Cineversity

Hi,
I am getting ready to advance my video and 3d design work into
Architectural Projection Mapping and would like to find out how C4D can be used
to successfully create a 3d animation on the side of a building or other object.
I am sure there has got to be a system, or set up to get this going,
such as how to create a camera that matches the one being used to capture the building images to project on and how to discover proper distance for the Short Throw Projector. Proper texture sizing and usage, formats and sizes for output and such.
How to model a proxy for the building, or targeted mapping area.
I’d love to get info on all of this from someone who has done this using C4D successfully if possible.

Thank you in advance!

Joseph Wraith

Hi Joseph Wraith,

I work on several series at the moment which will build up upon each other, but which are as well independent to use.
The Camera Projection inside of C4D and the Projection of of Motion Graphics on real Architecture follows the same rules, the basics I can share, but I won’t get to the point to discuss how to animate nor which projection system you might need to use. However, for practical stuff you need to be even more precise - from my point of view.
To do camera mapping successfully, some steps needs to be done. It is not complicated, but also not as simple as some like to show it. More than often: just a few minutes more preparation can elevate a project beyond what was possible before. :o)
As usual I try to make that very detailed, which needs some time to record.
Camera -Mapping/ Camera -Projection (Inside of C4D) is certainly a very important skill to have. For architecture, film, video and many other areas; E.g., I have finished the 3D work on a music video with many scenes of this technique. (I used it the first time for a TV-Documentary opener in 1999, since then uncounted times.)

In the upcoming JET documentation/making of, you will find a wide variety of examples to this theme as well

Thanks for the suggestion. I hope I can deliver a good and fundamental introduction to that theme.

All the best

Sassi

Hi Dr. Sassi,
Thank you!
As always your are very thoughtful towards the constant forward movement of this technology and you
always seem to have a grip on what is needed and when.
I look forward to what I am sure will be a very well thought out tutorial.
I too understand the potential of such knowledge and look forward to learning
from you any techniques that can help me with this new career path.
I am just getting started doing Architectural Projection Mapping
and it seems to be quite available in Europe. Where here in the U.S. not so much.
So the offering of something like this to my clients is going to be hugely successful!
I have seen some very beautiful presentations of this type of advertising and all
I hear is how great Maya and 3dMax are for this.
Not much on C4D unfortunately.
So this is a wonderful opportunity to push C4D into the limelight of this kind of animation presentation.
Especially with the exciting MoGraph opportunities.
I know it’s a bit complicated in the techniques for the set up of the camera and projector settings,
so it maps correctly over the building or object.
Especially doing more than one mapping area on the same building, or structure.
Which is what I will be doing.
Looking forward to your Tutorial!

Joseph Wraith

Hi Joseph Wraith,

I hope you will be amazed by the ease of use with the ProjectionMan. This helps a lot in setting up complex scenes. It was initially developed for the Sony Image Works, for their huge work in Camera Projection, a system that you might not find anywhere else.

Finally, camera mapping is by itself just a projection method, a more special one, I admit, but not really complicated if understood.  As we are at MAXON or Cineversity not in the mood to compare our application with others, I will not start such thing here. The matter of fact is, CINEMA 4D supports even the other main packages with the easy to use integration with BodyPaint 3D. (I use it for e.g. to touch up spherical environment maps on the pole caps and of course for may Camera mapping fixes)

If not for Outdoor projection, but for CG projects:
To create Architectural environment, at least from my point of view as film-maker, I will discuss HDRI (in depth!) ad panoramas as well. It all is located around photography, which is my main focus for my work since many decades, and certainly an important part for 3D work. Understanding photography (e.g., Cinematography and all the standards) will elevate the work of an 3D artist. A reason why my focus this year is all about that. My concept includes 200 new tutorials and I hope it will be a benefit for everyone.

Thanks again and sorry if the text above sounded a little bit like bragging, not my intention: my intention here is to share what I’m up to these days. (... and even with that experience under the hood, I have worked myself through a lot of books again, e.g. Charles Poynton Digital Video and HD, so well researched and based on good source. :o)

Have a great time with projects

Sassi

Sounds awesome, I’m looking forward to that.
Here is are some links as to what I am looking to do.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRDtacd6_xA&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4JYpF5DpFo&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q40M83yChQs&feature=related

Hey Joseph Wright,

I think we talked initially about the same, but in the execution of a different way. But I will think what I can implement (like as bonus) about that theme. however, to know Camera-Projection In C4D will help you to test ideas and pitch them to clients and producers of such events. It will push your success from my point of view to get such projects established.

Camera-projection is the core idea, and when that is understood (what I will instruct) you will have no problems to design such things. It is (in a nut shell) the same technology. In C4D you use a camera and an object, in reality you use a super bright projector and a building.

Once you have set up the distance and optics for the real show, you can design the animation for it.

My answers where focused on the CINEMA 4D work. I will check out if I can do a interview with my old friend Alex:
http://www.disciplefilms.com/architectural-projection-mapping/
about this project, as I try since some time to get an interview series here as well.

All the best

Sassi

I know I am bumping this- and I most probably should not, however, I’m also into projection mapping having done some jobs relating to it, and I just tried to click the link above to the interview, and I can no longer access it. Is the interview still available?

Is it related to this at all?

http://www.alexczetwertynski.com/content-with-content/

Thanks,

Jonti

Hi Jonti,

I’m not certain if the initial question was about the work Alex did on this festival. He has always worked on the “bleeding edge” of things, and lately worked on some videos and demoed the 3D VR brush of Google. During the time of that event he was mostly in Concert Design.
.

