to compete with the author’s animation.
1
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0
STRENGTHS WEAKNESSES
 Have a huge fan base  The target audience is limited to Adults

 The character emotions are convincing  Some of the political jokes are very
and funny provocative and biased
 The political jokes and irony is easy to  Texturing of the characters are very flat
understand and follow and lacks luster
 Lip-syncing and voice overs are  The lighting of the environment is
interesting considering it is an animated monotonous
Talk-show  Environment design is boring
 Character designs are quite simple  Character rigging is limited and has only
 Characters are easily recognizable to few types of gestures and emotions
their counter politician  Animation is jaggy and off-keyed
 Each episode has a new topic to cover  Repeated similar gestures
and story  Character Models are not interesting
 Brings awareness to the public through  Rendering and Shading is unrealistic
animation
OPPORTUNITIES THREATS
 The target audience could be larger  The animation of this production is in

 Making more interactive rigging on the series whereas the authors animation is
characters to show a wider range of one single short animation
gestures  Author has no fans yet
 Rather than just making the animation  Absence of political mockery is
gag it can some voice overs for gestures apparently will have an effect on how
 Improving the lighting and compositing Maldivians take entertainment.
the environment to give a semi-realistic  The animation is targeted to children
look only
 Render the scenes with accurate colors  Body gestures should be convincing
and textures  Limitations of body gestures when
making animation in 3D compared to 2D
animation
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1
The Pixar © animated movie Finding Nemo is set in the sea and author will observe visual methods
and base the S.W.O.T analysis on this movie in comparison to the animation the author is going to
produce next semester. Almost all the scenes are based on water environment and sea therefore
this will be a good reference in creating the Pixar-look. Besides, the character of the Shark and the
Whale in this movie can also be used as reference to make further fine adjustments of the
monstrous fish design.
Figure 81: Finding Nemo, The Shark (Bruce) and the Whale (no name)
Source: (thecia.com 2005)
Imdb.com (2003) summarized the movie avowing that, the movie is introduced with Marlin (clown
fish) when his son, Nemo is taken from him by a diver. Therefore Marlin sets off on a journey to
rescue him. Together with Dory, a blue tang fish with short term memory loss, they set off through
the oceans, whilst joining a club with sharks, dodging jellyfish and hooking a ride with turtles. While
this is happening, Nemo trapped in a tank with his new tank friends hatch a plan to escape from
their new home.
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 The storyline has a distinctive  A big moment toward the end that
connection to problems regarding family should have packed an emotional whop
and life was sort of whatever
 The character emotions are superb  Children might be alarmed with some
 Sea water rendering the environment is creature who tend to come into view
colorful, bright, beautiful and ocean-like with their open mouth and teeth first
 Introduction of each character in the  Nemo was a slightly weak at character
movie is done very systematically and he was who he was despite the
 Comedy gag was done brilliantly and consequences
climaxed at the clashing problems versus  Lacks the wit compared to Bug’s life and
quick solutions Toy story or the later Incredibles
 Each character in the movie has a  Some actions are very intense and fast
different personality paced for children to follow
 The movie has a wide target audience  ‘Nemo’ means nobody and the name is
with both children and adults. rash
 Vocal characterization is flawless  A lot of characters to remember for a
 Comedy with heartwarming storytelling child.
 The anatomy and movement of ocean
creatures are combined are craft-fully
with human-like emotions to deliver a
new level of thrill
 The end of the animation could be  The scenes are done in night time
different from the initial storyline. therefore the surrounding design should
 Make few intensive scenes but more be made visible through complicated
memorable scenes to bring morality and lighting.
personality to the characters  Has only two characters and personality
 Could have one impactful chase and have to be built through their actions
surprising ‘takes’ or surprise ‘antics’ for within a short run time in animation
acted accomplishments  The idea is not entirely original and
 The name of animation title could be somehow a bit predictable.

changed to suit the character or the  Animation of the fish should be
incident or the Myth. believable otherwise the act won’t work
out.
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This is a movie based on sea pirates and the mysterious adventures of the pirates. The movie is a
combination of myths and fantasy colliding together to form an epic action adventure.
Author remarked that the conceptual designs of certain characters such as the side-kicks of Captain
Barbossa, Pintel and Ragetti are a great choice in the development of the fisherman character and
his personality. Although they look scary, Pintel and Ragetti depicting stupendous and comedic
behavior in the series of Pirates of Caribbean makes more reason to laugh.
Figure 82: (left) Ragetti and Pintel (right) Aegis in Pirates of the Carribean
(Source: forums.dota-allstars.com 2007)
The movie is a choice to contemplate when analyzing myths of the sea. Furthermore, the movie has
action packed comedy, including horror, night scenes, gruesome sea monsters and unexplainable
phenomenon besides the technical aspect of animation itself. There are mythological creatures and
events that the author can evaluate in terms of mythology related to seafarers. The costume designs
nevertheless have no relations to the local attire of Maldivian fishermen. The S.W.O.T analysis will
cover a review on overall production of the movie.
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 Cinematic graphics and special effects  The movie is too long

