Coolest video-editing toys I've seen in a long time...

[jducoeur]

Thanks to Aaron for the pointer to this remarkable little movie from Adobe. Suffice it to say, they figured out a reasonably simple and elegant mechanism for object-tracking in video -- and then started playing with what you can do with that technology. "Graffiti" that tracks objects in the video; drag-and-drop manipulation of the video timeline; even quick and easy video fumetti.

If Adobe doesn't commercialize this quickly, they're fools. The techies and artists would *love* this stuff: if the tool operates as illustrated, it brings a lot of clever and useful power to the end user. I'd bet good money that they'd see a million downloads of the tool in a week, and it would probably become a routine tool for the YouTube crowd. (And if they opened up the back end properly, I suspect that folks would quickly come up with a hundred more applications...)

Comments

[alexx-kay.livejournal.com]

Cool!

I note also that the degree to which cameras lie is poised to take a quantum leap forward.

[jducoeur]

Yeah, I was thinking the same as I watched the "let's put them all in the best possible position" demo...

[learnedax.livejournal.com]

Hmm, aside from all the other neat possibilities, it seems like that aspect would make it a lot easier to use representative video as template for generated content. E.g. you could record a sampler of positions for a video game avatar, and much more naturally composite them into movement over various terrain than is currently feasible.

[alexx-kay.livejournal.com]

"a lot easier to use representative video as template for generated content"

True. You could get a very interesting art-form which blends the differences between live-action and animation. You could have live actors do a performance, but then have the control-freak director fine-tune them in post! (As a sometime control-freak director myself, I salivate.)

"positions for a video game avatar, and much more naturally composite them into movement"

That, not so much, I think. At least not without even more significant breakthroughs in the technology. It's not my specific area of expertise, but I know enough to know that game animation is Hard, and computational methods of generating it are still of very limited utility.

[tpau]

sigh

also sigh

this is what WatchPointMedia was working on (with adobe) in 02. interactive tv. done a lot in japan. company got bought by GoldPocket out of CA i believe... if you want more info/details, i can provide, from the looks of it he is using our technology though slightly faser.

[leanne-opaskar.livejournal.com]

That's REALLY cool. OMG. Looking forward to seeing more of that!

[baron-steffan.livejournal.com]

Pretty kewl (said the non-programmer in the crowd). How long before this stuff becomes so ubiquitous it's just assumed? I'd bet not very long at all.

Of course, it also brings up all the ethical questions that are attached to photoshopping stills, doesn't it?