Through the Looking Glass
Stephen Prince
Prince, A (2010) Through the Looking Glass: Philosophical Toys and Digital Visual Effects p. 19-38
In this article Stephan prince explains the connections between science and Visual effects. Stephan begins by explaining Perceptual Realism. He says this is a way of creating a CGI object and giving real physics to this object. The examples he gives is the dinosaurs within Jurassic Park. He goes onto explain that even though we know these dinosaurs are not real and we have never seen one with our own eyes, they interact with the actors in their scenes in ways that bond CGI and real life together and creates a believable creature. Stephan then goes onto to break down the connections between science and Visual effects with the early scientific experiments, such as the Camera Obscura which is a device that used light to project a reversed image onto a surface. Stephan also explains how these early devices where compared to how the human eye process’s information, The process in which the Camera Obscura works is later the same process that will be used within Cameras.. These early devices pathed the way for the tools and techniques used for films. Stephan also bridges Science and Cinema together by explaining how Industrial light and Magic worked with Stratford university to created realistic CGI water. ILM did this by using the information found by Stradford’s researchers and added their findings of the phenomenon known as velocity, this is the swirling effect as water interacts with solid objects. ILM used this new information in the movies Hercules ( 2006). Stephan also gives an example of a film that tired to recreate water through CGI without any help from any scientists or researchers and the results where not not convincing.
What Is Digital Cinema? Lev Manovich
Manovich, L (2012) WHAT IS DIGITAL CINEMA? p. 1-16
In his Essay Lev Manovich breaks down what makes digital cinema and develops his argument by breaking down cinema through the years in its different forms, Lev explains the impact that Visual effects has had on Digital Cinema and how it has taken away the originality and unique aspect of cinema. He begins by breaking down the original forms of cinema. Early techniques "involved using mechanical slides consisting of a number of layers". However, Lev explains that Cinema was really born when "A mechanical eye became coupled with a mechanical heart; photography met the motor. As a result, cinema". When a real life image taken from a camera could become a moving image with multiple other photos. Lev explains how cinema used to be the mixture of already existing images. "It denies that the reality it shows often does not exist outside of the film image, the image which was arrived at by photographing an already impossible space, itself put together with the use of models, mirrors, and matte paintings, and which was then combined with other images through optical printing" Here Lev is saying how early cinemas took images of real things. Objects that can we can hold and have real space in this planet. This is what made movies unique. Real objects being put together in multiple frames to bring them to life. However, with the introduction of Visual effects and computer created objects the original techniques that made Cinema so unique have now been pushed to back of production and are no longer important in the movie industries eyes. Lev also tells us how Visual effects are now the main part of the film. Even go as far to give an example of how films make separate pieces of media explaining the breakdown of the Visual effects used. Lev says "Many recent blockbusters have been driven by special effects; feeding on their popularity. Hollywood has even created a new-mini genre of "The Making of..." videos and books which reveal how special effects are created." In his essay Levs overall point is film is no longer a unique spectacle and Visual effects has become the main purpose.
What is the Photographic truth claim?
Photographs have always been used to record a single frame of an event. Freezing it in time. Photographs used to be a reliable source of information and what you saw was always guaranteed as being real. However due to recent technology such as photoshop, can we really trust what we see in an image? This is what the Photographic truth claim is. the claim is can we really believe what we see?
There are a lot of factors to this claim, a lot of the factors that get seen by the viewer are decided by the creator of the image. he angle, the lighting, how big they want the object to feel, what colour they want and much more. Which is what can make it difficult for anyone to truly trust an image. I great example of this is the analogy of the cave, This is a story about prisoners that are chained up facing a wall, unable to turn there heads. Behind them is a fire and in front of that fire puppets of animals move in front of them casting shadows on the wall. Even though they are not real animals the prisoners believe they are as it is all the know and what they think it reality. This is like us, we see what the photographer wants us to see and not every thing can be seen as being real.
What is Visual Effects Compositing?
