Automated cameras are ideal for remote production.
1 Beyond Falcon camera. (Image courtesy of 1 Beyond)
1 Beyond Inc. makes automated cameras, cameras that follow a speaker’s movements without requiring an operator. Last week, they announced two new, lower-cost cameras: the Hawk and the Falcon.
The Falcon is a powerful presenter tracking camera that smoothly pans, tilts and zooms to follow a presenter. Its small form-factor is well-suited for smaller rooms. It is the first ePTZ camera from 1 Beyond and uses a 4K image sensor which is cropped to HD for output. It uses facial and motion detection for tracking and is designed for rooms up to 25 feet deep.
The Hawk is a tracking camera specifically for the room participants. It combines two 12x optical zoom PTZ cameras, a wide-angle reference camera and six audio-locating microphones in a compact shelf-mountable solution. Built-in facial detection and voice detection software uses a new algorithm to accurately point a camera at whoever is speaking. Switching between cameras is seamless and automatic. The wide-angle reference camera feed is also available for an establishing shot of the room. Hawk is designed for rooms up to 30 feet deep.
A B-spline curve, with a cyan-colored chalk style. Control points are the red dots.
I was reading several technical articles about when to use B-spline curves. While they make good points, here’s the key thing you need to know.
A B-spline is always a smooth curve. Unlike a Bezier curve, which can have corners or curves, B-splines are always smoothly curving from beginning to end.
This means that if you have problems drawing smooth curves, as I do, B-splines come to your rescue.
To draw one:
Click the small arrow next to the Pen tool and choose B-spline.
Then, start clicking in the Viewer. As you do, a curve is instantly created.
Drag a red control point to change the shape of the curve. The shape will change, but it will ALWAYS be a smooth curve.
Click the starting point to create a closed curve, otherwise, you’ll create an open curve by default.
EXTRA CREDIT
Open the HUD, assign the curve a width, then click the Shape Style icon at the bottom of the HUD to assign a style to the border. This image uses Traditional > Chalk Easy with the border set to a cyan color.
NOTE: For shape styles to appear, the border width needs to be enabled and greater than 0.
This concept is the same for B-spline masks: always a smooth curve.
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https://www.theinsidetips.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Tips-Logo-700x150.jpg00Larry Jordanhttps://www.theinsidetips.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Tips-Logo-700x150.jpgLarry Jordan2021-07-22 01:30:002021-07-22 01:30:00Tip #1803: Why Use B-Spline Curves?
This hidden control changes the height of elements in the Layers panel.
Enable Layer sizing by clicking the rectangle icon (bottom) when the Timeline is open.
There’s a very useful setting in Motion that only appears when the Timeline is open – even though it has nothing to do with the Timeline!
When the Timeline is displayed (F6 toggles it open or closed), a magnifying glass and rectangle icon appear immediately above it.
Click the rectangle icon (bottom red arrow in screen shot) to reveal a new control (top red arrow).
As you drag this control left or right, the size of the layers in the Layers panel will increase or decrease.
What’s interesting, to me, is that the Timeline needs to be open for this Layers panel control to become visible.
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https://www.theinsidetips.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Tips-Logo-700x150.jpg00Larry Jordanhttps://www.theinsidetips.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Tips-Logo-700x150.jpgLarry Jordan2021-07-22 01:30:002021-07-22 01:30:00Tip #1802: Change the Height of Layer Elements
Final Cut Generators are the most flexible Motion template.
The Final Cut Generator logo in Apple Motion.
A Final Cut Generator is the most flexible of the four Final Cut templates in Motion. While Effects, Transitions, and Titles have very specific functions, a Generator can be anything.
Use Generators to create animated backgrounds, bulleted text, visual effects… anything.
Final Cut Effects are always applied to a clip. Titles are always superimposed over the clip below it. Transitions blend between clips. Generators are standalone media clips which can be used in conjunction with other clips, or stand on their own.
If you have a specific use in mind, select Effect, Title or Transition. If you aren’t sure, Generators provide the widest variety of options.
The Unreal engine can make the artificial look natural.
Image courtesy of Shutterstock.com.
In this screen shot, the terrain (hills, mountains, etc.) was fully sculpted in Unreal Engine with the landscape editing mode, using brushes to sculpt, smooth, and flatten areas in the map.
The landscape material and the vegetation were created with the Brushify toolkit. Finally, the props—rocks, cliffs, and manmade materials—are the result of customized elements and assets from the Megascan library by Quixel.
This article first appeared in ShutterStock.com. This is a summary.
In this first article of a three-part series, we’ll learn how to produce stunning, natural compositions in Unreal Engine. In particular, we’ll focus on aspects of planning an environment while making an eye-catching, well-balanced composition.
Here are the key points this article covers:
Planning the Environment. One of the biggest challenges while creating natural environments is to plan your scene from the start. Begin with big and bare areas and then develop the details in those macro zones by adding vegetation, assets, and so on.
