Appendix B: Pop-Out Effect Scene Tutorial

In this tutorial, you will learn how to create simple pop-out effect using 3ds max. The tutorial requires basic knowledge of the 3ds max application workflow.

What is pop-out effect?

Input video

Output video

Create video surface

The essential part of the scene is video surface object. User Field Product = Virtual Placement uses video surface to display input video stream.

1. Choose Create > Standard Primitives > Plane. In the Keyboard Entry rollout, set plane parameters:
   Length: 9
   Width: 16
2. Click Create button.
   The Length and Width parameters are chosen to match the video aspect of the output clip. For 4:3 aspect, use a Length=3, Width=4 values.
3. Rename created plane object to VideoSurface.
4. Adjust following parameters of the VideoSurface:z‎
   Length Segs: 1
   Width Segs: 1
5. Apply an UVW Mapping modifier onto the VideoSurface (Modifiers > UV Coordinates > UVW Map). Keep default modifier parameters. The UVW mapping controls future mapping of the video input stream onto the plane.

Create and set up camera

1. Create a free camera object (Create > Cameras > Free Camera). Pick somewhere to scene to create camera.
2. Set rotate mode . In the transform type-in, set rotation angles to all zeroes.
3. In the Parameters rollout, adjust camera FOV to 40 degrees.
4. Set translate mode . In order to align the VideoSurface with the camera view precisely, it is important to set up the camera distance from the surface. Using basic math, for given FOV and surface width, we compute camera distance as:
   distance = width/(2 * tan(FOV/2))

For FOV = 40, use following table to decide camera distance:

Set the distance to the transform type-in – e.g. X=0, Y=0, Z=21.980.

Create background plane

In the following step, we create a background image plane.

1. Select VideoSurface object.
2. Choose Edit > Clone.
3. In the popup dialog, choose a Copy clone mode.
4. Rename the object to a Background.
5. Move Background slightly away from the camera to be behind the video surface from the camera point of view. Also, slightly increase it's size to cover whole camera field of view (it is possible to apply the same math we used to compute right camera – video surface distance).
6. Apply a background material (color/texture) to the Background object.

Animate VideoSurface

Now we create very simple animation of the video surface. In practice, it is possible to apply any 2D/3D animation/distortion to the surface.

1. Enable Auto Key function in 3ds max.
2. Move time slider to frame 50.
3. Scale the VideoSurface object to desired size and place it to desired position over the background. Moving the time slider, the VideoSurface should be shrinknig from full-size (time 0) to chosen final position (frame 50).
4. Disable Auto Key.

Setup video surface material

1. Open Material Editor (Rendering > Material Editor). Choose any unused material.
2. Make sure the material shader type is Blinn.
3. Disable interlock of ambient and diffuse colors. Disable interlock of ambient and diffuse map.
4. Make sure the Specular Level value is set to 0.
   
5. Set ambient color to black.
6. Set diffuse color to white. Assign a bitmap containing single white pixel (white.png) to the diffuse color.
7. Select a VideoSurface object, assign a material to it .

Set up scene lighting

In order to avoid darkening of a video when the effect is applied, the VideoSurface color must be pure white in non-shaded areas. To achieve that, we have to set up a light source.

1. Create new directional light (Create > Lights > Standard Lights > Directional). Pick somewhere into scene to create the light.
2. Set rotate mode . In the light's transform type-in, zero-out all rotation angles. The light should be aiming to the same direction as the camera.
3. Position the light to cover all objects in the scene by it's light cylinder.

Render RGBA channels

Open Render Scene dialog. In the Output Size box, change type to Custom.

Use following settings to render to different target formats:

Render a scene animation to standard RGBA output (e.g. png file sequence).

Render UV and video alpha channels

1. Hide any objects in the scene except the VideoSurface object and the objects that can potentially occlude the VideoSurface.
2. In a Material Editor, select any unused material. Change material type to Matte/Shadow (Material > Change Material/Map Type... > Select Matte/Shadow). Make sure that the Opaque Alpha check box is not checked.
3. Apply the material to any objects that can occlude the VideoSurface (there are none in our basic scene).
4. Render the scene again, this time, use a RLA output format, with following settings:
   • Bits per channel: 8
   • Store alpha channel: enabled
   • Premultiply alpha: disabled
   • Optional channels: UV Coordinates

Resulting image should look like following (RGB Alpha and UV Coordinates, respectively):

Create a .gtc clip

1. Open AKI Clip Convertor application.
2. Browse rendered .png file as a primary clip source file name.
3. Enable the Warp Enable check box.
4. Browse rendered .rla file as a warp source.
5. Step through the application, creating the clip when finished.