Well, what's cool about AE is that i can build simple 3d objects and texture them and then bring them to another composition where i can ply with the camera move. Playing 3d ames gives an interesting insight into how much (or how little) is needed to fool the eyes. Since we are dealing with simple planes here some creative texture creation allows me to build a car with the windshield.

could you post up the pictures you used? I'd like to try this myself. :) it's a really cool effect.

Patryk,

What software did you use to make the Flash videos on your website?

Here are links to original pics:
http://www.patrykrebisz.com/ralph/BW_original.jpg
http://www.patrykrebisz.com/ralph/long_original.jpg

I'm using Flash 8 Video Encoder to encode my Flash videos.

wow.. so you cut them out yourself. even more impressive. :)

Boy am I impressed! How the heck did you do this?

You'll see a lot of this type of effect on cable networks like A&E and The History Channel, as well as on a number of forensic shows to add a little spark to old photos.

The effect is best when you can barely see it. If there's just the slight perception of depth, that's usaully enough to get the point across. When the effect becomes the story, then it's lost it's narrative.

DG, actually it's the other way around. For the most part those effects are done poorly so the depth perception is not even ther -- at best they achieve "there is something off in this picture" effect which causes us to belive less in the content of the programing as we realise that the makers are not afraid to deceive us.

Well, to each their own. Some instances call for more subtlety, while others don't. It depends on what the producer is going for. On a forensic show, if you did something similar to your car clip to a crime scene photo, that would be going over the line. Believe it or not, sometimes, less is more. A lot of these shows are just wanting the photos to "pop" a little more, and not be so stale.

I think we are talking about the same thing but see things from 2 very different perspectives. I think the "pop" (just a small barely noticable change) to the images introduces fakeness -- that is we have the feeling that something is off and we know that our senses are being fooled but we don't really know how -- in that sense programing that depends on honesty -- political documentaries, farensic shows (especially images of the evidence) etc. is not suited for this kind of image manipulation.

Just a quick lil comment ... both of those are simply breathtaking.

Amazing work man.

- Ray
www.undergroundplanet.com

Patryk:

I noticed something different about the gentleman in white slacks when I placed
him on a plane. Did you bend or put his left leg, without a shoe, on a separate plane?

"I think the "pop" (just a small barely noticable change) to the images introduces fakeness -- that is we have the feeling that something is off and we know that our senses are being fooled but we don't really know how..."

Now you're getting a little nutty. Subtle or extreme, it's all fake if you've modified a photo. Are you saying that your examples look more "real"?

Everybody and their uncle was trying their hand at this technique when "The Kid Stays in the Picture" came out. "Riding Giants" is a more recent film that uses many of the same exaggerated depth perception/3D that your samples show.

Whether it's exaggerated or subtle, they both have their place. For you to say it's useless to make only minor tweaks is off the mark. Most cable shows don't have the budget for the labor-intensive technique of your approach for a photo or two, let alone dozens and dozens per episode.

Every photo, video, film, etc. is fake. That's the nature of the business. ;)

But I agree with Patryk. Unless things are done correctly, FX just come off as annoying/assumed glitches. If some place doesn't have $$ to do a certain FX right then majority of the time they shouldn't. Look at early HD on TV. it looks TO sharp. looked surreal (like these images). nothing wrong with that because it was used to an advantage. But if you just make images like these so they look like 1986 NES games with different speed moving backgrounds then it looses it's effect on people. It looks like an 1986 NES game with different speed moving backgrounds. Done right it looks like a clever camera trick to keep you watching.

Quote from the person who did the fx for "The Kid Stays in the Picture":
"Keep things subtle; it's sometimes more effective for these moves to be more suggestive than realistic because they are intended to invoke the meaning and mood of the scene, rather than to re-create an actual event."

In http://www.dv.com/features/features_item.php?articleId=23902957the article[/link] where Jun Diaz states this, After Effects is the program mentioned that has the camera option of producing the 3D effect. Another nice article on how this is done in AE is http://blogs.adobe.com/bobddv/2006/09/son_of_ben_kurns.htmlTHIS[/link]. I'm going to try TrueSpace listed above, but are there any other effects applications (i.e., cheaper) that have the "free-floating camera" ability like AE has to create this 3D effect?

check out this spot i did for a football promo. my buddy did the first part in AE (the football field with the OIA), and I did the rest in vegas (football player cutouts chasing the RB).

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=1305240564

vegas rocks with 3D... but takes FOREVER to render.

ed.

edit: i've been tryin to make it a link, but it wouldn't work. i give up already! just copy cut paste. Alojahz.

[ url = http://whatever ] link title [ /url ] without the spaces.

Looks nice, which parts are 3D from Vegas? The football players cutout in a circle chasing the running back cutout was done in Vegas using 3D? The coin I take it was done in AE or something (since it has depth).

I give credit to those that do any 3D work, whether simulated from photos or drawn from scratch. No matter what software I have tried, working in/with 3D is hard. I just don't have the time or patience for what's involved.

i've had AE6 for some time but haven't done much with it due to the steep learning curve. Someone posted a photo they had taken at the Grand Canyon at another website I visit and I decided I wanted to see what I could do with animating it using AE. Here's a 6 sec clip of what I managed to come up with:

Grand Canyon

Doc

Caligari just released http://www.caligari.com/Store/Special/TS75POST_gen.asptrueSpace 7.5[/link]. Bundle it with http://www.caligari.com/Store/Special/VR15POST.htmlV-Ray 1.5[/link] and you
can create some photorealistic virtual sets or "props" that would be impossible
to build or too costly.

The glass slippers for example in the V-Ray link.
I found http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?MessageID=390872motion tracking[/link] software in a post awhile back and hope get back into
this area again.

CClub, haha that's the very article i read the very same night when i showed teh original 3d pics in my 3d design class in college!

That tutorial you provide besically explains the principle, the image they chose though is crappy with too few variables so the result will look "cheap."

Wow mine suck compared to yours but here's one of me when I was much cuter and just getting into photography. :)

http://www.webtrainor.com/videos/Photo3d_BenFilm_Dof.wmv

Done with Photoshop and 3dsMax. Tried it in Vegas but Vegas isn't so hot at downsampling high resolution images. Plus I wanted an easier way to do a DOF effect and it's built into the cameras in 3dsmax.