CMU School of Drama


Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Academy Award for virtual lighting tech developers

Boing Boing: "Light Stage is a special effects system for films that records how people and objects look when lit from every possible direction. That way, virtual versions of actors can be accurately 'lit' to perfectly match the background set."

4 comments:

Sonia said...

This is a really cool technique, i think that the developers completely deserve an Academy Award. Because the technology that is developed through their program can be so useful. Making the art catch up to the technology, especially if it is good enough then those watching the movies will be even more impressed by how much more realistic those in the 'virtual lighting world' look more realistic. Also the photo of what I assume is one of their machines, is amazingly cool and must be so much fun to work with

Robert said...

This is an extremely cool program and technology. The program must have taken many time to get to this level of realism. I hope that this technology will help with special effects in the movies. However, this makes me wonder how many movies in the future will be just natural people without special effects. I am sure that this technology will also help the video game industry by making characters more lifelike. I hope that every industry that can use this new technology will start to use it to its max potential. This was a great article in showing me a new thing that that is so groundbreaking.

S. Kael said...

This is certainly a technique in moviemaking that could revlutionize the editing process. If something looks off in one scene because of poor location, throw them into the 360 lights and adjust accordingly.

This also gives me hope for video game rendering, where human skin and facial expressions have always been incredibly lacking as compared to environment/weaponry/cut scene graphics because of the diversity that can be created.

BWard said...

The concept isn't difficult - the software and the physics is, however. In practice, this could be used for video "photoshopping" effects - adjusting color balance, levels, contrast, etc. - to be done live, rather than in post processing. If what's captured on film is closer to the end result, post time is greatly reduced. I'd be interested in seeing if this could be used in a real environment, and not just inside some black box.