Sculpting Terrain and Set Dressing. Unreal Landscape offers a series of tools for sculpting maps and adding scattered elements like flowers, grass, or anything else you want to import as an asset in your engine.
The Importance of Biomes. The art of compositing a good environment is also connected with the presence of biomes: a sort of habitat for organisms and the related terrain characteristics. This way we can have different zones—forests instead of grasslands, desert, etc.
Shot Composition: Thinking Like a Photographer. Once you’ve created your own landscape, you want to showcase your work in its best light.
Other subjects include:
The Choice of an Appropriate Vantage Point.
Low-Angle Shots
Depth of Field
Positive and Negative Space
That brings us to the end of the first article of a three-part series. We explained how to plan a 3D environment and how to collect photo references with details. We then moved on to talk about the sculpting in Unreal Engine and set dressing with the support of Brushify.
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https://www.theinsidetips.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Tips-Logo-700x150.jpg00Larry Jordanhttps://www.theinsidetips.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Tips-Logo-700x150.jpgLarry Jordan2021-07-21 01:30:002021-07-17 09:21:46Tip #1800: Use Unreal Engine to Re-create Nature
Bi-weekly episodes on the craft and culture of motion graphics.
Austin Shaw (top) and Erin Sorofsky (Image courtesy of Between the Keyframes.)
Motionographer.com reports that “Between the Keyframes” is a new vidcast hosted by Erin Sarofsky and Austin Shaw, two formidable experts in the motion design industry.
Austin literally wrote the book on motion design (“Design for Motion: Fundamentals and Techniques of Motion Design,” Routledge, 2nd Edition, 2019) and is a sought-after educator and freelance creative director and designer. Erin owns Sarofsky, a studio that puts into practice all of those foundational principles while navigating the crazy tides of an exciting, ever-changing industry.
Online at https://betweenthekeyframes.com, the vidcast is now available via YouTube, Apple podcasts, Google podcasts, Spotify, and wherever you get your podcasts.
Already live with episodes exploring “The History of Now,” “Work from Home,” and “Passion Projects,” brand new episodes are debuting biweekly on Tuesdays. The next installment will cover “Fulltime vs. Freelance,” with part one dropping on July 13, and part two on July 27.
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https://www.theinsidetips.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Tips-Logo-700x150.jpg00Larry Jordanhttps://www.theinsidetips.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Tips-Logo-700x150.jpgLarry Jordan2021-07-21 01:30:002021-07-21 01:30:00Tip #1799: The Craft & Culture of Motion Design
AEJuice provides free & paid plugins for After Effects and Premiere Pro.
The Motion Lovers logo, image courtesy of AEJuice.com.
Recently, Jacob Syrytsia, co-founder of AEJuice contacted me about his company. AEJuice provides hundreds of free and paid plugins for After Effects, plus hosts the world’s largest motion graphics community.
AEJuice is a team of motion designers and software engineers that create tools for animation. It was founded in 2015 by Jacob Syrytsia and Mark Duval.
They currently offer a bundle for Premiere Pro consisting of dozens of effects, sound effects, transitions and other elements. They also host “the world’s biggest motion graphics community: ‘Motion Lovers.'”
Avid to provide content production and media management.
The logo for the NBC Olympics.
NBC Olympics, a division of the NBC Sports Group, has selected Avid to provide the content production and media management platform, tools and solutions for its production of the Games of the XXXII Olympiad, which take place in Tokyo, Japan, from July 23-August 8. The announcement was made by Darryl Jefferson, VP of Post Operations and Digital Workflow, NBC Sports & Olympics, and Jeff Rosica, CEO and President, Avid.
Over the past two decades, Avid has supported NBC Olympics in its ongoing technical innovation to present the American audience with state-of-the-art coverage of the Olympic Games. Building on their most recent success with platform-based media management workflows for the 2018 Olympic Winter Games in PyeongChang, NBC Olympics continues to use Avid’s MediaCentral systems for the Tokyo Olympics. To support expanded Olympic production from NBC Sports’ facility in Stamford, Conn., NBC Olympics will deploy Avid’s MediaCentral solutions to drive Tokyo-based remote and on-site workflows that will generate content for linear, OTT and social media platforms serving enthusiastic audiences in the U.S.
NBC Olympics is also using Avid NEXIS shared storage, Media Composer Ultimate and the Media Composer Cloud VM option to empower its team in multiple international locations, including editors based in Stamford, the International Broadcast Centre in Tokyo, and numerous Olympic venues, to connect and collaborate in real-time for content production and delivery.
In simple terms, the broadcast footprint at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 will be 30 per cent smaller than it was at Rio 2016, while content production will be up by about 30 per cent. Add the fact that technology is enabling a host of new ways to tell the stories of the Games and you can see that Olympic Broadcasting Services (OBS) boss Yiannis Exarchos is excited about uncovering new opportunities.
This article was written by the International Olympics Committee (IOC). This is a summary.
