BurnetRhoades

Posted Today, 07:02 AM

What's being projected is (mostly) CG, it's just not done through post production techniques.  The system knowing the position and orientation of the robotic arm at all times relative to the camera POV (like how the realtime line of scrimmage and yards-to-go lines are created for live sporting event broadcast) makes the orientation of projection surfaces easier to derive compared to having to track them in post. 

 

You could, additionally, sync a second motion controlled camera to photograph a completely different live scene, instead of using pre-rendered or on-the-fly CGI, to project onto the surfaces.  After 5th Element we built a system within Houdini to interface to the Digital Domain motion-control stage that allowed animators to design physically accurate moves for motion control miniatures rather than the screen-based methodology that was standard to the industry that often introduced "skating" and other kinds of motion or performance artifacts that have plagued flying miniatures for decades (though miniatures were phased out shortly afterwards so it was a neat proof of concept that never really got used).  This adds a projection component to that sort of realtime telemetry and view-dependent spacial awareness.

 

I didn't see specific info on the website or VIMEO but I'm wondering if the projector is on-axis with the composite camera via beam splitter or if they're pre-distorting the projection so that the projector can be fixed, up out of frame and not attached to the composite camera.  

 

It's neat looking, however it's done.

The imagery being projected is being generated in realtime, most likely.  It's really simple graphics.  

 

It's likely more expensive than doing it in post, because of the large robots and the motion controlled camera, which is a third, unseen robot as well as bespoke software to handle integration of the telemetry, motion control and imagery.

 

Setting this up means calibrating the three robots to the host software so that it knows the position and orientation of the tip of each at least, controlling position and orientation of the projection surfaces (which would be known dimensions) and the camera (which would also have known dimensions).  MoCo software that calibrates itself to a fixed origin has been around forever and takes minutes, if that.  This is doing that at least three times and then you're set for the shoot.   The rest is mostly involved in generating the realtime imagery being projected.

Production Company: BOT & DOLLY
Executive Producers: Bill Galusha, Nick Read
Creative & Technical Director: Tarik Abdel-Gawad
Design Director: Bradley G Munkowitz
Lead Graphic Designers: Bradley G Munkowitz, Jason English Kerr
3D Artists: Scott Pagano, Bradley G Munkowitz, Jason English Kerr, Conor Grebel
2D Animators: Conor Grebel, Ben Hawkins, Pedro Figueira
Director of Photography: Joe Picard
Lighting Designers: Joe Picard, Phil Reyneri
Projection / TouchDesigner: Phil Reyneri
Robotics Animation: Tarik Abdel-Gawad, Brandon Kruysman, George Banks, Michael Beardsworth
Robotics Operator: Michael Beardsworth, Brandon Kruysman
Prop Fabrication: Matt Bitterman, Ethan Dale
Script Supervisor: Ian Colon
Sound Engineers: Joe Picard, Michael Beardsworth
PAs: Sean Servis, Dakota Smith, Nico Mizono, Eric Wendel, Patrick Walsh
Editors: Ashley Rodholm, Ian Colon
Music / Sound Design: Keith Ruggiero
Sound Mix: Joel Raabe
Performers: Tarik Abdel-Gawad, Iris, Scout



Phil Spitler  |  Creative Technologist   |  Bonfire Labs  |  t : 415.394.8200  m : 415.571.3139

Website | Facebook | LinkedIn










On Sep 24, 2013, at 6:50 PM, Chris Zwar wrote:

This video has the studio talking today:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lX6JcybgDFo#t=22

Someone said the graphics were done by Gmunk, I haven't checked if that's right or not.  Still, a very cool piece of eye candy.

-Chris



+---End of message---+
To unsubscribe send any message to <ae-list-off@media-motion.tv>

+---End of message---+
To unsubscribe send any message to <ae-list-off@media-motion.tv>