This does it. I’m leaving you.

Posted at 1:24 pm on Nov 4th, 2008 by pip

Whoa! I’m glad i clicked on this comments, I got to see pip finally leave! Cheerio good chap!

Posted at 1:44 pm on Nov 4th, 2008 by theisovist

I’m guessing it will be an entirely post-camera, digital effect–like standard green-screen “superimposing”, but with provisions for dynamic camera angle changing. Something akin to those glyph tracking demos, but with a live human’s image in place of the 3D models. I mean, what would be the point in doing even a simple live pseudo-hologram effect when 99.9% of the people seeing it will be doing so via the decidedly 2D media of television?

Posted at 2:26 pm on Nov 4th, 2008 by Jake of All Trades

Just saw it in operation and wow I’m completely underwhelmed. Like a really bad green screen circa 1982.

Posted at 4:35 pm on Nov 4th, 2008 by Jim K.

It also seems almost offensive that they are pretending that they can actually see the “hologram” in the room. It’s so obviously a video overlay, i wish they would just be honest and not try to pretend. Wolf Blitzer sits there saying “wow i can see you right there in front of me, in 3d!” like some bad TV actor trying to explain the plot through supposedly realistic dialogue – like saying “Oh no, we are very far from home and all we have to communicate is this one cell phone. I hope we don’t lose it, then we’d be in biiiig trouble!”

If they had just not said anything about it, and let the effect just be an effect, it wouldn’t be too bad, but listening to him try to sell it when its obviously not real is just lame.
-Taylor

Posted at 6:09 pm on Nov 4th, 2008 by Taylor Alexander

What do I win for calling it?

Posted at 8:16 pm on Nov 4th, 2008 by Jake of All Trades

@jake of all trades
you get a cookie, good call.

Yeah, this looks just like compositing with matched camera angles. Very similar to what we do in the 3d animation industry.

Posted at 8:42 pm on Nov 4th, 2008 by Caleb Kraft

Seriously though, when I saw this on TV, (after all the ‘help me wolf blitzer, you’re my only hope’ jokes) Its really just 3 cameras that capture him from the front, back and a side. This is what I equate to Wolfenstein 3D’s Ray-Casting…

Posted at 12:15 am on Nov 5th, 2008 by Xeracy

Gorillaz used a semi-transparent glass at a 45° angle between the public and the scene. The projection is made from the bottom. It is not holographic. You only get only one POV

Posted at 2:34 am on Nov 5th, 2008 by Iv

The Emperor will now sit still for this.

Posted at 4:58 am on Nov 5th, 2008 by strider_mt2k

What they did was a very poor Green screen effect.

what Gorrillaz did is based on real tech…
http://www.eyeliner3d.com/

and having seen it in person it’s not as good as you think it is, but way more impressive than the really lame CNN trick from the 70’s.

Posted at 5:15 am on Nov 5th, 2008 by fartface

I wonder if they made it look worse just so people would think it was a real hologram.

Posted at 6:07 am on Nov 5th, 2008 by klecu

there is a great disturbance in the force! someone has stolen our technology! send in the tie fighters!

Posted at 6:25 am on Nov 5th, 2008 by Gosh

Of course there was greenscreen involved. How do you think they separated the ones being interviewed from their background? This does not mean it’s fake!!!

Posted at 7:44 am on Nov 5th, 2008 by gian

My favorite part was how Wolf described her being inside some complicated tent that took three weeks to assemble. They must have the same tent I have…. man that thing is impossible to set up. I rarely even bother attaching the hadron collider, not to mention the holograph module.

Cheesiest effect ever, for sure. They should have actually had ILM come in and do it right instead of just making the star wars jokes and looking stupid.

Posted at 9:17 am on Nov 5th, 2008 by Bill

@gian: no, the fact that the image did *not* appear in the studio with blitzer means that it’s fake. it was just video effects, nothing more. not even cutting-edge effects, either.

so that blitzer would know what they were doing, the guests’ images were displayed on a monitor in the studio. and there was a bright painted circle on the stage, so he’d know where to face so it appeared he was looking at a real image.

I call *fake* on cnn!

Posted at 1:11 pm on Nov 5th, 2008 by RWL

Worst stunt ever. It’s not THAT technologically advanced they just the resolution of the digital image (on tv…obviously there’s nothing in the studio) is horrible.

Posted at 10:12 pm on Nov 5th, 2008 by neelster

They described 30+ high def cameras in the tent, but the quality was seriously low as we saw.

If anyone caught the (one time?) demonstration of the house of representatives on the holographic table an hour before the Princess Leia demo, it reminded me of ARToolkit and a video overlay with tracking.

Then I spotted that ARToolkit already has something along the Leia lines called 3D-Live, which runs at QVGA (PAL) res of 352×288 using 15 cameras. Demo videos online already look better than what CNN came up with.

I suppose the problem was that they were feeding all of the video input from offsite back to HQ to render the angles, which is a terrible waste of bandwidth IMHO.

It likely would have worked much batter if they shot from waist up and placed the virtual actor behind a desk with a single angle. Obviously, still utilizing the imagination of the actor sitting next to them, but they could be looking at an off-set screen like weather folks usually do.

Posted at 7:34 pm on Nov 7th, 2008 by JohnJ

Unfortunately the video linked to in the article is a much more elegant and REAL technology. The Gorillaz concerts were created using the Musion Eyeliner technology, a variation on Pepper’s ghost. The images are still 2D, but are projected onto a meshed projection screen that is nearly invisble under dark lighting conditions, so that they appear to exist 3Dimensionally suspended in space. The Gorillaz are actually visible to the live audience. CNN’s crap is no more complicated than drawing lines on a football field in realtime. For slightly more information check out http://www.eyeliner3d.com/musion_eyeliner_mechanics.html for the real deal.

Posted at 9:01 am on Nov 18th, 2008 by Dracc