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Boys' Toys, where are we going? - part 4 of 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

by Mike McNamee Published 01/12/2012

The 3-D element provided by a Spheron consists solely of an HDR 360° panorama but this is only one part of the jigsaw. Backplates have to be shot - the scene into which a CGI model is to be dropped. These have to be shot at the location and must be done very quickly after the panorama, more especially if the light is changing - there is no point in having a backplate showing clear sky and a blazing sun if the pan was made an hour earlier under cloudy conditions. This is one reason why the speed of the Spheron is so important. The lens has a 183° field of view and makes the pan in a single, rapid sweep, you should be able to get the job knocked off in minutes. When shooting the backplate the only additional task is to place a reference nodal cube (think a clothes horse, cube shaped with tennis balls in ach corner) in to scene at the location where the vehicle (or some other CGI object) is to be placed. This is to enable the compositing to be accurately carried out in perspective terms. This used to be cube shaped (and was known as a 'moofe cube' but has been superseded by a tetrahedron which gives the computer program a better idea of the spatial co-ordinates).

The CGI Stock Market

A developing business is emerging for the provision of stock location sets which include backplate variations and HDR pans. Moofe are one of the market leaders in this and their website currently displays about 44 location types using up to 11 camera angles, 13 times of day, 16 weather types and 27 road surface types. For each a 360° HDR and backplates are available. Moofe are on the look out for additional resources from suitably skilled photographers from international locations. This is why they attended photokina and also why they showed a lot of interest in the demographics of The Societies!

Each moofe backplate contains a reference marker (the moofe target) that helps both the photographer and the CG artist. The photographer uses it as a visual guide to shoot the empty scene, as well as capturing the High Dynamic Range Image (HDRI) file used for lighting and reflection data

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Contact Mike McNamee

1st Published 01/12/2012
last update 21/07/2022 08:46:23

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