Training Videos 3d Interaction with live action

	Re: Training Videos 3d Interaction with live action by Dave LaRonde on Oct 28, 2009 at 5:05:17 pm What you'll need more than anything else is good planning so you know when these interactions will occur... plus when ALL your effects shots occur, EXTREMELY good acting, and a whole bunch of post production so you can get the background to interact properly with the actor. No matter how much you plan, things will be off a bit, and that's the only place you can compensate. Dave LaRonde Sr. Promotion Producer KCRG-TV (ABC) Cedar Rapids, IA Respond to this post   •   Return to posts index

	Re: Training Videos 3d Interaction with live action by John Cuevas on Oct 28, 2009 at 6:00:53 pm Concur 100% with Dave. Did this a few years ago, 'virtual warehouse' video. What really sold the video though, was we got a very very good talent. He'd done some commercials before where he'd done similiar stuff...ie acting without props and sets and he sold it. Without him it would of fallen apart. One thing that you may or may not be able to do is test the key immediately with the talent that's going to be in the video. We do green screening in-house, so after we got him here, we did a 1 minute shoot, digitized the footage and threw a key on it to make sure the lighting&key worked with his hair, clothes...better to check/relight if necessary than to try and work with a so-so key. Johnny Cuevas, Editor www.ckandco.net Respond to this post   •   Return to posts index

	Re: Training Videos 3d Interaction with live action by Mark Suszko on Oct 29, 2009 at 7:45:22 pm What you're talking about is as old as Winsor McKay and his animated dinosaur Gertie. That is *all* about timing, if the animation backing is pre-recorded. Here in Springfield, the Lincoln Presidential Museum has an interactive show where live actors interact with extensive animation, projected in a room that's like a giant teleprompter head ( AKA the Pepper's Ghost illusion). Multiple actors take shifts playing the live host, they all pantomime and lip synch to the same pre-recorded master audio track. The track is the guide that keeps everyting in synch, both virtual and practical. http://www.lincolnlibraryandmuseum.com/ghosts.htm In your project you might use this principle by pre-recording the audio and cutting your keyable animation to it, then having the presenter lip synch to it. A more modern way to go would be digital puppetry, using MIDI controllers to operate props or characters in real time, but this is horrendously complicated and so, expensive to do. PBS and Henson's studios are currently doing this sort of thing with 3d-CGI characters for a kid's show. That's very cutting-edge. You could reverse-engineer the whole thing as well, I suppose, by not making the animation until the actor plate has been shot and stabilized, then you can use tracking software to create motion paths for virtual objects, or just brute-force keyframe the movements and positions to hit specific marks. Depends on your skills and budget. One last suggestion; have one or two practical (i.e.real) props or set items in the shot if possible, not just to give the actors more landmarks to base their performance around, but also to add a middle distance of things between the foreground actor and the fake backdrop, thus blending the boundaries to help sell the illusion. If a warehouse scene, a few real boxes stacked here and there on the set and a hand truck, etc. or a fake pillar, real hanging industrial light fixture, anything like that, can help. Respond to this post   •   Return to posts index