People, People, People.

[CJI]

Ok, this is always a problem, adding people in a believable way to your 3d's. Now when i say this i am refering specifically to animation. I have been playing around and researching sources for a while now and i can't seem to find a method that really does it for me and retains high quality.

 

RPC's are adequate for background and middle ground but anything close to the camera just turns to garbage. (also i can't change mine to

silhouettes or change the opacity using the Archvision scripts, its as if they are locked! weird?)

3d people are rubbish, aXYZ has made some headway here and they are at least equal to rpcs. I don't have the time or budget to custom animate my own stuff in the time scales either. (who does? would take a team haha)

And then there is the creme de la creme, bespoke green screened people specific for the shot like Uniforms efforts. Problem is this is simply to expensive for your average free lancer or small studio.

I was curious how you all tackle this problem?

I will start by stating my workarounds and see how we go. Avoid people for as long as possible and keep them in shot for as little time as possible. Plan for them not to be there and, when they are ABSOLUTELYnecessary, motion blurred RPCs at a distance for short periods usually works. There are various stylistic attempts but they are usually on an individual basis to fit with the mood of the piece.

Any thoughts? What to you guys do?

[ivanjay]

I am very interested in this but unfortunately cannot help. It is a problem we have as well. Most of our shots are stills so we can photoshop in RPC's... But, when we do that they look unnatural because of the loss of effect of lighting etc... We can fake it, but it takes so much time and just never looks 100%.

[Dave Buckley]

i usually find it's the faces of the people that make things look really unrealistic.

 

i hate rpc's

 

i only really use people in stills and photoshop them in with a bit of motion blur

 

or if they are going to look fake then make it look as though you purposely want them to be fake, i.e. stylised silhouettes.

 

i have seen some good animations where 3d people have been used, but they had clever camera placement and composition so that if faces were visible the camera was far awya enough to not notice, if the camera was close, then it was placed behind the person.

 

only other time i've seen people incorporated into animations successfully is green screened live footage.

[carlotristan3d]

i've seen an animation by red vertex where they use only 2d people, the way they combined it was very unique and stylised. I'll post the link if I can locate it.

Edited April 16, 2010 by carlotristan3d

[CJI]

Yeah i've seen that one. Very clever use of 2d billboards and one of the better examples. But there aren't many like that.

 

I agree with you dave, i also hate RPCs. But they can be useful when used sparingly and at a distance much like 3d people. Not to mention we are kind of limited for choice. I usually vote for silhouttes and the like, much easier to handle and like you say, look fake on purpose.

 

Has anyone attempted to create their own green screen setup. I have to admit im tempted to have a bash at it. Lighting the damn thing right is always going to be the issue. Ive seen an article somewhere about creating a homemade setup for pretty much nothing. (likely £100 once you include some lighting and materials if you already have a decent Video camera). Going to a studio is out of the question as that's where the big money comes in and is just too expensive for the little guys (me).

[Dave Buckley]

Quick tip: find out when student night is in the city. Get friendly with a film student. Abuse their free access to the universities green screen studio and willing volunteers from the drama course. Haha, luckily I've still got friends at the uni I went to which had an amazing studio setup. But seriously, if going down that route, then universities will lots of willing volunteers wanting exposure and experience. You may get tied in to do a talk about it but hey, at least you can add public speaker to tour CV too

[CJI]

haha i had considered that actually. The department of the uni i was at just moved to new facility with spanking new green screen studio etc, I had just finished when they moved so i never got a shot at it. Bit jealous that the new animation students can have access to this for their stuff, i would have loved that opportunity. Might have to pay my lecturers a visit, might speak to them at graduation in June, few beers, sorted! lol.

[grungebob]

I ran across these guys a few years ago at Siggraph. Similar to aXYZ. They are fully rigged with some standard captures... also cool is they give you the PSD of the texture so you can change the colors of clothes (or want to have less clothes).

 

http://www.rocketbox.de (All they do)

http://www.rocketbox-libraries.com/ (Purchase of their character models)

 

Don't know it helps... I believe they do give one free (not 100%) to try.

[Fooch]

Getting a greenscreen setup isnt too expansive actually.

Most new Dslrs can take HD720P footage. Getting a greenscreen space (or just a portable greenscreen) with some lights will do.

(I just got a panasonic GH1 and its brilliant to take keyed footage - after a firmware hack)

 

Its best to have top notch quality but you can work around it if you get an even lit scene and tweak in post.

Keylight is the quickest way to bash something in .. (of course good keys mean a lot of tweaking and various methods to get it out)

 

The tricky bit is to camera match footage but if you keep your virtual cameras still or with a steady motion (pans + cranes) it shouldnt be that hard to match it.

 

Alternatively buy footage from greenlayers.com or ribbitfilms

[Holzi]

Hi everybody,

 

I read this thread with much interest because I am looking for different methods of how to implement human (realistic) characters in architectural scenes. Especially in animations.

I am going to write my bachelor thesis about this topic (and about how to improve the system - or at least the work flow).