The tutorials I was talking about above, besides the 200 of the JET production, here on Cineversity (many awards, over a year in the festival circuit), are on my YouTube channel (see link in my signature. The newer ones, after JET (which had a lot of camera projection in it) build up on JET, but also give fundamental base in other areas (e.g. Texture shooting, HDRI, etc).

The camera projection and the compositing example “Chinese Alley” were a direct follow up on the “Photography For 3D Artists” which we thought would be better all placed in public, as they should connect 3D artists and photographer. All in all around 200 tutorials again. The idea is, based on my way over three decades of working with cameras (SLRs, DSLR, Film cameras and Video), that one needs to understand the difference between, e.g.,  fine art photography and being a content providing photographer for 3D, which is a huge difference. I see often that this in not even understood at all in the first place. Often there is no fix and people have to start over.

There were some presentations about “real architecture” and “camera projection”. Practically one has to get a model of the building in question into C4D. If that is based on photo-grammetry or a Lidar™ system is more a question of budget. Today, with drones all over the place, Lidar™ systems can be placed anywhere in the air and allow so for an even more detailed representation, without the parallax issues (missing details) in the past.

Since a practical projection has another lens system in use (except one uses a Laser projector), this lens needs to be known for precise results, as does the caemra lens. Both uncorrected will lead to even more problems, than virtual camera mapping alone.

Other than that, there is not so much difference in virtual or practical camera projection, but yes, virtual (in computer) projection is simpler and has less headache. Yes, there is more to it, but perhaps get a little instructor projector and explore it.

In my current (in slow preparations) feature film project, even it is pretty much a practical camera feature, I have a lot os scenes where I need Cinema 4D as VFX or simply as rescue application. Currently I explore Drone based Mapping, to get shots in a quality that the little 4K/8bit.ch “toy” cameras of the current drones can’t provide. No idea where it ends, but predominately filming with my RED Epic Dragon, I like to stay on that quality level.

If you have any questions about practical projections I hope I can dive into that, in the Q&A forum. I have even a small projector here (only 3000 lumen) but it should allow for exploring most questions in detail.

All the best

It really was simply that this link

http://www.disciplefilms.com/architectural-projection-mapping/

gave me a 404 error and I cannot access it. I was just wondering if it was still available anywhere?

I shall post a new topic on this explaining my doings with projection mapping.

Hi Jonti,

Perhaps this one?

http://www.alexczetwertynski.com/content-with-content/

If you have a specific question, and not a tutorial suggestion, please use the Q&A forum, as you mentioned already. Thanks a lot.

All the best

Sassi

Hi,

I produce motion graphics for an events company, and one some occasions I am required to produce content and animations for projection mapping.

Generally I have a pretty good idea of it following the lectures from NAB events and generally finding tutorials. From what I ahve found so far, it is generally covered, but there doesn’t seem to be many tutorials, specially when it goes into more detail.

I’d like to see some tutorials covering this. Not necessarily behind the technical side of setting up the cameras within cinema and the forced perspective side of this, although a tutorial on this would be handy to refer to.
But more a Do’s and Don’ts of projection mapping, what colours should be used, and what is suitable for different types of architecture and buildings.

Whenever I have googled tutorials for projection mapping in cinema 4d, it comes up with projection man, admittedly I haven’t touched this just due to my lack of knowledge of it, and whether it speeds up any process or what it is used for. From my understanding it is used for camera projection within film and video.

Thanks,

Jonti.

I second this, would be great!

Hi Jonti,

In a nut shell, Projection Manager is a support tool for this work, it streamlines the work. It was developed many years ago for the studio work here in Hollywood. It helps you to save time and to stay organized.

http://www.cineversity.com/vidplaytut/cineversity_live_2012-01-11

The term forced perspective is often used, but mostly wrong. Forced perspective is a technique to create an illusion of size that isn’t given. E.g., the extension of a hallway on a practical set can be only 2meters long, but forced perspective allows for the illusion that it might be 20 meters long. In 3D there is normally no need for that, as size and material cost are not really relevant, in a practical situation that is the key to use it, speaking of media productions in general.
Camera projection is a projection on the same 3D constellation it has in the image, to overcome the 2D information of an image and get mostly the information back that was originally given.

All the best

I see,

Thanks for the insight into it, from what I can see though this is mainly used for images and creating geometry from them to then move a camera around that environment, at the moment I cannot see how it fits into the context of projection mapping other than reconstructing the architecture from the image. Do you have anything that shows it in context at all?

What about the do’s and don’ts in terms of content for projection? 

Jonti.

Hi Jonti,

The only key part in all of that is, that you need to know what you want to have. There is no one size fits all answer.

If you think that the Projection Man is there to reconstruct the geometry, then I have to say, that is not what it is able to do so.

This is the tutorial suggestion forum, and the main part here is to clear what someone likes to have discussed in an tutorial. The more specific this becomes, the more likely an eventual series will fit.

This forum is not the place to discuss projects or techniques, that is then the Q&A forum. That sounds very stiff perhaps, but for the readability of all forums we try to keep it that way, even we escape shortly from it—here and there. :o)

Please have a sketch or some ideas for a question and I will tell you more.

In my JET series I have a lot of Camera Projection, and I go again on my YouTube channel into it, see link below my signature.

All the best