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The members of the Futuricity team decided that it would be important to research into software applications that are key to the project’s success; without these applications the members of the Futuricity project will not be able to produce a product to the level of professionalism required. The Members chosen of the Futuricity team to researched into the following applications were Bryon and Adam.
- Adobe Premiere Pro
- Adobe Aftereffects
- Alias Maya
- Adobe Encore
Adobe Premiere Pro
This project will require extensive amounts of video editing to produce the final product. Adobe Premiere Pro is the package which Bryon has decided to use to edit all raw video footage. Premiere is a powerful editing tool, which has the capability of producing high definition video to broadcast standards. Although the application is rarely used by broadcasting productions, the application is respected by most corporate companies.
Premiere has a clean and clear interface, which can be easily used by people of all skill levels. The application can import a wide range of video, audio and graphical formats so that the user can edit, arrange and manipulate such elements on visual timeline. Premiere also has a capture function built in, this allows the user to capture video from devices such as DV cameras and Players with a firewire interface.
Image courtesy Adobe
After the user has imported the elements he / she requires, Premiere has features to enhance the users footage with effects, (such as transitions) to give smooth transfer between video clips. It also includes the use of filters to change the appearance of the video content, and title to add elements of text to the video production.
Premiere incorporates audio mixing and sound effect controls which are adequate features for small video production. This however would not be considered for use by large video productions which require use of a specialist sound application for preprocessing.
Once the user is satisfied with the final product, Premiere has the ability to export the finished video into a number of different formats such as DVD; once rendered in this format the data is ready to be written onto a DVD disc, which can be played in any DVD device. The user can then choose to export the data back down the fire wire interface to create video tape recordings. Premiere can also render video files with a number of video compression techniques suitable for internet and network streaming.
Adobe Encore
The Final project will be produced on an Interactive DVD Disc. Adobe Encore is the authorware package which Bryon has decided to use to produce the interactive DVD menu system, and which will allow the user to navigate around the DVD content. The fundamental advantage to using Encore is the user can quickly compose the design of the DVD project as the user using drag and drop editing to produce outline picture, then enhances the design with the advance tools to produce the final product.
Encore provides serious professional DVD authoring. The built in menu system, (which is fully integrated with Photoshop) is ideal for creating professional interactive DVD menus. This is achieved by creating the menu’s graphical content in Photoshop, after which it can be fully manipulated once imported in Encore.
Alike to Adobe Premiere, this package has timelines, which are automatically created for clips that the user can drag and drop onto a menu. In this timeline of a particular video sequence the user can add up to 8 audio streams and 32 subtitle streams to the same clip.
Encore has a monitor feature that allows the user to play the contents of the timeline. The timeline can also be used to set up the chapter points within each clip and so once the user has set chapter points, the user will able to jump directly to the different points in a video clip. Encore’s navigation controls not only provide the ability to specify links to specific buttons on a menu, but also to specify links to chapters in a clip. This enables the user to make global changes to settings and links across the entire project, instead of having to manually step through all the menus to make individual alterations.
Encore is an extremely user friendly application which uses a link concept, that allows the user to setup the navigation by naming an asset that the user has already imported. This link concept is very quick and easy to understand for new users to Encore whom are normally bombarded with script language when programming a DVD. In this way, the user can reuse assets on a disc but also link a destination of the next asset when the clip finishes. There is a First play feature which allows the user to choose what is to be displayed first, when the disc begins to play.
When the user has devised the final product, all the assets (DVD Content) have to be transcoded. If they are not already in DVD compatible format, transcoding is long task for the computer to conduct, and so the user must schedule a break while the transcoding is running. Once the transcoding is completed the user has the choice to burn the final product to disc or to save it onto the hard drive as an image file, ready to produce at a later date.
Alias Maya
Adam’s portion of the project will be done almost entirely in Alias' Maya software with which he will model, animate and render multiple 3D scenes on which actual people will be composited.
