Outline of second term paper

Defying Action/Reaction

In most animations and animation in games, they often defy the action and reaction principle. The three I picked out is the Clown and Out from Animaniacs, the Great Wife Hope from the Simpsons, and a MMORPG game called Vindictus.

Animaniacs - the Clown and Out

• Wacko slams the water tower metal door on the Clown.
• Wacko slams the metal door with a quick fierce force of fear. The door slam only stops the Clown stiffly and flattening his face instead of being shoved off the water tower.
• It is obvious that the Clown is not using a lot of force to walk into the door since he is only about to take one step and he is also caught by surprise.

The Simpsons - The Great Wife Hope

• Homer's jump kick stopped by Akira' s open palm grasp.
• Akira tells "hajime" to Homer, Homer builds up a running force with a distance about twice his height to perform a jump kick. Akira just stops Homer's jump kick with a grip of his open palm and completely negating Homer's force.
• This defies action/reaction since Akira just stands and putting out his palm to stop Homer's jump kick, which is powered by Homer's kinetic force and weight, without being pushed.
• Of course Akira is using jujitsu and Judo to counter Homer's attack but to be able to hold Homer stiffly in the air means Akira is using his own strength to balance Homer in his grip.

Vindictus MMORPG

• Both the player's character and the monsters defy action/reaction when attacking each other.
• This is more obvious when the player uses hard blows from smash attacks. A great example is a class of Fiona using Shield Bash. The monsters takes the hit without much reaction besides flinching. When the monster is killed, they become weightless and fly very high.
• Environmental objects are another factor to this game defying action/reaction. When the character attempts to carry a heavy broken piece of a marble pillar, the character animation shows that the character have to put a lot effort to lift it and even to bash the monster with it. Yet, the monster just merely flinches when they are hit.

What the three have in common by defying the action and reaction principle is that it makes the impact either seem to be more painful, powerful, or very weak.