Whats the best way to make a 'spinning' 'walk-around' effect

[tomld]

Does anyone know the best way to make a spinning, walk around effect of an object? Meaning, on video the object (lets say a car) is on a completely white background and has a 3d walk around effect so you can see all sides of the car. For example, lets say I want to focus on three parts of the car, the drivers side, the headlights, and the trunk. I want the object to appear to be floating on an entirely white background and have it spin 360 around the car, slowing to focus on the three areas. How can I best accomplish this?

Do I want to take a video or do I want to take a bunch of still photos and edit them? Here's the ways i can think of to accomplish this...

1) Setup the camera on a tripod, place the object on a rotating platform, roll the camera and simply rotate the object in front of it. *Problem, how do I edit out the background? Do I paint up a complete white backdrop and film that?

2) Take a bunch of still photos of each angle of the car, by moving the camera. Then edit out the background in photoshop. *Problem how do I keep the rotation uniform if I constantly move the camera?

3) Same as #2, but use a video camera, same problems, more issues with editing out the background.

Anyone have any ideas? Problems are making the object rotate and how to get it easily onto a completely white background.

Thanks
Tom

[dphirschler]

If it's small enough, put it on a small turntable (an old record player would do nicely). Put a white (or your favorite color) background behind it.

For a full size car, I don't know. You could try building a model railroad track around the car and mount the camera to one of the train cars. If you can get the speed even enough, you might be able to use a digital camera (higher resolution than a video camera) set on auto, to take snaps every half second or so.

You could also try making a 3D model and do the camera rotation virtually. Of course, you'd need talent in many areas (the least of which is 3D modeling) to pull this off convincingly.

Sounds like a fun/challenging project. The challenge is doing it on the cheap.


Darryl

[kirky99]

Can you define easy? Like hours or days?

I can't think of an "easy" way of doing this. Easiest would probably be the 3D software approach, but the learning curve and your wallet might not like this approach.

The DIY approach might be to build a largish frame (box) to completely surround the car. Put it on wheels and a track of some sort (PVC pipe with skateboard wheels). Move the frame around the car, just make sure the background is a solid color.

You MIGHT be able to get around by putting the car on those car dollies and rotate it. That might actually be easier.

This would be a bear to do though, I think the term easy is going to be relative.

[edDV]

If you were an ad agency contracting the effect, you would spec.

Spin the car or spin the camera against a "limbo" (white cyc) set.

Most regional post markets maintain a cyc stage + turntable large enough for a car. Usually the cyc is Ultimatte green. A white ("limbo") cyc may need special painting and lighting. Easier to transport the car to a major production center like Hollywood, Tokyo, London, etc. where limbo sets are maintained.

Have you seen the Showtime Penn and Teller "Bulls**t" series?




http://www.cinematography.net/Pages%20GB/cyc%20limbo%20effect.htm

[gadgetguy]

Can you define easy?

And what kind of budget do you have?

You could make a background fairly cheap by using 2x2 lumber and muslin. If you paint them with Chroma-key grade paint you should then be able to replace the background with whatever color you want. (Assuming your camera provides high enough quality to use Chroma-keying.) The background wouldn't need to go all the way around the car but your track system for the camera should allow you to stop, move the background, then continue filming for the next segment. As long as the track is consistant it should be fairly easy to edit out any jerkiness.

[edDV]

tomld needs to tell us whether this is a real car or a prop and budget vs. quality expectations.

[solarfox]

You might also check around and see if any of your local car dealers have a turntable-type display in their showroom. (Not very many of them do anymore, but it can't hurt to check.) If so, maybe you could arrange to rent the use of it for a couple of hours during non-business hours, or during a slow sales day. Then all you'd need to do is build up some kind of "green-screen" backdrop (basically a big wooden frame with tight-stretched sheets dyed a chroma-keyable color covering it) to film the car against.

[edDV]

You might also check around and see if any of your local car dealers have a turntable-type display in their showroom. (Not very many of them do anymore, but it can't hurt to check.) If so, maybe you could arrange to rent the use of it for a couple of hours during non-business hours, or during a slow sales day. Then all you'd need to do is build up some kind of "green-screen" backdrop (basically a big wooden frame with tight-stretched sheets dyed a chroma-keyable color covering it) to film the car against.

There is also a support market of these turntables for car shows. You could maybe contract a shoot during a carshow setup or teardown at a convention center. Make sure its a non-union convention center or costs go to infinity to get cooperation.

[tomld]

Its actually gonna be a snowmobile, not a car but still 10ft long and 600lbs. Here's where I got the idea and basically want to do the same thing....

http://www.yamaha-motor.com/sport/products/model360/437/0/360.aspx

I think we could build a large turntable to put the thing on and then manually rotate it without moving the camera. My problem is the background, Would painting a plywood set provide enough of a consistant color to color-key it out in Premiere? But how would I erase the turntable it's self? It would be above ground, and likely have a variety of shadows on it. How would I get rid of that? And I have no professional lighting, what would be needed to provide a consistant background color?

It would be shot with a Sony vx-2100.

Thanks for all the info!

[tomld]

If I decide to use a digital camera and not a video camera, how would I be able to move the camera while keeping a perfectly uniformed circle around the object? It I created a perfect circle and moved teh camera by hand around that circle, would that be sufficient?

[edDV]

Well that example has very crude separation from backgound and was probably cropped manually for each frame. You could do that as well.

Alt 1, Distant black or white backgound. Lighting needs to be even for white.

Alt 2 Chroma Key (select a color that is not present in the forground object.) If people are in the scene, this gets complicated.

Alt 3 Professional Solutions.

[edDV]

If I decide to use a digital camera and not a video camera, how would I be able to move the camera while keeping a perfectly uniformed circle around the object? It I created a perfect circle and moved teh camera by hand around that circle, would that be sufficient?

Normal VR (Quicktime and other) is done by either rotaing the object in front of the camera or moving the camera around the object in fixed angle increments (maintain same distance to center of rotation). A third way that doesn't apply here is spinning the camera from the inside (e.g. real estate room view).

These techniques are all well documented in the various VR forums.

[INFRATOM]

check Serious Magic out too
http://www.seriousmagic.com/

[solarfox]

I think we could build a large turntable to put the thing on and then manually rotate it without moving the camera. My problem is the background, Would painting a plywood set provide enough of a consistant color to color-key it out in Premiere? But how would I erase the turntable it's self? It would be above ground, and likely have a variety of shadows on it. How would I get rid of that? And I have no professional lighting, what would be needed to provide a consistant background color?

Well, the way it's done in a "real" TV or movie production is to paint the turntable or other support structures the same chroma-key color as the background. (I refer you to the "making of" sections of any recent FX-extravaganza movie, such as Star Wars III or any of The Matrix movies, for further examples of how that works.)

As for lighting, you'll pretty much have to find some way to light the object evenly on all sides so as to reduce or eliminate shadows.

Your other option, of moving the camera in a circle around the object, could also be made to work -- your primary difficulty will be making sure each incremental move around the circle is consistent.

[edDV]

The main tradeoff is investing time in the stage shoot for Ultimatte or chroma key separation, or or just shooting the stills (from the correct arc) and manually masking.

For simple web page VR, the latter is the easiest course.