Camera Projection Test on Procedural Surfaces

#1

Here’s a proof of concept idea I’ve been tinkering with.

Instead of using cards, flat surfaces or custom 3D geometry as a target for camera projections, I’ve been testing procedurally generated “blocks” to represent various buildings.

The idea is that from far above, buildings are just a clusters of cubes anyway, so it might enough in some situations to represent the contours of a city by using just such simple cubes.

A test video can be seen here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDz35mmMASo

Only one image (2k resolution) was projected on to the scene.

Of course, there’s simply not enough data there in a single image if you go too extreme with the camera, but for smaller camera moves this technique does give better results than either image cards (as they have no “roof”, they betray the effect quickly as the camera flies over them), or flat surfaces (which start to stretch really fast).

Naturally, this is not as good as building custom geometry to represent the various buildings and trees and such - and/or creating multiple projections and patches - but as the process is semi-automated, it is really fast to set up.

I used the Greeble plugin for the test in Max and a simple planes as a source.

#2

For low rez like youtube you can get away with it but I wonder how it would look at 2k.

#3

Check out the HD version (well, whatever Youtube’s HD is anyway). It gives you a bit clearer picture.

I rendered and comped the shot at 720p, and it holds up reasonably well there apart from a slight bending on the edge buildings during the last few frames.

1080p or 2k might be pushing it. It certainly would at least require a more sophisticated and precise laying of blocks than the current rather scattershot approach. I have not tested, though.

I certainly wouldn’t call this “production-ready”, by any means.

#4

works fine. i’ve used this trick at film-res several times for the distant portions of a cityscape.

cheers, simon w.

#5

yeah, it will work for some simple stuff in the background, but you’d never get away with it projecting a matte for stereo… Good technique though man.

#6

Cracking test Harri, if you have a normal projection working as hi res on a foreground object ie a hero building you could use this technique to use as a background, the hero object would distract the audience paying to much attention to this effect.

instead of cubes have you tried spheres on a deciduous forest. It would be interesting to see if it would work on organic forms.

I like experiments like this, and I just checked out your Bladerunner Pastiche good work.

thanks for sharing,

Rich

#7

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