robmilliken

Joe, All the movies in A:M Films are Quicktime, using either the Sorenson or MPEG4 codec. Get the latest Quicktime and you should be able to view. My short happens to be in Quicktime MPEG4 format. If you still have problems, have enough space in your ebox, email me, and I'll be happy to send a DIVX copy as I do have it compressed that way as well. Take Care, Rob Milliken.

Wow! Thank you Martin! High praise indeed! I continue to learn, improve, and hopefully other people can learn from my trials as well. This has been very fun and rewarding. I hope to show many other films in this showcase forum and AMFILMS. I think it is only too cool this software has grown in the last few years from 'software' to 'collaborationware', with this forum, the list, community chat and AMFILMS. Though this effort was basically done 'on the kitchen table', I wasn't alone and if I ever had questions or needed help at some crucial step, very nice, helpful people were always there to assist. I think a someone new to animating on the list once asked, "where is the magic?" Like the famous book/movie said, "right in your own backyard." Thank You Everybody! Rob Milliken

No, I had never seen that before... but TOOO funny! I had a laugh watching that and remembering Alexis who is the actress (and my daughter) in my video giving her coaching tips that she is afraid because the can came to life. These kids and their mom all have the same reaction at the same, time: freak out! Ironic how close those two are, but different in their initial motivations. Thanks for the clip tip! Rob Milliken

I like it! Just dirty it up a little bit, and it'll look it's place! I couldn't hardly believe it when I saw the behind the scenes DVD that in the second prequel that they never manufactured a real suit. All the clones in suits were CG. Let us know when the fanfilm is done! Rob Milliken

Thank you. My next project may be a PSA for the Young Marines. I'm thinking a lot of volumetrics around the disiplined recruits. I think it will be statement driven, not story driven, which I think is going to be difficult to edit/choreograph it all together well. This one was just a whole lot of fun to take from concept to execution. Now if only I could start a career with this.... Rob Milliken

Check out newly finished live action, Laugh Pack Attack on AM:FILMS. http://amfilms.hash.com/search/entry.php?entry=905 Some trivia: Guess what book is next to the little girl on the chair? The 12 pack cases in the background in the kitchen are modeled, not live action. Hope you like! Rob Milliken.

This project is no longer a WIP, it is finished. See the entry, "Laugh Pack Attack" in AM:FILMS for the final results that could not have happened without the people in this forum who offered their assistance. Rob Milliken.

More! Here is another 1 second fragment of what I am working on - here the 'legs' are coming out of the can. I used a lot of the techniques I used that Vernon helped me with on the last clip. Again, this is more mixing CG with live action. I think this looks a little bit better than the last clip -- it certainly went faster -- due to more experience? Shadows jumping all over the place and cg can placement across a moving live hand are a constant concern of mine. Though only a second, I keep looking at it over and over and see glaring problems, though a casual viewer may not catch it since a second goes by pretty fast. I am VERY glad I used a purple prop same as the CG can for this clip, as you can see the reflection matching nicely on some of her fingers. Green or yellow would not have worked as well. It's the little things. In regards to the last post. Pick a point, make it null then constrain the prop to that point? Wouldn't you have to make the null point do then the same thing the can would do? I am absolutely sure I am missing something. For the first clip I did earlier, I did pick a point on the lettering on the can and it helped to keep the tip of her finger on it. Anyone know of a method to make the shadows that clearly flicker here blurred or something so they don't have the obvious look of being cut out -- I did a blur from frame to frame, but that didn't seem to help. Thanks for helping so far!! Hope some other people are learning from these tips too!!! Rob Milliken divxfinal.zip

The primary reason I didn't use a standard chromakey color on the can is because with my initial tests, yellow and greenish colors especially the neon ones bled onto the hands. On purpose, I selected the same color as the primary color of the can. At the time, I thought I was going to use cookie cutter method, but that Alpha blur technique rocks! I don't think project would look the way it now does without that suggestion. I think the 'cut out the hand' part, though done with mag lasso and wand is about as perfect as it can get. I think if it was green, the green would bleed through part of the blur. Though I understand for keying out a color for a mask it is a pain. I took the time to do it though on Saturday, before I saw the lastest post on actions. I do thank you for the time. I want to spend time when I am wide awake (as opposed to right now) to really study what you did, because I am sure it has good application. Now that I am on to getting the can to match the hand movements I am finding a new pain in the arse. I really DO wish I had marked a bullseye on the middle uppermost part of the can or something so I can track it for placement easier. I have seem to spend as much or more getting placement right than selecting the hands. Would be cool if there were a mini version of Icarus for AM, just so you can monitor the live action pixels and constrain the X and Y (I can handle Z) of a CG model with it. Kinda a constrain to live action feature. Here the attached is the latest with ALL 38 frames! Compressed into DIVX format. Work to be done: can placement (?! - I have seen this 1 second footage for sooo long, I'm really not sure how much more I can do to change), definately shadow work under the hands - perspective isn't right though I haven't spent much time on it yet, getting focus/lighting right -- I think it's about there - maybe just minor adjustments. Enjoy! My daughter has 14.59 minutes of fame left! Rob Milliken finaldivx.zip

