baby einstein - baby monet question

[many2]

Those of you having young children must have heard of the Baby Einstein series of DVDs (now published by disney). For those of you who haven't heard about the series, it's classical music with visuals for babies and young children.

On the "Baby Monet" DVD there is some kind of 3d spiral very similar to the swirling patterns you find in classic glass marbles. It doesn't look like it's computer graphics.

My question is this one : if you have seen this DVD, do you have an idea how those "swirling patterns" have been created ?

I might end up ripping the sequence from the DVD and post it somewhere for all of you to check, but maybe someone knows what I am talking about already.

Thanks for your help.

[videoteque]

Post, post!!! :P

Sounds interesting. I don't have babies, but I am curious now...

[Anyone]

training your son up for VJ assistance already are we?

you know there are laws against child labour ;) ;)

Oli x

[Stuart]

heh, those get produced about 50 ft from me. Done by my department. I will try to remember to ask the editor if he knows where the effect came from.

[many2]

Thanks Stuart !
If you need a clip or a still picture to explain what the effect is, I'll send it to you.

[lowRes]

-off-topic-

i'm still waiting for a baby and for someone doin a video for raymond scott's music for babies!..

* )
r_x

[Stuart]

need a clip

that would be great. I am not too familiar with them as I have heard they are shit projects to work on and as such I avoid them like the plague.

[many2]

I will send you a clip and I'll post some pictures here. I feel like it's not legal to post a ripped extract of a copyrighted movie here on the forums, but some still pictures should be ok.

[many2]

pictures :

http://tinypic.com/4u9xl2

http://tinypic.com/4u9xqh

Imagine that flowing and spiralling very fluidly :)

[many2]

if you need more than your imagination send me a PM with your address and I'll send you the 3mb mpeg1 file.

[many2]

Here is a link to the clip on a temporary server - it will be online for 7 days

http://s40.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=1JFG6QN6EQBYU20PO2TI9ITXU3


If anyone has a problem with that link or think I am not respecting VJforums rules please send me a PM and I'll remove the link immediately - or if you are a mod feel free to remove it.

thanks in advance to anyone who can help me figure out how those shots were done, they are so beautiful.

[holly]

Hmmm. I'm guessing they started life as flower meshes and have some 3D modifier/filters put on that twist them or down-the-drain them. Very nice looking. The glass marble description is very true.

It is also similar to this effect (2.5MB mov) (http://www.wetcircuit.com/VJf/VHOrn320_15.mov) which is just an algorythm drawn in a 3D app but looks quite baroque.... I have lost the link to the original site but have it backed-up somewhere. When I find it I will post.

[many2]

Thanks for the clip Holly. I love procedural modeling and animation :)

Even though it has a baroque feel the clip you sent also definitely has a computer graphics look, and that's what makes it really different from the baby monet clip. I now think that the effect is in fact 3d computer graphics, but I must admit that at the beginning I was quite conviced this was something real. There aren't too many digital effects in this series of Baby Einstein DVDs, and when there are some they are pretty obvious.

[holly]

I think at somepoint the baby monet effect started life as real flowers (the pink has veins that make me think of a certain orchid, and this theory doesn't contradict the colors in the white/green/orange clip) either 3D meshes with photo textures, or something.... The lighting is also very photoreal, maybe HDRI or just the original colors in the flower photos....

I'm dying to know what it really is, and how it was done. I'll experiment in my 3D app over the next few days and see if I can get anything that even approaches this look...;)

[Stuart]

well, my guess is it's a flame algorhythm. The editor was laid off a few weeks ago so tracking down the effect just got a little bit more difficult.

[MoRpH]

definately looks like flower images were the original source to me.

Holly.... very cool that clip, how does one actually go about doing something like that? I just brought the big fat Blender manual so looking to sink my teeth into some 3d (but not cheesy looking 3d ;) )

[holly]

Morph, I found that clip as a sample of some guy's thesis. My google terms (if I recall) was "baroque frame 3D", but a quick google didn't re-find the site.... He shows a few more samples but there's not much hope for a commercial plugin -- it was just his thesis project. I don't have that link anymore as it was just some sidetrack off a totally unrelated job..., but if you care to search maybe we can bully him into making it happen for the rest of us.
:P

Many2, do you know of other procedural modellers that are similar, and animatable? My 3D app has a modeller for "formulas", but other than a mobeus strip and a few squarshed doughnuts it doesn't really seem that interesting.... Not that I'm any good at math....

[many2]

some procedural tools I have used :

L-system plugin by Blur studio for 3dsMax - it only works with 3ds Max 3,4 or 5. L-Systems are great to create plant models. Most of my personal work last year has been done around the fusion of vegetal life and other themes like robotics, crystals or data, and this plugin has been essential to my work.

