face detection http://www.quasimondo.com/examples/face_detection/Marilena_mod10.zip

motion detection http://blog.inspirit.ru/wp-content/uploads/motion/Main.swf

fluid solver http://blog.inspirit.ru/?tag=fluid-solver

flocking Craig Renyolds

edge detection http://www.kilometer0.com/edge_detection.php

http://www.quasimondo.com/archives/000690.php

http://code.google.com/p/in-spirit/wiki/CannyEdgeDetector

copy pixels v draw pixels

random seed

generative drawing

other

bitmap fill http://www.sakri.net/blog/2009/03/03/extracting-positive-and-negative-shapes-from-a-bitmapdata/

bitmap fill http://nodename.com/blog/2009/05/12/the-name-of-the-node/

Step one of the process was to re cut the sequence to give the impression of Luke being shot.
The sequence if pretty quick so any dialog will need to be kept to a minimum.

Once the script was worked out I filmed it against a blue wall and made sure the take would fit the sequence.

Darth is predominately lit from one side so my lighting was set up similarly.

The blue screen wasn’t entirely required as most of the image would be masked, but as I had the wall it seemed like I may as well use it.

Cutting out the head.
Once I had extracted the head from the blue screen I set about masking my chin. (as I am talking throughout all the shots my jaw line moves up and down, Darth wears a hig collar so it was important to remove my neck from the shot, I set up a mask with two anchor points at the bottom of my chin and simply worked through the footage inserting key frames on that mask where necessary. – I now had a disembodied talking head.

Matching Heads
The scene is very dark so it was unlikely that I would find any good points for motion tracking and as there weren’t too many frames to deal with so I set about key framing my head into the new positions (temporarily lowering the opacity on the head to allow seeing through it made this fairly simple)

Once the head was in I started correcting the colour so it better matched the footage. After lots of trial and error I went with a bluish tint (Night for day style thing) I tried to colour it to similar skin colouring as like but th1s turned out to look completely wrong (not sure Darth likes the light). – multiple tweekings of this setting as each monitor I view it on seems to give different results.

More shadows
Darth’s helmet required more shadows to be cast on my face to I used a burn brush to darken down the areas that needed it.

More light
In the original footage light reflects of Darth’s mask, To achieve this type of effect I duplicated the footage extracted the Highlights and converted this into an alpha mask. This mask was the used to mask on a duplicate of the head footage that had the colour adjusted to a show the highlights.

My Face isn’t made of metal
As Darth has a metal head and I don’t, I needed to soften the highlights So A blur was applied the the highlights mask it looked more like light on skin. Finally I changed the highlights from white to red, there are lots of red light sources inside the ship, and no white ones so the red light seemed a better fit.

A final edit of the sequence, (left it at Luke exploding rather that a shot away to rebel base and everyone looking sad, then back to me with final comment), tightened it up significantly.

Its going to be along the idea of ambient art, a dreamlike scene that changes very slowly, but it will also react to outside stimulus.

I thought about hooking parts of it up to various feeds on the web, but have gone off that idea (for the moment).

Although incorporating textures and elements from cached images has some appeal.

I have been going over lots of old links to old experiments, lots of bits on AI (flocking mainly) fluid solvers motion tracking etc . Then I stumbled on some face detection classes, they seem to work when the viewer is pretty well front on, head not rotated, I kind of like the idea that a picture could know when its being watched. This got me thinking that art that location aware is where I might like to go.

I have always had a think for you are here signs, some how seems to fit right in I guess I alway some how thought of them as semi sentient – some sort of mini oracle,  sitting there all day just waiting for someone like me to come along and tell me that one thing I desperate to know “Where am I”, “YOU ARE HERE”, the answers always the same and I always happy to read it, there is nothing more location aware than the you are here sign.

So to my piece I can use input from the web cam and microphone to alter the image in my scene, not to some horrible wave your hand see it dance rule set, more subtle than that the picture becomes more complex with more stimulation  (as it gets excited) but settles back down when felt alone, it may even build from colours and movement from the camera or alter them and play them back later.
I may make it aware of time, giving different moods at different hours, maybe late at night if you sit very quietly it might come out to play.

