Using a real boy/girl as the main character question

[Mouth for war]

Wasn't sure where to post this so I picked general discussion. So...I've always been interested in doing a game where you use real characters and photos as backgrounds. What would be the best way to make the walkcycles/animations...Have someone using a camera to record everything or can you import pictures of yourself into 3d studio for example and play around there somehow? Yeah I'm stupid when it comes to this...Hope anyone has a good answer for me

[CaptainD]

I would have thought that maybe you could play a video of the person walking and use say every 6th or 8th frame of animation as a reference point?  (Just an attempted answer by someone little or no ability at animation, I know that's really not what you were looking for!  :)

[Babar]

Don't chase around a "real boy/girl" and photograph and video them walking for a game.
They probably won't like it.


Their parents might pursue legal action :o.

[Mouth for war]

HAHAHA oh allright...myself or a friend then

[Igor Hardy]

The title of this thread made me think of Pinocchio.

[Mouth for war]

AHH Yeah I didn't like the title really haha ...but wasn't sure what to name the thread haha!!! Come on guys...stop making fun of me now and give some advice damn it haha

[R4L]

The way I envision it is having someone walk on a treadmill, editing out the background so you have just the person, and using every 2nd frame to render.

[Mouth for war]

Yeah a treadmill is something I've thought about also but i've only seen treadmills with handlebars etc. and they would be in the way when shooting the cycles I suspect

[Wyz]

Maybe you could run the treadmill backwards for the other shots.

[Ghost]

A friend of mine works in a photo studio, and has sucessfully created walkcycles of his brother walking slowly in front of one of those monochrome canvas thingies they have there. He used his own video camera which was decent but not really high-tech. So technically, I would try to get a friend and hang a wall with a bedsheet.

[Mouth for war]

Yeah Ghost that idea appeals the most to me! I think that would be the best way...my brother works as a photographer actually and I think he has pretty good gear...should have a talk with him hehe!

[Ghost]

Check this also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chroma_key

It's basically a manual for doing it at home!

[LUniqueDan]

As I remember, the olny Games who use that was the Soviet Unter*cough*cough*og serie :

http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/games.php?action=detail&id=616

It did the job. My 2cents will be to find a good drawn walkcycle then match the frames who fits best. 

[Anian]

You dont really need a treadmill you just need a meter or two before and after the 1-2 step you photograph/record, so the person who walks can do it more naturally and you ge t a real walk. You need about 2 meters of green screen and it'll be good for runing and walking and picking up objects animations etc.

[Renodox]

I tried this once.  Here's my advice.  Find a background that is a single color.  White is the easiest to find but it's not a very good color to use as any light that's reflected off the character will also be white.  Try something like an odd shade of red or green (chartreuse is what they use for movies these days) anyway, to do that, hang a large sheet off the wall and make sure it not only covers the background behind the character but the floor underneath him/her too.  Lighting MUST be consistent so you'll have to have lamps shining on the character so the shadowing doesn't change in each position.
   
Take photos of the individual in several posses meant for walking.  I tried ten to fifteen different poses for each direction the person moves.  Typically this was just five different spots for the person's leg to being lifted then five for the other leg being lifted while the other is put down.

Reflective accessories are not something I recommend.  Jewelry, glasses, metallic watches, etc., they look odd since they reflect so much light they're pretty much just white spots on the character.

Anyway, after you've gotten your pictures upload them to the computer.  I recommend uploading them to a program such as "Photo Shop" or "Photo explosion."  Use a color recognition selection option and select the undesired color.  Then invert the selection so you have just your character.  If you did this right, you'll have your character selected.  Copy or cut the selection and paste it into a new photo with only a white background.  Next, select the entire picture (white background included) and copy and paste it to a program that can save the file to bitmap.  I used paint.

This is important.  NEVER save this file in anything other than bitmap.  Saving the file in something other than bitmap will cause the rest of the colors, including the background to re-pixilate and if you try selecting just your image using the "transparent color background" option, you'll end up with a very splotchy aura around your character.

Once it's saved in the bitmap file, re-color the background any color that's not on your character.  Again, a strange shade of green is probably best, but if you used green then use yellow or pink.  Anyway, you'll find that your character is surrounded by a one-pixel aura of the original background color.  I've never found a way around this.  You must either erase or color over this aura in the bitmap program.  Once you've managed to get every last unwanted pixel off the character, you can return the background color to white, save the file as a bitmap and you have one shot for a sprite.

It's time consuming but that's how it can be done.

[Ali]

I'm rarely satisfied with this effect, because the complexity of a photo image always gives away the fact that the person is superimposed. (While the simplicity of a drawn sprite fits in perfectly with a drawn background). It's also problematic because drawings and pixel-work use broad gestures, bold shapes and movement while people are much more inflected and subtle.

So I would say go for this idea, but approach it cinematically. Forget about click here - walk there. Concentrate on interesting angles, characters and performances and it could be amazing!

[Khris]

Renodox:
In Photoshop, you can use the anti-aliased magic wand tool, that'll even extract most of the background color from the edge of the character. Some manual cleaning up might still be required though.
And of course, NEVER use bitmap files for anything (or Paint). PNGs are lossless, too. You've used JPG, which creates artifacts in non-photos due to lossy compression.

[Monsieur OUXX]

For the record I want to mention there was a whole discussion thread about the exact same topic less than a year ago, with plenty of useful links, tips, and experiments. Too lazy to dig it up, though.