"3D" Effect on still pictures
 

Hey gang,

More and more I am noticing films, mostly documentaries, using still photos but they have a 3D type effect on them so when they pan or zoom across the photo it appears to be 3D.

This is a very cool effect but I cannot find any info on it in my usual places. If I even knew what it was called that would be a good start.

Any help is appreciated.

Thanks!

Charlie Durand
San Jose, CA

Charlie - are you referring to the rostrum type of effect where the image appears to be lying flat on a wall or the floor and the camera appears to zoom around the image?

I have used digi rostrum for this before (http://www.lumidium.com/digirostrum.htm). There are also many other ways to accomplish this, e.g. I think vegas can do this with 3d track motion, theres also canopus imaginate (although I think I liked digi rostrum better when I tested them a while back).

the various slide show packages do this, but maybe only in 2 dimensions and not as sophisticated as the above.

Anyway, just some info - not sure if this is what you were referring to in your post (maybe I should watch some more documentaries!)

I don't think this is it but it's hard to know since that site doesn't have any demo footage.

I will see if I can find an example of what I am speaking about online to share with people here. It was used in a movie I just watched called "Riding Giants". The people in the foreground of the still pictures appeared to be in 3D compared to the things in the background of the still pictures.

I know what you are talking about regarding the "3D" effect on still images and have been wondering myself. I looked at the DigiRostrum and although the demo proves it is a cool product, the 3D part of it only looks to move the entire picture in 3D space as opposed to the "other" 3D look this thread is about. Hmmmm....

I imagine you could cut layers out of a photo and then layer them on top of the original and sort of zoom through them in After Effects. Although I just don't think this would get you the effect they are using in the docs.

Anyone else know what is being used???

There is a PDF tutorial for After Effects here http://www.adobeevangelists.com/afte...ctureTrick.pdf
I have also seen a video version but cannot find it.

I did a simple version of this in Premiere Pro that was quite easy to do and looked good. Here was my workflow:

1. Select a still picture and cut out several objects in the picture using Photoshop.
2. Clone in some background in the layers where you cut objects out so you won't see white showing through when you move the layers in Premiere.
3. Import the picture and layers into Premiere.
4. Stack the layers on top of each other in Premiere, putting the layer you want to appear furthest away on the bottom and then moving up.
5. Animate each layer. Move the bottom layer the least and progressively move each additional layer a little more, starting a little more to one side and ending a little more to the other side.
6. When you play this the objects that are closest move the fastest and the most and the objects further away move the least and slowest, giving the 3D impression.

Charlie - now I know what you are saying..I think lloyd's got it... I did see a tutorial somewhere and you do have to make a photo into multiple layers.. and then keyframe it.. one thing that makes the whole effect work is that the background has to be able to be cloned, e.g. such as a field, or something replicable like that because what you do is once the photo is separated into layers, you fill in the missing parts of the background behind your subject with more of the same pattern as the part you can see (e.g. like using a clone stamp in photoshop)...

Google "Ken Burns effect" or "kid stays in the picture"

Here's one: http://blogs.adobe.com/bobddv/2006/0...ben_kurns.html

The link above is exactly what I referenced a few months ago when I created a photo montage video for my wife and I's rehearsal dinner.

I took 40 pics of her, 40 pics of myself, and 12 or so pics of "us" and applied this effect to them. Needless to say, it's quite time-consuming but the effect was teary-eyed family (happy tears!) and jaws on the floor.

I'll try to compress a web-friendly version of this and post it on here so you can see the results.

PS - When I think of the Ken Burns effect, I think of a 2D image being panned across the frame. This 3D effect, dubbed Son of Ken Burns in that tutorial, is a different animal entirely.

Interesting - "The kid stays in the picture" definitely used the 3D effect .... but maybe not his earlier stuff?

Agreed. "The Kid Stays in the Picture" definitely used it, to even better effect then what I did!

They went one step further and actually added animated elements to some of their shots. In the trailer, for example, they had a picture of Evans getting out of a pool. They split the picture into a few layers and animated them using the 3D effect, but they also added animated hints of caustics on the water and clouds rolling by, etc.

Instead of looking at a still picture, even one that's just panning, it's really a neat effect to draw the person into the shot. That slight hint of parallax motion really intrigues the eyes and causes a lot of double takes.

You can do this in Vegas using bezier masks and 3D Track Motion.

Tour into the Picture
 

Also check this out: http://www.cs.ust.hk/~cpegnel/glTIP/

It's a similar technique, but it also allows you to define the perspective of the background image, allowing you travel "within" the picture.

in vegas, its much more efficient to use pan crop, and cookie cut eah pic to create a vignette... this gives each image consistancy, irrespective of orientation or size

and if u REALLY want to make a picture stand out, go grab particle illusion

if u wana know what im rambling on about, drop me an email ill send u sample of the types of slideshows i do

The pan/crop and cookie cutter are different things . . . ?

If you mean to use pan/crop and cut out the objects along their own lines, that's the bezier mask I was referencing above.

Bingo!
 

This is it! After Effects makes this easy

Once you have your layers in AE from Photoshop, they need to be 3d layers. Then add a camera and track away! Then you can keyframe the d.o.f. to make a really cool pull focus as you truck...

Do you need AfterEffects Pro to animate a still?
 

I have AfterEffects7 Standard. Can anyone tell me if I can do this 3D thing or will I need the Pro version. Also, I use the Matrox Parhelia APVe for full HD previews, but I know this will not support GPU effects, is that a showstopper?

Your graphic processor doesn't really matter to AE. You can do a RAM preview and that is software driven.

The trick is to learn how the objects respond to your stage with respect to the 3d movement of the camera by creating a small render. This way you can quickly preview your comp and add time (duration) later.....

no , im mean to use pan crop to create teh required motion, then to use cookie cutter to retain consistancy in framing throughout the entire piece

Lloyd was absolutely right in his earlier post about how to get this effect.
I do exactly the same in Photoshop: crop around the foreground image and enlarge it slightly to hide the cutout portion behind. Import the layers into After Effects. Always give a little bit more speed to the foreground layers to maintain the parallax effect (check the word on Wikipepia!)
Here's a"quick'n dirty" example here: http://www.neptune.com/users/robindr...indr462149.wmv

Robin

You'll get better results if you use 3D parent/child track motion to pan. You won't need a cookie cutter to maintain consistent framing, because the track motion engine will do it for you.

Play around in the 3d channels in After Effects. YOu will love it! Like they stated above, add camera and go. This is an amazing aspect of After Effects and really will expand your graphic capabilities. Does anybody know if Motion or shake does anything similar.

Almost forgot to post that sample I was talking about!

Do pardon the quotes in the beginning and graphics and stuff - turns out I can also share this with relatives who didn't see it at the rehearsal dinner!

The MP4 compression did quite a number on the quality of this piece, but if you download it to your hard drive and scrub back and forth you'll definitely be able to notice some parallax. Enjoy Megan and I's photos. ;)

http://www.robzeigler.com/3d.mp4 - 10.7MB

George Lilly - Motion will allow you to independently pan different images and use scaling to make one appear to be more in the foreground, but After Effects has a much more robust, true 3D space that makes these operations much easier and more organic.

Shake does have limited 3D capabilities, but by the time you've got the node tree set up you probably could have finished three in After Effects. Shake is just not a motion graphics tool. It can perform these types of operations with a little bit of tweaking - but this is the area that After Effects really shines in, especially because of its close interoperability with Photoshop.

I have access to all three of the programs mentioned, and I'd launch After Effects first anyday to complete this sort of task.