Cam4 Productions
Cam4: Final Report
PROJECT EFFECT PROPOSAL
The premise of our project is a commercial for a membrane-like security door that analyzes the DNA of the person walking through the doorway. As the person enters the door, the membrane is deformed by the shape of the person. As the person continues to walk through the doorway, the membrane "scans them" while slowly moving back through the person and regaining its normal planar form.
We plan to accomplish this shot using 3+ cameras . Two of the cameras are placed in a similar plane, one pointing down and one pointing to the side of a particuar point in 3D space. If the door is an x-y plane, these cameras will be used to capture the z-value of points on the person walking throught the door. Because the cameras share a similar axis, a main reference point can be set between the two cameras, and then the depth value of any point on the person should be calculatable. The data obtained from the depth cameras will then be imported into Maya, and a rough 3D model of the person will be generated. The model will then be used to dynamically deform the membrane wall model in Maya. The CG door will then have the look of being altered by the person moving through it.
Any additional cameras, such as one looking at the front of the person from above the scene at an angle, will be used to capture the shot from angles more likely to display the finished effect. The CG wall will be added to these shots to show the deformation in 3D.
There are at least two advantages of doing this shot as explained above. with the 3D CG modelling approach of the wall/actor interaction, you don't have to scan in a model of the actor which would then have to be animated by hand or motion capture. Second, you don't have to go through each frame and "guess" the depth of the person in the 2D frame painting approach of the shot. Essenitally, the motion capture, scanning, modelling, and animating steps are all being combined into one streamlined, automated technique.
The following is a sequence of concept pics showing the general idea of the effect.
IMPLEMENTATION
To implement the effect, we forsee a 5 step process:
1. Calibrate the tracking camera's very very carefully.
2. Take the tracking footage into Premiere for synchonization
3. Pull the footage into a program which allows us to choose correspondence points within the two images. (custom written)
4. Given the correspondence points, the program with produce a set of 3D points in World Coords.
5. This data can be then used to create MayaScript that will reproduce the figure in Maya so that it can modify our CG wall.
We've done a bit of work creating our code for the correspondence points. This program currently works on very specific data (two images created in CG with well known parameters for the model and cameras) as a a test bed, but once it's functioning shouldn't be two hard to extrapolate from two images to two .avi's. Here's a screen-capture:
Testrenders for modyfying the CG-wall
The first video displaces the wall and then moves back into its
original position.
1.mpeg
The second Video shows a small rippling while the character is moving
through the wall.
2.mpeg
Testrender of synchronized views in Maya:
walk_test.mpeg
This is a first render of the system we use. It is
a Maya-scene with perspective-projected texture maps.
HW 2
caM4Productions_DivX.avi
You'll need the DivX codec to view the clip, and you can get it here.
CRITIQUES
1.)Terminator 2 scene where the T1000 walks through the gate.
Critique 1: Terminator 2
2.)The Frighteners scene where the Soul Collector jumps through a mirror and onto his next victim.
Critique 2: The Frighteners
STORYBOARD
Storyboard: Animatic
SHOPPING LIST
Stuff to get
WEEKLY UPDATES
Cam4 Weekly Updates
MOCAP TEST!!!
motion_angles_small.avi
DVD Intro Animation
DVFX_Lights_Final.mpg
DVFX_Lights_Final_small.mpg
Sorry guys, I've been told your stuff had to be removed.
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