Content may be questionable, but techniques are undeniable.

For those of you who don't know, there's a whole unwritten subcategory on Youtube called Youtube Poop videos.  These videos consist of various nonsensical topics that just take random subjects and distort them with audio or video techniques, and some Youtubers go as far to make their own stories with the distorted content.  While some are incredibly easy to make, others take some very advanced techniques, like some of the techniques we're learning in class right now.

One of my favorite kinds of Youtube poop videos involves Michael Rosen, a children's story author who has videos of himself telling the stories.  What makes him great material for Youtube poop videos is that he makes so many funny noises and faces, so some amazing imagery can be concocted.  Some of them are absolutely hilarious, and this one in particular utilizes some notable editing techniques like keying, motion tracking, and even some forms of 3D animation.  Sure the story can be strange and offbeat, but the editing is actually really well done.  There was plenty of effort put into this, unlike a lot of other Youtube Poops on the web.

The Michael Rosen Venture

Lighting Up Gaga's Face at the Grammy's

The Grammy’s were this past weekend, although I didn’t watch it, I stumbled upon a clip from the Lady Gaga tribute performance for David Bowie who passed earlier this year. The beginning of the tribute starts out with a tight shot of Lady Gaga’s face. Red paint “drips” down her face and makes the infamous Bowie lightning bolt over her left eye. From the same eye sprouts a spider that then crawls around her face. After completing a loop it turns into an orb that glows and stays place on her forehead. The lights go dim and she walks onto the main stage to finish the performance. 

Although this was only a less than one minute long, it’s still impressive they were able to apply animations on to a moving face during a live performance, be it digitally or via projection. Personally I feel as if the motion tracking was done via projection because near the end of the section you could see an extra set of eyes as well as the animation being slightly off while Lady Gaga’s movements gain more momentum. I also feel it was done via projection because for a live audience that would be more exciting than watching a screen. 

The big give away about the motion tracking and the fact that it was done live were the silver dots that were on the upper portion of Lady Gaga’s face throughout the entire performance. As we all know, or should all know by now, these dots act as tracking points in order for the animation to “stay put” on Lady Gaga’s face even while she moves about.

All in all this was a great tribute performance for the late David Bowie, and the animation in the beginning was very nice touch. Check it out!

SPACE JAM

One of my all time favorite movies, and one that interestingly I hadn't thought to take a look into. Until one of the film blogs I follow (www.traslacamara.com) posted an interesting article on the actual BTS. This was super relevant because we had just done the tracking lab in class and I can only imagine all the tracking that went into this movie.

As you can see they used many actors dressed up in morph suits to get the motion down, but interestingly enough I didn't see any track points on the actors themselves, which must have made putting the animated characters over top of them a bit of a struggle.

And if that wasn't enough to satisfy your BTS needs, here is a fantastic video of them actually shooting (A+ camera movement as well)

Rotobrushing is hard...

http://www.lynda.com/After-Effects-tutorials/Welcome/152429/161547-4.html

A friend of mine had recently asked me if I'd be willing to help him with some sign replacement shots for his upcoming cinema project.  Not knowing anything really on the subject itself, but knowing that there were plenty of resources and tutorials on how do such a thing, I agreed to help him and then went straight to Lynda.com to find some videos that related to the process.

Thankfully, I found exactly what I was looking for with a tutorial that shows how to place a new computer screen over an existing one.  It goes through motion tracking the shot in Mocha AE, bringing it back into After Effects and adjusting it for the shot.

What really made this tutorial series so interesting is all the techniques that are used to make it look more realistic, the one trick that was especially clever was the creation of shape layer with a gradient, and then using that shape layer for the screen's blur map.  This helped the screen emulate almost perfectly the depth of field that was in the shot, and it made it look way more realistic.

