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Topic: rock n roll (Read 830 times) |
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gdunne
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rock n roll
« on: Sep 8th, 2004, 1:20am » |
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As undetectable as it may be, (and as commercial of a video it may be), 75 percent of the stock ticker in the background of the latest Papa Roach video was done with Processing. I can't post the full source yet, but the whole project was one of the smoothest development processes I've been apart of. Here's the video...
http://www.motiontheory.com/papa_roach_pop.html
It's a classic exercise in ascii-art image generation. We scoured tons of animated gif sites for generic animations to source from (gathering a pretty random collection), and then exported tga sequences that we animated in After Effects (in the case of the flag, the skulls, the larger text portions), and Maya (the jets, the explosions). The java applet translates the pix brightness into one of the three colors of the ticker (green, orange, red), and draws a new image with stock symbols that we defined in pre-production. In the case of the larger text sequences (In God We Trust, Mission Accomplished, etc), a custom text class was developed to animated in real time, rather than drawing from a tga sequence. Even though it's not that outstanding, I'll attempt to make a few parts of the project open-source. It's fun to take video from a webcam to create a perfectly working stock-ticker in real time, which is what I did for testing. Rock on, rock on...
gabe
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http://quilime.com
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setpixel
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Re: rock n roll
« Reply #1 on: Sep 9th, 2004, 6:40pm » |
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very interesting. im very interested in how not only procesing but general custom software plays a role in motion graphics.
i dont know if its still used.. but the backdrops for vh1 news casts were generated with a combination of flash + director imaging lingo.
does anyone else have any examples?
also, an area that definately needs some processing action is movie titles. i personally like clean and simple type. however if certain movies want to get all crazy with thier titles they shouldnt make it look like they are just pretty good with a flame. i saw alien versus predator. i always thought that predator red led aesthetic was cool. how come they chose to make the titles look like total crap? alright - the whole movie was crap, so it was very fitting.  it would be a cool experiment to make some movie titles using mostly processing or whatever. maybe a little compositing by hand here and there. i think processing has a particular application in motion graphics especially with creativity in type.
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amoeba
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Re: rock n roll
« Reply #2 on: Sep 9th, 2004, 9:21pm » |
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Great project, gabe. Nice one, even more because of the schlock rock context.
I know that Imaginary Forces uses custom code in a lot of their typographic treatments and 3D modelling, as do most 3D graphics shops. This kind of work has always relied on custom software because they are usually ahead of the software market. In fact, they drive the evolution of the software, for instance most of the kinetic animation systems now available in Maya etc. used to be proprietary solutions. The fact that they are now available in (comparatively) cheap software packages is the cause of the whole broadcast-quality-3D-animation-in-your-bedroom revolution.
Processing might have a place here too, so far two motion projects have been posted here, the Papa Roach video and Ryan Alexander's piece for the REM video. Maybe there should be a show-and-tell gallery for commercial pieces done with Processing.
It would be particularly excellent if people are able to contribute code back to the community when they've been able to use a commercial project to develop something interesting.
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| « Last Edit: Sep 9th, 2004, 9:21pm by amoeba » |
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marius watz // amoeba
http://processing.unlekker.net/
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REAS
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Re: rock n roll
« Reply #3 on: Sep 9th, 2004, 11:06pm » |
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exciting! this is the first example i've seen of a computational skull and crossbones.
a note to marius, the REM video was produced by the same company, motiontheory. they are based in venice, california. they rock.
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amoeba
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Re: rock n roll
« Reply #4 on: Sep 10th, 2004, 11:27am » |
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ah, I thought there was something familiar. well, more credit to them. you cali boys all rock.
