Comments on: Making Future Magic

Making Future Magic

Blazecock Pileon — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 14:23:14 -0800

iPad light painting - an ethereal stop-motion animation, using long exposures and a locationally-aware iPad [ photo stills | via ]

By: brundlefly

brundlefly — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 14:26:43 -0800

Neat!

By: joelf

joelf — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 14:27:08 -0800

I love the stills, the video, not so much...

By: Joe Beese

Joe Beese — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 14:37:25 -0800

Sort of ironic that I can't watch the video on this iPad.

By: Burhanistan

Burhanistan — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 14:50:19 -0800

> Sort of ironic that I can't watch the video on this iPad. YouTube link for iOS.

By: jedicus

jedicus — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 14:52:11 -0800

The original, non-embedded Vimeo version should also work on the iPad

By: Blazecock Pileon

Blazecock Pileon — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 14:53:27 -0800

Thanks, jedicus.

By: egypturnash

egypturnash — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 15:08:31 -0800

Pretty clever. Though starting the video with an explanation of exactly how you did the trick kinda ruins the "future magic". Let us try to figure it out before telling us how you did it, maybe the ways we think you did it will lead to us doing something equally cool!

By: The Whelk

The Whelk — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 15:12:19 -0800

preeeeeeeeeeeeeety.

By: blue_beetle

blue_beetle — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 16:15:04 -0800

It would work better with an AMOLED screen. (less back light) Maybe a samsung android tablet?

By: Greg_Ace

Greg_Ace — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 17:05:51 -0800

While this is a pretty nifty trick and sort of a nice effect, it seems like a very labor-intensive "going around your elbow to scratch your ass" way of doing something they could have done as well or better with existing CGI tools. Unless there's some other potential application here that I'm not seeing.

By: Casimir

Casimir — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 17:20:50 -0800

I'm a bit skeptical of the 'locationally aware' claim- it looks like the sequence was just a movie clip that played out dumbly while the people moved the iPads as smoothly as they could. Although I suppose the device would have an accelerometer, I don't see Apple making it too easy to interface with. Cool idea, though. Needs more robots.

By: rageagainsttherobots

rageagainsttherobots — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 17:38:27 -0800

This is really innovative. I think another project will really refine the execution.

By: setanor

setanor — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 18:54:57 -0800

It would work better with an AMOLED screen. (less back light) I actually think the glow from the backlight is what really makes this interesting...

By: i_have_a_computer

i_have_a_computer — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 19:12:04 -0800

> Sort of ironic that I can't watch the video on this iPad Well, their embedded Flash player would not work on my laptop. So I guess the ultimate irony is that I had to use my iPad to get access to Vimeo's HTML5 video player in order to see this video, which I am now currently watching on my iPad, mounted on my Apple //c, as I type this comment on my MacBook while simultaneously enjoying a glass of wine. The future is now.

By: swift

swift — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 19:41:01 -0800

Extrude the light.

By: Hildegarde

Hildegarde — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 19:51:23 -0800

Uh....I just watched it on an iPad. So...yeah.

By: buriednexttoyou

buriednexttoyou — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 20:48:37 -0800

Loved the video. When they start really messing with the speed at which they "extrude" the letters, and things get crazy... man! I dig it.

By: kozad

kozad — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 21:28:26 -0800

Etch-a-Sketch.

By: Soupisgoodfood

Soupisgoodfood — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 22:54:29 -0800

Although I suppose the device would have an accelerometer, I don't see Apple making it too easy to interface with. Why not? Checked the developer APIs?

By: delmoi

delmoi — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 22:59:47 -0800

it seems like a very labor-intensive "going around your elbow to scratch your ass" way of doing something they could have done as well or better with existing CGI tools. What would be the point of doing that, though? People enjoy playing around with 'low-tech' special effects. Although, obviously 'low-tech' isn't really the right word here, maybe 'in camera'? But I don't think as many people know what that means.

By: delmoi

delmoi — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 23:02:03 -0800

And the other thing is that even though you can obviously have floating leters using CG, you get a certain 'look' doing it this way, and getting that look might be difficult with off the shelf software. So for a short project, this might be easier if you're not someone who knows how to really get in and script and tweak the software. In fact getting radiosity would be really difficult without either modeling the entire environment, or adding it via photoshop. Both of which I wouldn't consider labor unintensive.

By: seagull.apollo

seagull.apollo — Sat, 18 Sep 2010 00:53:11 -0800

By: seagull.apollo

seagull.apollo — Sat, 18 Sep 2010 01:00:56 -0800

Being that the creators use a combination of powerful digital technology and what I can only imagine must have been a real-world pain-in-the-ass amount of time and effort to create something that stimulates thought and discussion.

By: Casimir

Casimir — Sat, 18 Sep 2010 11:34:22 -0800

Why not? Checked the developer APIs? Fair enough. I guess what triggered my skeptical reaction was that there was no demonstration of the program linking a frame in the animation with a slice of physical space. If the guy had moved the iPad back and forth for the demo, scanning through the frames as though the overall object were persistently anchored in space, instead of the straight extrusion, I would be more convinced of the claim of 'locational awareness', is what I'm saying.

By: caaaaaam

caaaaaam — Sun, 19 Sep 2010 03:13:08 -0800

The 3-D extrusion aspect is neat, but the content strikes me as kind of sterile (mostly just fancy, pre-determined text). While the technology is far lower-tech, I really like the light painting that the PikaPika group does. (For example, see the video for this advertisement.) Although their technique doesn't produce nearly as slick-looking a result, part of the appeal, I think, is the accessibility and the spontaneity. And the fact that they seem to be spending a lot of time just going around letting people play with their lights and camera— letting people bring characters to life and otherwise doodle in their environment. Perhaps there's something even more exciting if we were to look at the intersection of these two approaches? You could probably use an iPhone as an advanced light source where, for example, the radius of the light depended on the acceleration of your hand (for a fake brush-stroke appearance), or the color could be tied to orientation. Or it could render simple dynamic cross-sections for extrusion... okay, who wants to lend me their iPhone?