G3-MidTerm
Revised Project Proposal:
Concept Background
The background story for our effect is going to be a commercial for a product that allows the consumer to perform incredible athletic feats. PowerBisquits is our basic idea at the moment, but this could be applied to many things. Our commercial will show a regular kid trying to learn to skateboard somewhere in parking lot or street where there are ramps or other obstacles to do jumps or tricks around. He will be shown failing miserably and getting discouraged.
Effect 1
At some point, the same person will appear from another portion of the screen (call him skater2), eat a PowerBisquit and proceed to do some incredible skateboarding jumps and tricks. The original person will be amazed.
Effect 2
For one extreme jump over a large gap, our second effect will be used. The jump will be viewed from the side and the skater 2's motion through the air will be shown in a style of time-lapse photography (see pic below).
keep in mind in the finished video smooth action
will be layered on top of this stop motion effect.
Effect 2 (update)
We were worried that we may get too much blur to show still frames from the video. To remedy this we decided to take video from more of an angle.
The original skater will be able to walk around the frozen frames of skater 2, and inspect how he went about accomplishing the trick from different parts of the jump. It will appear as if skater 2 is frozen in mid air. When finished, the frozen frames will dissolve and skater 2 will continue his motions skateboarding. Skater 1 will pick up a PowerBisquit, eat it, and proceed to do some awesome moves, such as jump over school buses and buildings.
The Effect Mechanics
All effects are based off the same idea. Essentially the algorithm will attempt to remove any static background so all moving objects can be used in compositing. The camera must remain in a static location and fixed orientation.
A screen-shot of our current interface.
An initial static image of the background is captured and stored in a buffer (before any moving objects enter the frame). Every frame after this will be processed in a pixel-by-pixel difference comparison with the initial buffered image. All pixels that are significantly different from those corresponding in the initial image will be flagged and can be laid over top of any background (be it a green screen or a bus). (it was suggested that we explore luma-keying)
The doubling effect (effect 1): Executing the difference comparison will extract the original character from the scene. Then another scene will be shot from this same location of the same actor doing another trick. The original character will then be composited on top of this new footage.
The trail effect (effect 2): Replacing the background composite layer to an updated merged image at a steady interval will create the trail. For each frame the difference calculation will be processed and the changed pixels will be placed over the buffered image. At a steady interval (say every 5 frames) the buffer image will be replaced with a merged image of the last changed pixels composited over the previous buffer image.
* because we are not using high speed cameras the motion images will be blurred, we are not currently sure how bad this will affect the visual aesthetics of the rendered effect.
Trail Effect (Variation):
It was suggested to us that we might try doing an motion blur for a different type of trail. Here is an example of what this might look like.
We are not sure if we want to persue this yet. This would involve finding the changing area in one frame and comparing it to the changing area in the surrounding frames. Collective movement of the area would cause a blur in that direction.
Input
Video taken from one of our super awesome skater friends, from two different (multiple) angles.
Output
Video made up of several different layers, showcasing our stop frame animation video effect.
Layers
Top: Original Video shot of skater doing a trick.
Intermediate layers: The different layers of frozen frames that our program will create of just the skater in the air. Or, of the skaters walking around in the scene.
Bottom: Static Background without any actors.
Who Does What
Musa - Storyline and video editing for finalization (colors and such), Premiere editing (rough/final cuts video)
Erich - Main Programming, graphics, in contact with skaters
Travis - Camera setup, lighting, music creation, Premier editing (audio)
Shitij - Programming, Premier editing (making-of)
Erich's Friends - freakin awesome skaters
Timeline
Week 1 3/7
Week 2 3/14
- Take test footage to test capabilites of camera
- Write crude code that is capable of trivial difference mattes
- Locate and Reserve Hi-speed camera
- Determine specific challenges and requisites for final production including equipment resources and papers detailing implementation.
Week 3 3/21
- Recruit casting pool
- Personally visit possible shoot locations and settle on final location for shoot
- Reveal final story boards describing appropriate effect adaptation
Week 4 3/28 [March 29 - Project Update 1]
- Main production shooting enough footage for at least two commercials
- Rough cut of main footage available laying the framework for two commercials
Week 5 4/4 [April 5 - Project Update 2]
- Compositing and digital effect implementation
- Sound bed by Travis inserted
Week 6 4/11 [April 12 - Project Update 3]
- All energies to refining digital effect code/ implementation and the colors/quality of final digital footage for commercial 1
Weeks 7-8 [April 14 - Internal Screening, April 28 - External Screening]
- Further revisions, enhancements, and begin to process commercial 2
Link to this Page
- DVFX 2005 Groups last edited on 7 August 2005 at 11:52 am by pcp08664669pcs.500ash01.tn.comcast.net