I’m a CG animator, and I’ve been thinking of creating a series of simple, yet well done and eye-appealing videos/animations illustrating various scientific principals.
To give you an idea what I’m talking about, Check this out. I made this in a half-hour to help illustrate the phases of the moon to someone here who was asking about it. Ever since I’ve been getting a lot of feedback from educators all around the globe (who discovered it themselves on YouTube), asking for a higher-res or cleaner version so they can use it in class. This sort of touched a nerve in me. There’s nothing I love more than animation and VFX except maybe science itself and the furthering of knowledge. If I can find a way to combine them and help out og knows how many people around the world, I’ll be in bliss. I can do WAY bigger and badder than that flimsy little moon phase video. So…
…I need your help:
I need ideas. What are some of the more confusing principals that you feel most people SHOULD know?
I’d like to keep this free and maybe wiki like, so that anyone can pitch in and help with production, and create a user-friendly video base that people can have fun watching and learning. I especially see this useful for educators who need resources. But I feel there are maybe some people here who might be able to donate space and bandwidth for the greater good?
They need to be accurate and while I have a very strong understanding of physics, astronomy, relativity, biology, among other things, I am but a mere layman. So I need pros to help me make sure I’m not being an idiot.
I am good at the visuals, but have no musical or sound skills, anyone willing to pitch in scoring or SFX?
There’s probably a few things I’m forgetting, but I’m a busy guy, and can crank only about 2 - 3 of these sort videos out on a good month. I’d like to keep them in the range of a minute or two. Maybe even less. Nothing too ambitious. Anyway, there’s my small vision. Any takers? There’s ignorance that needs fighting out there…
Forgive me for criticising, because I think the idea is great and well executed, but doesn’t that animation imply that North America (as far as I can make out) doesn’t ever see the moon? And that the moon orbits the earth really quickly?
Well, yeh. It also isn’t showing proper scale either. I have a disclaimer on the YouTube page pointing such things out. But, you’re only helping me prove why I need very smart, observant people such as yourself. I will be able to achieve Discovery channel level animation and effects (within reason)… Let’s make something cool.
There are a number of scientific societies that solicit such materials, or post collections of them. You might ask them if they have ideas or frequent requests. Below are some of the science movies/animation collections I’ve seen and liked:
Thanks Mischievous, I’ll check that stuff out. Part of the problem I’ve found is lack of consistency between all these disparate videos. Not only that, but it can be daunting I think for some educators to gain the source video to present to classes, or use in presentations. This stuff would be easily downloadable and usable with no real hoops to jump through, other than keeping the small credit line intact.
Least Original: If you dig the idea, you can help with your knowledge. Anyway you can visualize a scientific idea you’ve been wanting to share with people? (go wings).
Sorry about the hijack but that video is awesome. Does anybody know what that spherical blob with the appendage that had two feet walking along a cylinder was?
The “appendage” was a dynein, a.k.a. a motor protein, which walks up microtubules (the cylinder). Various things that the cell wants moved get attached to the dynein, in this case it was a vesicle, which is a big blob of payload wrapped in a bit of membrane. Other things also get attached to dynein and it will walk pretty much anything up the microtubules.
Anything chemistry-related would be great… equilibrium, kinetics, solutions, etc. I’ve been looking for good kinetics animations and so far, no luck. And Wiki is a great idea because although there are some great chem videos on the web, the fun ones are usually on YouTube, which is blocked by every school I’ve ever worked at
(My fave at the moment is Brainiac doing Thermite reactions on a Renault! Can you believe I have all the stuff to do that at the school, except rust???)
Hmm, that might be the perfect thing to start with. I agree, most people also get confused with the angle of the earth’s axis as it sweeps through it’s slightly eccentric orbit, and how that relates to the amount of daylight (given the latitude) that time of year. Might be a good way to sneak in Kepler’s laws too. Thanks ouryL!
