Reels in Motion Visual Effects News » Technology

The Shape of things to Come…

Scott Sullivan — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 14:25:45 +0000

I’ve been a Photoshop user for years and am currently using their latest version, CS4. I also use their motion graphics program, After Effects. They make a great combination.

Recently, Dan Goldman (who works in Adobe’s “Skunkworks” division) shared a video of some of Adobe’s newest technologies.

If this is a sign of things to come in video editing and visual effects, we’ve got some powerful tools coming our way.

As a visual effects artist, I’ve had the tools to do the tracking shown in the first half of the video (using different tools). But the second half of the video is what really “grabs” my attention. You’ll see what I mean.

Interactive Video Object Manipulation from Dan Goldman on Vimeo.

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Modo set for upgrade

Scott Sullivan — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 04:25:58 +0000

Just a quick update. Modo is set for a pretty big upgrade. I’ll post more later after I go back over the details, but it’s looking good.

SIGGRAPH: Days Away

Scott Sullivan — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 02:58:41 +0000

Next week starts SIGGRAPH out on the West coast. We’ll keep you up to date with any announcements that we feel are newsworthy.

Big news is expected from Luxology, makers of the 3D program, modo. This is the announcement I’m waiting for the most.

Interactive Video

Scott Sullivan — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 00:55:44 +0000

Here’s a concept. Imagine you are a coach. Now, imagine a video in front of you and you want to analyze the motion and technique of the player.

Now instead of just fast forwarding and/or scrubbing through the video, imagine if you could drag the hand forward and backward in time. Or the bat. Or anything moving in the video.

That’s exactly what what DimP does. It analyzes the video for motion and converts that motion to a vector based path associated with the timeline.

This is one of those things better watched than described:

Click to watch video

My Other Car is an Abrams

Scott Sullivan — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 17:14:29 +0000

Recently, I was working on a matchmoving project shot near my own house. Matchmoving is when something is shot with a moving camera and then that footage is tracked in 3D space.

The result is data that can be brought into a 3D program, like modo. This allows the ability to integrate computer graphics, like an Abrams, for example, with live footage.

I animated and rendered the Abrams in modo and composited the shot in Shake. The footage was from my DVX-100B, shot in 24 frames per second in widescreen mode.

Click the picture of the Abrams to play.
Reels in Motion Visual Effects Compositing and Matchmoving

A Massive Robotic Advancement

Scott Sullivan — Sun, 18 May 2008 00:30:06 +0000

Some of you may have hear of the computer software called Massive. It was designed to create a ‘massive’ number of virtual actors that interact with each other.

For example, Massive was used to create and control the armies in the Lord of the Rings. Certain “personalites” and reactions are fed into the ‘brain’ and the computer uses artificial intelligence to control and animate these computerized ‘actors.’

They have taken an amazing step and integrated this technology with robotic technology with Hanson Robotics! The robot communicates over wi-fi to a computer running the Massive software.

You can find out more about this amazing combination of robotics and software at their website:
http://www.massivesoftware.com/robotics/

One Camera to Rule Them All

Scott Sullivan — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 04:50:09 +0000

This might be a bit of a stretch, but only because the only other contender for the “One Camera to Rule them All” is made by the same company: Red.

Today at NAB, Red announced another revolutionary camera. This camera (when officially released) will record up to 120 frames per second (double most other cameras), at 3K resolution (most only go to 1080p), with a 2/3″ sensor (most handhelds have a 1/3″ sensor), records using Compact Flash or HDMI or HD-SDI (most camcorders still use that thing called tape) and most of all, the price.

You see, for features like this, a camera would be $10,000 for most of these features and higher for other features (like the 3K resolution, 120 frames per second and recording to CF). This camera comes in UNDER $3,000.

This is really an exciting time to be in video production. The tools are now at a point where they are accessible to everyone and produce images that, just a few years ago, were once only obtainable by the largest big-budget films.

I’m going to report a bit more about this camera as we find out more about what it will be capable of. Their last camera, Red One, made quite a splash. No doubt this will be quite the hit as well.

Nine Inch Nails and the new distribution model

Scott Sullivan — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 10:37:47 +0000

Trent Reznor (Nine Inch Nails founder if for some reason you don’t know) has clearly got some forward thinking marketing and complete understanding of the future of the ‘new’ distribution model of the internet.

