We have a live feed from several Nikon D1X cameras(still digital images) placed 40' above the ground. We have created an application that removes all the unnecessary art outside of the figure, replacing it with a feathered alpha channel, saved as a .PNG. Now, we are taking the images, and saving them to various directories, based on the different classes of images we need: close ups, full body, torso and head, black and white... So we have 6 Machines that are doing nothing but getting these images.
Now on a top of the line machine, we have the director application running(the animation program). Using prebuilt animations, we update the imagery with the latest art from the art directories(see above), thus at random, the participants on the ground, become part of the art piece. The animations are on a flat background, for keying purposes. We have a mixer that takes a looping video feed and combines it with the director piece, to optimize speed. Anyone looking back at recent posts will see that the size of the images brought in are quite large, and we need the animations need to be as smooth as possible, so this is why the animations are seperate from the video. Also, the only way we could get a smooth video feed was having the video DirectToStage, and unfortunately this did not work with the animations moving over it, that would defeat the purpose of direct to Stage. We are working, most likely with a dataton box to pass the smpte to the animation player to control the switching/transitions of the videos. Now my postings as of late have regarded the quality of the images as they rotate. We have done tests with alphamania, and it antialiases the image perfectly with the background. And it has to be perfect as the images can reach scales of over 2000% their normal size and are rotating, scaling, blending, skewing and so on. Now if you take an image and rotate it, mind you it is a PNG, you will notive at the edges of the alpha mask that it aliases. This we can not have as sometimes the pixels become 3'x3' and up. We have some work arounds, rotating at one time, moving it across the stage at another. So it at present becomes imperative that we find a method of controling the antialiasing better. Hence alphamania. So... I now can create a alphamania cast member on the fly, but the question is how do I get the artwork into the alphamania cast member in a dynamic fashion. It has to be automated as this piece will be running for 6 months/ 10 hrs a day. A slip up can not occur. I hope this clarity will help. B Brian Douglas (:ub) ============================================================================ [To remove yourself from this list, or to change to digest mode, go to http://www.penworks.com/lingo-l.cgi To post messages to the list, email [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Problems, email [EMAIL PROTECTED]). Lingo-L is for learning and helping with programming Lingo. Thanks!]