 

What I have so far are the following:

green screened footage: Nice, if the camera faces only one way. However, the moment it makes a turn > 30� you either see the person turn without movement (plane is linked to the camera) or he turns flat. Both ways are not very good. Another problem is if people actually have to walk somewhere. You need to have enough space in your scene so the people dont walk through a wall or similar. And the always walk only in one direction due to their nature.

And, as you mentioned, greenscreening takes time, and is rather cost intensive. However, once you have proper footage (the place where I work has decent footage for non-walking but in place moving [or whatever you call that] people).

 

Then there are RPCs. RPCs are a great idea, but as i find, poorly realized.

Most of them are not animated, so completly useless in an animation. Those who are animated often cause problems (some of them turn reddish during rendering, some seem to stand a few centimeters above the ground although their proxy is positioned correctly etc. etc.). Those problems especially occure, if you combine different methods (like greenscreen footage, rpcs and 3d characters. All respond differently to light and shadow settings.).

The idea of walking rpcs seems quite good. the way you add them to your scene is perfectly easy and you dont need ANY animation skills. However they look like they are out of a 1995's computer game. So again, rather useless (apart from filling the background with a croud).

 

And the last method would be rigged/pre-animated 3D characters.

Those seem to be the best choice for mid to foreground. However, their faces often look unrealistic due to too much symmetry and missing emotions and facial movement.

Moreover they need rather high animation skills which most people in this field don't have.

And they too make problems. U can use axyz-design characters with axyz-design motion capture data and u can use rocketbox characters with rocketbox mocap data. However interchanging those two makes everything horrible! I experienced that the axyz character (the free one) moved his hand through his thight. And the rocketbox character moved his arms like an anabolics addict but at the meantime moved his hibs like a supermodel and his legs like he needed to pee for several hours, but didn't find a decent spot to do so... Long story short, interchanging mocap data looks s***t.

Interchanging them would be awesome though, becaus axyz is much cheaper (with nearly the same quality about looks) but the rocketbox mocapdata is perfect for animating people (they seemlesly fit together).

 

So much for what i found out.

Do you guys no any other method (or have any idea how to optimize all this)? Or know what to search for (my attemtps on google did not show me any other results than the ones above)?

Any help, ideas, inspiration or motivating words are much appreciated

 

kind regards,

 

Christian

[Fooch]

There is an ultimate super expensive way

 

Filming a greenscreen scene with all the ppl and markers then 3D tracking it . Of course all camera movement has to be planned first. The ppl / actors have to be correctly placed on scene and best if some things are locked in. You would need dollys, cranes and the whole lot of camera gear + crew though. These would be the FG ppl. Background ppl can be added in post via mocap rocketbox / axyz ppl.

[epictor.com]

we know about the problem with 3d people and keep iterating different methods to produces 3d people who fit our quality standard.

though at the moment we can't offer any of those at a reasonable price as the production is simply to extensive.

however it might change ..

 

but i'd be interested in your needs, what should we try to focus on when working on this subject?

 

thanks a lot, and with best regards

 

felix

[Jason Bergeron]

we know about the problem with 3d people and keep iterating different methods to produces 3d people who fit our quality standard.

though at the moment we can't offer any of those at a reasonable price as the production is simply to extensive.

however it might change ..

 

but i'd be interested in your needs, what should we try to focus on when working on this subject?

 

thanks a lot, and with best regards

 

felix

 

Good looking libraries you have there.

 

It states on your website that you possess a signed release from all pictured subjects. Even the people shot from behind? Must have been grueling work. Were they also paid?

 

It is a good idea nonetheless. Keeps your customers out of trouble down the road.

[Holzi]

we know about the problem with 3d people and keep iterating different methods to produces 3d people who fit our quality standard.

though at the moment we can't offer any of those at a reasonable price as the production is simply to extensive.

however it might change ..

 

but i'd be interested in your needs, what should we try to focus on when working on this subject?

 

thanks a lot, and with best regards

 

felix

 

Realistic movement! Thats what matters most! If you look at the axyz design or rocketbox 3d characters, they look rather game-ish. But if you place them in mid to background in a viz, especially one with moving pictures, they just blend in very nicely. However a lot of them tend to walk in this gangster style, with there arms relatively far away from the body. Just not as a 'normal' person would walk, if the walk in a natural and relaxed way. So keep that in mind if you work on any of that =).

FYI: axyz Design released a new software together with modified versions of there characters so you actually have a crowd control tool with agents. Not very bright agents, but they don't have to be in arch-viz. So rather good for that use. I haven't had time to try it yet though. But from what I see from there homepage, it could be quite a time safer for large areas and massive population in mid and background. foreground still has to be done by hand, with proper human greenscreened people, but thats fine for me.

But they too tend to have this ganster-style walkcycle.

http://www.axyz-design.com/anima/

[sunshinemcmanio]

Hi there yeah i have the same problem where i work. We usually just send out stills and i photoshop the people in afterwards. I used to use rpcs but since switching to using vray the rpcs just render out as a flat plane so im also in the process of looking for alterior means of getting decent people for future flythroughs. Id be interested to here of any of you guys solutions.

Regards

Chris

[scepticus]

The best way i found was to render RPC with scanline and then add them in AE, but still it's far from being perfect :/