look substantial.  The lost touch to its root story compared
 Thought the movie was a dark comedy, to its predecessors
each of the characters motives and  Fairytale, myth twists are unreal and not
predicaments all made a great deal of accurate to stories. Eg: Flying Dutchman
sense story
 The creatures have very sophisticated  The plots are convoluted and difficult to
detailing to reflect their habitats decipher
 A great deal of work into the  Not as emotionally grounded as the first
presentation of the movie with good two in the series
acting.  Too thick at supernatural fantasy that it
 Actions were well choreographed has misplaced the link between the real
world
 crews and hoards of characters for each
captain chasing to get a beating heart
make the plot very confusing
 The storyline could avoid actions which  The animation needs to have something
results in no change in the fate of the new to offer other than the predictable
characters. laughter, perhaps local content,
 The animation runtime could be fixed so awareness, challenge and motives.
audience always stays attentive.  There are several outstanding
 Can put some slapstick violence but animations with great visuals but fails to
without overdoing it. deliver good storytelling
 Maintaining the visual quality and  Mediocre scripting may ruin the
creating a sense of connection to the animation
real world and fantasy.  Typical stereotypic humor gets boring
 Better editing to show only the most halfway through the animation

important actions rather than dragging Inconsistency in animation and storyline

the scenes to nothing but predictable can be fatal to a production
shallow comedic actions.  Connecting the story directly to human
problems so that audience could
anticipate the solution
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Through the course of this study and research the author has come to gather a lot of information
regarding all the aspects he wanted to rectify. A majority of the research was based on
understanding Maldivian myths and especially about ‘Kandumathi Elhun’. The storyline for the
animation is based on conceptual elements taken from this mythical phenomenon to create a
comedy gag for the next semester’s animation Major Project 2.
The truth behind the myth was somewhat unveiled in the research. Author found out the
‘Kandumathi Elhu’, the mysterious event which happens at sea, people seeing glowing lights,
firefalls, spirits and what not, the boat which they travels get haulted and occurences of raining salt
water all combined together, really does happen. The interview clarified that almost everyone who
had experienced this unexplainable event, has a similar trend of story to tell. This evidently proves
that the phenomenon does occur though a scientific explanation is not found. Some people have
said that, there have been instances where the glowing lights are referred to bioluminescence;
however, the reason behind the salty rain, boat getting hauled has no answers.
‘Bioluminescent algae are (almost certainly) what Maldivians see when they encounter so-
called ‘Kandumathi Elhun’ in which the ocean seems to glow’. (Fish 2009)
Author can only give a hypothetical guess for the cause of this mythical phenonmenon. It is either
due to wave currents caused by a large sea creature, such as a whale and the bioluminescence
brought up by the movement of the creature could be the glowing lights. Moreover the salty rain
could be because the whale gushes salt water through the hole on top of the its head. Since
‘Kandumathi Elhun’ only occurs at night, the author added, people who witness this event does not
see the creature clearly or at all.
Conceptual elements such as moonlit night scenes at the sea, beaches, backdrop of islands in the
Chapter: 5. Conclusion
horizon, calm and silent environment with a lonely Maldivian fisherman sitting in the middle of the
vast open sea to suddenly being encountered with a glowing light introduced the audience the event
of ‘Kandumathi Elhun’. Further along the story the author wishes to depict his hypothetical answer
for the myth by presenting a huge monstrous fish to be the cause of this glowing light(s). Moreover,
it was found that coconut trees, play an important role in everyday life of a Maldivian and therefore
the animation would show an establishing scene of an island with coconut trees. Through surveys 1
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results author remarked that these elements need to be present in order for people to realize the
location where the animation is based.
Studies were done on how to create fun characters with distinctive cultural traits of Maldives. The
focus group discussions and learning more about application of comedy in animation led to the
understanding of how to combine these techniques together to create a character with personality.
Since character design by itself does not bring comedy, personality also plays an important role. The
ways in which the character moves and respond to certain events determine the comedy of the
character. In animations, the possibility of exaggeration brings the entertainment to a new level.
Author denoted
‘...also observed that animation comedy is different from other forms of animation because
of the characters personality… Extreme actions, exaggerations and takes should be present
as well as most importantly; timing which conjunction to the tragic fun it brings to the
audience.’
From focus group various ideas were generated and discussed on alternative designs for the
character and improvements of the environment and storyline. The attendees contribution were
great. There were suggestions to put Maldivian flags on the boat, making the fish also look dumber,
giving the fisherman the typical fisherman hat, or even writing something which represents
Maldives. Among other suggestions included alternatives of the story to enhance the tale of the
myth and ways to make it more comedic. Although not all of these suggestions can be implemented,
the author was able to decide what could work for the animation. These suggestions will however
play a huge role in the pre-production.
Reviewing the application of art styles mimicking the industry quality output using various technical
softwares also helped to rationally decide on the best solution to use. Here the author was looking
