Los Angeles, New York, Atlanta,
New Orleans, Vancouver BC, Toronto,
August 2016
Volume 6 Issue 8
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3D Characters Practice for Better Positioning
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3D Scanned Characters: Rigged with Inverse Kinematics and Posed
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3D Scanning in the USA & Canada
TNG Visual Effects Canada, Inc.
, is a 3D scanning company in the entertainment industry that specializes in the creation of photo-realistic digital assets. Many characters, vehicles, cars, sets, props, animals, sculptures, and other items have been added to our scope of work since inception in 2009.
Our team knows how to work with producers, directors, coordinators, A-list talent, and other agencies, making the most of their precious time and ensuring a successful project. TNG's work is always guaranteed.
We are also highly noted for our ability to travel at a moments notice for a project. Exclusive use of highly mobile scanning systems allow for TNG to perform scans in practically any location.
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August is here and no time for the dog days. We are all out now on Films and TV shows, but we always reserve some bandwidth for another project. We're still building more partnerships and will be announcing them soon, as well as other types of services we can
provide
you!
At TNG, we are developing more techniques in relation to 3D scanning to give you better models. We are getting deeper into developing cars and products to expand our markets with our high-tech scanners, skilled modelers, and our mobility. We are always researching new technology and software to keep the quality of our service at the highest level, and to accelerate our pipeline. We do our best to provide a great product to our customers.
LiDAR scanning is used for environments and
large subjects.
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TNG's character scanning process.
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"...the projects were delivered with such precision of timing and quality that there is no doubt in my mind that experience and attention to detail are key assets for Nick Tesi and his group.
You guys rock!"
Andre Montambeault, Head of Advertising
Rodeo Visual Effects Company,
Montreal, Canada.
"Nick is dependable and will go the extra mile to make sure that we get what we need. I would recommend him and his company to any project needing 3D scanning."
Al Lopez, President
Stargate Studios
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Breaking Down the 4th Wall
With the rapid emergence of virtual reality and augmented reality we are no longer tethered to our chairs to watch a story unfold from an emotional and physical distance. Technology now offers passage away from our loge chair and popcorn bucket to experience a new kind of story more completely than ever before. Stanley Kubrick once famously said, "If it can be written or thought, it can be filmed". His was a visionary description of the modern state of storytelling, the age where complete 3D worlds are created, the fourth wall is broken forever and the viewer is free to step into the imaginary. This was the world on display at Siggraph 2016, July 24th-28th.
What interested us most at Siggraph was the VR Village, a nexus of demos, screenings and hands-on interactivity that demonstrated the state of virtual and augmented reality. Imagine a twenty-four channel, fully tactile immersive gaming experience via a synesthesia suit. Imagine the richness of stepping into a space with a band like U2 to experience their music spatially, rather than watching a music video on a flat screened device. A viewer, with the help of a headset, can now engage in a story filmed in VR as a participant.
According to Occulus Story Studio early attempts at VR films felt empty and strangely fake. VR storytellers currently are striving to populate their 3D worlds with spatial story density. Spatial story density includes all of the visual details that make the world believable: the environment, characters, the atmosphere. From a 3D scanning perspective this is proving to be an opportunity. The demand for digital doubles and digital content from high density 3D scans is growing for these new advances, and we look forward to the part that we will play as storytelling continues to evolve.
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Painting with Pictures
Photography is the process of creating images by capturing light. Photogrammetry is a shooting technique that can create a 3D surface along with its colored texture. High-Dynamic-Range is a shooting technique where you shoot your picture, and shoot additional pictures with the same frame at higher and lower exposures, and then the 3 or more images are combined to achieve a far more dynamic image greater than the sum of its parts. Panoramas are a shooting technique where the photographer takes pictures while spinning in a 360 degree rotation, and then stitches the images together, allowing you to look in all directions.
Photogrammetry can be done with a single camera. Is a painting any less a masterpiece because only one artist worked on it? Certainly not. The multi-cam array often seen in photogrammetry can allow for fast 3D scan captures - but speed should not be the only analyzed component. Photogrammetry has many variables in its system, meaning results can vary wildly. The following settings may differ on cameras:
- Shutter Speed
- Aperture
- Focal Length
- Distance to Subject
- Focusing Mode
- Meter Mode
- Light Intensity Power
- Rotational Degree of Each Camera
- Mindfulness of Perpendicularity
- Movement of Subject
- Diffusion of Light
- Polarization of Light
And once the Photogrammetry capture session is complete regardless of duration of capture - the backend requires post-processing, which also has its numerous choice of variables - and thus the ideal result, which will be the most photo-real is achieved via specific mindfulness of each and every variable, and this is done through research and development with a keen eye for identifying noise, misalignments, and anatomy (if capturing people).
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Set a High Bar for
Character Appearance
If a digital character is not
3D rendered and animated quite right it can be said to be in "the uncanny valley", a term coined by roboticist Masahiro Mori. A character is in "the uncanny valley" when it is not quite photo-realistic, causing humans great unease and a strange eeriness. Therefore, the bar must be set high for the appearance of digital doubles.
Today, using state of the art 3D scanning methods we do our part to stay out of the valley by building dense data clouds that capture every subtle nuance and flaw of the scanned character, making them a very reliable stand in. Cyber characters are showing up in every media channel now, and the internet is a hungry player. With the growth of virtual reality we will likely become even more accustomed to watching entire stories focusing on cyber-characters.
Digital doubles will take all the beatings, perform all the punishing action sequences and summon all the super powers that you need to extend the action in your storytelling, and if you set the bar high they will step into your story and do it seamlessly.
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ASK ABOUT OUR DEALS ON MULTIPLE CHARACTERS
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Turntable of 3D scanned character.
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Thank you for subscribing to The TNG Newsletter. We are experts in the field of 3D scanning and love what we do. At TNG we are proud to guarantee our work for all of our customers; feel free to contact us with any questions about 3D scanning or your upcoming project.
Nick Tesi, 3D Scanning & Visual Effects Technology Expert
President, Founder and Friend of the Industry
877-879-2040
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WHERE'S YOUR CLOSEST LOCATION?
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TNG is mobile out of seven cities in the U.S. and Canada.
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