RED = New Era in VFX

[Scott M]

Often I wonder what will be the next amazing effect in films, and I use the "Bullet Time" effect from the Matrix as an example.

This led me to wonder if RED has considered that it could take that effect to a new level.

Because of it's size and relatively cost effective nature, couldn't something like this:

http://img244.imageshack.us/img244/5849/matrixcamerasxz4.jpg

be achieved using RED's? In which case, the movement and travel of the "Bullet Time" effect could essentially become a non-linear series of "camera" movments in an epic moment in time? :D

If so, I think it'd be a pretty sweet project that would introduce the power and versatility this camera will bring to filmmaking. :cool:

[Stephen Williams]

Often I wonder what will be the next amazing effect in films, and I use the "Bullet Time" effect from the Matrix as an example.

This led me to wonder if RED has considered that it could take that effect to a new level.

Because of it's size and relatively cost effective nature, couldn't something like this:

http://img244.imageshack.us/img244/5849/matrixcamerasxz4.jpg

be achieved using RED's? In which case, the movement and travel of the "Bullet Time" effect could essentially become a non-linear series of "camera" movments in an epic moment in time? :D

If so, I think it'd be a pretty sweet project that would introduce the power and versatility this camera will bring to filmmaking. :cool:

Hi,

I was shooting bullet time on Friday using 50 Canon DSLR's & a Viper! Your biggest problem will be getting a license from Dayton Taylor at Digital Air who holds the pattents on the technique. The camera pan/tilt/roll heads we used were the ones from the Matrix! We speed ramped the array from 300 fps to 25 fps, more interesting effect IMHO.


Stephen

[Jarred Land]

We actually did the bullet time effect with a single camera up in Vancouver a couple years ago in a movie called House of the Dead.. it was basically a big lazy susan that span a camera around very fast and the talent standed still (or moved) in the middle. Insurance and Bond company ended shutting it down pretty quick cause it was so friggin dangerous.

Using high speed cameras its very possible as well, as you can make time almost freeze.. I shot this scene of water at 500fps and coulda slowed it down alot more.

http://purposelabs.com/images/water_still.jpg
http://purposelabs.com/water_full_color.wmv

[Charles Papert]

We did a hilariously low-tech version of Bullet Time on the upcoming release "Balls of Fury", where the actors playing ping-pong (to the death, of course!) froze, I wrapped around them with the Steadicam, and then they unfroze again. The CGI ball spinning in place was the crowning touch. Viewable here (http://www.apple.com/trailers/rogue_pictures/ballsoffury/), I think about halfway through the trailer.

This was shot on the Panavision Genesis, by the way.

[Stephen Williams]

Hi Jarred,

A director in Zurich built a rig like that which spun the camera 360 degrees in about 1 second, using an Arri III @ 100 fps worked very well. Above 100fps the film jammed! I don't think that guy had any insurance!

Stephen



We actually did the bullet time effect with a single camera up in Vancouver a couple years ago in a movie called House of the Dead.. it was basically a big lazy susan that span a camera around very fast and the talent standed still (or moved) in the middle. Insurance and Bond company ended shutting it down pretty quick cause it was so friggin dangerous.

Using high speed cameras its very possible as well, as you can make time almost freeze.. I shot this scene of water at 500fps and coulda slowed it down alot more.

http://purposelabs.com/images/water_still.jpg
http://purposelabs.com/water_full_color.wmv

[Justin Anderson]

Your biggest problem will be getting a license from Dayton Taylor at Digital Air who holds the pattents on the technique. The camera pan/tilt/roll heads we used were the ones from the Matrix! We speed ramped the array from 300 fps to 25 fps, more interesting effect IMHO.


Stephen

you can patent something like that?

how dumb. What part of it is patented?

[Stephen Williams]

you can patent something like that?

how dumb. What part of it is patented?

Hi Justin,

So it would seem!

http://www.digitalair.com/intprop.html

I Quote;-
"Digital Air is committed to the enforcement of its intellectual property. We strongly urge owners of unlicensed camera systems, films, television commercials, music videos, sports programs and other properties that infringe our patents, as well as those planning to make such systems or properties, to contact us immediately for a license"

Stephen

[Zakaree Sandberg]

Hi Justin,

So it would seem!

http://www.digitalair.com/intprop.html

I Quote;-
"Digital Air is committed to the enforcement of its intellectual property. We strongly urge owners of unlicensed camera systems, films, television commercials, music videos, sports programs and other properties that infringe our patents, as well as those planning to make such systems or properties, to contact us immediately for a license"

Stephen
how would they know? u can just say you used a different technique

[_BK]

I have also used that lazy susan rig here in vancouver a couple years ago... maaaan, that thing was a disaster just waiting to happen.

