VoiceOfEmerika

The first movie here was a originally a disappointment. I really thought this would be cool, but instead it was too choppy.

Here’s a heavily blended version of the same. (Everything is exactly the same except for the blending.) The details are: blending 19 frames and intermediate frame generation.)

I am not in love with this movie, but I do like it. I think it effects are pleasing — and a little strange. I gives me something to think about. I am wondering if 19 was too much…

I have blending working now. It is definitely a ‘tool’ and its use depends on the content. I have a new version of the Trains at Izaak Walton Inn (which you can’t see yet :) that uses a blend of three and the effect is pleasing. (A blend of three means that each frame is a blend of itself and the next two frames.) It just turns out that the effect is most pronounced in the sky. The processing time has gone up dramatically. I’m generally these running this overnight.

Along the way I quite easily threw in intermediate frame generation. This simply creates an additional frame between every pair of frames which is a blending of the two. This helps a lot when a movie needs to be slowed down and becomes too jerky. I can use blending and intermediate frame generation together–you just have to do the blending first and create the intermediate frames afterwards.

In the example I have here, I use a blending of twenty frames. Yes, that’s a lot. I hesitate to even show this because the source material isn’t that nice. Still, it’s a decent example of why I think the idea is sound. (See the original unblended version here.) In the original I find the the waves too disruptive. Especially as the sky is so smooth. In this blended version the ocean has come under control–though I think the sky suffered some what. And the whole thing is too dark and the contrast too low to be that nice.

One interesting thing to note in this movie is the way the ending gets more focused. As I reached the end of the frames I no longer have the selected number of frames to blend with. For example, if I am blending twenty frames, when there are twenty frames left in the move I don’t have enough to continue. At the moment I just use the number left — 19, 18, 17, etc. In some cases, the effect is nice and in some I don’t like it. I think I’ll add the ability to choose which behavior I want– either stop when you run out of the indicated number of frames or run out gracefully like it does now.

If anyone is having difficulty viewing these large movie files, please let me know.

When Karen and I were in Chicago, we took these pictures at Grant Park. I intended the kind of blending you see here when we took them. It’s not exactly what I had hoped for. I sort of thought the people might become completely invisible. Too many people, too much of the time, here for that. I do hold out for the idea to work (to some degree) better when the moving objects are more sparse.

Nonetheless:

(click for larger version)

The first frame by itself.

Two frames blended.

Five frames blended.

Ten frames blended.

Sixteen frames blended.

Thirty two frames blended. (I guess the people are disappearing. Well, the ones with a pulse anyway.)

Things are progressing. I need to start working on a movie using this technique.

I rewrote the blending program and it’s looking good so far. Well, at least I think so. When you’re writing code you know something is wrong when things look too complicated and you know things are right when everything looks simple. The blending code looks really simple now. Also, it supports n images.

I think we have all seen those cool pictures of a stream looking all soft and fuzz in the water and crisp everywhere else. Usually these also have a sense of darkness. That’s because of the limitations of film. Unless you are using some strong filters you have to do this in very dim light. I suspect you get a similar feeling with filters. Anyway… –drum roll– Here’s my first example of using digital blending to create this type of a picture in broad daylight.

Click on the image to see a much larger version.

More to come

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