Compositing in visual effects is the process of seamlessly combining digital assets and Live action footage to form one shot in a film. Out of the whole VFX pipeline composition is the final step. Composition is not an easy job and need a skilled person to great good work. This person will put together different assets and make them look like they are meant to be in the scene. An example of the workflow is a VFX company will shoot a VFX plate this is a shot with the actor and potentially a little set of an area that would be close to the camera like a car. The background will be made up of a greens screen. A VFX company will then create a creature using 3D sculpture, this creature will be textured by a texture artist. Once rendered out these assets will be passed to the compositor.
Now is where the magic of the compositor begins. In the Industry Nuke is the standard. Due to its pipeline layers being very handy to pass to multiple artists also the ability to chop and changed nodes. The composter will layer the Plate and the monster and use nodes like the Keyer Node to key out the greenscreen and colour correction and Z – depth to bring it all together. The z – depth it what controls the white and black colours. This is what really helps place a asset closer or further into the scene. Overall, the workflow of a compositor is very exciting and is not always the same. A skilled person is needed to help create a convincing shot and when done write it can create amazing results.
What is Photorealism?
Photorealism is the process in which a processed image is to be made to look like it was taken from a camera. Photorealism can be interpreted in many different styles. These can include Art and film. In this case I will be talking about Photorealism within CGI.
A good example of this is in the new Disney Live action Films, where they take the old cartoons and create a Live action replica of that film. A example of this is the Jungle Book (2016) Within the original Jungle Book (1967) It is very easy to distinguish the cartoon look. With its 2D characters and the artistic design of that of a drawing. However in the new most recent brother of the original the only live action aspect of the film is the protagonist known as Mogli. However, the film looks as if it was shot with a camera in a real environment. Why is this?
This is due to the fantastic work done by the VFX artists. That in fact won an Oscar for there work in the CGI for the Jungle book (2016) They have created a Photorealistic shot. They did this using 3D software such as Maya. Where they can simulate plant movement and even generate fur on a character. Programs like Maya can even generate light which acts the same as light does in the real world. In the original jungle book due to its 2d animation style it using the 12 basic principles of animation. These principles are things such as squash and stretch. These principles do not apply to the live action version as these are not realistic. The characters move like real life animals. Parts of the VFX team go out and examine the movements of real animals and apply them to the animations of the assets in the film.
Lidar Lounge Case study
Lidar Lounge are a company that scans in Sets, environments and props to be used within movies. This is useful as scans are a great way to create 3D models of an object in great detail. A great example of use of Scanning and in this case Photogrammetry which is a type of 3D scanning being used in film is the scene in inception when the buildings fold over. In an interview with the University of West London the co directors of Lidar lounge talk about how they worked on the Hobbs and shore where they scanned in the skyline of London for the background of the set.
The way that Lidar lounge would get there scans is they take all there technology to the set and scan the objects in there. They have this 360 camera which can take pictures from all angles of the cast. They would then use Metashape to create the scan and once the scan is complete they will then align the mesh and model it. Scanning does have its drawbacks though. It struggles to record the data from black, shiny and transparent objects. This is due to how the light bounces of the object.
Potential ideas
Presentation
Development table
Paraphrasing practice
"It denies that the reality it shows often does not exist outside of the film image, the image which was arrived at by photographing an already impossible space, itself put together with the use of models, mirrors, and matte paintings, and which was then combined with other images through optical printing"
Films give of the impression that what it is showing is real. This is done by taking a picture of an object that is already in real time and space using Models, Mirrors and matte paintings. These objects are then put together to create one image using multiple layers. [ ]
"Many recent blockbusters have been driven by special effects; feeding on their popularity. Hollywood has even created a new-mini genre of "The Making of..."