Dancer DNA : this was a mix between L-systems and virtual genetics applied to real-time visuals. Very innovative for its time but I am not even sure it runs under XP, this is an old program.

I haven't used the Touch suite of visual software but at first glance it looks like it does provide some pretty good procedural modelling and animation tools. If the designer version was affordable I would give it a try for sure.

It's a shame most procedural modeling tools require math skills well over my level and have interfaces looking like programmers tools - I need some kind of visual interface to be able to deal with complexity.

[videoteque]

Where is Videodelic Procedural Edition when we need it??

[many2]

There are many procedural 2d animation applications. Two of my favorites are visualJockey (of course !) and Digital Fusion. Videodelic is 2d, isn't it ? (I never used it).

[lightandshadow]

Many2,

The movie you posted looks like some kind of multi-layer polar coordinate kaleidoscope. Really nice effect. Parts of the original subject appear to be mirrored / duplicated, while other areas slip in and out of visibility, which is common when using a normal kaleidoscope.

I'll hit google and see if any kind of warping / polar kaleidoscope stuff is out there..

[Stuart]

Paint Efffects in Maya is a very cool procedural modeler with as tidy an interface as you can get for something of it's ilk.

Also, I did a quick stab yesterday using stacked deformers, GI, and multi-layered shaders and got a decent result.

The reason I guessed it was a flame render was due to the fact that it looks rather procedural and I have seen similar results from flame. Not from electric sheep though ehich to my understanding is a subset of what flame is capable of.

[videoteque]

Videodelic is 2d, isn't it ? (I never used it).

Yes, it is. It was in response to the complex transformations need a good visual interface... :cool:

[MoRpH]

Thanks holly but its all good, I'll look into Blender and see if it has any "procedural modeling" capability and report back :)

[vjrei]

That look like a complex of series of masks on top of some real life organic shape (flowers) stretched out and processed of corse.

But I bet there are more sofisticated ways of doing that and you would have to remember, not only the effect but the render pluging that manage the light, texture and shadows in such organic way.

Animations can change 180 degrees just by the render engine used.

[peaceolah]

interesting discussion and beautiful visuals.

has anyone heard of the film "OIO" by Simon Goulet?

i just emailed him to ask him if i could vj his film...still waiting to find out.

it's absolutely wonderful and took him 11 years to do.

he filmed paint thrown in the air and then manipulated it by computer.

it has a similar non-computer feel as you describe regarding the disney films, but of course that's because it IS real paint and shot on 35mm...you still can't beat film...

his website is:
www.oiofilm.com

[eps]

peaceolah,

see oio thread here (http://www.vjforums.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=8755)

did you manage to obtain any copy of that film [dvd/vhs/whatever]?

[eps]

by the way maybe i'm missing something but for me baby monet piece looks like the result of extensive usage of the 'time displacement' technique [may be found in after effects]

pretty similar to 'the fourth dimension' of zbigniew rybczynski (http://www.zbigvision.com/)

[many2]

you can buy OIO online here :

http://www.oiofilm.com/BuyDVD_en.html

[DFUNC]

Back to the BabyMonet effect:
I'm really curious if somebody figured out how to do this effect. I fear blender is not able to do so.

[VisionsUnleashed]

As a content producer, I'm curious as to whether you guys would pay for clips like this? I think I can re-create the effect quite accurately.

[peaceolah]

Originally posted by eps
peaceolah,

see oio thread here (http://www.vjforums.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=8755)

did you manage to obtain any copy of that film [dvd/vhs/whatever]?

thanx for link eps...i'm just now coming back to vjcentral forums, been awhile and trying to catch up.

yes, i bought one from him directly; i met him at the ann arbor film festival this year, very nice guy, but still waiting to hear back from him regarding my request.

p.s. the documentary is great too :)

[DFUNC]

As a content producer, I'm curious as to whether you guys would pay for clips like this? I think I can re-create the effect quite accurately.

Why not. Figure out a decent price & post some samples. Another option would be what they call "sharing". :idea:

[VisionsUnleashed]

Originally posted by DFUNC
Why not. Figure out a decent price & post some samples. Another option would be what they call "sharing". :idea:

I'm not a VJ, so I have no need for shared content. I'm just trying to gauge whether there's need for custom visuals.

[holly]

To be honest VisUn, I think we're more interested in making our own stuff (hence, the forum this thread is in).

But there are VJs who sell and buy clips. The best way to guage interest, real interest, would be to make a set of 20 or so, put them on CD and maybe give one away for free so people can try it and see. If they really like it they will be willing to spend some coins to get more.
:)

[yathosho]

wow, that looks hot