Following is an excerpt from GDAlgorithms-list (http://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/gdalgorithms-list) ================================================================================ From: Amir Latif Subject: [Algorithms] Odd Movie Effect Date: Tue, 22 Oct 2002 11:38:43 +0100 Hello, We're doing some demo production work on a new game idea and are trying to reproduce an effect from a film. It's kinda difficult to explain because I don't know what the technical term is for the effect used, but it can be seen in Saving Private Ryan in the fight scenes. It's difficult to describe but the screen looks like it's being shot at more than the 24 frames per second and then played back fast too. It's odd and kinda hyperreal. Does anyone know what the technique used is called? Or am I not making sense? ;) Any ideas on how to produce something similar in a game? Any pointers greatly appreciated. amir. ================================================================================ From: "Justin Heyes-Jones" Subject: Re: [Algorithms] Odd Movie Effect Date: Tue, 22 Oct 2002 12:08:06 +0100 Odd Movie EffectThere's an effect in the film Stir of Echoes where they film at half speed and play back at normal speed. Very spooky. ================================================================================ From: Jim Offerman Subject: Re: [Algorithms] Odd Movie Effect Date: Tue, 22 Oct 2002 13:07:28 +0200 Amir, > We're doing some demo production work on a new game idea and are trying to > ... > second and then played back fast too. It's odd and kinda hyperreal. What effect exactly are you after? As far as I know, there are two commonly used effects similar to what you describe. The first is called 'shooting on doubles', which uses a recording speed of 12 fps and then doubles all recorded frames (hence the name) to get 24 fps required for a movie. The visual effect is a less fluid motion. The other effect I can think of is a slowmotion, i.e. recording at 48 fps and playing back at 24 fps. You could do the first effect easily, if you're running at a (near) constant frame rate, by updating your world only every other frame (assuming this doesn't screw up your physics etc.) The second one is even easier: Just use detlaTime / 2 to update your world instead of deltaTime (where deltaTime is the time that has elapsed since the rendering of the last frame). HTH, Jim Offerman Crevace Games www.crevace.com www.jimofferman.nl ================================================================================ From: "Roy Jacobs" Subject: Re: [Algorithms] Odd Movie Effect Date: Tue, 22 Oct 2002 13:37:12 +0200 > Does anyone know what the technique used is called? Or am I not making > sense? ;) Those scenes were shot using a very short shuttertime, basically removing motion blur. So when there is an explosion, and sand flies up, instead of seeing one blurry mess you could see a lot of individual sand particles. To reproduce this kind of effect in a game is pretty much a non-issue since you don't have any motion blur to begin with. -- Roy ================================================================================ From: "Matt Newport" Subject: RE: [Algorithms] Odd Movie Effect Date: Tue, 22 Oct 2002 12:43:48 +0100 I *think* they used a very fast shutter speed to achieve this effect. Whereas with a normal shutter speed, fast moving objects will have a fair amount of motion blur, with the high shutter speed used on the film you get every little bit of debris and dust flying around in sharp focus. Since computer graphics don't have any motion blur (unless you use some trick to fake it) you should be able to produce a similar effect simply by having a consistent frame rate of 24fps... Don't know for sure that I'm right about this though. Have you tried getting hold of the DVD? If it has a director's commentary it might give some insight into the techniques they used. ================================================================================ From: Ben Glancy Subject: RE: [Algorithms] Odd Movie Effect Date: Tue, 22 Oct 2002 12:48:01 +0100 dont they call that slow-motion? ================================================================================ From: "Lennart Denninger" Subject: Re: [Algorithms] Odd Movie Effect Date: Tue, 22 Oct 2002 13:37:53 +0200 Oooh, so the effect was in the *movie* ?? I thought it was just a sideeffect of the DivX compression ;-) Ps. tnx Jim, I'm still waiting for reply-to-newsgroup-buttons - been making the same mistake since day one ;) Psps. Ik kom uit NL jah ;) --- Lennart E. Denninger | Coder Lost Boys Games | Prins Hendrikkade 139 | 1011AS Amsterdam The Netherlands Tel: +31 (0)20 4272277 | Fax: +31 (0)20 4274040 | Lennart^games_lostboys_com Amsterdam | Barcelona | Berlin | London | Madrid | Paris | San Francisco | Warsaw | Zurich | www.games.lostboys.com --- "When did I realize I was God? Well, I was praying and I suddenly realized I was talking to