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Tag Archives: Visual effects

5 October Share your
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McLaren vs Aerodynamics | The Found Collective

Under - Advertising, Inspiration, Media, Motion Graphics, Photography, Technology

We have seen iPad being used for light painting before but for this McLaren P12 teaser a plasma screen is used to render 3D animated light painting effect. The Found Collective in collaboration with Marshmallow Laser Feast and James Medcraft produced this stunning piece for the launch of McLaren’s P12 super car.

The goal for the project was to show the P12’s aerodynamic qualities in a whole new light, without actually having physical access to the car itself. Light painting has been around for decades but has never been put into full motion. Until now.

Working with McLaren we were able to process their wind tunnel airflow data and score out paths for individual trails of light. Each frame was then sliced into 650 frames that represent depths of 3D space and a plasma screen, mounted on a motion control rig, was used as a 3D light printer to play back the 650 slices as it moved through the space. We then repeated the move a thousand times for each frame of the animation and with each frame the camera, mounted on another motion control rig, moved a few millimeters so that over the course of the shoot we were able to create the effect of a moving camera.

The finished film merges photography, animation and sculpture and is a truly unique way of representing aerodynamics that we feel justly celebrates this astonishing car.

10 October Share your
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Ray Caesar and life’s defining moments

Under - Art, Inspiration

Ray Caesar was born in 1958 in London. At an early age, his family moved to Toronto, Canada, where he currently resides. From 1977—80 he attended Ontario College of Art, followed by 17 years from 1980—96 working in the art & photography department of the Hospital For Sick Children in Toronto, documenting disturbing cases of child abuse, surgical reconstruction, psychology, and animal research. Coupled with inspiration from surrealists Kahlo and Dali, Caesar’s experiences at the hospital continue to influence his artwork.

It can be said that there are defining moments in a dogs life that can only be described as pivotal. Mine came when I received a gift of a flesh toned 12 inch plastic movable human doll attired in cheaply made military fatigues called “GI Joseph”. I however named him “Stanley Mulver” and immediately resigned his commission from the light infantry. My Mother helped in this by sewing small business suits and leisure wear out of leftover Christmas fabric embroidered with holly and snowmen, tinfoil shoes and one tasteful Safari suit made of tight fitting powder blue rayon that proudly shone cobalt in the summer sunlight. It wasn’t long before I had begun making enlarged wigs out of gray plasticine. These wigs soon became huge pompadours for Stanley and looked even more grand when I meticulously imbedded small hairs from my daily body and face shavings. This hirsute practice along with walking upright allowed me to fit in with other children even though my father considered it a waste of time. In short, Stanley had become a visage of the Man I could never be, of that elusive self one sometimes glimpses down the tunnel of infinite reflected mirrors. Although ridiculed by my peers, I proudly wore Stanley around my neck at all times as if to say “SEE! This is the man I will be, a good man, a kind man”.

His haunting imagery is created digitally using 3D modeling software called Maya, mastered while working in digital animation for television and film industries from 1998—2001. In 1999, Caesar received a Primetime Emmy Nomination for Outstanding Special Effects in a series.

I have worked in many fields over the years, attended obedience classes and art colleges, jobs designing horrible buildings in architectural studios, medical art facilities, digital service bureaus, suspicious casino computer game companies, eventually working at computer modeling, digital animation and visual effects for television and film. Some award nominations have been attained and I have been driven in long black liquor filled limousines and walked on hind legs down red carpets in Pasadena while wearing strange smelling rented tuxedos.

Caesar works in Maya (a 3D modeling software used for digital animation effects in film and game industries), using it to create his figures as well as the virtual realms in which they exist. Through the program, he builds digital models with invisible skeletons and anatomical joints that can be bent and manipulated to assume any pose. He wraps the models in rich textures, adding hair, skin, eyelashes and fingernails. Then places them in digitally lit, impeccably detailed 3D environments built with architectural layers, windows, wallpapers, curtains and furnishings. Caesar’s meticulous process incorporates elements of drawing, painting, collage and sculpture, working countless hours to achieve every remarkably intricate tableau. Further emphasizing his sculptural technique, Caesar compares his process of 2D printmaking with imagery created in 3D as being similar to the practice of capturing stills from video and film.

With full control over dressing, posing and lighting his figures as well as every element of their surroundings, Caesar’s craft is an advanced extension of a childhood obsession—playing with dolls. Fantasy, escapism, human cruelty and disguise are reoccurring themes explored within his dramatic narratives. Betraying the seemingly child-like innocence of the figures is their piercing, knowing gaze—exposing inner strength in contrast with their fragile physical appearance. Dark details manifest from deep within the artist’s vast imagination to define simulated realities, transporting the viewer into sanctuaries created for his lost ghost-children who emerge from shadows into safe refuge, carrying macabre secrets and hidden truths.

View more here

5 October 1
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Bloodrop by Alexei Popogrebsky

Under - Inspiration, Media

When what you see is not what you get. The 2D version of the 3D short film by Alexei Popogrebsky.

We used the opportunity to test some concepts in 3D and see how it would translate to 2D, and vice versa. Originally part of the Experiment 5ive omnibus — 5gum.ru.

20 February 1
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Moullinex Catalina – 3D music video made with Kinect

Under - Industrial Design, Inspiration, Media, Music, Technology

We have seen Kinect’s untapped potential. This music video for Catalina is done with Kinect, Kinect Library for Processing, Cinema 4D and Adobe After Effects. It looks like that the device is now becoming an additional tool for special effects besides CGI.

The detailed production walkthrough can be found here – even the original source files are available if one would want to venture into this.

15 January Share your
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3D video capture with Kinect

Under - Industrial Design, Inspiration, Technology

Oliver Kreylos hacked Kinect and reverse engineered it to produce 3D video – nice!

The Kinect is an accessory for Microsoft’s Xbox game console. It contains an array of microphones, an active-sensing depth camera using structured light, and a color camera. The Kinect is intended to be used as a controller-free game controller, tracking the body or bodies of one or more players in its field of view.

The motivation for this project was to convert the Kinect into a 3D camera by combining the depth and color image streams received from the device, and projecting them back out into 3D space in such a way that real 3D objects inside the cameras’ field of view are recreated virtually, at their proper sizes

By combining the color and the depth image captured by the Microsoft Kinect, one can project the color image back out into space and create a “holographic” representation of the persons or objects that were captured.

Read more here