Final Abstract

When writing the final version of the abstract I ended up changing the title of the animation from Object of Wrath to Vessel of Wrath because it better suited the concept.

Vessel - 1) A hollow utensil, such as a cup, vase, or pitcher, used as a container, especially for liquids. 2) A person seen as the agent or embodiment, as of a quality
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Vessel of Wrath is a study of the traditional controversy of freewill and determinism that has been debated by theologians and philosophers for centuries. The project explores a philosophy that reconciles both sides of the common arguments from the theological viewpoint established by St. Augustine, Martin Luther, and John Calvin.

The two-minute animation features three characters; an artist, Lucius Zimmerman, and two characters of his design, including a bird that lacks the ability for self-reflection and a human-like creature who appears to have a will. The artist determines the characters’ actions, however, because the creature with human form has a separate will, self-realization, and does not feel coerced into making decisions, two separate planes of reality are established -- one for the artist and another for the animated beings.O Vessel of Wrath does not attempt to defend or completely explain theological compatibilism; it is simply an investigation of the subject as a philosophy from the Christian perspective. Due to its brevity, the animation only serves to present the conceptual framework of the philosophy and will retain the mystery and complexity of issues such as who is responsible for the animated characters’ actions and the ethical right of the artist to manipulate the medium.

Vessel of Wrath was primarily developed using Alias’ Maya software application. Lucius was modeled with Subdivision Surfaces and required the use of wrap deformers, cluster deformers, and blend targets for animation. I developed a Forward Kinematic-Inverse Kinematic blending system for the arm movement and used custom attributes to establish the motion and deformation of his facial expressions, hand gestures, foot placement, and cloth movement. Color, bump, and specular maps for the artist character were painted in Adobe Photoshop and procedural shaders were used to texture his studio chair. Lucius’ sequences were rendered with the MentalRay engine and used Low Dynamic Range Imaging for the environment lighting.

The human-like creature and bird used rigging techniques similar to those used for the artist, including FK/IK blending rigs on the arms and wings. To recreate a two-dimensional cartoon style for their sequences, I designed Maya Paint Effects brushes and applied them to the geometry using TomCat’s Maya Shader plug-in. To assist in the animation process I also created a Maya Embedded Language script that served as a shortcut to defining key types and selecting attributes of the characters that could be animated. The final rendered sequences were edited and composited with Adobe After Effects and Digidesign ProTools was used for developing the 5.1 surround sound mix.