at some ways to create the Pixar-style look and was satisfied to with all the technical solutions he
found such as making seascapes, glowing lights, water simulations, and alternative programs to
model characters such as Z-brush.
To get the visual look is not so much of a trouble but the author feels that the biggest problem
would arise due to the lack of the animation exercise skills. Though the visuals are stunning, what
matters to most people is not the visual quality. Rather a good animation is determined by the
strength of the storyline and animation quality. Therefore it is also wise to keep in knowledge to
horn the animation skills through experimenting and practicing well before production begins. 1
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Principles of animation should be considered and observed yet this research has just made the
foundation for visual look.
As Mr. Nguyen mentioned in his interview that,
‘Nonetheless, the strength behind Pixar’s work is they have artists who are classically trained
and grounded in the fundamental arts. For instance, the artists who light the scenes
understand the principles of lighting, color and design. The artists who model the characters
may originally be sculptors. Learning the specific software or plugin is relatively minor
compared to having a strong foundation in the principles of art.’
Author discovered new ways to make better looking environments using Dreamscape and Mental
ray Daylight system, how to create specific types of special effects in the fastest possible manner,
such as using Realflow for water simulations and learned creating glowing orbs using predefined
materials in 3D Studio Max.
Studies on the workflow on rendering, especially on V-ray was quite time consuming because the
rendering optimization methods were very technical. There were several options to be tweaked to
get the fastest render times. Author denoted that he still needed more experimenting and studies
on the render mechanisms, but the research was able to jump-start his rendering at any point of
production. Lighting and cinematography of the scene often accounts for the rendering time along
with the amount of detail of the characters and environment. The general workflow of any
animation breaks down into a systematic stages starting from producing Conceptual Art, gathering
reference material, modeling, UV Unwrapping, texturing, rigging, animation and lastly lighting and
rendering.
Another important finding was the impact of animation on children. Results of surveys show that
animation can be used to educate children and it is quite effective. However violence in animation
affects children’s behavior negatively depending on their ager. Author stated that,
‘it is certainly true that animated violence does not account for all the causes of children's
aggression, and it is also true that some children are a great deal more likely to be affected
by animated violence than others, and that it is these children who are likely to be
potentially more aggressive anyway. But the effect of animated violence leads these ‘at-risk’
children to be even more aggressive than they would otherwise be.’
Even though character designs help in determining who is evil and who is good in animation, it is
important to realize that we were young once and there were characters in animations that made us
frightened and these characters still haunt in our nightmares.
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Conclusively, this research has covered all the topics the key research questions the author wanted
to find answers ranging from all areas of animation including pre-production and post-production.
_____________________________
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1) Adams (1865) Proc. zool. Soc, London. (p.408)
2) Ellis, R et. al. (2006) Maldives: The Bradt Travel Guide, Bradt Travel Guides (p.94)
3) Hussain, A. (1988) Finiashi: Heard in the islands, vol. 1, Novelty Printers & Publishers. (P.86-88)
4) Hussain, A. (1991) Mysticism in the Maldives: Eyewitness Accounts of Supernatural Encounters,
Novelty Printers and Publishers. (p.103)
5) Lyon, J. (2003) Maldives, Lonely Planets, Lonely Planet Publications Pty.Ltd. (p.147)
6) Masters, T. (2006) Maldives, Lonely Planets,Lonely Planet Publications Pty.Ltd. (p.204)
7) Propp, V. (1984) Morphology of the Folktale, Austin, Texas. (p. 69)
8) Romero-Frias, X. (1999) The Maldive Islanders, A Study of the Popular Culture of an Ancient Ocean
Kingdom, Barcelona (p 11-15)
9) Scott, A. (2005) Comedy: The New Critical Idiom, Routledge. (p. 1)
10) Shaw, S. (2008) Stop Motion, Focal Press. (p. 169-175)
11) Thomas, F & Johnson, O (1981) Disney Animation (Hardcover, Collectors), Abberville Pr. (p.32)
12) V-ray Manual (2010) V-ray: Render Optimization, V-ray (p.1-2)
13) Wells, P. (1998) Understanding Animation, Routledge. (p. 127)
14) Wright, J.A. (2005) Animation Writing and Development: From Script Development to Pitch, Focal
Chapter: Index
Press. (p. 181)
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1) Answers.com (2010) Columbia Encyclopedia: Comedy [Online] Available from:
http://www.answers.com/topic/comedy
[Accessed 17th May 2010]
2) Answers.com (2010) Columbia Encyclopedia: Maldives [Online] Available from:
http://www.answers.com/topic/maldives
[Accessed 24th April 2010]
3) Caleb (2007) Hunyak Blog: What makes good comedy? [Online] Available from:
http://blandco.blogspot.com/2007/11/what-makes-comedy-good.html
4) Cangelosi, A. (2009) Object Interation with Water with Reactor [Online] Available from:
http://max.cgcookie.com/2009/11/11/object-interaction-with-water-with-reactor/
[Accessed 6th June 2010]
5) CGdigest.com (2008) Rendering an exterior at night in five simple steps using V-ray [Online]
Available from:
http://www.cgdigest.com/night-rendering-tutorial-vray/
[Accessed 3rd June May 2010]
6) CGtutsplus.com (2009) Create a Beautiful Sunset Scene Using Dreamscape and 3ds Max
Chapter: Index
[Online] Available from:
http://cg.tutsplus.com/tutorials/autodesk-3ds-max/create-a-beautiful-sunset-scene-using-
dreamscape-and-3ds-max/
[Accessed 31st May 2010] 1

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7) Fish (2007) Bioluminescence [Online] Available from:
http://fishguy85.blogspot.com/2009/03/bioluminescence.html
8) Freeonlinesearchpapers.com (2009) Impact of Television on the Indian population [Online]