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marius watz // amoeba
http://processing.unlekker.net/
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gdunne
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Re: rock n roll
« Reply #5 on: Sep 10th, 2004, 9:56pm » |
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Quote:| Re: In fact, they drive the evolution of the software, for instance most of the kinetic animation systems now available in Maya etc. used to be proprietary solutions. |
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For us, Maya is an integral format for writing custom apps and plugins. In fact, here at Motion Theory, we dedicated huge portion of pre-production to planning how we can create custom software for a specific project. Maya and apps done in MEL are definitely integrated into the workflow, and Processing is now becoming an even larger part because of developing speed. Processing/Java apps combined with MEL can create some very unique visual effects. In fact, I started developing this papa-roach ticker in Maya before we made the decision to use Processing. A limit to the Java developing environment that I came across, however, is that I can only generate images that are 1600px wide at the max, unless I develop on mac with a cinema display. Java's screenbuffer can only be the size of the screen, so I had to write a screen-left applet, and a screen-right applet in order to get the image-resolution we needed for post production. The two sequences were merged into one comp, and then composited into the footage.
Quote:| Processing might have a place here too, so far two motion projects have been posted here, the Papa Roach video and Ryan Alexander's piece for the REM video. Maybe there should be a show-and-tell gallery for commercial pieces done with Processing. |
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This paparoach piece can't compare to Ryan's code for the REM stuff we did. I look at his source, turn pale, and try something else. Mad, mad, mad props. But... nearly every single Motion Theory piece done in the last 5 months has had a bit of Processing somewhere along the lines. Keep an eye out for the new American Express campaign, and the newest video from the Used (Premiering on MTV2 next wednesday). If you catch the making-of the papa-roach video, you'll see a split second of a screen with Processing in all its glory. Same with the Used making-of. We figure we can't keep the "tricks" a "secret" for long... 
Here's a peak at development. Simple, simple stuff.. Click around the directory:
http://media.quilime.com/files/bin/ascii/
In the ticker/ directory, you'll see some final comps.
Quote:| It would be particularly excellent if people are able to contribute code back to the community when they've been able to use a commercial project to develop something interesting. |
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Word. I agree completely, although it's sometimes hard to make a commercial project open-source because of non disclosure and rights, the source for Papa Roach will most definitely be made open source... It's just a fancy dancy ascii-art generator after all... 
I'm curious to see where it all goes, it's moving fast...
oh, and....
Quote:
Nice one, even more because of the schlock rock context.
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I hate showing this piece to my mom because of the girls in it. Ah... hollywood. I guess there's always a price. Cheers, everyone.
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| « Last Edit: Sep 10th, 2004, 10:54pm by gdunne » |
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http://quilime.com
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amoeba
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Re: rock n roll
« Reply #6 on: Sep 11th, 2004, 12:29am » |
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hi gabe, thank you for sharing your insights.
on Sep 10th, 2004, 9:56pm, gdunne wrote:| A limit to the Java developing environment that I came across, however, is that I can only generate images that are 1600px wide at the max, unless I develop on mac with a cinema display. Java's screenbuffer can only be the size of the screen, ... |
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Ben has posted about this elsewhere, the solution involves using a BGraphics object as a virtual rendering buffer. of course if you were doing this in Java, you can use a BufferedImage to render to. andreas schlegel and I recently did a multiple-projection project for Vattenfall Germany, done in Java2D with an image size of 8448 x 576...
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marius watz // amoeba
http://processing.unlekker.net/
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gdunne
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Re: rock n roll
« Reply #7 on: Sep 11th, 2004, 2:51am » |
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Thank you so much for that -- very useful. I hadn't researched it one bit, to tell you the truth.
The large-image projection piece is stunning. You're generating a 8448x576 in real time? I'm not familiar with the limitations. Is it RAM? Processor? Display?
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| « Last Edit: Sep 12th, 2004, 1:57am by gdunne » |
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http://quilime.com
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amoeba
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Re: rock n roll
« Reply #8 on: Sep 11th, 2004, 7:28am » |
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The image is pre-rendered, then displayed by synchronized MPEG-2 playback units. Much cheaper and easier than doing it all in realtime, which would have required multiple machines and synchronized rendering. The image is rendered as one big image then chopped up into the relevant video chunks, predistorted for projection via a mirror and then saved for MPEG-2 compression.
Andreas Schlegel (of sojamo.de) did the technical framework and lead design, I just came in to contribute some of the visual systems.
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marius watz // amoeba
http://processing.unlekker.net/
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