Year: 2015

This is the first week of VFX with Jon, in this week we learnt about the implications of 2D tracking, which situations are the best to use it and how to use it in Adobe After Effects. The premise of 2D tracking is to use tracking points using the X and Y co-ordinates in order to create visual effects within the video. The tracking point on After Effects follow a small cluster of pixels from one frame to the next. So for instance if you have a tracking point of an orange sticker on the end of a finger, it would track the cluster of orange pixels that you would have set when using the track motion option in the tracking window of After Effects. This process takes a little while due to the amount of work that is going on. Although we mainly used contrast Jon did tell us that you can track using luminance in order to find a key cluster of pixels to fix upon.

I found out from Jon that it is best to shoot with a high shutter speed to reduce motion blur, this is because the tracking markers find it hard to track on to certain specific pixels when the whole shot is blurry from motion. Jon also told us that you should always shoot with your VFX in mind, so if you have a high contrast between the foreground and the background and you want to do a sky replacement then you should get the foreground correctly focussed and then leave the sky over exposed so that it will be easier to key out in post production.

I understood the overall idea of 2D motion tracking and what it can and cannot do in terms of adding elements to a shot. For example there are many ways that could hinder an editors tracking of a shot like objects moving in front of the tracking point or the tracking point moving off the screen, if there is too much motion blur and also if the shot uses depth on the Z axis, adding a third dimension which 2D tracking will not work for.

In the second week of the digital interactions segment with Clive we learnt about augmented reality which is a technology that adds a computer generated picture or video on a persons view of the real world, creating a view that is an augmentation of their reality.

Clive taught us that with every augmented reality software the key point is that there needs to be a fixed point for the animation, this allows the software the track the video and stream the animation on to a specific tracking point. We were shown an app called Augment which is a basic version that can be used on phones, as soon as i saw it i had to get it and play around with the features (my favourite being the dancing skeleton).

In the session we learnt about the history of AR and the application it can have to many different areas such as for arts, gaming, architecture, psychology and medical treatment. I could really see the vision that Clive and others that are within the augmented reality industry have. Seeing the prospects of how versatile the application of AR can be towards any sector to make the lives of the modern human much easier.

I have a feeling that i will be wanting to use AR in my convergence task as i see great potential in the applications i can use it for.

Clive showed us an array of projection mapping (PM) tools such as the computer software HeavyM and the iPhone/android app DynaMapper. It was interesting to see how easy it was to do simple projection mapping with different content such as JPG and MP4 on software as basic as an iPhone app!

I also enjoyed learning a brief history of PM, with companies like Disney using a lot of projection which i did not know before. I am a big fan of co-ordinates and used to love making graphs in maths in school so when i heard that PM uses X and Y to map out areas i got a little excited! I also learned that although mainly demonstrations of PM are for art purposes, i found out that there is a market there also for practical application within the real world to solve problems, especially in terms of architecture and other design led jobs.

during the session i took my chance and downloaded HeavyM, and to my surprise i found it so so easy to use, i had no idea that projection mapping could be natively edited within software without the use of coding, and it can integrate with other mediums such as music natively as well! When i got home i created a few small PM ‘canvases’ that i could have used to project on to different object within my house if i had a projector. Find attached some screenshots of some really cool PM’d buildings.

All in all a very good lesson on an interesting subject.

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