Available from:
http://www.freeonlineresearchpapers.com/impact-television-indian-population
9) Godaycare.com (2010) Kids and TV- Effects of television on children [Online] Available from:
http://www.godaycare.com/childcarearticles/22
10) Holidayinmaldives.com (2010) Republic of Maldives [Online] Available from:
http://www.holidays-in-maldives.com/republic-of-maldives.html
11) Jong, E (2010) American Heritage ® Dictionary of the English Language [Online] Available from:
http://www.yourdictionary.com/subversive
12) Josephson, W.L. (1995) Television Violence: A Review on the Effects on Children of Different Ages
[Online] Available from:
Chapter: Index
http://www.phac-aspc.gc.ca/ncfv-cnivf/publications/nfntseffevage-eng.php
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13) Kew, M. (2010) Atolus Fanditha — The Maldives Mystic; Inhaling Black Magic from Coralline
Pearls [Online] Available from:
http://www.wetsandsurfshop.com/article.asp?locationid=3&resourceid=5215&ProdId=0&CatId=139
2&TabID=183&SubTabID=1392
14) Khan, N.M. (2002) Cover Story: Curtailing the media’s Role [Online] Available from:
http://www.dawn.com/weekly/review/archive/021031/review2.htm
15) Lotus, J. (n.d) it’s Official: Tv linked to Attention Deficit [Online] Available from:
http://www.whitedot.org/issue/iss_story.asp?slug=ADHD%20Toddlers
16) LA Times (2003) The Evidence against Media Violence [Online] Available from:
http://www.bluecorncomics.com/grossman.htm
17) Majid (2010) Maldives Royal Family: The Legend of Koimala Kalou [Online] Available from:
http://www.maldivesroyalfamily.com/maldives_koimala.shtml
18) Maldives.4t.com (2006) Maldives: Superstitious Beliefs [Online] Available from:

Chapter: Index
http://maldives.4t.com/society/s2.html
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19) Maldiveisle.com. (2010) History of the Maldives [Online] Available from:
http://www.maldiveisle.com/history.htm
20) McKay, A. (2009) Realflow Basics - Introduction [Online] Available from:
http://vfxsolution.com/allanmckay/2009/11/real-flow-basics-introduction/
21) Moscovitch, A. (1998) Electronic Media and the Family [Online] Available from:
http://www.vifamily.ca/library/cft/media.html
22) Oppapers.com (2005) Cartoon Violence [Online] Available from:
http://www.oppapers.com/essays/Cartoon-Violence/54886
23) Polygonblog.com (2010) 3D Water the Ocean [Online] Available from:
http://www.polygonblog.com/3d-water-the-ocean
[Accessed 3rd June 2010]
24) Rasheed, K. (2010) Truth about cats and folklore [Online] Available from:
http://www.maldivesculture.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=90&Itemid=63
Chapter: Index
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25) Shaw, J. (2010) Optimizing Large Polygon Scenes in 3DsMax with V-ray [Online] Available from:
http://www.jamesshaw.co.nz/blog/?p=124
26) Shilling, E. (2009) An Introduction to Fluid Simulation [Online] Available from:
http://cg.tutsplus.com/tutorials/autodesk-3ds-max/an-introduction-to-fluid-simulation-in-realflow-
4/
27) Soyouwanna.com (2008) Soyouwanna Comedy Movies [Online] Available from:
http://www.soyouwanna.com/site/movies/comedy/comedy.html
28) Statemaster.com (2005) Maumoon Abdul Gayoom [Online] Available from:
http://www.statemaster.com/encyclopedia/Maumoon-Abdul-Gayoom
29) Squidoo.com (2010) Humor Techniques and How to be funny [Online] Available from:
http://www.squidoo.com/humortechniques
30) Thisismaldives.com (2010) Geography of Maldives [Online] Available from:
http://www.thisismaldives.com/maldives/country/geographylocation.htm
Chapter: Index
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31) V-ray-materials.de (2008) Optimize V-ray setting for character animation [Online] Available
from:
http://www.vray-materials.de/forum/showthread.php?tid=1232
31) Wave.google.com. (2010) Google Wave [Online] Available from:
http://wave.google.com/about.html
[Accessed 23rd May 2010]
Chapter: Index
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Figure 1: Hassan Nooreddine II Iskander King of Twelve Thousand Isles and Sultan of the Maldives
(1938) [Image] (2010) Available from:
http://www.maldiveisle.com/history.htm
Figure 2: Agreement that gave independence to Maldives (1965, July 26) [Image] (2010) Available
from:
http://www.maldivesroyalfamily.com/maldives_commonwealth.shtml
Figure 3: Maldivian National Flag soaring in the capital city Male’ [Image] (n.d) Available from:
http://www.thiswaytomaldives.com/content/places-visit-male-city
Figure 4: Maldivian National Emblem [Image] (2010) Available from:
http://www.maldivesroyalfamily.com/maldives_commonwealth.shtml
Figure 5: Maldivian image of the Buddha in a buried temple excavated on Thoddu Island in Ari Atoll.
Such finds of pre-Islamic relics are systematically vandalized and destroyed. [Image] (2010) Available
from:
http://www.maldivesroyalfamily.com/Images/budhu/budha.jpg
Chapter: Index
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Figure 6: A fireball depicted by a Maldivian artist at deviantart.com [Image] (2007) Available from:
http://lockaduda.deviantart.com/art/Aligulha-49499246?offset=30
Figure 7: Bioluminescent Beach [Image] (2009) Available from:
http://www.ohjoy.org/2009/03/
Figure 8: Bioluminescence observed in Jellyfish [Image] (2007) Available from:
http://gakuranman.com/knowing-nothing-relaunched/
Figure 9: Master of comedy Charlie Chaplin [Image] (2009) Available from:
http://thewordofna.wordpress.com/2009/06/08/charliechaplinsgoldrushreview/
Figure 10: (a) daydreaming (b) Distractio: Something causes her to glance left. (c) Nothing has
registered, she has returned to to her original pose. (d) Realisation. The jaw drops and eyes widen. (e)
Anticipation. The girl hunches down, so the next move will have more impact. Note: the pony tail is
following the movement down. (f) Action and reaction! The arms swing in the opposite direction to
the head so to counter the weight shift. Courtesy of ScaryCat Studio [Image] (2008) Available from:
http://books.google.com.my/books?id=j8wUVG-
QZYAC&dq=Comedy+in+animation&source=gbs_navlinks_s