However, the hardest part of the whole process was rotobrushing the hands that were moving in front of the computer screen, because it definitely takes way more than to just blur it in the same fashion.  For those who are unaware, rotobrushing involves a very tedious process of identifying a section of a video layer to be masked out and put over the footage to make it perfectly seamless.  Think of it almost like using the selection and refine edge tool and Photoshop for nearly every single frame.  It does beat using the pen tool to create masks over and over again though...

But it seems like something I can do.  If I managed to make three stop motion animation films in the past two years that all involved adjusting something frame-by-frame this doesn't seem like it'll be out of my reach.  Only time will tell.

The Chickening.

I would like to share a video I found by a motion graphics artist named Nick DenBoer. He has done graphics professionally for a variety of known companies such as Conan, DC, and more. As far as I'm aware, he does much of his stuff in After Effects. As you will see a lot of it is very strange but extremely impressive in my opinion. The video below is a short film/trailer that is going to Sundance and several other festivals. It is called The Chickening. It uses clips entirely from the movie The Shining, but with many, many things added, from face replacements to all kinds of background objects. In this class, I hope to be able to enhance my abilities to anything near this level, and probably to a less disturbing degree. Without further a'do, The Chickening. I'm sorry.

As you can see, his ability to motion track and pretty much seamlessly add objects to a previously shot 2D scene is extremely impressive. I have done work like this in the past but nowhere near as complex on shots that moved as much as these. I look forward to extending my knowledge of After Effects and Mocha motion tracking as well as other similar plugins and programs. Check out his reel if you wish, and here is his YouTube channel.

Learning from Past Mistakes

Last semester was a quite the learning experience for me in terms of the correct workflow for animation and VFX processes. When we we're shooting Relativity, my senior thesis, one of the more important details of the project was that we had to include several computer screens in the shot (they were hackers, so it was unavoidable). This is something that didn't come up in pre-production, although it probably should have, and so we showed up on set the first day with no plan for rotoscoping the screens.

Someone on set had the idea of taping the corners so that I'd have something to track onto in post. A good idea, especially since the tape was green and easy to distinguish from the surrounding white and black screens. What we failed to think through was the fact that many of the shots had obscured screens or characters moving through them, which makes it a much more difficult process. This could have been shot around, we just didn't think of it in time.

The other detail that we shouldn't have overlooked is the fact that a large number of the shots were handheld. This makes it a lot harder for AE to track all the points, especially when there are characters moving in front of the screens. This shot was particularly difficult, because the characters crossed both screens independently at different times.

That being said, this was by far the most difficult shot. Not only does he move in front of the screen but there is an intense amount of motion blur and shaky camera movements. On top of all that there is light changes across the entire screen, something I didn't notice till the day of the premiere and is currently on my to do list for this semester.

Definitely a learning experience for me, but it gave me a great crash course in rotoscoping which I hope to improve upon this semester.

2D Motion Tracking Tips

The 2D Tracker

In After Effects, there is a standard tracker that will track parts of a video clip. See the image below. Basically, Box A looks for what ever pattern is in Box B across every frame, then exports this movement to the crosshair C.
Box A is call the Search Area
Box B is the Pattern Area
and the Crosshair C is where the data is exported to.

Once you hit play, After Effects follows the Pattern Area by scanning through the search area for the same pattern every frame.

That's all fine and dandy when you pick good tracking points, but what makes a good tracking point and how does this tracker work?

Good Tracking Points

For the most part, you want to select points with high contrast. This is all well and good, but what if you can't find any? as it turns out there are a few solutions:

Only track points that actually exist

Don't try to track the intersections of two objects because no mater what you try, that point is not going to stay the same as the camera's perspective changes. 

Don't track the edges of objects

Often there is high contrast on images with a building and the sky, but if this was a vide, we do't want to track that edge. For the most part, these edges allow the tracker to slide across it because of the similarity in the texture of the building and the texture of the sky. This results in an inaccurate track.

