Archive for December, 2011

Memo, Barney, Robin and Ian from Studio Output have recently been funded by Sony’s PlayStation@Store to make a series of movie related videos using ‘Immersive Imaging’ which takes 3D projection mapping as its starting point, but gives the viewer a supercharged experience with the help of the PlayStation Move controller.

In the past, projection mapping worked only from a single, static view point, and thus was very limited. By attaching the PlayStation Move to the camera, they  tracked projections to screens in real time, enhancing the effect of spatial deformation and false perspective on the projections and allowing viewers to look round (virtual) corners, bend walls, create a hole in the wall, or remove the walls altogether to reveal vast expanses of virtual worlds.

 A few facts about Video Store of PlayStation Store. It’s basically a movie service where you can rent or buy all the latest blockbusters, most of them in 1080p HD movies. They also have a good back catalogue with more and more titles in 1080p HD too. Great value with titles available to rent from £1.99.

Below are some production notes about these videos and of course further down the actual videos!

Production Notes:

We are bringing a living room set to life through the use of combining projection mapping and traditional special effects.

We have covered a living room with projectors, so we can project on all surfaces. We have also rigged various props in the set with pyrotechnics, triggers, booby traps etc, so synchronised to the projected effects we can also trigger physical effects. E.g. a projected deformation in the table can knock over a real glass of water which in turn spills projected water, blurring the boundaries of virtual vs physical.

The whole thing is filmed with a moving camera – (a steadicam). We use this to really enhance the effect of spatial deformation and false perspective on the projections, e.g. looking round (virtual) corners, bending the walls, or creating a hole / tunnel in the wall, or removing the walls altogether to reveal a vast expanse. Technically to be able to alter the false perspective like this we create all of the content so that it runs and renders in realtime (as opposed to pre-rendered content).

We do this by developing our own software using a combination of proprietary in-house software, open-source software, and the Unity game engine. Also we we need to track the camera, so just as an added bonus we decided to do that using Playstation Move technology.

We use multiple Playstation Move Controllers strapped onto our steadicam and multiple Playstation EyeToy cameras scattered around the set tracking our cameraman and our custom software adjusting the projections in realtime accordingly. We also need to track our hero so we can adjust our projections accordingly, again this is done using custom software developed in the open-source toolkit open Frameworks and opencv.

And as an extra “The Most Immersive Movie Experience EVER — Making Of Version”