Chapter: Index
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Figure 11: (left) Kung Fu Panda defying laws of physics (right) Ice age, characters with extreme
actions [Image] (2009) Available from:
http://www.filmofilia.com/2009/06/05/brand-new-ice-age-3-poster/
Figure 12: Adding the Dreamscape plugin to the atmosphere and adjusting the setting to create a
sunset [Image] (2009) Available from:
Figure 13: (left top) Creating Adaptive Mesh, (right top) Adjusting and assigning the camera to the
Adaptive Mesh(left bottom) Wave Parameters (right bottom) Material for the Mesh [Image] (2009)
Available from:
Figure 14: Material for the sea water [Image] (2009) Available from:
Figure 15: Sunset created using Dreamscape and 3D Studio Max [Image] (2009) Available from:
Chapter: Index
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Figure 16: (left) Assign an ID for the object you wish to glow (right) Video Post feature [Image] (n.d)
Available from:
http://www.escalight.com/tutorials/3dsmax-tutorials/sunset-part-3.html
Figure 17: Test render using Video Post feature glow [Image] (2010)
Figure 18: Night scene lighting as seen in Monster Inc by Pixar © movie [Image] (2008) Available
from:
http://theanimationempire.blogspot.com/2008/01/all-pixar-movie-inside-jokes.html
Figure 19: Natural Light options to assign in V-ray to make night lighting [Image] (2010)
Figure 20: (left) Placement of lights (yellow spheres), (right) Resulting rendered image [Image]
(2008), Available from:
Figure21: The difference between the normal render and adjusted (right) image using filters [Image]
(2008), Available from:

Chapter: Index
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Figure 22: 1. Click ‘Get Material’ button and select (double-click) ‘Arch & Design (mi)’ from the list. 2.
Select the ocean plane and assign the material to it. 3. Select template from the drop-down list:
Water, Reflective Surface [Image] (2010), Available from:
http://www.polygonblog.com/3d-water-the-ocean
Figure 23: First test render [Image] (2010)
Figure 24: Test render of Night Lighting [Image] (2010)
Figure 25: Test render of Glowing Orbs [Image] (2010)
Figure 26: Creation of water plane and testing object (sphere) [Image] (2009), Available from:
Figure 27: Creation of Water Space Warp [Image] (2009), Available from:
Figure 28: Simulations of plane with sphere using reactor [Image] (2009), Available from:
[Accessed 6th June May 2010]

Chapter: Index
Figure 29: A Simulation done in Realflow 4 by Eric Shilling [Image] (2009), Available from:
http://cg.tutsplus.com/articles/web-roundups/47-spectacular-realflow-tuts/

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Figure 30: Realflow’s capability of fluid simulations [Image] (2009), Available from:
http://cg.tutsplus.com/articles/web-roundups/47-spectacular-realflow-tuts/
Figure 31: Usage of VrayProxy to create several objects as proxy references [Image] (2009), Available
from:
3DMax V-ray Optimizing Memory Usage for Rendering 2008, Vray
Figure 32: Toddler playing with her toys while watching TV [Image] (2009), Available from:
http://www.gadgetell.com/tech/comment/video-games-and-tv-are-the-culprit-for-lack-of-learning-
in-2-year-olds/
Figure 33: Animated violence in the game Manhunt 2 [Image] (2008), Available from:
http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/261911
Figure 34: Teenagers spend time searching for pornography [Image] (2008), Available from:
http://current.com/technology/89798601_teens-oogle-87-hours-of-online-porn-a-year.htm
Figure 35: Maleficent – Sleeping Beauty [Image] (2008) Available from:

