Current Trends of VFX

Week 1- The age of the image and the trend of the lens.

The image to the left is a man called Harold Edgerton who managed to capture still images of rapid movement between objects impossible to be seen by the human eye.

One of Harold edgerton examples is this still image of a milk splatter shown to the right. The image caught within a millisecond through Edgerton's strobe flash conveyed a crown like appearance when the milk hit the ground.

This image is another example of captured high speed photos and this shows a still image of a bullet firing through a light bulb. It also manages the capture the shattering glass which would be impossible to see through the naked eye.

The use of capture images is also very prominent within nature when taking movement images of animals. This image shows a lizard catching an insect and as a result of rapid movement of the capture it had to be caught through the lens.

ss-100722-high-speed-photos-01.grid-8x2.

This is another example of a captured movement showing the water gushing out of a balloon that has just been split opened.

Bullet time

The Bullet time effect was used and perfected in the 1999 movie The Matrix. The bullet time filming technique is where time is slowed down or stopped with the movement of the camera still carrying on. This means that it can capture moments in time that are too fast along with the movement of the camera within that environment to capture different angles of the slowed down movement.

This is the scene where the bullet time effect took place.

Week 2 - The photographic truth claim.

What is meant by the photographic truth claim?

As a result of the rapid development of photography within the very years, it is now possible for photographic images to be easily manipulated through digital means. Due to this, many critics argue whether photographs are still reliable to be a truthfully authentic source for taking real life like images. This is known as the photographic truth claim. The photographic truth claim creates the question if we can truly believe what we see and this photographic theory was created by Tom Gunning. Tom gunning believes that the traditional methods of photography is seen to be more truthful as the photographs are able to depict reality more accurately. He also believes that the truth claim relies both on the indexicality and the visual accuracy of an image relating to how closely a photo resembles a person or object.

Image 1

Image 1 is a painting showing Big ben in Westminister

Image 2

Image 2 is a normal photograph taken of Big ben within the same location.

Image 3

The final image is also from the same area but created digitally.

Throughout these three images image 2 is the one that has the best representation when compared to the painting and digital image. This is because the photograph is the closest you can get to the real life image as no mistakes can be made when taking the photo at it is an instant capture of a particular moment. This is why photographs are describes as imprints of reality due to it being a print of reality on paper.

Images more like reality

The use of Architecture is an example of images becoming more like reality as designs of houses and buildings created through cgi is now being created in the real world.

Reality more like images

The rise of social media apps such as Instagram and Snapchat both allow filters which allows you to manipulate a particular image. As a result of this these filters within theses. apps make reality more like images. This is because the filters create a form of facial perfection looking more like an image than reality.

This is an example of an image with the filters on digitally manipulated and a form of perfection.

Throughout these three images you can see the change the filter has made and as well as changing the features of the face it has also managed to change the face shape.

Week 3 -Faking photographs

What is VFX Compositing?

VFX compositing is the technique which involves the integration between digital and visual elements with actual real life footage. This means that when the live footage is combined with the animation, graphics and special effects, it increases the feeling of believability for the viewers as combination of the effects results in it to look more natural and part of that particular scene. Therefore, as a result of compositors having to merge a range of different worlds there are many task that they will have to consider when integrating a scene and this involves different colours from different scenes , the lighting is correct shadow effects from objects and rotoscoping objects from particular scenes. If the integration is not done properly such as missing out a simple shadow effect without being corrected it can easily destroy a whole scene immediately decreasing its form of believability The Integration of composition can be done so well that the viewers might not even be able to tell what scene is real or not and these techniques were done perfectly in films like 2012 and Inception. Firstly, the 2009 movie 2012 involved a great form of compositing where the compositors managed to integrate the huge destruction of the cities with many modeled cities and live action plates creating the life like effect that the cities we live in are actually getting destroyed . Another example was Christopher Nolan's Inception where the compositors did a great job with mixing the dream world with the real world. At the beginning the viewers could not tell the difference between what was truly reality but once the visual effects was in play and the world was turned upside down the viewers can notice a distinct between reality and the dream world.