The challenge of producing more than 9,000 hours of sports content over 17 days in the current climate is clearly very real. But, “you should never let the opportunity of a major crisis go unused and unexploited,” Exarchos said. “Look at the learnings and uncover every opportunity so that we do what we do in a way that is far less impactful for the environment and the host cities, but at the same time is exciting.”
“Technology provides this through the world of data, through the world of augmented reality, through the world potentially of virtual reality – all things we will try and start introducing in Tokyo and in the next Games,” Exarchos explained.
In content terms this means more coverage in different formats, with the needs of social media and digital outlets high on the agenda. For instance, Content+, a web-based platform primarily dedicated to short-form and digital content, will be far more prominent in Tokyo than ever before. “Broadcasters can use this content, repurpose it; they can practically do it from their mobile phones in the back of a car,” Exarchos said, smiling.
This focus will mean there will be far more behind-the-scenes coverage than ever before, with consumers getting a real insight into what it means to be an Olympic athlete. Not that innovations are limited to off-field action – Tokyo 2020 will also be the first Games coverage to be natively produced in 4K HDR, something Exarchos was “not sure could actually be done” just a matter of months ago.
“It’s not about consumption of technology,” the OBS boss explained. “It’s about experiencing a better way of telling the stories of the greatest athletes of the world.”
“The major thinking, and what we want them to do and help them to do, is reduce the presence [of broadcast staff performing work] that can happen anywhere in the world,” Exarchos stressed. “To be shipping servers and setting up equipment in a city for things that can happen on the cloud is one of the things we want to avoid.”
The entire article provides more details and is well-worth reading.
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https://www.theinsidetips.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Tips-Logo-700x150.jpg00Larry Jordanhttps://www.theinsidetips.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Tips-Logo-700x150.jpgLarry Jordan2021-07-20 01:30:002021-07-17 09:05:11Tip #1805: The Challenge in Broadcasting the Olympics
The Olympics are legendary for their use of technology. This year is no different.
Logo of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
This article, written by George Winslow, first appeared in TVTechnology.com. This is a summary.
The 2020 Tokyo Olympics won’t have fans in the seats, but the games will be offering up a host of tech milestones that the organizers and broadcasters hope will keep audiences cheering at home.
This week, the Olympic Broadcasting Services, OBS, which will be producing a record amount of content for rights holders, came out with its own list of the top ten tech innovations for the Summer Games.
OBS will have a full native UHD HDR production, with 5.1.4 immersive audio (only the coverage of the seven outside Tennis courts will remain in HD). OBS has transitioned its contribution and distribution networks to an all-IP infrastructure to support the UHD HDR production workflow.
The games will see more content in more formats than ever before. OBS will produce additional Multi Clip Feeds (MCFs), as well as fast-turnaround sports highlights, short-form content and mobile-generated clips.
As part of its efforts to provide more content in more formats, OBS will also deliver a record 9,500+ hours of content in support of the rights holders’ multi-platform strategies.
New technologies being deployed include: Multi-camera replay systems (several sports); 3D Athlete Tracking (Athletics 100m) in partnership with Intel and Alibaba; True View (Basketball) in partnership with Intel; Biometric data (Archery) in partnership with Panasonic; Live and on-demand immersive 180° stereoscopic and 360° panoramic coverage (several sports); Virtual 3D graphics (Sport Climbing); 2D image tracking (several sports).
Remote production, both to ensure safety and to provide more coverage, is a big part of the tech game plan. OBS will cover the seven outside tennis courts, as well as certain press conferences, via remote production. The remote production gallery will be set up at the IBC.
Behind the scenes, in an effort to provide more flexible workflows that will allow it to deliver a much wider array of content in more formats to more platforms, OBS has rolled out a set of cloud-based solutions specifically designed for high-demanding broadcast workflows, called OBS Cloud, which allows for greater flexibility and remote production in partnership with Alibaba.
As part of its embrace of cloud and IP technologies, OBS has transitioned part of its broadcast workflows in the cloud. The OBS video server will be extended to the cloud with increased capacity and worldwide accessibility.
Amid growing concerns about climate change and carbon footprints, OBS has been looking for efficiencies in the design of the IBC, notably introducing mini data centres known as Centralized Technical Areas (CTAs).
OBS has introduced new positions close to the field of play and in back-of house areas at selected venues to help rights holders to engage their audience on social media.
OBS has created an innovative digital fan engagement suite, which allows remote viewers to interact with live events in Tokyo and right holders to connect athletes with their fans.
Here’s a link to a 62-page deep-dive into all the innovations at the Olympics. (Be patient, this can take a while to download.)
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https://www.theinsidetips.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Tips-Logo-700x150.jpg00Larry Jordanhttps://www.theinsidetips.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Tips-Logo-700x150.jpgLarry Jordan2021-07-20 01:30:002021-07-20 12:10:21Tip #1804: Ten Tech Innovations at the Olympics
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