Vern, Here is a copy of the last frame. You said on your previous post that you were able to do this trick of selecting a color range if the frames were similar. Well, posted here is frame 37 (yes, I said hundreds of frames earlier -- this is only one clip in a few) and the last frame of the clip. As you can see, the clip hasn't changed much since frame 0 -- she is exclaiming 'mmmm...!' at this can which later will be animated in her hand. I thought this clip would be best to start with. This is also in better focus. Are you talking about some kind of 'select color range' within a selection in the frame? That would be cool! But would also be cool if it could be automated! I'd like to learn the method. The selection method with lasso, blur, etc. with an alpha, so far seems to work well on individual frames. I hope to get something basic maybe done by SUN (I work an 8 hour job that has nothing to do with animation... something I hope to change some day) to at least see if the edging varies too much to be noticable... my biggest fear at this point. There is a martial arts film that comes to mind in doing this technique where this actor who was supposed to combat himself and you could see the actual cut lines were made whenever the actor crossed over with his other self -- it was very noticable. I don't want something like that if I can help it. I figure this is something very basic that needs to be mastered if DV and CG are going to be mastered as a mix. I appreciate your help. Rob Milliken

Below is the result of fixes to the original made by suggestions here. I think you can see a clear difference and it looks much better. I do think I am beginning to obsess with this one frame, but if I get the technique right I figure the other frames will obtain more continuity. I was able to blur the alpha (even with my bad wand selection, I think it looks fine) per your suggestion. I wanted to impliment your suggestion with shadows on the can. I really tried. I even tore off the hands of some models on the CD (can you imagine if some federal agency is going through the Internet looking for key phrases of terror right now?) but they didn't cast shadows at all. I think this may be because of the light list to the can. I even tried including the model's hands in the light list to no avail. Finally, I decided to take some black cubes make em 90 transparent and set density to 1. Since the hands are already on an alpha on top, placement was pretty easy -- they didn't affect the hands at all. Thanks again for all your suggestions! On to frame TWO!! Woo hoo! Rob Milliken

I think my problem with Alpha rotoscopes in the past was the 32 bit part. I think I was saving them as 24. There is a pretty good tutorial for those following this thread on how to do what your examples show above in photoshop: http://www.lindaworks.com/tutorials/photos...oshop_alpha.htm As far as cutting them out I used the magnetic lasso and used the wand to touch up what it did and did not grab for my little tests on how to use this technique. Again, very helpful. I am not sure what you meant about the key color being a hard edge and the alpha technique you can blur? This is probably something very photoshop specific. The alpha technique I have used so far from what I can see does a hard edge too. In what way can you blur the alpha channel? Below is a zoomed in view of her hand and a brighter popcan put 'under it' and out of place to illustrate. Thanx again! Rob.

Thank you Rodney and Vern for the help!! Vern, on a Monday morning before I went to work, that example image had me in stitches! Made my Monday much more bearable, thank you! I tried your techniques. In the past I steered away from cam rotos because for some reason I had troubles getting the alpha out... it never seemed to work. Trying your technique though just in the last hour, I had no troubles at all -- it just makes me pick a key color instead, and I didn't have any trouble with this -- fact now I can forgo the Eyebatch program making a key color alpha for all the frames at once. Another reason was because the popcan has reflection and the rotos don't reflect anything off the model. Just a nitpick though, and fixable, I think I will plaster a decal of the DV on the inside 'dome' of a sphere and have it just behind the camera and lit right should reflect back on the can just fine. I really like your idea too of stand in model hands that put in a realistic shadow. It doesn't even have to be perfect since they are never seen! Sure your technique might be more memory consuming, but I think it would work better for my needs as I don't have to make the alpha channel of the prop can just perfect and do all the finessing that filling in the prop entails. I can make the cg can slightly larger than the prop to cover it up. It also solves a problem for a later scene where the can is going to warp out in her hands (using the cookie cutter, the warps that bulge out would have gone beyond the prop and it would have gone behind the dv image). All this too renders FAST! I am SOOO glad I consulted here before going ahead with this, as this REALLY helps!!! THANK YOU! BTW: this project was inspired by a scene from television's Enterprise, a series that I think is underrated for it's CG work. There was a scene where a character holds a cup by the handle and is about to take a sip, then lets go and the cup wanders off weightless away from him. I had always wanted to try to get something like that to work with it's problems on how the fingers cover the cup, lighting it right, etc., in AM. I hope at some time to have the finished project posted in the 'completed' forum. A ways to go, but I have a method now!!! Thanks again!! Rob Milliken

I've shot some video with my daughter in an attempt to master mixing live DV video with AM. My technique: I am having my daughter use a painted popcan the same color as the main color of my CG popcan as a prop. Using BINK/SMACKER tools, I am converting the avi video uncompressed single frame images using the BLEND method of deinterlacing. I then use PHOTOSHOP to fill in the purple popcan the rest of the way (pretty easy with the paintcan and adjusting tolerance along the way since it is the same color). Then, using EYEBATCH, I am changing this purple color to an ALPHA channel. All this is plastered onto a flat grid in AM in COOKIE CUTTER mode. I then have the CGI can modeled in AM behind the single shot of my daughter. Using locked rendering as a godsend of a helper tool in AM, I can get it placed fairly close to the prop cutout. I have the single shot on the grid lit with a single KLIEG light and a couple lights for the can (blue sky outside shining through nearby kitchen window and was shot indoor with one bulb); this was done by separate light lists for the popcan and the flat grid with the single photo shot. Comments are very welcome. I used photoshop for some touchup, but only a little smudging, and not much -- most of the output is directly from AM. I only have 300 frames to go! lol! PROBLEM: I have a question for the group though -- the can is TOO perfect for the slightly out of focus live shot. To compensate so far, I make them both a little more blurry by altering the far focus aspect of the camera. This has the undesirable affect though of blurring the live video as well, something I don't really want. Is there a way to blur the CGI can slightly out of focus and not the flat plane photo? Something similar to the light lists which separate the light? Comment comment comment!!!