By Edward B. Driscoll, Jr.
While 3d computer graphics have been around since at least the 1970s, the rise of the World Wide Web in the 1990s, and especially the rise of Internet video in recent years created a whole new “prosumer” interest in them.
Googling around, it’s easy to find plenty of 3d shots of famous aircraft and spacecraft (both real and imagined). And there are loads of 3d animation walkthroughs of famous architectural works on YouTube. But for me, 3d models, virtual sets, and other digital effects are more interesting when they’re used to tell a story.
I first used virtual sets created by others at the start of 2008, when I began using Serious Magic (later Adobe’s) Ultra 2 program, which had numerous virtual sets created for use with the program. But every once in a while, it’s nice to go on location — if only virtually!
Last year, I watched a tutorial produced for Digital Juice, an online retailer focusing on products for professional and serious amateur video makers, for a product called the Model Bank, by Digimation. The Model Bank features 1,200 3d models, which can be imported into programs such as Model Shop, as well as Adobe’s Photoshop (CS3 Extended and later Extended editions of Photoshop) and After Effects.
From Apollo to Woodstock, Without Ever Leaving My Garage
My recent “1969: The Death of Modernism” video used several 3d models for the scene about 1:30 in, when I went “on location”, first orbiting the earth in an Apollo capsule, and then standing in the fields of Yasgur’s Farm in front of a 1960s VW bus, an old rotary dial TV, and a table for it to sit on.
The Woodstock scene and the interior of the Apollo capsule were both created by placing the Model Bank 3d elements on top of a backdrop in Photoshop. I added the New York license plate and period signage on the VW bus by using the perspective tool in Photoshop to twist the graphics into position. (We’ll discuss how to animate those sorts of objects in a moment.) The Woodstock background was a still photo; the Apollo capsule was simply a gradient plate I created as a layer in Photoshop, and then stuck a couple of sci-fi movie posters and some Digital Juice motion design elements for some animation and a sci-fi flavor.
The seats of the capsule were the F-15 Ejector Seat image from the Model Bank. The program makes it simple — just flip through the Model Bank’s GUI, find a model you want, move it to the folder to be extracted, then insert the disc containing its file into the DVD-ROM drive, and save the file to a folder.
You wait until the very end to indicate that this is for $$$, not for free. Following the link and we see that it costs about $1K — rather pricey indeed.
Compare that $1K with the price of getting the same shot using physical models, or a full sized set.
I believe that in 20 to 30 years, computer graphics will be good enough that it will be hard, if not impossible to tell if the actor is real, or computer generated. Computer generated voices and sound affects are advancing just as fast.
At the same time, the cost of such graphics will be coming down as well.
I can’t wait until the blowhards in Hollywood are told that they have been replaced by a kid in a garage and his computer.
All one will need is a good script, and enough self-discipline as a director, and the world of movie making will never be the same.
(Think of what really cheap high quality sound equipment has done for the garage bands.)
Ed: you are the only conservative comentator/blogger here with a sense
of Humor! i visited bcast.com and the concept is not new
and it is also not advertisng friendly. but it is cool.
I am trying in vein to convince markthegreat that I am not anti semite or anti jews
but to no avail.
markthegreat: take a trip to NYC and I will take you’
out for a cigar and a drink..
The best way to convince anyone that you aren’t anti-semitic, is to stop saying things that are blatantly anti-semitic. Things like condemning Israel for doing things you find ok for others to do.
Stop telling blatant lies about Israel and Jews in general.
Regardless, why did you believe that this issue was even relevant in this article.
I’m not going to respond futher here, and my apologies to the author for taking it this far.
Miriam Rove “I am trying in vein”
bloody marvelous.