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Captain Jack wrote:
> "Darren New" <dne### [at] san rrcom> wrote in message
> news:4b51f88d@news.povray.org...
>> I disagree. Maybe it's just because we're more used to flat film (the
>> same way that video games put in stuff like lens flairs even when the
>> character isn't using lenses).
>>
>> I think the brain knows it's looking at a projection on a flat screen and
>> is more fooled by the stereo, so the inability to focus is more obvious.
>
> That's how a lot of tilt-shift images are able to give the impression that
> the viewer is looking at animated toys, instead of a film or image sequence
> of "real" objects. We have become accustomed to the subtle cue that a narrow
> depth of field (a feature of macro type lenses) means we're looking at
> something small. An artist can play with depth of field (as well as color
> saturation and other goodies) and create an illusion based on our
> acclimation to cinema and still photography. I once saw a guy do a pretty
> good tilt-shift simulation artificially (layer after layer of abstraction
> now...) in Poser of all things.
>
> --
> Jack
>
>
The narrow depth of field is not the only cue, and may not be the most
powerful. What a tilt-shift lens also does is chance the way parallel
lines appear. You can see the effect more dramatically when looking at
pictures of architecture where, were you are the ground looking up, the
sides of a building would appear to converge, a tilt-shift lens allows
you to force them to be closer to parallel. When you are up close to a
small cube, the lines you see appear parallel. The larger the object,
the more the lines appear to converge.
Another is the strange way the brain expects parallax to work at long
distances, and the way it does when viewed through high magnification
lenses.
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> That's how a lot of tilt-shift images are able to give the impression that
> the viewer is looking at animated toys, instead of a film or image
> sequence of "real" objects. We have become accustomed to the subtle cue
> that a narrow depth of field (a feature of macro type lenses) means we're
> looking at something small. An artist can play with depth of field (as
> well as color saturation and other goodies) and create an illusion based
> on our acclimation to cinema and still photography. I once saw a guy do a
> pretty good tilt-shift simulation artificially (layer after layer of
> abstraction now...) in Poser of all things.
It's surprising how easily you can get this effect by just blurring a couple
of areas in photoshop by hand.
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"Sabrina Kilian" <ski### [at] vtedu> wrote in message
news:4b562a8a@news.povray.org...
> The narrow depth of field is not the only cue, and may not be the most
> powerful. What a tilt-shift lens also does is chance the way parallel
> lines appear. You can see the effect more dramatically when looking at
> pictures of architecture where, were you are the ground looking up, the
> sides of a building would appear to converge, a tilt-shift lens allows
> you to force them to be closer to parallel. When you are up close to a
> small cube, the lines you see appear parallel. The larger the object,
> the more the lines appear to converge.
>
> Another is the strange way the brain expects parallax to work at long
> distances, and the way it does when viewed through high magnification
> lenses.
Oh, I know tilt-shift is more complicated than that... I was really
stretching an analogy too far, I guess. :-)
I was looking through a book the other night that was showing optical
illusions, some very old and some very new. Some of the newer ones were done
with computers and were modified by moving the shadows around. The article
in the book was talking about how we're accustomed to mentally converting 2D
images to 3D representations, and how the brain can be fooled. It got me to
thinking about how much of visual art (in particular CG and film) is based
on what the mass audience is trained to expect, rather than what is "real".
I had a discussion with someone a while back about "realism" in CG. She was
trying to create a realistic looking puddle of blood for some horror image
or other. She was unhappy with her results, and cast a net to try to get
other ideas. A lot of people chimed in with simulating the viscosity of the
fluid, it's reflectiveness, the way it changes color, and the way it, well,
spatters. My suggestion was to put some red food coloring in some clear corn
syrup, pour it on a cutting board or plate, and use that as a model. She
thought that was wierd, but I pointed out that that's one of the most common
sorts of "movie blood" (it's called Kensington Gore, IIRC) and that what she
probably wanted was not "real" blood, but blood that looked like what they
do in a movie, because that's the only kind (I hope) that most of us ever
see. People who don't have to see large amounts of real blood mostly don't
know what it really looks like (it's thinner than in the movies, and turns a
boring brownish-red that has no sheen and looks awful [read: boring] on
color film). She later said that that was exactly the look that she was
trying to achieve, and she felt like it helped her image.
