Modeling and Special Effects before Computers

This HBO behind the scenes from 1982 has some awesome mustaches, hair styles, music, and retro visual composition technology. This piece features the creation of the iconic 80s HBO logo. Every aspect of this intro stems from something very physical. Also, notice the tertiary role computers played at the time; motion control cameras. As you watch, consider this: Would it be more or less expensive (in time, money, and people) to produce a comparable, modern version of this intro? Keep in mind the high level of polish demanded by such commercial art.

via CGChannel

Getting started scripting in GIMP

First, read the ScriptFu tutorial, starting with chapter 2 trough the end of chapter 3. Great, no problem.

Now, make sure you have gimp, I roll on a Mac so I had to go here. But, you probably already did that, good.

Next, go get yourself tons of examples, other scrips. Find some stuff that you might want to do, and work your way through their code. Modify it to do something new!

Here are some things to remember about Scheme:

• Parenthesis are important... use just the right amount, they mean something
  
• You put the operator first then the operands, all inside parens:
  
  (+ a b) ; same as a+b
  
  
• Call a function using parens:
  
  (gimp-image-new 512 512 0) ; creates a new image 512x512 in RGB mode (0)
  
  
• You can create variables two ways:
  
  
  
  • (define x 1) ; use x where you like
    
  • (let* ((x 1)) ...) ; x only exists within the (let* ... ) parens
    
  
  
• Set the value of a variable:
  (set! x 10) ; sets x=10, assuming x was defined earlier
  
• Create a function like this:
  

  
        (define (function-name parameters...)
           ... do stuff ...
           ; the last expression in a function is it's return value
        )
      

  
  
• Sometimes things are lists, especially function return values.
  
  
  
  • Use car to get the first element of the list
    (define x (car (gimp-image-new 512 512 0) ) ); puts the image id in x
    
  • Use cdr go get the rest of the list
    
  
  
• For-loops are a little strange. To do something 10 times it goes like this:
  

  
        (let loop ((i 0))           ; "loop" can be any name
          (if (not (= i 10))        ; test to see if you've already done it 10 times
            (begin                  ; start a block of instructions
               ... do something ... ; do your work here
               (loop (+ i 1))       ; go back to the top, increment i 
                                    ;   ... i.e. call loop with i+1
            )
          ) 
        )
      

  
  
• Leave comments, anything after a ";" is a comment... English is also a nice language to use
  

   
    (somefunction x y)  ; this is a comment, should describe what you are doing
      

  
  
• Edit your script as a script! You need to do the following:
  
  
  
  • Create a text file, on windows use Notepad for example.
    
  • The filename convention is script-fu-yourscriptname
    
  • Add to your script file the registration function. This will tell gimp what function to call. Below is an example registration, note that SF-BLAH stuff creates a user interface, so these items depend on the script, and are optional.
    

    
    (script-fu-register
        "script-fu-myscript"                        ;func name
        "Some Script I wrote"                       ;menu label
        "This Script does stuff with things\
         to make widgets of ambiguous\
         utility."                                  ;description "\" means keep newline 
        "Dr. Joe"                                   ;author
        "copyright 2010, JMK LLC Inc.               ;copyright notice
        "Stardate 2010.2"                           ;date created
        ""                                          ;image type that the script works on
        SF-STRING      "Text"          "Text Box"   ;a string variable
        SF-FONT        "Font"          "Charter"    ;a font variable
        SF-ADJUSTMENT  "Font size"     '(50 1 1000 1 10 0 1)
                                                    ;a spin-button
        SF-COLOR       "Color"         '(0 0 0)     ;color variable
      )
      (script-fu-menu-register "script-fu-text-box" "/IFDM/MyScript")
    

    
    
    
  • Now put the text file in the gimp script directory. This is in your "home" directory, look for a file ".gimp-2.2/scripts". Yes the file starts with a "."
    
  • To make it show up, go to ->Script-Fu->Refresh-Scripts.
    
  • Now you can run it by finding your script in the right menu. The location of the script depends on what you put for "script-fu-menu-register", the function right after the registration function.
    
  • Of course, check the documentation and tutorials for more info
    
  
  
  
• There are many other nice things to learn about Scheme, but this will get us started...
  

