Visual effects
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Visual effects (sometimes abbreviated VFX) is the process by which imagery is created or manipulated outside the context of a live-action shot in filmmaking and video production. The integration of live-action footage and other live-action footage or CGI elements to create realistic imagery is called VFX.
VFX involves the integration of live-action footage (which may include in-camera special effects) and generated-imagery (digital or optics, animals or creatures) which look realistic, but would be dangerous, expensive, impractical, time-consuming or impossible to capture on film. Visual effects using computer-generated imagery (CGI) have more recently become accessible to the independent filmmaker with the introduction of affordable and relatively easy-to-use animation and compositing software.
History
Early developments
In 1857,
It was not only the first use of trickery in cinema, it was also the first type of photographic trickery that was only possible in a motion picture, and referred to as the "stop trick". Georges Méliès, an early motion picture pioneer, accidentally discovered the same "stop trick."
According to Méliès, his camera jammed while filming a street scene in Paris. When he screened the film, he found that the "stop trick" had caused a truck to turn into a hearse, pedestrians to change direction, and men to turn into women. Méliès, the director of the Théâtre Robert-Houdin, was inspired to develop a series of more than 500 short films, between 1896 and 1913, in the process developing or inventing such techniques as multiple exposures, time-lapse photography, dissolves, and hand-painted color.
Because of his ability to seemingly manipulate and transform reality with the cinematograph, the prolific Méliès is sometimes referred to as the "Cinemagician." His most famous film, Le Voyage dans la lune (1902), a whimsical parody of Jules Verne's From the Earth to the Moon, featured a combination of live action and animation, and also incorporated extensive miniature and matte painting work.
Modern
VFX today is heavily used in almost all movies produced. Other than films, television series and web series are also known to utilize VFX.[2]
Techniques
- props, scenery, scale models, animatronics, pyrotechnics and atmospheric effects: creating physical wind, rain, fog, snow, clouds, making a car appear to drive by itself and blowing up a building, etc. Mechanical effects are also often incorporated into set design and makeup. For example, prosthetic makeup can be used to make an actor look like a non-human creature. Optical-effects (also called photographic-effects) are techniques in which images or film frames are created photographically, either "in-camera" using multiple exposure, mattes or the Schüfftan process or in post-production using an optical printer. An optical effect might be used to place actors or sets against a different background.
- digital character models in 2-D or 3-D computer animation.[5][6][7] When it includes face and fingers or captures subtle expressions, it is often referred to as performance capture.[8] In many fields, motion capture is sometimes called motion tracking, but in filmmaking and games, motion tracking usually refers more to match moving.
- Matte painting: A matte painting is a painted representation of a landscape, set, or distant location that allows filmmakers to create the illusion of an environment that is not present at the filming location. Historically, matte painters and film technicians have used various techniques to combine a matte-painted image with live-action footage. At its best, depending on the skill levels of the artists and technicians, the effect is "seamless" and creates environments that would otherwise be impossible or expensive to film. In the scenes the painting part is static and movements are integrated on it.
- animated GIF and Flash animationwere developed.
- specialized software. The product is called a 3-D model. Someone who works with 3-D models may be referred to as a 3-D artist. It can be displayed as a two-dimensional image through a process called 3D rendering or used in a computer simulation of physical phenomena. The model can also be physically created using 3D printingdevices.
- character (or other articulated object) is represented in two parts: a surface representation used to draw the character (called the mesh or skin) and a hierarchical set of interconnected parts (called bones, and collectively forming the skeleton or rig), a virtual armature used to animate (pose and key-frame) the mesh.[9]While this technique is often used to animate humans and other organic figures, it only serves to make the animation process more intuitive, and the same technique can be used to control the deformation of any object—such as a door, a spoon, a building, or a galaxy. When the animated object is more general than, for example, a humanoid character, the set of "bones" may not be hierarchical or interconnected, but simply represent a higher-level description of the motion of the part of mesh it is influencing.
- frame by frame, to produce realistic action. Originally, animators projected photographed live-action movie images onto a glass panel and traced over the image. This projection equipment is referred to as a rotoscope, developed by Polish-American animator Max Fleischer. This device was eventually replaced by computers, but the process is still called rotoscoping. In the visual effects industry, rotoscoping is the technique of manually creating a matte for an element on a live-action plate so it may be composited over another background.[10][11] Chroma keyis more often used for this, as it is faster and requires less work, however rotoscopy is still used on subjects that are not in front of a green (or blue) screen, due to practical or economic reasons.