Never take your eyes off the track

When the computer is tracking your point, don't let yourself become distracted. Often when you aren't watching it, the track will veer off target. By watching it, zoomed in, you will know how accurate this track is going to be before it even finishes.

Use the right size tracker

As in most Tracking programs, you can designate the size of the pattern area, and the search area for your tracker in after effects. By changing the size to only encompass what you're trying to track you have a better chance of catching it every frame. Also if there is a lot of motion in your frame, perhaps it makes sense to have a larger search area.

What points to avoid

When tracking your points of high contrast make sure to pick points that do not have:

• Motion Blur
• Soft Focus/Rack Focus
• Occlusion
• Noise
• Low Contrast
• no features /single color
• Interlacing

Some Ways of Correcting the above issues

Motion Blur

Expand the search area. The extreme motion of the camera maybe causing the pattern you were trying to track the movie on the default search area and this will cause a tiger to stop or slip.
Expand the pattern size. This gives this offer more information to work with and might help it to continue through the motion blur.
Sometimes manually tracking the point at the parts where the clip is most blurry can keep it on track.

Soft Focus/Rack Focus

Use a bigger pattern size. Bigger pattern sizes can sometimes compensate for the noise in the soft focus features because the program is simply more pixels. This causes a sort of averaging effect on the track.
Slightly blurry the image. It seems to go against common sense to blur the plate when blurriness is the problem you're trying to solve. This technique sometimes is more effective because it will help get rid of the graininess and produce a smoother track.
Sometimes tracking from the in focus part of the shot to the out-of-focus part gives you a better result too.

Occlusion

In order to solve occlusion, you can track it by hand or for the frames your tracking point is occluded find another tracking point that could potentially work for a little while. Make sure, when you move the pattern and the search area, that you leave the origin (Crosshair C) right where it was. It should still follow the motion, relative to the position of the pattern and search area.

Noise

Whatever you do, try to remove the noise. Noise really confuses it to the tracking system. If even buy D noising your image, you still have a lot of green, try tracking only one channel.All video is composed of R G and B values, and perhaps there is less grain in one  or two of those three channels.If all else fails's, do the track on the noisy shot, and use the smoother to all on the keyframes.

Low Contrast

Most 2D trackers will use the luminance value of the pixels they are tracking. If you can try tracking only in our, G, or be color channel instead. Sometimes one of these channels has more contrast than the others.Another solution is to add an effect of the clip that makes features more "legible." If you add a sharpen effects to your clip perhaps you can get better results.

no features /single color

If your clip has almost no features and is more or less a single color there is not many options. You could try tracking an edge, but the tracker may slip. You can try playing with the color channel your tracking, but you may not get any more information there either. Ultimately if you have to track a shot like this you are better off tracking it manually.

Interlacing

The easiest way to deal with this problem, is to Deinterlace the image before you begin your tutti track. Most compositing programs have a Deinterlacer.


I hope that you found some of these tips helpful in the projects you're working on, I know that they have been helpful for me and my green screening project!! 

Audi - Shapeshifter

Over the course of the semester, we have learned varying techniques in After Effects such as motion tracking, compositing, and particles. The tutorials offered by Video Copilot have really served as useful resources from the start to finish of a composition. But, after seeing some of the animation he did for Star Trek's opening title sequence, my eyes were stretched wide open to the endless possibilities in motion graphics and animation. I started doing some research into advertising and how companies actively utilize motion graphics to promote their products. After searching throughout various video sites such as YouTube and Vimeo, I wasn't surprised to find that companies that produced more expensive products (and therefore acquired greater revenues) had the ability to reach out to motion graphics companies to better promote their merchandise. One of the greatest commercials, from what I could find, that incorporated as many aspects of techniques that we've learned in class was the Audi Shapeshifter commercial from 2011.