myself..." ================================================================================ From: Ben Carter Subject: Re: [Algorithms] Odd Movie Effect Date: Tue, 22 Oct 2002 12:54:11 +0100 Tuesday, October 22, 2002, 12:07:28 PM, someone wrote: [snip] > The other effect I can think of is a slowmotion, i.e. recording at 48 > fps and playing back at 24 fps. [snip] > The second one is even easier: Just use detlaTime / 2 to update your > world instead of deltaTime (where deltaTime is the time that has > elapsed since the rendering of the last frame). Kingdom Hearts on the PS2 makes extensive use of this to very good effect - as well as slowing down the physics update they often add a motion blur as well so you get the impression that things are still moving fast but you're seeing them slowed down. It's more a stylistic thing than a technical one, but it works really well. -- Ben Carter, Lost Toys ben^gunk_demon_co_uk / ben^losttoys_com ================================================================================ From: Jim Offerman Subject: Re[2]: [Algorithms] Odd Movie Effect Date: Tue, 22 Oct 2002 13:56:38 +0200 > > There's an effect in the film Stir of Echoes where they film at half speed > > and play back at normal speed. Very spooky. > dont they call that slow-motion? Nope. Recording at half-speed (12 fps) and playing back at normal speed (24 fps) will in fact speed up the movie. Slow-motion requires that you record at double speed (or more). Of course we're rapidly plunding in OT territory here, so I'd probably better shut up now... Jim Offerman Crevace Games www.crevace.com www.jimofferman.nl ================================================================================ From: "Justin Heyes-Jones" Subject: Re: [Algorithms] Odd Movie Effect Date: Tue, 22 Oct 2002 13:34:57 +0100 Odd Movie EffectNo. First the result appears quicker rather than slower. Second speeding up or slowin down as a post production effect would remain smooth, whereas this makes the resulting film jerky and disturbing. ================================================================================ From: "Tim Little" Subject: RE: [Algorithms] Odd Movie Effect Date: Tue, 22 Oct 2002 08:02:49 -0500 Actually to capture the feel that was in Saving Private Ryan you would also need to add a huge amount of atmospheric detail. That is what is primarily brought out with that filming technique. In games we tend to use vague shapes moving quickly with lots of alpha blending for things like explosions so we get the sense of much detail, rather than actually representing all of the detail. It is often a reasonable replacement for real motion blurring by implying more detail than we actually represent. This is especially true for things like smoke and fog. The most distinct thing I can remember from the movie was seeing their breath on the cold air, it seems to me it was particularly sharp in detail rather than blurred. I may be wrong on this, but it seems like reproducing the effect requires reproducing the detail, since that is the net result of the effect on film. There's my $.02 Tim ================================================================================ From: Amir Latif Subject: RE: [Algorithms] Odd Movie Effect Date: Tue, 22 Oct 2002 15:24:29 +0100 The effect we're looking for is that "stuttery" effect, where things look like they are moving fast but not. That and the clarity, which I think is given by the fast shutter speed effect ... amir ================================================================================ From: Jim Offerman Subject: Re[2]: [Algorithms] Odd Movie Effect Date: Tue, 22 Oct 2002 16:39:21 +0200 Amir, > The effect we're looking for is that "stuttery" effect, where things look > like they are moving fast but not. This "stuttery" effect is what is acomplished by using the "shooting on doubles" technique I mentioned earlier. They (used to) use it frequently in animated features, since hand animating and painting half the number of frames for a full feature film saves quite a bit of money ;). You can recreate the effect by only updating your world only on every 3rd or 4th frame you render (assuming some 60 fps on average). Might require some additional trickery to prevent other systems (collision detection springs to mind) from breaking up though. Jim Offerman Crevace Games www.crevace.com www.jimofferman.nl ================================================================================ From: BG Subject: Re: [Algorithms] Odd Movie Effect Date: Tue, 22 Oct 2002 07:55:43 -0700 My 2¥, On Tuesday, October 22, 2002, at 06:02 AM, Tim Little wrote: > Actually to capture the feel that was in Saving Private Ryan you would > also need to add a huge amount of atmospheric detail. That is what is > primarily brought out with that filming technique. In games we tend to > use vague shapes moving quickly with lots of alpha blending for things > like explosions so we get the sense of much detail, rather than > actually representing all of the detail. It