I personally think that the traditional bullet time methods have almost reached the end of their lifespan. With computers now able to re-create actors with very high precision and new highspeed cameras coming onto the market, it is becoming much simpler and cost effective to do bullet time.

Im personally curious to try the new digi 1000fps 2k Phantom camera... put that thing on a fairly fast moving rig and you will have something very similar to bullet time, but for a fracion of the cost and setup time.

Im still not to sure what RED's impact on visual effects is going to be. On one hand, its great to have access to 4k plates at no extra cost or re-scanning. But, the complete lack of grain is something that is a bit scarry to me as a VFX supervisor. It means that more work is going to have to be put into the CG to match RED's perfection...

[garageman]

Considering I'd seen the technique in the late 80's in England utilised by someone else, I hardly think they have a worldwide patent on a technique like that. Seems a bit too oppurtunist to me.

[Stephen Williams]

how would they know? u can just say you used a different technique

Hi,

There are a lot of patents, I have not read them all. I think it's the concept that is patented!

Stephen

[Graeme Nattress]

Or you can add controlled grain back in..... Noise / Grain hides a multitude of sins.

Or perhaps new compositing techniques will arrive that will totally integrate CGI visuals with the RED look. Sounds like another R&D Project....

Graeme

[Graeme Nattress]

A patent is only as strong as it's claims. Even if someone in the UK has prior art, it's still very hard and expensive to invalidate a patent.

[Stephen Williams]

Considering I'd seen the technique in the late 80's in England utilised by someone else, I hardly think they have a worldwide patent on a technique like that. Seems a bit too oppurtunist to me.

Hi,

Patents only come into effect after they are registered!

I alos understand a US patented & manufactured compositing system, was lifted from a BBC research project from many years earlier!

Stephen

[_BK]

adding controlled grain back in would only be an option if the VFX shot was a one-off... and it would be a pitty to spoil the beautiful RED footage with any added grain.

The lack of grain will just inevitably push VFX compositing to a higher level... just too bad the the clients wont understand that nor pay for the extra time.

[Ruairi Robinson]

Yeesh, bullet time. Paul Debevec figured out a way of doing this with just a static camera and a spinning mirror.

http://gl.ict.usc.edu/research/ConcaveSurroundOptics/

(optical flaws and all, this is probably the least interesting thing he's ever developed)

check out some of the technologies he's developed on http://www.debevec.org/

(some of these have made their way into movies already, like... Superman Returns... etc)

Some amazing ideas there - the ability to take footage shot on a specially developed stage and completely relight it in post, for example.

R.

[CVB]

How about motion control bullet time... you could change the entire setup with the push of a button... no tweaking each camera. I'm totally impartial of course. ;)

Ruairi... I checked out your site.. nice work you got there.. the milk commercials and the short are awesome.

[danielg]

Considering I'd seen the technique in the late 80's in England utilised by someone else, I hardly think they have a worldwide patent on a technique like that. Seems a bit too oppurtunist to me.

Intellectual property law is often the domain of thugs.

I looked at the patents, and I don't think they are enforceable. But I'm not a patent lawyer. On the other hand, I think there is enough prior art out there that is easily discoverable that this is a vanity patent.

I don't know if you can indict a ham sandwich, but you can sure patent it.

[CVB]

The secret to infringing on patents is to have a deeper pocket book than the person whose patent you are infringing on.

[Ruairi Robinson]

How about motion control bullet time... you could change the entire setup with the push of a button... no tweaking each camera. I'm totally impartial of course. ;)

Ruairi... I checked out your site.. nice work you got there.. the milk commercials and the short are awesome.

Cheers man - appreciated :)

[Miguel "Macgregor" De Olaso]

Can i patent a close up? Can i make a patent of a dolly movement?

[Scott M]

Can i patent a close up? Can i make a patent of a dolly movement?

Yeah really, seems pretty rediculous to me, why not just patent "slow-mo" altogether?

[Mark L. Pederson]

Patents are fun - light reading - check this one out -

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=47&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PTXT&s1=compression.TI.&OS=TTL/compression&RS=TTL/compression

and even better -

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-adv.htm&r=122&f=G&l=50&d=PTXT&s1=compression.TI.&p=3&OS=TTL/compression&RS=TTL/compression

[Chris Gearhart]

I think I'll get a patent on drinking straight from a milk carton. (Oh, and Jim, you can use the milk girls video for free.)

[CVB]

I couldn't find "method of drinking milk from a milk carton" but I did find this...
http://www.google.com/patents?vid=USPAT6368227&id=hjwMAAAAEBAJ&dq=swinging+on+a+swing

Looks like the inventor has a relative thats a patent attorney. Must be nice.