This past week, he released several versions of his latest album, Ghosts, a four volume set. The first nine songs (the entire first volume) was available as a high quality, DRM-free download - completely free! As in, free. The next option was, for $5, one could purchase the entire album as a digital download. Again, high quality (320kbps) file as an mp3 or AAC. And no copy protection on those files.

Finally, you can purchase, for $10, the actual CD. However… when you purchase the actual CD (which ships in April), you are given a link that allows you to immediately download the same high quality mp3 or AAC files as with the $5 purchase, and the CD will be shipped to you.

I think this is great forward thinking and he’s going to reap the benefits. After all, he’s doing all of this on his website. Not going through a record label.

This is just more mainstream evidence that content creators are beginning to distribute their work on their own. Whether it is a band like Nine Inch Nails or an independent film by any number of artists across the globe, we are seeing this trend rapidly grow.

And while the total number of sales are not as high as going through a record label (I believe Reznor sold 600,000 to 750,000 albums, well below the million album mark), they had several other benefits. They made more money (since they kept it all and didn’t give anything to the labels) and they were able to keep complete artistic control of their content both during production and then during the sales and beyond.

2008 will see many more mainstream bands breaking from the labels and releasing their music on their own. We will also see many more independent films released for either direct download or DVDs available for purchase on the film’s website.

What is even more exciting about this trend is small effects houses like ours have seen an explosion in new films being created and the level of quality has risen dramatically with the affordable HD cameras on the market. I love being able to work on these independent films in true HD, shot by a crew of independents with a vision.

It is an exciting time and we are in the very beginning of this revolution. Get ready for all the rules to be broken by the people, for the people!

The World in 3D

Scott Sullivan — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 01:39:38 +0000

As a 3D visual effects artist, I spend a great deal of time recreating and manipulating reality. Sometimes it is rotoscoping a person out of video footage and erasing any trace of that person. Other times it involves creating a 3D character that is animated and inserted into the footage. And other times an actor is inserted into a completely digital world.

During much of this, there is a point when the flat image of the footage must be recreated in a 3D world. This can be done using tracking software most of the time, but still takes a great deal of dedication.

Standford has come up with a technology that could really help the digital artist in years to come as this technology matures and becomes commercially available.

At the most basic level, they have developed a camera that can take photos in 3D.

Here is how this new camera operates. Normally, a digital camera has one sensor behind the lens. This sensor sends the data to a processing chip to turn that data into an image. A crude version of the human eye.

The Stanford camera is designed more like a fly’s eye. In lieu of one eye, the sensor is comprised of a 16×16 grid of smaller eyes. Software then compares each side by side sensor and computes what has changed. Then it calculates how far away each element is from the camera based on the movement. Large change from one sensor to the next means large distance.

How will this affect the digital artist?

With depth information, you could easily pass an object or another person behind someone else already in the footage. This can be done today, but involves tedious rotoscoping. With this tech, it would be as easy as stacking the ‘layers’ in a compositing program like Shake (what we use as our studio’s compositor of choice).

Here’s the link to the article:
http://www.news.com/8301-13580_3-9874436-39.html

The Future is Blu

Scott Sullivan — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 04:35:44 +0000

We’ve reported in several posts that Blu-ray was gaining in popularity. This is one reason why last year, we switched entirely to Blu-ray (and I went into this a bit in depth here.

If there was any doubt that the HD format war has ended, the latest news should put it to rest. According to WIRED:

Toshiba put HD-DVD out of its misery today. Reuters confirmed this afternoon that it will cease manufacturing HD-DVD equipment, following earlier reports from Japan’s NHK public broadcasting network.

Reportedly, this was in response to the Warner Brothers switch to Blu-Ray and last weeks announcements by Blockbuster, Netflix and WalMart dropping HD-DVD as well. I think that the only major player in the HD-DVD camp right now is Microsoft. Oh well. That will be like watching a train wreck in slow motion.
In the end, they will also join Blu-Ray.

So we have a winner in the HD format war, at least when it comes to optical discs. Now the questions is who’s going to win? Blu-Ray or HD digital downloads?

Grin!