My new future goal,  encompassing  ambient art is intelligent art, ( a very very simple  AI,  I don’t plan on building anything that might give the Turin Test a run for its money)

It had to be Star Wars, for several reasons it was the first movie I went to see with friends and no family in tow, It completely blew me away, I could not even begin to imagine how they made it, up until then my exposure to special effects would have been dodgy props on Doctor Who or things levitating across the room in show like Bewitched. So why not turn back to my first effects film for my effects project.

I had a few thoughts on this first just hanging out at the bar not a bad idea but the bar was pretty crowded and I wasn’t sure I would be welcome.

About this time I thought if I’m going to be in the movie I would like to make a difference.
Maybe if I warned Luke about the crappy sequals/prequals then he might not go on to do them, a would were Star Wars ended after the original, how many other crappy sequals could I stop, not only that but Star Wars success was instrumental in the creation Millions of tons of crap in the guise of movie merchandise, I never got it then why kids would want a lump of plastic that didn’t do anything. Play became dull if you played with someones Star wars toys the story was already written, where was the imagination, the kids that had them seemed to get upset when you strayed from the story crappy toys that killed creativity oops starting to rant. Soo if it just tell Luke to give up on his quest, its only going to lead to pain, get a crush on your sister father is a psychopath, last friend old Ben will die etc, then maybe he will give it all up.

So I though I would comp myself in instead of Princess Leia and be projected out from R2D2 right near the start of the movie. I did a few tech test and managed to get a nice staticky blue projected effect similar to the one in the movie, technically it should work, there was just one problem, staring at Luke as he listened to Leah’s message I realised just how thick he was, he would never listen to me, he would just go on with his stupid adventure.

If I was going to make a difference I would just have to kill him.
It’s a dilemma every inspiring megalomaniac has but if if going to save the children Luke must die.

So where is the best place to take him out, I don’t want to make it too obvious, the end of the movie, If I replace Darth and shoot Lukes ship not that other guys first then its done a would where the prequal isn’t king, toys do stuff, and kids can once again can think for them selves.

The reflective statement can be found here

Ideas to date
Back to the future 2- in homage to its own comping where Michael J Fox is put back in to shots from the previous movie.
Me on a hove board in the street

Forrest Gump – similar reasons Forrest in in heaps of classic archival footage- on the bench with Forest – he offers me a chocolate and I take them all.

Speed Racer – its hyper real and … well the kids were just watching it and it just fun.

Should it be a favorite movie of mine? a cool movie ? a classic ?

Reservoir Dogs, I could be mister Blue

Natural born killers – I could get beaten up by Juliette Lewis in the diner at the start.

Star wars – hanging out with the aliens at the bar, or beamed from r2d2 warning them to end the series there so the world could be spared Ewoks and Jarjar binks.

Fear and loathing in los vegas, hitch hiker or just lying in the bath.

Firstly I think I must have broken just about every rule for how to go about creating stop motion, the main one was “don’t be to precious”. I turned the whole project into a chore, thinking I had to get everything perfect in one take with no room to go back. No room for fun or freedom to play.

Play and experimentation all aid creativity, doing as I did and turning it nto a technical process killed of the creative spark and the result reflected that.

I think all the previous failures and failed experiments led to a bit of desperation to get something to work and set me into this mode of work.
I had mapped out previous ideas far more, and went with the set up I had for my coriander animationfor this worm /apple idea. Thinking about it cinematicly the worm story would have been better shot from a couple of different angles rather than the fairly uninteresting top down view.

Having gone through the whole process from start to end has given me a new perspective on stop motion (and my own work process motivation).

Canadian artist born in Russia
Painter and Mathematician.

Came upon this process through traditional painting and lack of canvases in USSR post economic collapse.
Found himself subconsciously using colours that would harmonize with the content underneath, became interested in this process and the and stated deliberately transforming his pictures over and over again, now his painting had a new dimension, time.

Decided that this painting process was a slow way to achieve this process and put his mathematics and programming skills to creating his new art on computer swapping screen for canvas.

