ZachBG Posted September 24, 2004 Posted September 24, 2004 Stunning aerial footage of what looks like a giant Muppet rampaging through downtown Dullsville... at 11... I had a little fun with the SynthEyes demo project, and thought the results were worth sharing. My sources tell me there may also be footage from one of the fleeing onlookers... at least if I can spend the $350 bucks on SynthEyes. Enjoy! ShaggyAttack.mov Quote
chris Posted September 24, 2004 Posted September 24, 2004 Well done! Looks great! Though the illusion is broken a little when a few of the houses and things he tromps on don't turn to rubble under the weight of the mighty muppet but really well done none the less! I have had my eye on SynthEyes for some time now. Hmm maybe I should be looking for a project that will justify me buying it. Quote
3DArtZ Posted September 24, 2004 Posted September 24, 2004 that was fun! Nice work! Mike Fitz www.3dartz.com Quote
nerrazzi Posted September 24, 2004 Posted September 24, 2004 Pretty Good!!! Do you still have the link to SynthEyes? I lost it when I reformatted my cp... Quote
KenH Posted September 24, 2004 Posted September 24, 2004 That's great! Can you save to other(non-mov) formats too? Quote
JTalbotski Posted September 24, 2004 Posted September 24, 2004 Okay, Zach... have you been using a PC? Time for intervention! Jim Quote
ZachBG Posted September 24, 2004 Author Posted September 24, 2004 Okay, Zach... have you been using a PC? Time for intervention! snerk... not yet! I just downloaded the pre-made .avi and .prj file. I am investigating whether the demo works in Virtual PC, though. Can you save to other(non-mov) formats too? I'm not sure what you mean... from what I understand, SynthEyes takes a video and spits out an AM .prj file with the camera moves matching the video, even making the video a rotoscope automatically. So the .mov part just comes from the regular AM render. Do you still have the link to SynthEyes? http://www.ssontech.com/ I think. Quote
heyvern Posted September 25, 2004 Posted September 25, 2004 After watching this several times I started to get a little concerned.... Did you know that most insurance companies don't have any type of coverage at all for this type of thing? I can understand that an occurrence of this kind would be very unlikely but hanging up on someone in midsentence is very rude... Vernon "Won't sleep tonight!" Zehr Quote
pia12254 Posted September 26, 2004 Posted September 26, 2004 Quick Question Zach... I am trying out the Syntheyes demo as well after watching your clip and I am having trouble getting it to render out a version I can composite. I have changed the default ground plane to receive shadows/shadow only. However, when I do that it doen't render any shadows whatsoever... I have tried to render the image out with the Alpha buffer, Shadow buffer etc. without any result. How did you do yours? Did you composite the final image or is it all from within AM? If so, what was your method? Thanks in advance! Great clip by the way. Quote
ZachBG Posted September 26, 2004 Author Posted September 26, 2004 (edited) Hmmm... I did 3 separate passes--the original video clip (which wasn't really a "pass" at all, I suppose), the character elements without the ground plane (with the alpha buffer on), and the shadow pass--alpha & shadow buffer on, ground plane active, shadows on, shadow buffer only. Then I composited them together in Final Cut Express. It could be done just as easily with Layers in A:M though. Are you sure you've re-activated the ground plane, and that you have shadows on in the Camera render panel? Edit: one other thing: I also had to change the key sun light to cast shadows, in fact I deleted the Rim light entirely because it wasn't anywhere near the characters. Edited September 26, 2004 by ZachBG Quote
pia12254 Posted September 26, 2004 Posted September 26, 2004 Hey Zach, Thanks for the reply. I finally got it working now thanks to you. I think I had tried all the correct steps...just not all at the same time! :-) I actually broke down and purchased SynthEyes. I had been trying to get Icarus to work for some time and while it worked in some limited circumstances I had trouble getting very consistent results. Once I saw your example it helped me make the decision. I bought/downloaded SynthEyes today and I have already tracked and composited an image from some of my own footage that I am happy with. Go SynthEyes! Thanks again Zach. Quote
ZachBG Posted September 26, 2004 Author Posted September 26, 2004 I bought/downloaded SynthEyes today and I have already tracked and composited an image from some of my own footage that I am happy with. Go SynthEyes! Feel free to share it if you like... I haven't made the jump yet, mostly because I haven't succeeded in getting the demo to track any of my own footage in Virtual PC. But I have VPC on the ancient iMac which I don't do any work on anymore, so I guess I'll need to break down and install it on my laptop. Thanks for the kind words, everybody! Quote
pia12254 Posted September 26, 2004 Posted September 26, 2004 Hey Zach, Here's the clip. Nothing much really...I just get so excited when I see 3d combined with live action. The video clip is something I shot to try with Icarus and I had problems getting it to track well. This composite is still very rough but the idea of the matter and its possibilities intrigue me. Thanks for the encouragement! (I had to attach the file as QT Sorenson, it wouldn't let me attach a WMV format..?) SynthEyesTest.mov Quote
ZachBG Posted September 27, 2004 Author Posted September 27, 2004 Wow! That is super cool! You know, I think SynthEyes might be one of those paradigm-shattering programs, like Film GIMP and, yes, A:M, which bring an effect usually reserved for Hollywood films and puts it right at the desktop filmmaker's fingertips. Now if they would only develop a Mac OS X version. But hey, that's just me. Quote
pia12254 Posted September 27, 2004 Posted September 27, 2004 Hey Zach, Thanks! You inspired me to try this. By the way, what is Film GIMP? Yeah, SynthEyes is pretty cool. I could hardly believe that it was used in Master and Commander and those other big films! At least there are some people who aren't afraid to use an amazing program just because it costs less. Later. Quote
Godfrey Posted September 27, 2004 Posted September 27, 2004 Great stuff, Zach and pia12254. Dang it, now there's something else I want to buy... FilmGIMP is now called CinePaint. It's based on The GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program), a freeware image editor; CinePaint works on sequential images (such as film or video frames). Quote
Hash Fellow robcat2075 Posted September 27, 2004 Hash Fellow Posted September 27, 2004 cool stuff guys! ...I think SynthEyes might be one of those paradigm-shattering programs, like Film GIMP and, yes, A:M, which bring an effect usually reserved for Hollywood films and puts it right at the desktop filmmaker's fingertips. Really. "Match Move Artist" used to be a very complicated job in effects houses. I remember going to a panel on special effects for some movie and they showed shots they had to give up on because no one could get the match move right. This looks like it obsoletes a big chapter in Doug Kelly's "Compositing in Depth." CinePaint works on sequential images (such as film or video frames). Does Cinepaint do things that After Effects doesn't? Quote
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