is often a reasonable > replacement for real motion blurring by implying more detail than we > actually represent. This is especially true for things like smoke and > fog. The most distinct thing I can remember from the movie was seeing > their breath on the cold air, it seems to me it was particularly sharp > in detail rather than blurred. It was also exacerbated by the graininess of the higher speed film necessary for the high shutter speeds. Strobes (or flashes if you prefer) can also be used to bring out details and stop motion as well (although I don't think that was something used in Private Ryan). > I may be wrong on this, but it seems like reproducing the effect > requires reproducing the detail, since that is the net result of the > effect on film. Noise filters tend to work pretty good for that (the 'grain' when applied correctly can give a scene a bit more of a sense of detail, but it's a real PITA to get them just right)... > Kingdom Hearts on the PS2 makes extensive use of this to very good > effect - as well as slowing down the physics update they often add a > motion blur as well so you get the impression that things are still > moving fast but you're seeing them slowed down. It's more a stylistic > thing than a technical one, but it works really well. 'The Bouncer' used this technique rather extensively as well... > You can recreate the effect by only updating your world only on every > 3rd > or 4th frame you render (assuming some 60 fps on average). Yes, you can make it look like Medal of Honor's Omaha Beach level running on a slow PC! : p ------------------------------------------------------------------------ -------------------------- Copyright 2002 archie4oz email -- End User Licensing Agreement -- By reading the above post you grant archie4oz (email author of said listed party name) the right to take your money, eat your cat, and urinate on your house. In addition you give archie4oz (above mentioned) to use your sister in anyway he sees fit. If you do not agree to these terms then DO NOT READ the above email. ================================================================================ From: Shawn Hargreaves Subject: RE: Re[2]: [Algorithms] Odd Movie Effect Date: Tue, 22 Oct 2002 16:07:53 +0100 Jim Offerman writes: > You can recreate the effect by only updating your world only > on every 3rd or 4th frame you render (assuming some 60 fps on average). Of course, you might have a hard time persuading gamers that this really is a deliberate artistic effect and not just a case of poor framerate :-) -- Shawn Hargreaves Climax Brighton ================================================================================ From: "Jon Watte" Subject: RE: Re[2]: [Algorithms] Odd Movie Effect Date: Tue, 22 Oct 2002 12:45:52 -0700 You can update the world, and just decide not to render every 3 frames out of four. Or maybe render, and just not queue the buffer flip :-) The graphics card will gladly display whatever you rendered last time. Cheers, / h+ ================================================================================ From: Bob Subject: Re: [Algorithms] Odd Movie Effect Date: Tue, 22 Oct 2002 23:10:02 -0500 Shawn Hargreaves wrote: > > Jim Offerman writes: > > You can recreate the effect by only updating your world only > > on every 3rd or 4th frame you render (assuming some 60 fps on average). > > Of course, you might have a hard time persuading gamers that this really > is a deliberate artistic effect and not just a case of poor framerate :-) To deter that notion just make sure your camera remains active (noticably) while the world is on shutter stop... like Matrix without motion blur. Also you could apply the effect only to certain classes of actors (players, monsters and projectiles but not props and sprite/particle effects). And, of course, update the world physics, just not the animation steps for those entities; it's just a visual effect, not a physical one, after all. --Bob ================================================================================ From: "Ivan-Assen Ivanov" Subject: Re: [Algorithms] Odd Movie Effect Date: Tue, 22 Oct 2002 17:47:17 +0300 But do you think this will achieve the cinematographic effect we perceive when we see it in a movie, or will it just look like another framerate-stuttering game? ================================================================================ From: Amir Latif Subject: RE: [Algorithms] Odd Movie Effect Date: Thu, 24 Oct 2002 14:24:52 +0100 This is kinda what I'm looking for the answer to really. Thanks to everybody for their ideas about what's actually going on. But the ideas of how to implement something similar don't sound too promising. Obviously we're looking for something that's going to have a visual impact in a similar way, though the effect may technically be very different. It's that really fast, clear idea that we want to convey. Maybe it's not possible and we'll have to look at something else. Thanks anyway. amir.