Differs from much of the other generative art by the amount of control particularly over Composition. San carefully chooses the palette, components and composition rules for each painting as well as rules for the transitions, he writes shaders to achieve the electronic brush strokes for each painting.

My interest in temporal art often comes from art in nature ,clouds sunsets, light on mountains, a crash of waves, the beauty of the moment.

Sand castles, a brief laugh or twinkle of the eye. The memory of the moment. The long for whats no longer there and the surprise of what about to be.

I’m interested in ambient animation and interactive art.
An artwork that can live a life of its own, or one that you can play with.

Inspired by

Brian Eno
ipod art apps

Interactive art
Bright Nights, Union Square Park, NYC 12/8/06

Zack Booth Simpson – 22TW gallery talk – 2005

Info about San Base

http://www.sanbase.com/art/technology.html

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/san-base-computer-graphics-avant-garde,1639.html

Boredom is possibly one thing, the is nothing new to solve, you work out whats to be done, then just sit down and do it.
Its seemd a very linear process, I like to attack any job from multiple angles, working on the bit most interesting / challenging continualy swapping until the job it done. The stop motion process doesn’t seem to easily match my natural work flow.

But in the end I guess them main issue is lack of skill – I spent to much time trying to get it right and had no time for play or spontaneity and experimentation as I went.

Maybe I could get to enjoy it if I did it more, but its not my main interest, so I think at least for the time being it will go back to fun with the kids on a rainy day.

After I have edited my worm animation of course.

Sure its fun playing with it with the kids when I don’t place any expectations on the results, mess around make stuff come to life, its a bit dodgy but who cares. The trouble start when I do care, suddenly I have that 1 multi-hour take, don’t get it right and I might have to start again, sure you can go back and teak a little, but will I ever get things exactly where I want them.

I had plenty of ideas, some involving me doing stop motion of myself scribbling out ideas for stop motion, getting distracted, wine glass filling emptying doodles on a note pad, plates building up etc. It could have worked but maybe stop motion wasn’t the best way to carry that off more timelapse and editing etc. And i couldn’t get the height out of my tripod where it needed to be for the angle I was after.

Lego animation – it’s just been done to death.

Toys, don’t bend nicely. moddled guy sags falls over etc, and I can’t realy justify buying an armature.

Days have passed and the room is slowly filling with failed ideas for stop motion. Have raided the kids toys, bits of paper, chalk, modeled figures matches etc, all passed up on for one reason or another.

An idea I liked with coriander on a black background (The coriander is growing very nicely at the moment), The ground builds into a figure, but is then blown away by the wind. Should be nice and easy. I did a few tests even filmed myself acting out the motions to get a feel of timing. Was initially disappointed by the results as no matter what lighting I set up the the coriander just didnt look as lush as it did in the garden or my imagination.
Coriander is actually very sticky sticks to my fingers the board its self, start curling up into nasty splodges, all very time consuming and frustrating particularly when large sections are inadvertently dragged across the page. After getting several frames down I did a quick calculation as to the time for the animation and promptly game up. I was never going to see it through and the coriander would have definitely given up by then also.

Ok I need something I can move with out it fighting back. I found a small worm like puppet, it always looks alive if you drag it through your fingers, can I get it to live with stop motion.

Idea – worms finds an apple, tentatively sniffs it, decides its safe goes to take a closer look and the apple leaps on the worm.

I set up In a quite location so My setup wouldn’t be bumped by my kids, did a few tests then waited for night so the lighting would be consistent.
Several hours later I have my shots (I’ was sure the images looked berret while I was capturing them,(Obviously too much staring at lights)
I must have bumped the apple at one stage as it has a little shift at one point, a few hands to cut out while I was doing the sniffing phase(lifting the nose up with a piece of cotton) but at least the story is there.
I thought I wold more closely examine the shots and capture any fill in shots/ segments the following night. Morning came and the kids decided they needed to move my stuff (It was ok they “put it all back where I had it”) ahhhh. I really don’t have the desire to do it all again from scratch so I’m going to go with what I have.

My body aches, there is no undo key, I don’t have my customary 20+ versions I can go back to, are all those stop motion guys mad.