A lot of films with a large and expensive production in recent times have heavily relied on the usage of visual effects. Using the fact that they are popular. Hollywood has recently made separate movies showing how the Visual Effects is made. []
Essay draft - Intro
Technology in our world is forever evolving and this is no exception within films. Films have come along way since the first ever film. Visual effects now make up a large part of a film. Every monster that is created within the pre-production pipeline of a film needs to be created by an artist. A large part of this pre-production is sculpting a character. This can be done by hand where an artist will sculpt a character or creature within a computer software, the most used one is Zbrush. However, there is another method known as 3D scanning. Within 3D scanning there are different techniques that can be used, the one I will be using is Photogrammetry. Photogrammetry is the technique of overlapping multiple images and putting them into a piece of software, the images will then be used to recreate the image as a 3d model. This is a great way to quickly scan in an object. Whether it be a whole environment or an actor. In this essay I will compare both methods, look through their history, look at what is good and bad about each technology.
Within my essay I will also do my own research and report my findings. Within this research I will create a head using 3d scanning (in this case I will be using photogrammetry) I will complete the workflow pipeline of creating an image in Photogrammetry.
Investigative Study Proposal
Will 3D scanning replace 3D sculpting?
In my Essay, I will research and compare both 3D scanning and 3D sculpting. I will research both methods and explain what both are, how they are different and how both methods can and have been used within the same pipeline. As well as these points is will also research what is good and bad about each method and give examples of the films that both processes have been used in. I will also explore the historic timeline of both methods.
In the practical research that I will be doing for my given question. I will compare the pipeline of each method. I will do this by creating a head of a person using photogrammetry where I will take pictures from multiple angles and import them into a program (I don’t know which one yet as there are many). Within said program I can then create a head using photogrammetry. Once, I had completed the photogrammetry process I will have to import the face into Zbrush, to fix up any issues the photogrammetry had as it cannot be reliable. After this, I will take the model into maya and render it. Once I have done this, I will create my own head with the workflow within Zbrush.I will create a head using all the methods I was taught in second year during the Zbrush module and create the head from scratch. This will involve workflow within Zbrush. Doing this allows me to experience the difference in workflow between the two methods. Both processes will both have the same goal of making the same head based on the same person. I will analyse the results and use my question to report my findings also compare the pros and cons for each method.
To research and back up my points I will be looking at different sources. One of these sources will be an online article Custom 3d Modelling or Laser Scanning: What to choose (Paul, Catherine. 2016) This article compares both 3D modelling and 3D scanning. Another source is an article called 3D SCANNING AND PHOTOGRAMMETRY FOR HERITAGE RECORDING: A COMPARISON ( W. Boehler and A. Marbs. 2004) This article outlines the history and uses for 3D scanning. Another bit of research I did was on a website called scanLAB this is a company that scans in many environments using 3D scanning. These are some of the examples however there are a lot more listed below in the bibliography.
Bibliography
scanLab. Available at: https://scanlabprojects.co.uk/ (Accessed: 19 November 2020).
Boehler, W, Marbs, A. (2004) ‘3D Scanning and Photogrammetry for Heritage Recording: A Comparison’,291 – 298.
Paul, C. (2016) Custom 3d Modeling Or Laser Scanning: What To Choose. Available at: https://archicgi.com/product-cgi/custom-3d-modeling-vs-laserscanning/#:~:text=As%20a%20conclusion%2C%20the%20main,complex%20objects%20for%20different%20purposes.&text=If%20you%20are%20looking%20for,models%2C%20contact%20ArchiCGI%20rendering%20company. (Accessed: 19th November 2020)
PixPro Ltd. Photogrammetry: From Movies to Software Solutions. Available at: https://geo-matching.com/content/photogrammetry-from-movies-to-software-solutions (Accessed: November 20th 2020).
David, J. and Grusin, R. (2000) Remediation. Place of publication: Massachusetts, The MIT Press. Series and volume number if relevant.
Levoy, M. (2003) The Digital Michelangelo Project . Available at: https://accademia.stanford.edu/mich/.
(Italy’s Invisibles cities) BBC ONE, 25th Jan, 13:03. Available at: BBC iPlayer.
