Deep images for use in visual effects work during deep compositing tend to be very large. Quite often the files are larger than needed for their final purpose, which opens up an opportunity for optimizations. This research project is about finding methods for identifying redundant and excessive data use in deep images, and then approximate this data by resampling it and representing it using less data. Focus was on maintaining the final visual quality while optimizing the files so the methods can be used in a sharp production environment. While not being very successful processing geometric data, the results when optimizing volumetric data were very succesfull and over the expectations.

The problem of separating a non-rectangular foreground image from a background image is a classical problem in image processing and analysis, known as matting or keying. A common example is a film frame where an actor is extracted from the background to later be placed on a different background. Compositing of these objects against a new background is one of the most common operations in the creation of visual effects. When the original background is of non-constant color the matting becomes an under determined problem, for which a unique solution cannot be found. This thesis describes a framework for computing mattes from images with backgrounds of non-constant color, using Bayesian statistics. Foreground and background color distributions are modeled as oriented Gaussians and optimal color and opacity values are determined using a maximum a posteriori approach. Together with information from optical flow algorithms, the framework produces mattes for image sequences without needing user input for each frame. The approach used in this thesis differs from previous research in a few areas. The optimal order of processing is determined in a different way and sampling of color values is changed to work more efficiently on high-resolution images. Finally a gradient-guided local smoothness constraint can optionally be used to improve results for cases where the normal technique produces poor results.

When working with oceans in the visual effects industry, it is not always very practical or even possible to use real live footage, especially if extreme weather conditions are required. A common scenario is computer generated objects crashing into an ocean generating splashes and foam that should stick to and integrate well with the real ocean surface. Making a shot like that look realistic is very difficult, this is where a fully computer generated ocean surface comes in handy. Creating high resolution computer generated sequences of an ocean surface with interacting objects is difficult using today’s available commercial 3D packages. I have therefore implemented a VFX ocean toolkit, which is a system built for generating the ocean surface, Kelvin wakes and interaction with objects. The ocean toolkit was built with the artist in mind and the need for real time preview to produce results quick and easy in order for the system to remain cost effective. The ocean toolkit is tightly integrated directly into the procedural 3D animation package Houdini1 as several plug-ins and shaders that can be combined to create numerous ocean surface effects.

When portraying a character in a fictional world the actor is faced with many challenges. To circumvent these challenges, he must become congruent with the reality of the fictional world. In order to do so, the actor has to ‘believe’ in the circumstances of the unfolding scene and live ‘in the moment’. These external circumstances act as stimuli which the actor uses to create and consequently ‘believe’ in the environment that the character inhabits. However, the use of green screen technology in special effects limits or eliminates these stimuli and the external circumstances. Green screen is a technique used in film and television that allows the filmmaker to film an actor in combination with a green screen and then replace the ‘green’ with anything the filmmaker requires. This allows for compositing to occur and the filmed reality to be manipulated. However, this technology challenges the actor’s ‘belief’ and behaviour, thus affecting congruence with and the (photo)realism of the created fictional world. In a green screen environment the actor is challenged to imagine, experience and act in line with the circumstances of the fictional world that will replace the green screen, instead of the green environment in which he finds himself. One acting strategy that elicits imagination, action and feeling is Stanislavsky’s notion of the magic if. Accordingly, this dissertation proposes that this strategy can assist the actor in circumventing the challenges that arise when working with green screen technology. Stanislavsky developed his acting principles by observing human behaviour in an attempt to use the mind–body paradigm in circumnavigating the acting moment. The field of cognitive neuroscience has also investigated human behaviour and the mind–body paradigm and recent discoveries have increased understanding of the fields. These discoveries have validated the notion of the magic if and the components it incorporates. Yet, the discoveries surrounding the notion of the magic if and, subsequently, the increased understanding of the concept have not to date been applied to acting with green screen technology. It is therefore hypothesised that, by triangulating the challenges of ‘green screen acting’, the principles of the magic if and the knowledge gained from cognitive neuroscience, an acting strategy can be developed that will assist the actor in the green screen environment and thus create verisimilitude with the fictional world. This hypothesis has led to the theoretical development of explorations that will strengthen the skills the actor needs in order to apply the notion of the magic if; as well as an acting strategy to assist the actor when entering the green screen environment. / Dissertation (MA)--University of Pretoria, 2013. / gm2014 / Drama / Unrestricted

The public lands of the United States administered by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) are used for multiple purposes, like conservation, recreation, grazing, mining, logging, and oil and gas development. Many of these activities have the potential to disturb the surface of the landscape, which can negatively impact scenic values. While the BLM has a system for managing visual resources and mitigating the potential impacts of development on visual quality, it does not adequately consider cumulative visual effects, which are the combined impacts of the same type of activity on the environment over space and time. This paper studies the challenges and opportunities faced by managers of Canyons of the Ancients National Monument in southwestern Colorado, a landscape particularly affected by oil and gas development, at measuring and managing cumulative visual effects. This paper also reviews the results of a series of interviews conducted with experts in the field of cumulative visual effects and of a visual preference survey that highlight the strengths and limitations of existing methods for assessing cumulative visual effects. This research paper concludes with a list of recommendations for the BLM to incorporate cumulative visual effects into its existing visual resource management system and details directions for future research on this subject.

People at northern latitudes lack an effective portion of daylight, especially in winter time, to entrain their circadian rhythm. If one belongs to the group of employees who have no time for daylight exposure and are not supplied by Human Centric Lighting (HCL) in their office, the only chance to get circadian light may be the daily commute. The mega trend of urbanisation increases time of commute, with on average 20-60 minutes spent daily in public transportation in European cities. By introducing HCL to public transport, especially metro vehicles, this time frame can be used to provide the commuting work force with circadian lighting. A LIGHT BOOSTER metro car is proposed to provide the right intensity, spectral distribution, directionality and timing of light to regulate the human inner clock and support health. The LIGHT BOOSTER metro car is very efficient as light is best used due to a high person per square meter ratio. This ratio is higher than in any office building. The energy consumption equals that of an conventional single household. Besides expected health benefits, the LIGHT BOOSTER metro car works as an educative tool, raising awareness for the beneficial effects of light on human health and well-being.

Light has a wide and profound non-visual impact on the human body. It is related to the suppression or synthesis of a hormone called melatonin which regulates the human circadian clock. In Nordic countries like Sweden, lack of natural light in winter may lead to negative health effects such as circadian disorders or depression. At the same time, the underground metro system in Stockholm carries more than one million passengers on a weekday. The lighting in the train carriage may have distinct circadian effects on the passengers. The paper takes the metro system in Stockholm as an example, calculates the non-visual effects of the artificial lighting in the train according to Equivalent Melanopic Lux (EML), Circadian Stimulus (CS) and Melanopic Equivalent Daylight Illuminance (M-EDI) Models, compares with current guidance and suggestions, considers the daylighting conditions of Stockholm, and proposes a new design solution with adjustable LEDs to achieve a better healthful circadian lighting result.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-26T18:16:20Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Alessandro Flaviano de Souza.pdf: 11578053 bytes, checksum: 6debccd2bf15e7b51f186586f99fc0f7 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2007-05-07 / The dissertation studies the digital effect and its performance in sincretics joints in the felt production of the audiovisual while significant of the expression. The study object is analysed in the Constantine film directed by Francis Lawrence, in 2005, like participate with other significant in the inter-semiotic way of the cinema, an audiovisual system, and of the Novel Magazine Hellblazer, a verb-visual printed system matter. The film counts the story of a antihero John Constantine how is a occultist and exorcist wizard capable to slide of the world of the men for the hell thanks for-normal gift skill with which he was born. The majority of the actors of the film, including proper it, acts alongside with the digital effect to fulfill its narrative program. To study this constituent of the film implies to treat it in the digital topology that organizes it from the way as the enunciater manifests to the one how receives the enunciated in an aesthetic arrangement of the expression mounted for strategies of articulation of the audiovisual. The digital effect operate as fruits of the plan of the sincretic expression of the audiovisual and, as a type of actors of the speech that it commands in the spaciality, the temporality and the actoriality, the significant movie constituent: audio and the visual; it materialize in the filmic space background with depth, perspective, third dimension, of which the one how receives the enunciated is installed text to integrate the tram. The semiotics developed around Algirdas Julien Greimas and its collaborators, theoretician and methodology skills, bases this construction of the meaning of the digital effect in the filmic text / A dissertação estuda o efeito digital e sua atuação em articulações sincréticas na produção de sentido do audiovisual enquanto significantes do plano da expressão. O objeto de estudo é analisado no filme Constantine dirigido por Francis Lawrence, em 2005, como resultado de uma produção intersemiótica do cinema, um sistema audiovisual, e da HQ Hellblazer, um sistema verbo-visual impresso de significação. O filme conta a estória de um anti-herói chamado John Constantine que é um mago ocultista e exorcista capaz de deslizar do mundo dos homens para o inferno graças a um dom para-normal com o qual nasceu. A maioria dos actantes do filme, incluindo ele próprio, contracena com os efeitos digitais para cumprir o seu programa narrativo. Estudar esse formante do discurso implica em tratá-lo na topologização do digital organizado a partir do modo como o enunciador os manifesta ao enunciatário em um arranjo estético da expressão montada por estratégias de enunciação do audiovisual. O efeito digital opera como fruto do plano da expressão sincrética do audiovisual e, também, como um tipo de actante do discurso que ordena na espacialidade, na temporalidade e na actorialidade, os significantes constituintes do sistema cinematográfico: o áudio e o visual; concretiza no espaço fílmico ambientações com profundidade, perspectiva, terceira dimensão, através dos quais o enunciatário é instalado na trama. A semiótica desenvolvida em torno dos estudos de Algirdas Julien Greimas e seus colaboradores, teórica e metodologicamente, fundamenta essa construção da significação do efeito digital no texto fílmico

This thesis is focused on digital image postproduction -- specific field, which is responsible for digital creation and manipulation with image data of a feature film or a commercial. To achieve that, it uses large amount of human resources and the newest computer technology. The aim of this thesis was to review actual situation in film production from the informatics point of view. That comprises of explanation of field specifics, identification of information system in a typical postproduction house and finding ways how to effeciently manage postproduction projects through that. Thesis is designed as a complex practical guide, which is well understandable both to inexperienced people and proffesionals and delivers them useful information. It can be used by existing employees of a postproduction house (primarily managers and heads), freelancers or prospective future employees. This thesis highlights importanant aspects of postproduction, connected risks and helps people's to better orientate in this field. Outputs are numerous table summaries, recommendations, tips and hints and examples of possible solutions of actual postproduction problems. They are based on many internet sources and my own previous experience as a 3d graphic.

Post-product studios which finalise the results of authorial audiovisual products are an important part of the media space. In this thesis, I am dealing with one of the phases of post-production film processing -- the methodology of management and optimization of VFX projects, by which I mean the utilization of computer graphics in the creation of special visual effects in film and advertising. In order to optimize VFX projects I designed a sample project based on a typical, VFX postproduction which became the basis for the comparison of the general principles of the project management and actual procedure used in practice with the quest to optimize the management of the project. The purpose of this thesis is to establish a project management methodology for a VFX project which consists of four subsequent steps. The first step is the division of a VFX project into phases. The second step is the identification of auxiliary computer programmes for each phase, followed by an analysis of the risks and the evaluation of the optimal procedure. The first part of this thesis is devoted to the general definition of computer graphics and their use in post-production. The second part focuses on the development of the management methodology of VFX projects by testing it on a sample project.