- 3D animationprogram. When new CGI elements are composited back into the original live-action shot, they will appear in perfectly matched perspective.
- Live-action shoots for compositing is variously called "chroma key", "blue screen", "green screen" and other names. Today, most, though not all, compositing is achieved through digital image manipulation. Pre-digital compositing techniques, however, go back as far as the trick films of Georges Mélièsin the late 19th century, and some are still in use.
- Splash of color: The term splash of color is the use of a colored item on an otherwise monochrome film image.[12]
Production pipeline
Visual effects are often integral to a movie's story and appeal. Although most visual effects work is completed during
Many studios specialize in visual effects; among them are
See also
- Animation
- Match moving
- Bluescreen/greenscreen
- Compositing
- Computer-generated imagery
- Computer animation
- Front projection effect
- Interactive video compositing
- Live-action animated film
- Matte painting
- special effects
- Optics
- Rear projection effect
- Special effects
- VFX Creative Director
- Visual Effects Society
References
- ^ Rickitt, 10.
- ^ "Vfxvoice.com". 2019.
- ^ David Noonan, Peter Mountney, Daniel Elson, Ara Darzi, Guang-Zhong Yang. "A Stereoscopic Fibroscope for Camera Motion and 3D Depth Recovery During Minimally Invasive Surgery". In proc ICRA 2009. pp. 4463–4468.
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: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - ^ Yamane, Katsu, and Jessica Hodgins. "Simultaneous tracking and balancing of humanoid robots for imitating human motion capture data." Intelligent Robots and Systems, 2009. IROS 2009. IEEE/RSJ International Conference on. IEEE, 2009.
- ^ NY Castings, Joe Gatt, Motion Capture Actors: Body Movement Tells the Story Archived 2014-07-03 at the Wayback Machine, Accessed June 21, 2014
- ^ Andrew Harris Salomon, Feb. 22, 2013, Backstage Magazine, Growth In Performance Capture Helping Gaming Actors Weather Slump, Accessed June 21, 2014, "..But developments in motion-capture technology, as well as new gaming consoles expected from Sony and Microsoft within the year, indicate that this niche continues to be a growth area for actors. And for those who have thought about breaking in, the message is clear: Get busy...."
- ^ Ben Child, 12 August 2011, The Guardian, Andy Serkis: why won't Oscars go ape over motion-capture acting? Star of Rise of the Planet of the Apes says performance capture is misunderstood and its actors deserve more respect, Accessed June 21, 2014
- ^ Hugh Hart, January 24, 2012, Wired magazine, When will a motion capture actor win an Oscar?, Accessed June 21, 2014, "...the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' historic reluctance to honor motion-capture performances .. Serkis, garbed in a sensor-embedded Lycra body suit, quickly mastered the then-novel art and science of performance-capture acting. ..."
- ^ Soriano, Marc. "Skeletal Animation". Bourns College of Engineering. Retrieved 5 January 2011.
- ^ Maçek III, J.C. (2012-08-02). "'American Pop'... Matters: Ron Thompson, the Illustrated Man Unsung". PopMatters. Archived from the original on 2013-08-24.
- ^ "Through a 'Scanner' dazzlingly: Sci-fi brought to graphic life" USA TODAY, August 2, 2006 Wednesday, LIFE; Pg. 4D WebLink Archived 2011-12-23 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Peshin, Akash (4 December 2017). "How Are Black And White Films Colorized?". Science ABC. Wattcon Technologies Private Limited. Retrieved 14 October 2023.
Further reading
- The VES Handbook of Visual Effects: Industry Standard VFX Practices and Procedures, Jeffrey A. Okun & Susan Zwerman, Publisher: Focal Press 2010.
- T. Porter and T. Duff, "Compositing Digital Images", Proceedings of SIGGRAPH '84, 18 (1984).
- The Art and Science of Digital Compositing (ISBN 0-12-133960-2)
- McClean, Shilo T. (2007). Digital Storytelling: The Narrative Power of Visual Effects in Film. ISBN 978-0-262-13465-1.
- ISBN 0-8118-3136-1
- Peter Ellenshaw; Ellenshaw Under Glass – Going to the Matte for Disney Archived 2008-05-19 at the Wayback Machine
- Richard Rickitt: Special Effects: The History and Technique. Billboard Books; 2nd edition, 2007; ISBN 0-8230-8408-6.
- Patel, Mayur (2009). The Digital Visual Effects Studio: The Artists and Their Work Revealed. ISBN 978-1-4486-6547-1.