floating layers / 3D effect on photos?

[housepig]

I thought there was a tutorial or a link here, I can't seem to find it.

I'm looking for a tutorial on the new-style version of the "Ken Burns" Effect - where still pictures are cut and layered in such a way that it gives a 3D effect.

If you've seen the movie "The Kid Stays In The Picture", it's all over that movie.

basic description - you have a picture of, say, a guitarist onstage, jumping into the air.

in this effect, the guitarist is cut out, and the background will be panned around to make it look like he is on a seperate plane from the rest of the picture, and the camera is panning around him. Some versions of this will have multiple elements of the photo moving independently for greater effect.

I get the basic concepts on how to do this, but the tutorial that I recall seeing had some good tips and timesavers in it... I just can't find it!

any help appreciated.

[Supreme2k]

Are you talking about the matrix effect?

If so, here's a couple:

http://www.angelfire.com/fl5/jcmiller/Bullet.htm

http://www.creativecow.net/articles/kumar_satish/bullet_time/

[housepig]

supreme -

thanks, but it's not the matrix / bullet time effect. this is an effect that's done to still photos, to give the illusion of motion. it's like Ken Burns on steroids.

example: I have a picture of you standing to the left of a tree. I cut you out of the picture, and put your cutout on a different layer.

then I pan the background picture, while zooming in to you. when I end, it looks like I've moved a virtual camera, so you are now in the foreground, and to the right of the tree.

make sense?

[racer-x]

Sounds interesting, I'll have to try it out the next time I'm using Premiere. You should be able to do it easily enough with Photoshop. Set up the layers and save it as psd. Any video editor that will import the psd as a compilation (such as Premiere Pro or After Effects) should let you animate each layer seperately.

I'll give it a try.

[Supreme2k]

If you check out the second link the effect is somewhat similar.

Have you tried Flash? I've done similar effects in Flash. Even better may be Swishmax, which has many built in effects, like panning and zoom. For instance, you can take the image of the person as the top layer, and an oversized background as the second. You would then apply a zoom to the person, while at the same time applying a pan to the background. This can all be exported to an AVI.

Here's a crappy example done in about 2 minutes, but it gives you an idea of the capabilities.

[housepig]

supreme -

I have worked with Flash, and Swish as well (not a lot lately, though).

I know I can do it, I'm solid on the concepts. I'm searching for that tutorial because it had some time-saving stuff and tips on how to quickly get the layers looking right - stuff that I'll figure out, but it'll take me an hour and 10 steps instead of 5 minutes and 4 steps in the tutorial!

the big thing is, you are taking a picture and cutting a big hole out of it - getting stuff to fill in the hole and look "right" is part of the key of this effect...

I'll have to cut a clip from "The Kid Stays In The Picture" and post it somewhere so you can see what I mean.. or just do a quick and dirty and post it....

[racer-x]

Supreme2k, intersting example. That could also easily duplicated with Photoshop and Premiere. Your way may be faster and easier though.

[racer-x]

housepig wrote:

the big thing is, you are taking a picture and cutting a big hole out of it - getting stuff to fill in the hole and look "right" is part of the key of this effect...

You can use the clone tool for this. It's what I used to fill in the hole of my wheelie in this animated gif I made.


Edit:
Another option would be to put the camera on a tripod and take two pictures. Take one picture with the background only and take one picture with the person and background. Put the picture with the hole on a layer above the background layer.

[Supreme2k]

Ah, now I see (after re-reading your post). Not simply a tutorial, but a specific tutorial.

I'll keep an eye out, since it sounds like something that I can use too.

[housepig]

Edit:
Another option would be to put the camera on a tripod and take two pictures. Take one picture with the background only and take one picture with the person and background. Put the picture with the hole on a layer above the background layer.

if I was creating the photos myself, I could do it. these are photos that I'm being given for a project.

I did a quick and dirty version of what I'm talking about, and if I can get my !@#$%#$ floppy drive to work, I'll post it / link to it.

then again, if you'll help me with some of the finer points of the clone tool, maybe we can make a new tutorial and say screw the other one...

[racer-x]

I just tried it out and it looked really cool. I extracted a closeup picture of my dog and overlayed on a picture of my backyard. I then animated the backyard while my dog. It did have a 3-d effect to it, even without the animation. I don't have any web storage, so I can't post the Mpeg.

If your going to use the clone tool, then you'll want to duplicate the image layer. Extract the person from the top layer. Use the clone tool on the bottom layer. Try to use the biggest and softest clone brush you can get away with. Select an area near the person and start filling it in from the edges in. It's a lot of trial and error untill you get it right. When your done, you can merge the top layer (that has the hole) with the bottom (cloned) layer to use as your new background.

[guns1inger]

Even after an extensive googling session all I can find are simple pan/zoom effects - it seems every program now includes a built-in 'Make Ken Burn's Effect' button. Nothing on extracting from the image to create parallax effects though.

[housepig]

FOUND IT!

it's on the DV.com website, in the Archive for May 2003, called "Moving Pictures : Creating Multiplane Animation from Photographs".

you can't access the archive unless you (free) register on the site. I've posted a question in the Feedback section to see if I can copy & paste it in the guides section, but we'll see if that's beyond the bounds of good taste...

the link is HERE, if you want to sign up (or have already).

another similar article on the theory (but a bit shorter in practice) is HERE.

ahhhhhh.... the itch is scratched.....

[guns1inger]

I was thinking about the simplest way to do this last night, and came up with photoshop and after effects. Do the seperation in photoshop, using extract or selections or whatever you are comfortable with. Save each in place on a seperate layer. Use the clone brush to bring the edges of the originals back into give yourself a little more movement. Save as a PSD file.

Open this in After Effects, and the layers should become seperate layers on the timeline. Now adjust the z-depth of the layers to give seperation, and move the 3d camera to get the parallax view.

I will try this out over the next couple of nights to see how it looks.