Try some commands now. In gimp goto: Filters->Script-Fu->Console. This will open a command window that will allow you to test scripts. Now try this:

  (define mynewimage (gimp-image-new 512 512 0)) 

... hit enter. The window should show your command followed by some number in parens (1) for example. This is the image's ID and it's stored in the variable mynewimage. Now type:

  (gimp-display-new (car mynewimage))

... this should show a new image in gimp. We needed the (car mynewimage) because the image ID was actually inside a list, with just one element in it, the ID itself.

There is no need to memorize the functions that gimp provides. If you click on the "browse" button next to the text-entry-field in the console, it will produce a gimp function browser, so you can find the function you want AND its documentation.

Carpal Tunnel Syndrome Anyone?

Carpal Tunnel Syndrome is a progressive, repetitive stress injury involving the nerves, ligaments, and muscles of the wrist. As a digital artist, it is your number one occupational hazard, like knee injuries in sports. The above image was generated by Anatoly Zenkov using a simple Java applet, which you can down load from the flickr comments and try yourself. Thousands of very precise movements and mouse clicks in just 3 hours! Do the math and decide for yourself; automation or physical therapy...

via Gizmodo

Avatar Special Features

Later in this 22 minute making-of piece, you get to see some of the character capture work done on the film. This is the modern and extreme example of "information transfer" that we talked about in class on tuesday.

Summer Drawing

I am still working on setting up a drawing session just for IFDM, but till that happens you will find several resources around town. Since my specific interest is figure drawing, that's where we will start. Fridays at the New Mexico Art League are all day drawing. There are two sessions (morning and afternoon), you can go to one or both. The Harwood also has drawing sessions in the evenings. There was (and still is to my knowledge) a Tuesday session 6-9pm in the old church building that is also figure drawing. Till I can get something going for us, please use these opportunities to get yourself going!

Swanky Retro-Future Diamond Heist

Here's a preview for a neat green-screen based action flic. All the effects were done in After Effects. Could we do better?

Via Boing Boing

Extracting Images From Movies

We now have access (or soon will) to nice (as in clean) moving pictures thanks to our Panasonic AVCHD camera. Now, we need to hack those images! What we want is a simple utility to extract the frames from our .MTS files. It is important to realize that the .MTS file is really just an MPEG4, therefore if you are having problems loading it, you might just try a new file extension. After reviewing several tools I have found one that works just as we need, FFMPEG. It is a cross platform, command line tool that can convert nearly any movie format to any other, including a simple frame dump (what we want). Much thanks to Jeffery Bowles (an Advanced Graphics 413 superstar) for a nice, short description of getting it going on a mac:

MTS files are just mpeg4 files. The command line utility ffmpeg will let you extract the frames:

Building:

svn checkout svn://svn.ffmpeg.org/ffmpeg/trunk ffmpeg
cd ffmpeg
./configure
make && make install

Example usage with an HD camera

ffmpeg -i 00000.MTS -s hd1080 -f image2 waa-%03d.png


Note: the %03d bit above means each successive frame should be numbered using 3 digits. That is, the first frame will be waa-001.png the next will be waa-002.png and so on, up to our last frame waa-999.png.

First Movie

The Library of Congress has begun placing important historical footage on YouTube. Above is the VERY FIRST moving picture, of a man sneezing. Created by Edison Labs in 1893, it used a device called the Kinetograph. This research cost only $13,000 in today's dollars.

Via Wired

Aiptex Camera Test Shot

-- 400x246 reference image of DSC checker from their website.

-- Testing the Aiptex mini-hd camera. My office, 3pm south and eastern light. 720p-30fps.


You can click on the images to see them full size. Overall, it isn't clear that the Aiptex HD really provides much advantage over SD. This is a case of you get what you pay for. The reference image (top) is effectively SD resolution, whereas the Aiptex shot is 720p, which one has better image quality? How do you rate image quality? What are the factors you are using to judge?

Tilt Shift Photography

Bathtub IV from Keith Loutit on Vimeo.
Tilt Shift Photography is a technique for capturing extreme depth of field (among other important effects) in the real world. Notice how everything in the video seems like a miniature model. Why?

Average Faces

In class, we talked about how you can emphasize the uniqueness of a face by accentuating it's deviation from some canonical average face. Face Research has a nice demo that allows you to create your own average, for example: The average male/female, white/black etc. Also note that there is an explanation of the process that they use to create the average faces linked to the page, it's worth a read. Think about why these average faces are pleasing or interesting...

