Loopy Things
A brief update on my time lapse related projects. Time lapse seems to be just one aspect of what I’ve been working on over the covid period. Add to the pool photogrammetry, deviance resolve, Blender and motion control rigs. Grabbing a camera and getting immersed in photography is often a welcome relief to all this.
Cast net fishermen loop
Cast-net fishing boat loop from Darren Wilch on Vimeo.
This scene was created from one individual clip, link here. Using the free software, deviancy resolve, separate masking, off setting both in time and position, and colorizing of the same clip gives this wonderful loop. I guess it’s my engineering background that keeps me involved in this stuff. The principles are similar, using time and motion to create something smooth and continuous.
Here is the node tree to give an idea of complexity. It tedious for troubleshooting, but when all is correct things go like clockwork. Essentially each slice has a position / time / color offsets applied. The whole thing could be rendered in one go, but for my machine, separate slices were rendered with alpha and combined later.
Cactus loop
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While the cast-net fishing project is mostly software (other than the drone), other projects include combining motion control with time lapse and virtual movement in post, as with this cactus example. It is only one flower on a cactus. Rotating a turn table supporting the cactus back and forth gives me one continuous loop-able piece of footage. This was then combined in a virtual environment with harmonic motion, virtual DOF and time offsets to give the impression of multiple flowers opening and closing on a continuous loop. The fusion node tree has a similar complexity to the above project.
The future
I’ve been dabbling with Blender, a free and amazing 3D package. The hope is to combine time lapse, real footage, motion control into a 3D environment, possibly created with photogrammetry and create a realistic looking render. On that note, it seems my preference for a Mac operating system may be the wrong choice. Rendering on a mac just does not cut it. I’ll soon be up grading to one of the M series and see where that gets me. On the motion rig side, Issues with importing components put a stop to any builds. This may change as local expats seem more confident with imports goods from China (I’ve got a test order on the way 🙂 ).
This background work will continue but priority goes to the photography workshops. It’s good to see tourism finally picking up and the locals getting some work.
More examples:
Using davinci resolve and manipulating a single picture – loop.
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A virtual environment combining chroma keyed plant time lapse – not a loop.
In this example, i’ve moved a virtual camera through footage with a video clip in the background, agin with deviance resolve.
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A loopy temple scanned with photogrammetry
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