As with most of life, "realism" in CG seems to be about managing
expectations. :-D
--
Jack
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"scott" <sco### [at] scottcom> wrote in message news:4b56be24@news.povray.org...
>
> It's surprising how easily you can get this effect by just blurring a
> couple of areas in photoshop by hand.
I did that a few years ago for an image I did... the rendering software I
was using didn't support depth of field, so after rendering the image, I
made a series of increasingly larger and feathered masks around the main
subject, inverted each one, and applied a succession of small (but
cumulative) Gaussian blurs to the image. I'm sure it didn't look anything
like a real macro lens or what 3D DOF could be with a better program, but it
was a nice effect.
I saw a great process for doing this with After Effects, too. If you render
a depth map (a B&W image of the scene where surfaces further from the camera
are darker and ones closer are lighter), there's a way to attach the depth
map to the DOF filter in AE, and have DOF without the tremendous rendering
overhead it usually seems to take.
--
Jack
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Captain Jack wrote:
> sorts of "movie blood"
And in Psycho, they used chocolate syrup, because the blood didn't look
bloody enough in black and white.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
Forget "focus follows mouse." When do
I get "focus follows gaze"?
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"Darren New" <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote in message
news:4b572913$1@news.povray.org...
> Captain Jack wrote:
>> sorts of "movie blood"
>
> And in Psycho, they used chocolate syrup, because the blood didn't look
> bloody enough in black and white.
>
There's an amazing number of recipes as well as commercial products for it.
Candy glass is another interesting subject for the home brewer.
A fun place to look at the (very) low end of all of that is "Backyard F/X",
a segment of web videos at IndyMogul.com. It's all about how very young,
very amateur people can put together physical effects for cheap. It's pretty
silly, but the guy who runs it seems to have a lot of fun with it, and I
enjoy going there from time to time and checking out what they do. I'm sure
they've got some ideas for aping parts of Avatar by now. You never know...
the next James Cameron may be ten years old at this very moment, making
effects movies and tearing up the neighborhood with his mom's old Hi-8 video
camera. :-D
--
Jack
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On 01/13/10 22:11, Darren New wrote:
> Pretty but cliche.
Agreed. Not an ounce of originality in the story.
--
I'm addicted to placebos. I'd give them up, but it wouldn't make any
difference. - Steven Wright
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On 01/14/10 08:17, Captain Jack wrote:
> When the credits began to roll, I looked at my watch, and was simply stunned
> that almost three hours had passed. I never once came out of the moment in
Not for me. I was probably wondering when the movie would end a whole
full hour before it ended.
Not that your points aren't valid - the pacing probably is good. But
the story was so cliched, and the characters so unrefined and
stereotyped, that it was a pain to stomach.
Still, a colorful movie.
--
I'm addicted to placebos. I'd give them up, but it wouldn't make any
difference. - Steven Wright
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Neeum Zawan <m.n### [at] ieeeorg> wrote:
> But the story was so cliched
Avatar has been compared to Dances with Wolves, Pocahontas, Ferngully,
The Last Samurai and even Atlantis: The Lost Empire, but In Space. So yeah,
it's not like it's the most original and innovative story in existence.
One would think that a director as talented as James Cameron would read
his own script and say "hmm, this needs a bit more of originality rather
than reusing the same ideas as already used in countless other flicks".
Just because you move the plot to Space doesn't make it original.
(Of course there's nothing wrong in rehashing old ideas. It's not like
eg. Terminator 2 would be the most original movie ever created (being a
sequel and all), but its execution was so stunningly superb, that it doesn't
matter. Avatar was visually stunning but had little else going.)
I have seen much worse movies in terms of scripting, though. Much, much
worse.
--
- Warp
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Neeum Zawan <m.n### [at] ieeeorg> wrote:
> Agreed. Not an ounce of originality in the story.
I wouldn't say it was *completely* bereft of original ideas. Can you name
another movie where people interact with other sentient beings through
genetically engineered avatars? (The Matrix doesn't count.)
--
- Warp
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