Chapter: Index
http://phpbb.acclaim.com/ponystars/viewtopic.php?p=537872
[Accessed 2nd May 2010]
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Figure 36: Ursula – The Little Mermaid [Image] (2010) Available from:
http://www.antisteez.com/music/fatwareness-month-fatcon-19-bbw-big-beautiful-whoa-man/
Figure 37: Scar – The Lion King [Image] (2007) Available from:
http://dynamo-xr.deviantart.com/art/King-Scar-55109829
Figure 38: General Woundworth – Watership Down [Image] (2009) Available from:
http://www.thegeneral.shiningsquirrel.com/blogTG/?tag=the-general
Figure 39: Orochimaru – Naruto / Naruto Shipuuden [Image] (2008) Available from:
http://nikki-kineko.deviantart.com/art/Orochimaru-97614149
Figure 40: Finding Nemo- Fish with the Light [Image] (2010) Available from:
http://www.icmcreative.co.uk/posts/view/368/fish-gotta-swim
Figure 41: Jafar - Aladdin [Image] (2008) Available from:
http://grincha.deviantart.com/art/Disney-Villains-Jafar-81401954
Chapter: Index
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Figure 42: Humbert the Huntsman – Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs [Image] (2010) Available
from:
http://disney.wikia.com/wiki/Humbert_the_Huntsman
Figure 43: No-face – Spirited Away [Image] (2008) Available from:
http://revenant-wings.deviantart.com/art/No-Face-84857697
Figure 44: Jack the Pumpkin King – The Nightmare before Christmas [Image] (2010) Available from:
http://heavenzhell.glogster.com/not2late4halloween/
Figure 45: Skeletor – Hemans and the Masters of the Universe [Image] (2008) Available from:
http://www.comicvine.com/forums/battles/7/skeletor-vs-loki/31394/
Figure 46: Zombies – Resident Evil Zombies [Image] (2009) Available from:
http://www.onelastcontinue.com/7620/resident-evil-directors-cut-infects-psn-on-may-28th/
Figure 47: Valle Paraiso – 3D Short film [Image] (2006) Available from:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwP9ONlFBf4
Chapter: Index
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Figure 48: Chucky – Seed of Chucky [Image] (2007) Available from:
http://wya.deviantart.com/art/CHUCKY-49333582
Figure 49: Rasputin - Anastasia [Image] (2010) Available from:
http://ermthegreat.webs.com/ermsmermers.htm
Figure 50: Cruella De Vil – 101 Dalmations [Image] (2009) Available from:
http://www.yahooka.com/forum/free-all/152457-favorite-scary-villains.html
Figure 51: Old Hag – Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs [Image] (2007) Available from:
http://disney.spiderpaws.com/snow_white_ii.htm
Figure 52: Coraline’s Mother – Coraline [Image] (2009) Available from:
http://www.moonbattery.com/archives/2009/09/separated_at_bi_12.html
Figure 53: Los Trolls – De David el Gnomo [Image] (2009) Available from:
http://www.forojovenes.com/juegos/compara-a-un-forero-con-un-dibujo-animado-22107.html
Chapter: Index
1
2
5
Figure 54: Mojo Jojo – Power Puff Girls [Image] (n.d), Available from:
http://www.dragoart.com/tuts/1582/2/1/easy-step-by-step-drawing-instructions-for-how-to-draw-
mojo-jojo-from-the-powerpuff-girls.htm
Figure 55: Yzma – The Evil Advisor – Emperor’s New Groove [Image] (2008) Available from:
http://sirdonnerboldsbagatellen.blogspot.com/2008/12/riskante-fummel-eine-hitliste-la-mode.html
Figure 56: Captain Hook – Peter Pan [Image] (2003), Available from:
http://www.freedominion.com.pa/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=1475986
Figure 57: Hades – Hercules [Image] (2010), Available from:
http://lilbounce1234.glogster.com/hades/
Figure 58: Joker – Batman (The Dark Knight) [Image] (2008), Available from:
goofybeast.wordpress.com/2008/09/
Figure 59: Randall Boggs – Monsters Inc [Image] (n.d) Available from:
http://www.imdb.com/media/rm1156421888/ch0004377
Chapter: Index
1
2
6
Figure 60: Tom and Jerry – Tom and Jerry [Image] (2007), Available from:
www.iwritenewyork.com/jan07/jan07.htm
Figure 61: Jafar - Aladdin [Image] (2008) Available from:
http://grincha.deviantart.com/art/Disney-Villains-Jafar-81401954
Figure 62: Tobi – Naruto [Image] (2009), Available from:
vaindzer.wordpress.com/2009/02/26/5/
Figure 63: Madara – Naruto [Image] (2009), Available from:
http://madara-club.deviantart.com/
Figure 64: Henry. J. Waternoose – Monsters Inc [Image] (2007), Available from:
http://www.imdb.com/character/ch0004381/
Figure 65: Grim- Grim Adventure of Billy and Mandy [Image] (2009), Available from:
http://www.dragoart.com/tuts/553/2/1/easy-step-by-step-drawing-instructions-for-how-to-draw-
grim-from-the-grim-adventures-of-billy-and-mandy.htm
Chapter: Index
1
2
7
Figure 66: Gir – Invader Zim [Image] (n.d), Available from:
http://www.buzzyworld.com/zim/archives/downloads/
Figure 67: Dr. Drew L. Drakken – Kim Possible [Image] (n.d), Available from:
http://www.angelfire.com/comics/kchan/kim_enemy.htm
Figure 68: Yeti- Monsters Inc [Image] (2001), Available from:
http://www.wired.com/entertainment/music/news/2001/11/48052
Figure 69: Prince Charming – Shrek 2 [Image] (2007), Available from:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-462068/Rupert-Everett-A-jester-court-King-
Shrek.html
Figure 70: Iago – Aladdin [Image] (n.d), Available from:
http://www.aladdincentral.org/images/displayimage.php?album=59&pos=7
Figure 71: Bride –The Bride Corpse [Image] (n.d), Available from:
http://www.dressofyourdreams.com/category78_1.htm
Chapter: Index
1
2
8
Figure 72: Stewie- Family Guy [Image] (2009) Available from:
http://open.salon.com/blog/mary_elizabeth_williams/2009/08/13/stewie_yup_hes_gay
Figure 73: King Julian – Madagascar [Image] (n.d) Available from:
http://mrbones.kockar.org/do-not-question-the-king/
Figure 74: Grundel Toad – Thumbelina [Image] (2009) Available from:
http://theneitherworld.com/thumbelina/chars.htm
Figure 75: Lady Tremaine – Cinderella [Image] (2010) Available from:
http://fishywishesandbutterflykisses.blogspot.com/
Figure 76: Starscream - Transformers [Image] (2009) Available from:
http://www.geewun.com/blog/?paged=4
Figure 77: King Bohan – Heavenly Sword [Image] (2009) Available from:
http://www.gamespot.com/pages/forums/show_msgs.php?topic_id=26805500
Chapter: Index
1
2
9
Figure 78: Cartman – South Park [Image] (n.d) Available from:
http://forum.byr.edu.cn/wForum/disparticle.php?boardName=WorkLife&ID=500187
Figure 79: Plankton – Spongebob Squarepants [Image] (2008) Available from:
http://karmental.wordpress.com/2008/07/13/a-lesson-in-vanity/
Figure 80: Maakana Show [Image] (2009) Available from:
http://www.hilath.com/?p=1491
[Accessed 31st May 2010]
Figure 81: Finding Nemo, the Shark (Bruce) and the Whale [Image] (2005) Available from:
http://thecia.com.au/reviews/f/finding-nemo.shtml
[Accessed 1st June 2010]
Figure 82: (left) Ragetti and Pintel (right) Aegis in Pirates of the Caribbean [Image] (2007) Available
from:
http://forums.dota-allstars.com/index.php?showtopic=149451
[Accessed 1st June 2010]