High Dynamic Range Images (HDRI)

High Dynamic Range Images allow us to capture a virtually unlimited range of light intensities (from very dark to very bright) in a single image. This requires more than 8 bits of precision for each color channel, typically 16-32 bits per channel. We can create HDR images of real life by taking multiple images with different exposures and combining them. This can be done in Photoshop using File-Automate-Merge to HDR. Give it a try! Since we can't actually display HDR images on a computer monitor, we have to "tone map" it so that the aspects of the image that we are interested in are visible. HDR images are essential for realistic computer generated images mixed with live action. In the near future, HDR photography will be common place.

Color Theory

Color Theory check it out! You should know this.

Audiofile

Thru You is a very interesting project that produces original break-beat songs using entirely user-generated content from You Tube. Check out I M New as a start.

Consider the complexity, organization, and musical talent required to compose music this way. How do you think it was done? What tools were used. Do you think the song could have been composed in video editing software directly? Seems like they may have used Ableton Live or even an old school sp12, with the video produced after the fact...

via Boing Boing Gadgets

Dr. Manhattan process

From Wired we have a description of the process for bringing a unique digital character to life. I really like that they were able to unify the glow effect (the character must illuminate the real life characters) and the tracking.

Color Space

Color defines a space. How we use this space depends on what our media can represent (consider the difference between our eyes and the monitor) and what we need it to express. Typically in computer graphics we first think of the RGB color space. This space is useful from an engineering point of view (we need red, green, and blue emitters to make a color pixel), however it can be very difficult to work with as human/artist. What other color spaces are there? How is the HSV color space different from RGB? Why might a human find this better to work with?

Just Awsome

Slow Motion Punches to The Face from Eduardo Wydler on Vimeo.

Think about how one might model these dynamics. What kind of deformations would be required to make a character do this?

In case you hadn't heard...

February 18, 2009

Albuquerque Journal

3-D May Spell Jobs for N.M. (UNM involved)
By Michael Hartranft, Journal Staff Writer

New Mexico stands to gain nearly 100 new high-technology jobs under two commercial partnerships with the state's supercomputer program, including a pioneering venture with film studio giant, DreamWorks Animation.Backdropped by Encanto, the state's supercomputer at Intel in Rio Rancho and the heart of the New Mexico Computer Application Center, Gov. Bill Richardson announced that the Cerelink Digital Media Group of New Mexico is teaming up with DreamWorks to explore “cloud computing” or remote rendering for film production. The project would create about 30 jobs in its early phase.The governor also introduced the Insigniam Innovation Discovery Center, a health-care consulting business that recently moved to Albuquerque from San Francisco. It plans to use the supercomputer to develop solutions for improving health-care quality and value, Richardson said.Insigniam plans to hire 60 to 65 people this year and could expand to 300 over the next four years, managing partner Lee Akay said. Former Intel employee and Cerelink managing partner Richard Draper said the trend in computer-generated films is moving toward 3-D. As such productions require millions of computing hours, there is a need for cost-effective computing capacity. “The answer is New Mexico,” he said. Cerelink and DreamWorks — whose films include “Shrek” and “Kung Fu Panda” — will jointly explore developing technology and infrastructure for the studio to be able to render computer-generated 3D films in New Mexico. The NMCAC worked with UNM, the state Department of Information Technology, National LambdaRail and Cerelink to test an ultra-high-speed link between New Mexico and Hollywood. “As far as we know, no motion picture has been rendered remotely, so this is truly an R and D effort,” Draper said. The initial phase will take a few months. “At that point, when DreamWorks and Cerelink are satisfied that part works for remote cloud-computing, then that's when we start looking at the next phase, which is to hire folks to start doing animation here as well as the rendering that would be done from the studios in Los Angeles,” he told the Journal. He said about 30 jobs would be created during that time. Draper said Cerelink will not use the supercomputer in the first phase, but that it holds potential for animation companies down the road.

Introduction to Adobe Scripts

Trevor Morris has a nice introduction to scripting the Adobe Creative Suite applications. Read up! We will be using Adobe tools for post processing our animations. (Note: this tutorial has two parts).

Here is another easy tutorial with nice examples.

The Uncanny Valley

"The uncanny valley is a hypothesis that when robots and other facsimiles of humans look and act almost like actual humans, it causes a response of revulsion among human observers. The "valley" in question is a dip in a proposed graph of the positivity of human reaction as a function of a robot's lifelikeness."

This post is in reference to a comment in class about the "corpse effect". Here is a clip demonstrating how to achieve the corpse effect using photoshop: