GK2 Method of Animation

[Lionheart]

In Gabriel Knight II they had that video animation of live people.

is it possible to do that without hightech expensive equipment? and if so how?

Thanks

[Gregjazz]

Well, I suppose if you got a cheap camcorder and then set up a blue tarp to use as a blue screen...

EDIT: But really, IMO I think having live footage in games is rather cheesy, don't you?

[Mr Jake]

Not if you pick out key frames and trace them

[Ali]

A miniDV camcorder should do the job, as Geoffkhan says, but you have to think about what you're taking on. I'm playing Gabriel Knight 2 at the moment and, as much as I enjoy the interrogation sequences and cut-scenes the in-game sequences ain't too pretty. The graphical quality doesn't match wither the first or the third game.

More importantly, as soon as you involve real actors, you've become a director as well as a game maker. Plenty of Full Motion Video sequences have been ruined by poor acting (Christopher Walken in Ripper) and poor direction (whoever directed Christopher Walken in Ripper). If you want to use real people then you'll have to be sure you have a good idea of how TV/Film drama works (lines of action and the like).

Technically though, a well lit blue screen should do the job. Be sure to light your actor in a different plane to the screen, use warm colours (you can always tint later) and a slightly yellow back-light should help the computer distinguish them from the blue.

If you can't get a hold of After Effects or Ultimatte, it should be possible to use the Alpha properties of Blender or similar 3D software in conjunction with free video editing software.

Finally, don't forget RAD game tools for quick and pretty conversion to 256 colours, if you need it.

My, that was quite a long post.

[qptain Nemo]

Why blue color is used for these puproses? Is it important to use  exactly blue color? I'm just curious.

[scotch]

You need a colour that isn't in your subjects or they'll end up being transparent, so pure blue is good, human skin doesn't contain that and you can avoid it in yout clothes, often green is used too... sometimes other colours.  The actual colour doesn't matter so much as keeping it even and well lit, so that you can key it out and replace it with another image cleanly.

[DoorKnobHandle]

You can use any background if you want to use this method:

- Record yourself with any background and any clothes on doing the animation (eg. walking).
- Watch the video and take as many screenshots as you want the animation to have frames later on.
- Now trace those shots and fill the outlines with your character colors and you are done.

Bad part about this is that you are just creating your own "reference images" - you could use any free ones in the net. SO this method is maybe considerable if you already own such a video camera and want to do some heavy animation like a kick followed by a duck and two other kicks or something even more complicated.
Also you have to think about this: Imagine your character is supposed to be fat and you are skinny. That won't work, so you'd have to find somebody big enough to represent your character in order to get the proper outlines...

If you want to have real actors in the game than you'd use this method:

- Record yourself or your actors with all the costumes and stuff and use a complete white/blue background.
- Now use Photoshop or something ecquivalent to check on every frame if the background color really only consists of one single shade (which is gonna be transparent later on). You could maybe fill the background with red/pink/yellow to check whether it really is one shade or not (when filling it should fill everything in the background and not leave some parts blue).
- Then you probably want to change the proportions and maybe think about deleting some unimportant frames (not necessarily - if you want to delete frames, then do it before modifying them to save time )

This method is probably the better one (and it is the 'real' one), but it still is a lot work to check 32 frames if they all have the same background color and you'll need all your characters as real life people (friends)...
The outcome will probably pretty crappy, but it's never been tried before (as far as I know), so if you have the video camera and some costume floating around, why not try it out?

[Nacho]

You need a colour that isn't in your subjects or they'll end up being transparent, so pure blue is good, human skin doesn't contain that and you can avoid it in yout clothes, often green is used too... sometimes other colours.Ã,  The actual colour doesn't matter so much as keeping it even and well lit, so that you can key it out and replace it with another image cleanly.

But IMO, many blue tones would do the word. I remember that a guy who became famous remind that he was not hired as a weather man because his eyes were blue and sometimes they became transparent in the blue screen.

And Lionheart... make it easy... Ripp Flashback sprites. 

[Lionheart]

Heh, thanks guys i'll look into it.

[Grundislav]

Another, somewhat simpler option you could look into (if you have the patience) is taking still frames with a digital camera.  For a walk cycle, for example, just photograph yourself, or your model, in each frame of the cycle.  Then you can just resize and reference or trace over when doing your sprite.  This is the method I've been using lately, and it works well.  Granted, you won't have much luck with animations that require jumping or moving cloth or things like that, but for most stuff it works.

Good luck!

[Ali]

This method is probably the better one (and it is the 'real' one), but it still is a lot work to check 32 frames if they all have the same background color and you'll need all your characters as real life people (friends)...

If you use video editing software with a chroma key capability the blue colour doesn't have to be uniform, but every shade of it has to be distinct from your subject. You should be able to adjust the tolerance of a matte like you would a fill in photoshop & similar.

[edmundito]

In Gabriel Knight II they had that video animation of live people.

is it possible to do that without hightech expensive equipment? and if so how?

Duzz did it! See Duzz Quest.