Chapter: Index
1
3
0
1) Bell, H.C.P. (1999) Excerpta Maldiviana, Asian Educational Services, Delhi
2) Bell, H.C.P. (1999) The Maldive Islands; Monograph on the History, Archaeology and Epigraphy,
Asian Educational Services, Delhi
3) Geiger, W. (1999) Maldivian Linguistic Studies, Asian Educational Services, Delhi
4) Hockly, T.W. (2003) The Two Thousand Isles, Asian Educational Services, Delhi
5) Maloney, C. (1980) People of the Maldive Islands, Orient Longman, Delhi
1) CGSwot.com (2010) Computer Graphics Training. Redefined [Online] Available from:
http://www.cgswot.com/
2) Animationsalvation.com (2010) Animation Tips[Online] Available from:
http://www.animationsalvation.com/ams/home.html

Chapter: Index
3) 3dtotal.com (2010) The CG artist homepage [Online] Available from:
http://www.3dtotal.com/
1
3
1
A toddler is left at home for a short while, as the mother goes to a nearby shop to buy some milk for
the toddler. After she leaves the house, the toddler sees a coffee machine at a quite reachable
distance on the kitchen table. (At this stage the coffee machine is not shown to the
audience).Through some various obstacles, he manages to reach for the coffee machine. He drinks
some coffee from it. The toddler gets high with caffeine instantly, gives a weird evil smile and
rumbles the whole place down. He climbs the walls, runs across the kitchen with knifes, sits and
plays with his LEGO's, plays dress up (costume of king), does some mathematics, goes and bangs on
the door. When his mother returns home with the bottle of milk and opens the door, she sees that
the toddler is biting on a wing of a slowly rotating ceiling fan. Mother faints. (Camera shows a drop
of coffee dripping from the machine)
A guy comes out of his house, out to the doorstep to get his morning milk bottle. He yawns, takes
the bottle of milk and drinks it. After drinking he throws the bottle towards the street. It flies over
and hits a passerby who was skating. Then a series of domino effect follows. He fells over and rolls to
hit a woman carrying her baby on the trolley. She loses the grip from the trolley and the trolley
speeds down the slope of the street. A school bus runs right in front of the trolley, but luckily
manages to brake with a loud screech. Unfortunately, the bus slides on a huge arc and hits hard on a
construction vehicle (the one that hold a huge iron ball to smash). The construction vehicle driver
loses control of the vehicle, rotates the vehicle, which makes the iron ball revolve around. With a
huge momentum, the iron ball hits the house of the guy who threw the empty bottle of milk. The
guy was still outside the house, looking at his crumbling down home, contemplating what just
Chapter: Index
happened!
1
3
2
A lamb was grazing with a flock of sheep one day. She soon found some sweet grass at the edge of
the field. Farther and farther she went, away from the others. She was enjoying herself so much that
she did not notice a wolf coming nearer to her. However, when it pounced on her, she was quick to
start pleading, “Please, please don’t eat me yet. My stomach is full of grass. If you wait a while, I will
taste much better.” The wolf thought that was a good idea, so he sat down and waited. After a
while, the lamb said, “If you allow me to dance, the grass in my stomach will be digested faster.”
Again the wolf agreed. While the lamb was dancing, she had a new idea. She said, “Please take the
bell from around my neck. If you ring it as hard as you can, I will be able to dance even faster.” The
wolf took the bell and rang it as hard as he could. The shepherd heard the bell ringing and quickly
sent his dogs to find the missing lamb. The barking dogs frightened the wolf away and saved the
lamb’s life. The gentle and weak can sometimes be cleverer than fierce and strong.
In the kingdom of dogs, there was a competition to catch their own tails. It was supposed to be one
of the most anticipated events of that time and thus many dogs competed to show off their skills.
One dog manages to catch his own tail. He becomes a big celebrity among the dogs and goes into
the limelight of the whole. He wins hearts of many female dogs that are drawn to his self-acclaimed
fame. After a few events of his route to the celebrity hotness (as to say, the celebrity holocaust,
magazine covers, ads, billboards, talk shows, Movies. etc.) a street dog wandering around happens
to sit on his tail and catch it. A huge crowd of dogs sees his act and realizes that chasing and catching
the tail was not a big deal after all. Apparently the celebrity dog that caught the tail happens to
witness this act too. He was dumb-founded and the fans that were following him leave him alone.
The story starts with Christopher Columbus, the well renowned explorer, finding the Mayan calendar
(which was a round stone, marking many great events of the astrology). It was brought to the
Chapter: Index
presence of Albert Einstein to his physics lab, where he tries to figure out why the calendar abruptly
stops at 2012, December 21st. He starts writing calculation on a chalk board and goes crazy. Unable
to find a solution, his hair pops like a bomb. (At this point, the animation freezes and rewinds back in
the time to show what happened during the making of the Mayan calendar).
1
3
3
It was at Mayan Academy of Astrology and Science, a student was doing his exam of mathematics
and time. Those days they used stone instead of paper and they carved to write. He was told to
write the calendar up-to 2020 but due to his lack of knowledge and lack of space to continue on
stone, he was only able write it up to 2012 date. The examiner fails him. He leaves the class, ruined
in sadness and takes the stone with him to a solitary place; the place where he used to study for
exams. He places the stone on his study table (for us it looks like a grand pedestal)..and with tears in
his eyes...starts crying!!
__________________________
Chapter: Index
1
3
4
Chapter: 6. Project Design
1
3
5
1
3
6
A dumb fisherman goes out to sea at night on his small boat to get some catch. He puts bait on the
hook and throws in the line. After a while he throws it again. Time passes by and yet no luck with the
fish. He gets sleepy. When he was about to fall asleep, he sees a very beautiful glowing light, very
mystifying flying randomly around the boat. Amazed by the beauty of the light ball, he tries to catch
it with his hand whenever it moves closer to the boat. But it moves out of the reach and calmly
floats on top of the water, almost motionless. He gets an idea, and pokes the light with his fishing
rod. The light suddenly splashes onto the water and sinks down to the depths of the sea water.
The fisherman chuckles having thought he got rid of the disturbing light, he sits and returns to fish. A
monstrous, sharp long-toothed fish levels from behind the boat. The fisherman sees the fish when it
was almost about to snap the boat in half. With a shock of adrenaline rush, he runs on top of the
water and makes it to the shore of the island while the fish chases after him. He turns to the fish and
mocks at it, realizing that the fish was unable to reach him now. Suddenly the fish jumps and
swallows him whole!!!
_____________________________
1
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7

