Summary

In this section we take a look at the vehicles and how well have they been animated. The most import things to consider here are weight as that defines momentum and that in turn influences the movement.

Weight and Momentum

The vehicles aren't animated using motion capture therefore the animator has to define the physical behavior of the vehicles. This could be done with a physics model however, I think in this case just regular keyframing was used. This is probably the least realistic part of the sequence for several reasons. First, the vehicle is huge and yet it moves very fast which is somewhat conflicting. Sure, this is future so almost anything goes but it just doesn't seem very plausible. Understandably, the speed is there in order to increase the suspense so some realism has to be traded for that (just as it is done in Hollywood movies... think James Bond). However, a bigger problem is the way this vehicle turns. As seen in the image on the right (12:50), as it enters a corner, it leans to one side to the point where it's riding on only the left set of wheels. This is where the feeling of weight gets lost completely and the animation turns into a bad arcade type racing game. To make things worse, on the corner exit it starts quickly fishtailing (image on the left - 12:54) left and right. A vehicle of that mass would not be able to change direction that quickly since the momentum it would have from going so fast would prevent it from doing so. Again, this was done to up the excitement by having the vehicle just pass in front of the rocket and avoiding what seems like a sure hit. This definitely produces a cool shot as seen on the right. However, maybe this could have been achieved with the vehicle going into a tunnel suddenly instead of making a sharp turn and then the rocket blowing up at the tunnel entrance.

Another shot where weight comes into play is when the vehicle runs off the bridge and into the river. The actual running off part looks good as it doesn't land too far or too near and it flies at the right angle. However once it lands into the water, it seems like it should dive a bit deeper and sink right away from the momentum and the weight instead of staying on the surface for a bit as if it can float (as seen in the image on the left - 13:22).

Even though this scene is not very realistic, it is very intense. The exaggeration of speed and the movement of the vehicle definitely helped here. This level of excitement would probably not be possible had the realism been a priority here.

 

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