Adam has many constraints to work around and the largest of these is the dynamism and parameters of a shot as we do not have a way to sync a Camera in Maya with an actual camera filming people. Adam will need to keep the shots reasonably simple so that the people can be composited onto the shot in a realistic way.
To learn and realise these constraints Adam will have had to do a number of preliminary renders and work alongside Bryon Homer in order to see how far we can push the 3D and real life combination. In doing this we came to the conclusion that scenes within Maya can have camera movement but only in 1 direction per scene and at a uniform pace otherwise it is impossible to make composition sync up exactly and the end result is a very amateurish movie. With this in mind we have been adapting shots to have more movement which ensures the audience is kept interested even if the camera remains still or is very limited in its movement. Another way to overcome this is to use shorter scenes of under ten seconds in order to maintain dramatic effect.
A large part of Adam’s job involves the design and construction of futuristic objects such as buildings and cars. As we cannot foresee the future it is very hard to predict what everything will look like. This is a double edged sword as we can use our imaginations as much as possible and never be questioned on the technicality or feasibility, as for all we know the future may be able to support any wild or crazy ideas we come up with. On the other note we have no plans or images to work to and that in a lot of cases this means we have to work a lot harder to try and create very realistic looking buildings and objects from scratch.
With this in mind I have decided to try and implement contemporary factors into the project as this forms a good basis in regards to interaction between the actors involved and the objects. The best example is the Spaceship which adam has already created which represents an executive jet which delivers the Prime Minister to Futuricity. It has standard features such as a cockpit, engines and wings yet it looks far more advanced than anything we have today. I was able to achieve this with the use of flowing curves and lines which are a running theme in many movies and computer games for futuristic spacecraft. This also helps the audience to relate. Films such as Star Wars, Minority report and Blade runner are excellent examples of this. They adopt futuristic settings and ships which resemble contemporary designs yet use different shapes and styles especially sleek lines and flowing curves. These help to represent the speed of these ships which is another attribute that is emphasised by the future. Mans constant dream of going faster can be visually represented by "fast" looking spaceships. Fighters jets such as the F-16 Fighting Falcon and Eurofighter typhoon are able to fly fast due to their aerodynamic shapes and therefore anything Adam creates which is designed to fly or drive fast should adopt similar characteristics. A relatively new concept is the use of canards (smaller wings ahead of the main wings) on current fighter jets such as the typhoon and Rafael is a feature Adam has implemented as they are fairly new design they represent aircraft designs to come.
Adam has adopted the use of solar panels, after some research on the BBC website I found several articles on solar panels as a power source. I feel that the inclusion of solar panels on cars, spaceships and buildings helps to represent a cleaner more environmentally aware future which helps to show the audience how much mankind has progressed past the need for fossil fuels.
Adobe After Effects
This project will require large amounts of green screen to composite real video on CG Animation produced by Adam in Maya. Adobe Aftereffects is the package which Bryon has decided to use to composite video footage. Aftereffects is designed for the most demanding production environments, which combines the core 2D real video image, and 3D compositing animation.
Aftereffects has a powerful motion tracker to lock-on any element with fast accuracy to allow the user to track change in scale, or just horizontal or vertical movement; this means that the user has the capability of tracking 3d animation to real video shot to complete the feel of realism, making the audience think that the object is really there.
Another timesaving feature of Aftereffects is its ability to allow the user to import multi-layered images from Photoshop, one layer at a time. Each layer can be manipulated separately to achieve a highly complex orchestration of moving, changing elements.
Another key feature that is useful in Aftereffects is the mask technique. The masking effect is used to tidy up the footage, by removing the video information which is not in the mask. This mask can be changed for every frame to suit the new situation giving the user the best result.
The Advanced particle system gives the user the chance to simulate explosions, lighting, and other powerful particle systems. The user can also add behaviors such as repel and gravity to the animation, to the extreme that even text can be affected by particles!
Other features include multi-composites, keying - this allows the computer to mask anything to do with colour key information which has been chosen by the user, so as to only leave the important elements in the video footage, ready to merge with the real video footage.