Mix with a real video

[tido]

I don't know how to search for this but is it possible to create an animation in which there is an animated person filmed with a camera?

 

Or maybe the oposite: an animated character in an animated real world. I saw a tutorial on having a model walking on a real road but the road wasn't animated. The background would have to be animated.

 

If it is possible, could some1 point me a tutorial?

 

thanks

[The Bird Man of Alcatraz]

I don't know specifically how to do this, but the best way to do this is with chroma keying.

This is better known as blue (or green) screen technology.

I.E. If you want to put an animated character into a real picture, you'd animate with a lime green background. You feed the rendering into an editor, and remove the lime green background. Put the animated scene over the real scene, and bingo.

The toughest part is syncing the two cameras; if your real camera moves, you'll have to precisely imitate the movement with your animated camera.

 

Take a look at this short video. I think this is what you're looking for. Notice that the real camera shook at times, and the animated character stood still, making for a somewhat choppy and fake effect. If you are able to overcome that, however, you should end up with a realistic scene--

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPwAK_Vl7P8

 

There is software that can sync up real cameras and animated cameras. I can't think of the name, but there is a plug-in specifically made for A:M that does just that. Its a few hundred $ I think.

 

-The Bird Man

[higginsdj]

I'm not real sure what you are trying to get at as an 'animated real ....' is a bit of an oxymoron. ie it's animated or it's real - it can't be both. So this leaves us with an animated character composited into a real video/image or a real character composited into an animated background (a la Skycaptain and the world of tomorrow).

 

There are plenty of tutorials in the hash world covering compositing an animated character in a real world including the Hash 2003 Pro Series Videos and there is a tutorial on Camera Match moving in the 2000 Pro series Video.

 

Cheers

[nimblepix]

Icarus can help.

It's an old freeware camera match/tracking software

that can be used with A:M if you want to have moving cameras.

 

There are some old copies floating around that will work.

 

I'd stay away from green screen in A:M.

It's much easier to use alpha channel output.

 

You might want to start out with composites

that use locked down cameras in both worlds.

It makes compositing a lot easier.

 

There are some good tutorials out there.

I did the one (certainly not the best) on the 2003 Siggraph tape.

It's about using a locked down video camera.

[higginsdj]

But where are they floating? I've not been able to find any.....

 

Edit: Think I found it - it appears to be called VooDoo now!

Edit2: Maybe not - found another reference... http://www.peerlessproductions.com/tuts/pages/Icarus.html

 

Cheers

[nimblepix]

Edit2: Maybe not - found another reference... http://www.peerlessproductions.com/tuts/pages/Icarus.html

 

Cheers

 

David found it!

[The Bird Man of Alcatraz]

I'm looking forward to trying out that 3D tracking software; thanks for finding it!

 

I've found a rather interesting Wikipedia entry that explains 3D tracking--

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camera_tracking

 

By the way, Icarus is freeware, right?

 

-The Bird Man

[higginsdj]

The version on that link is marked as 'for education purposes only'

 

Cheers

[case]

Yes there is a way cg and live action talk to ddustin about that buddy!!

[tido]

Shit, by the time I check back my topic, I had 8 replies!

 

thanks for the help, I'll check out these links

 

tido