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FOLK-POKE

Dissertation on Maldivian Myths,

TERM FEBRUARY / JUNE 2010

FACULTY OF MULTIMEDIA CREATIVITY

LIMKOKWING UNIVERSITY OF CREATIVE

AMDD3521  Dissertation for Animation

Title : Dissertation on Maldivian Myths,

Submission Date : 11th June 2010

Academic Supervisor : Nur Leila Khalid, Marvy Rey Sotto

Name : MAUROOF IBRAHIM

Student No. : A271025

Term : February / June 2010

THIS DISSERTATION REPORT IS PREPARED FOR

BACHELOR OF ARTS (HONS) IN ANIMATION

FACULTY OF MULTIMEDIA CREATIVITY

LIMKOKWING UNIVERSITY OF CREATIVE TECHNOLOGY

FEBRUARY / JUNE 2009

3. Understand the application of art styles mimicking industry quality output.

4. Learn optimum ways to create stunning environments and special effects.

5. Study the workflow of rendering and compositing in terms of cinematography.

6. Understand the impact of animation on Children

Chapter: 2. Aim and Objectives

1. What are the beliefs in Maldivian myths in relation mysteries at sea?

3. How to decipher messages of morality from simple animations?

1. Maldivian History and Myths

2. Creating Comedy Mood

3. Cinematography of Sunsets and Night scenes in 3D

5. Optimized Rendering using V-ray

6. Animated Violence and impacts on Child behavior

Figure 1: Hassan Nooreddine II Iskander King of Twelve Thousand Isles and

Source: (maldiveisle.com 2010)

Figure 2: Agreement that gave Maldives independence (1965, July 26)

Source: (maldivesroyalfamily.com 2010)

Figure 3: Maldivian National Flag soaring in the capital city Male’

Source: (thiswaymaldives.com n.d)

Figure 4: Maldivian National Emblem

Source: (maldivesroyalfamily.com 2010)

Among the other famous legends Source: (maldivesroyalfamily.com

Figure 6: A fireball depicted by a Maldivian artist at deviantart.com

Source: (lockaduda.deviantart.com 2007)

Maldives.4t.com (2004) has defined ‘Kandumathi Elhun’ as a phenomenon uncharacteristic to the

Figure 7: Bioluminescent Beach

Source: (ohjoy.org 2009)

Figure 8: Bioluminescence observed in Jelly fish

Source: (gakuranman.com 2007 / io9.com 2009)

Figure 9: Master of comedy Charlie Chaplin

Source: (thewordofna.wordpress.com 2009)

Source: (Stop Motion: Craft Skill for Animation 2008)

Source: (filmofilia 2009)

(Source: cgtutsplus.com 2009)

(Source: cgtutsplus.com 2009)

Figure 14: Material for the sea water

(Source: cgtutsplus.com 2009)

Figure 15: Sunset created using Dreamscape and 3D Studio Max

(Source: cgtutsplus.com 2009)

Source: (escalight.com n.d)

Figure 17: A Test Render using Video Post glow

Source: (theanimationempire.blogspot.com 2008)

Source: (cgdigest.com 2008)

(Source: cgdigest.com 2008)

Source: (polygonblog.com 2010)

Figure 23: First test Render

Figure 24: Test render of Night Lighting