Week - 4 Properties of photorealism in visual effects.

Photorealism in visual effects

Within visual effects the use of photorealism has reached extraordinary levels that computer generated images has become so life like that it is becoming hard for viewers to distinguish what is real and what is not. The use of photorealism has become so broad in VFX that it has been used for full scenes, certain characters, creatures, computer generated images and a mix of CGI and filmed footage. This means that there could be an entire photorealistic scene and as a result of its photorealistic nature and acquaintance to reality, it can cause viewers to be completely oblivious to the scene due to it being entirely photorealistic. The use of photorealism has been very prominent in a range of the live action Disney remakes and an example of a movie where the photorealistic technique was highly dominant in was the 2019 Lion King. This live action remake was full of photorealistic CGI animals with recording the accuracy movements and animal emotion. However as a result of the animals in the Lion King looking so close to life like animals it can make you feel like you are watching a planet earth documentary, so hearing each of them talk let alone sing can seem very uncanny for the viewers.

Week 5 - Bringing truth into VFX through the capture of movement.

Motion capture and key frame animation.

Throughout the years the use of motion capture has increased immensely within filmmaking and has been used in many animation films to portray a range of characters. Motion capture is a technique of capturing an actors movement and applying it digitally to an object or character. The use of this technique has managed to capture more accurate and life like movements from human movements to animal movements. An example of a film that captured human movements through animation was the 2009 movie the Polar Express. This movie was completely animated with characters and as a result of the polar express being the first movie to be fully filmed through motion capture seeing animated characters performing human movements could be seen to be quite uncanny for viewers at that time. When comparing movies that use motion capture with traditional animated movies some may argue that the motion capture destroys the essence of life that the older animations had. An example of this could be a comparison between Disney's Jungle Book movie and the newer remake adaptation Mowgli. From Disney's jungle book as a result of it being a standard animation movie it was able to create more vibrant colours and involved exaggerated character movements such as the squash and stretch and many more from the twelve principles of animation from the 1981 book 'Illusion of life'. The Mowgli movie used motion capture as well as facial capture and as a result of it capturing movements based of reality the exaggerated and cartoonish movements was not possible. Furthermore the human facial capture being applied to the animals was used to create emotion for the viewers to understand however the mix of the two created a hybrid feel leading more into the uncanny valley.

Weak 6 - Reality capture

LIDAR and VFX

What is reality capture in VFX? Blog

The term reality capture is a technique which involves the capturing of a 3D model through technical and digital means. This means that the digital 3D model will be a representation of an object from the real world and examples of this could be digital replicas of a building, parts within a building or other forms of structures. The creation of reality capture is known to be done through the use of LIDAR and Photogrammetry. Firstly LIDAR which stands for light detection and ranging works by the usage of lasers which takes scans of a particular subject or object through measurements and recorded from a range of data points in the XYZ axis of the subject. The 3D data now recorded through the process of LIDAR converts that 3D data into the 3D model. The second method that was mentioned to also manage the capturing of a 3D model is photogrammetry and as hinted by the name of the technique reconstructs 3D image from the use of photographs. Unlike the scanning of objects captured through LIDAR, photogrammetry managers to capture objects in colour to it and once the models are captured they are converted into texture maps. A 3D scanning company that specialises in reality capture is Lidar Lounge. Lidar Loungue uses both LIDAR and Photogrammetry to analyse different objects and environments which could either be done for architecture, films and TV, gaming, 3D printing and even virtual reality. Within visual effects the company has worked on big films like Gravity, Jurassic world and Avengers and throughout all of them LIDAR scanning has been predominantly used. This is because it is the most accurate from of technology to accurately produce advanced scans of objects and terrain as well as its speed and flexibility to scan a whole large surface area at once.