While the video is 4 years old, it's stylistic approach to graphical design, cohesive transitions, and intense particle construction make the technical aspect of this commercial relevant to similar productions today. Even though the commercial stresses the car's versatility and freedom to adhere to any circumstance, it presents the argument that it be able to out-preform and outlast the competition. Motion graphics and animation don't just focus on technical design; there is always a story to be told. Audi's Shapeshifter commercial was able to successfully entice viewers in a little over two minutes.

Fringe and Floating Text

Not too long ago, we learned how to utilize motion tracking in After Effects. The ability to have an image or piece of text that you've created follow the camera movements to appear as part of the environment is a very valuable skill. As a media production major, the more tricks of the trade I learn, the more I start to see them used everywhere, and motion tracking is no exception. Lately I've been binge watching the Fox series Fringe on Netflix, and old favorite of mine that makes heavy use of motion tracking techniques.

Fringe is a show about the investigation of pseudo-science and unnatural phenomena. As you can imagine, a science-fiction show like this would make use of a lot of effects, but perhaps most notably are the floating text effects that the use during their establishing shots. Multiple times each episode, there are giant 3D letter floating in establishing shots, indicating where the story is taking place at the time. 

These words move with the camera movements, making them appear as though they are a part of the environment. The show creators also use other effects to really try to make the words appear to be in world, by including reflections in glass buildings and puddles, and even having the weather interact with letters. To see effect in motion, check out any episode, you'd only have to watch the first couple of minutes before seeing this effect used. Or you can check out this quick little demonstration video.

Project Omote: Make up-less Make up

Project Omote combines face tracking and projection mapping to create new faces on faces in real time. The system uses projection mapping to display images on a person’s face. Face tracking allows the image to be maintained and adapted even as the user turns their head. As in most motion tracking, there are nodes placed on the user’s face at specific points to maintain the tracking. As it is right now, the Omote system is mostly just art—an installation of sorts. The lights projecting images are very bright, so users cannot open their eyes. Instead, eyes are projected atop closed eyelids. It does not appear to have a real purpose, but it is awfully cool to look at. It would be kind of interesting to see something like this developed further so it could be used practically and with one’s eyes open. For example, it would be quite cool to see the system implemented in stage productions. Theatre already uses light to transform a scene. Using light and motion tracking to transform a performer is just the next step.

Space Jam & Greenscreens

I'm pretty sure the first movie I ever saw using Green Screen to insert a real-life character into a completely animated movie was "Space Jam". I own this movie on VHS and I used to watch it all the time as a kid. The other one I remember was "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?", but for whatever reason I think Space Jam stuck with me more, even though Roger Rabbit is probably a better movie. Who can deny the Looney Tunes? I remember as a kid wondering how they inserted Michael Jordan into the cartoon, and it's funny to me now how obvious it looks. It's also astounding how easy it actually is to do stuff like this, especially when your lead actor is Michael Jordan, and nobody is expecting an Oscar-winning performance. Still, I love this movie. For your viewing enjoyment, the final basketball game between the Tune Squad and Monstars:

And as a bonus, the ESPN 30 for 30 on this legendary game between the Looney Tunes and Monstars. Here they reflect on the majesty of this historic game. They also acknowledge the tragic death of Foghorn Leghorn in the first half, where he was burned alive. Truly heartbreaking.

Orphan Black: A Story of Clones

If you’re a fan of the Parent Trap (and are still in denial about Lindsay Lohan not having a twin sister), take a seat because I’m about to introduce you to something that will make those effects look like child’s play. Orphan Black is the name, but simple cloning is not its game. Created by Graeme Manson and John Fawcett, Orphan Black is a drama aired via the BBC that deals with the concept of clones. And while you may think “making a clone video isn’t that hard,” I’d say to hold off on your judgement just yet. Because Orphan Black brings a new twist to the classic clone genre: these ones can actually interact and appear in the same moving environment as the other. Don’t really understand? It means that one clone can smack the other in the face and not be blocked out of frame with a stand in.