[Matthew Greene]

I don't understand, are you guys making fun of the concept of patenting? I think it's great in the sense that it offers protection to inventors and at the same time makes technology develop at a faster pace since what would have been a trade secret is researchable.

[Graeme Nattress]

I think people are making fun of the stupid things the US Patent office allows to be patented. They're well known for patenting things that are strictly not allowed, for things that don't work (endless compression algorithms, anti-gravity machines), for things that were discovered, not invented (gentic things, aspects of life, Indian tea, Tumeric), things with prior art (because they didn't do a proper search) etc.

One of my pet hates is patents that deliberately obfuscate what they're patenting so that in no way do they advance technology as nobody can figure out what they're doing, but it certainly sounds "great" to the poor, ill-informed patent officer.

The concept of "Patent" is in many ways a good one. It does hit problems if allowed the almost universal extent that the US Patent office allows it. Indeed, where it has recently been shown to not extend the art, but hold it back like in drug patents, it's downright dangerous, because more time is spent figuring minor changes to existing drugs to extend their patent life than is spent finding completely new drugs for new diseases.

When patents were first "invented", they were for real physical tactile things that embodied an invention. Now they are incorrectly applied to virtual things like algorithms (through a lawyerese loophole) even when it's explicit that they shouldn't be.

OK, rant off, but I'll leave saying that good patents are good, but bad patents are very bad. Patent reform is needed to ensure only good patents exist and that at all times, patents serve the wider community, not hold it back, as that was the original intent.

[Emanuel A.]

[That (well) said and back to the topic -- even if it's not my native field]

Fine thread!

EDIT -- Here is the original subject:


Often I wonder what will be the next amazing effect in films, and I use the "Bullet Time" effect from the Matrix as an example.

This led me to wonder if RED has considered that it could take that effect to a new level.

Because of it's size and relatively cost effective nature, couldn't something like this:

http://img244.imageshack.us/img244/5849/matrixcamerasxz4.jpg

be achieved using RED's? In which case, the movement and travel of the "Bullet Time" effect could essentially become a non-linear series of "camera" movments in an epic moment in time? :D

If so, I think it'd be a pretty sweet project that would introduce the power and versatility this camera will bring to filmmaking. :cool:

[Matthew Greene]

Emanuel, I don't see why not. It's been done with several motion picture cameras already. There was some video, I think Puff Daddy (P Diddy, or whatever his name is now) where they had a hemispherical rig full of cameras, not just in a linear axis but in several curved ones.

Edit: http://www.reelefx.com/am_cine_typed.htm

[Emanuel A.]

Well Matthew, and it seems with (D)SLR cameras too:


Hi,

I was shooting bullet time on Friday using 50 Canon DSLR's & a Viper! Your biggest problem will be getting a license from Dayton Taylor at Digital Air who holds the pattents on the technique. The camera pan/tilt/roll heads we used were the ones from the Matrix! We speed ramped the array from 300 fps to 25 fps, more interesting effect IMHO.


Stephen

[Stephen Williams]

Well Matthew, and it seems with (D)SLR cameras too:

Hi Emanuel,

I think this was the first time Dayton Taylor had used DSLR's. He had shot tests with a smaller no of cameras.

Stephen

[Casey Green]

We did a hilariously low-tech version of Bullet Time on the upcoming release "Balls of Fury", where the actors playing ping-pong (to the death, of course!) froze, I wrapped around them with the Steadicam, and then they unfroze again. The CGI ball spinning in place was the crowning touch. Viewable here (http://www.apple.com/trailers/rogue_pictures/ballsoffury/), I think about halfway through the trailer.

This was shot on the Panavision Genesis, by the way.

Matrix Ping Pong?!?!? Hmmm, I wonder where these movie ideas come from?!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dcmDscwEcI

Hah!

[Billy Summers]

At one point in time Burton attempted to patent the snowboard.:huh:

[simonfilm]

Have you ever seen a group of men with mallets driving in a stake for a circus big top assembling?

They dispose in circle around the stake and strike it in cascade.

Has this method less right to be patented?

[Darren Orange]

VFX will have to be flawless....that is if you want it to look real and not like a cartoon....Im working on a few things that are heavy with effects. Im talking CG with Maya and such. Keep in mind two kinds of VFX....CG and Practical. A movie like Jurassic Park is a perfect example of a film that uses both very well.

[tj williams]

Charles, with you on Steadi who needs patents.

Is there prior art or what on the "concentric manual hammering methodology of tent peg to ground insertion" (r) Patent pending baby I'm off to the races, every circus will pay.... I'll be in Bermuda...