It’s a very unique and very complicated process, but the effort put in can really be seen in the final product. I ended up binge-watching almost the entire first season in one night not only because the story was absolutely engaging but because I wanted to see just how far they were going to take these special effects. It’s a strangely thrilling process to watch as they balance tennis balls to save a place for putting in clones, shoot their shots five different ways (and times), and create a whole new element of cloning that I haven’t seen in any digital media for quite awhile.

It’ll make you do a double-take, leave you feeling more confused than satisfied, but it’s an addiction that is not something you’ll regret.

Are heroes born or created?

After seeing Captain America: The Winter Soldier this past weekend, I remembered a question that I had about the first Capt. America movie that I never got answered. If you've seen the film, you've seen the amazing transformation Chris Evans' character, Steve Rogers, goes through in order to become the patriotic hero we all know and love.

It's pretty absurd to even think about, let alone to try to figure out how they did it. They must have used two different actors. That's what I originally thought, at least. I figured there weren't any visual effects at all. It made perfect sense to me for them to use two actors with very different physical builds and similar faces and then to have Chris Evans ADR (automated dialogue replacement) the scenes with his own voice.

Well, it turns out that I was partially correct in the two actors assumption. Partially. There were two main techniques the crew used to shrink Cap. down to his original, scrawny size. The first one of the two (the one I was closest to guessing) indeed required the use of a double. Leander Deeny played Evans' double before Steve Rogers goes through the physical transformation that allows him to become the super soldier that stands for all that is American. What they did to cover for the fact that the two actors clearly don't have identical faces, was to place green dots all over Deeny's face to use as motion trackers. Using these motion trackers, animators were able to take Evans' face and place it on Deeny's body. This was achieved by having Deeny act out each and every shot pretty much exactly the same as Evans. Then came the hard part.

That was the easier of the two techniques. The other one (and certainly the more time consuming one) required an entire physical makeover. Basically, the visual effects specialists would take the shots with Evans and literally reshape the majority of his body, making him smaller and thinner. This includes everything from thinning out his neck to completely reshaping his jaw line. The reason for sometimes using this technique over the other one is...well, I'm not quite sure. Apparently the motion tracking was simply less effective in certain circumstances. I don't know what those circumstances must have been, but I'll leave that up to the professionals. For a more detailed explanation of the entire process, take a look at this behind-the-scenes video:



Glad that another mystery in my life has been solved. Onto the next one!

fake iPhone concept

Obviously this video is quite old but I still thought it was worthy to post here due to some of the effects used in the video. My favorite part of the video was the keyboard segment because it was one of the better fake features. Aside from the concept, the video's effects are nice as they were well made enough to mimc reality. When I initially saw this video, I was impressed with how realistic the edge to edge display looked. This video is a perfect example of how some simple effects can create a nice sequence, and make for an entertaining video without going overboard.

Game of Thrones - Visual Effects from Season 1

Don't know how many of you watch Game of Thrones but I came across this pretty cool short video that shows scenes from the show before & after the use of VFX.  You can see them using green screen on a number of occasions.   Also, I found a pretty interesting Cracked.com article.  These days, its relatively safe to assume that many outrageous stunts or effects shown in movies are accomplished with computer graphics.  However, the article lists several films that have "amazing special effects" you would think are CGI.

7 Amazing Movie Special Effects You Won't Believe Aren't CGI

Extensive FX Test

This video was made by a guy named David Paplia, under the YouTube username, Nephuxs. This features the use of many special effects from VideoCopilot.

On the description, it says "Background removal, motion tracking, 3D models, I did it all based on the tutorials provided by VideoCopilot. Also used Optical Flares, Action Essentials 2, and some other goodies".

It also shows the "Before" clip used at the 0:13 mark. It seems that adding sound effects, 3D ships, and other stuff from Star Wars, especially the Wilhelm scream, makes a difference in a video.

Interactive Music In Digital Environment

When searching for topics I came across this project that really interested me both as a machine and as a visual spectacle. It is called the V Motion project and It is funded by a company similar to Red Bull. They created a device that takes human motion and midi maps it to a computer running Ableton Live. The person movements actively trigger the music being created in real time. What interested me was how the graphics in the background are also manipulated by the persons movement as well as the music. This is only the first version of this technology but the developers want to make it so more then one person can interact with the program. Check out the video and see it in action but also check out this blog which describes exactly the process used in creating it. 

Blog of how its created!

-Samuel Dickinson

Happy Batsgiving or Happy Bat Friday!

This week we are taking a look at a video from CollegeHumor's BADMAN series. This series has been racking the views for quite some time now on their website with videos over 500,000 views, some even have over a million views. They take scenes from Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy and parodies them, turning everyone's favorite hero into the worst version of him yet (and that means worse than the time that Batman was also Green Lantern). Here's a clip:



Just the pits, ammiright? The series uses a number of effects to make it as close to movie quality as possible, including motion tracking with fire and eye color displacement. The series' visual effects are done by a group called Gloo Studios Inc. Based out of British Colombia, this post-production/visual effects/production group has worked with a number of producers and post-production managers of broadcast content for TV and Film. They work with all styles and genres of productions, from multi-million dollar productions to indie producers and filmmakers. Their collaberation with CollegeHumor on many videos, not just including the BADMAN series, has really taken humor to the next level of online videos.

 

Walking Dead Season 2 Finale

First off, I'd just like to point out how incredible of a show the Walking Dead is... if you haven't started watching it, you're doing yourself a disservice. It is an incredible story of survival from the viewpoints of many diverse characters. Nearly every episode someone is faced with an incredibly difficult situation or mind crippling decision. It causes you to think about life and humanity, and what those high-concepts truly mean. I just finished season 2 and the finale was nothing short of a masterpiece. It begins with everyone's life in jeopardy as a horde of Walkers (the shows pet name for zombies) breaks through the defenses of the farm which the survivors have taken refuge in. From that point; the onslaught begins. The survivors desperately hold down their position, using cars as their cavalry and the farm as their castle. During these gruesome scenes it is easy to see that After Effects was used to simulate the gunshots and the bloody display of projectile brains. Beyond the makeup and acting ability, it seemed relatively simple to replicate using the tools we've learned (i.e. motion tracking, masking, and utilizing layers). The effects were incredibly realistic and made for some really brutal and horrific shots. During the course of the episode, many beloved characters are lost, either to the zombies or separated from the group, and the feeling of desperation skyrockets for the viewer. To add to the drama, some of the characters begin to change their dispositions; from friendly, heroic and righteous to borderline evil. The show definitely makes use of filters through After Effects. In several scenes they use fire to destroy zombies, and in another they sit around a campfire and and discuss their plans. In both scenes you can tell that the actors are not actually in front of fires, but rather they are using filters in After Effects to give the viewer the impression that it is night, and they use special lighting and glow effects to enhance the illusion. In reality, fires would cause too much brightness and would ruin the shot due to the intensity of the light. The closing shot of the episode reveals a fortress in the distance, foreshadowing the plot of the next season. It too appears to have been created using After Effects by superimposing it onto the final frames of the shot; leaving us viewers with a wild cliffhanger. I am incredibly excited to begin the next season, and follow it each week. For anyone who hasn't seen it yet, the first two seasons are on Netflix and I highly recommend them to anyone who claims to be an avid fan of sci-fi, drama, action, or horror.

JP Heroux

Tracking

I didn't have a whole lot this week to talk about. However, I did realize from my experience in the LA Program that the suspects cars and cop cars from CSI: NY had tags on them that said demo car and such. I was always wondering how they can cover that up with a real license plate in the actual television show. I realized it's done through tracking just like in the project we did in class with replacing and advertising sign on a taxi in New York.