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Blackbird, a car rig that creates photo-real CG cars [video]
- thawkins 10y agoSo its hasicaly designed to lie to consumers, so that even that product ads they are seeing are completly fake.
- stephentmcm 10y agoCar ads aren't fake already? Half the ads I see feature CG cars driving an endless blank whiteness or through similarly impossible landscapes. This looks like a sweet way to shoot car scenes for movies, I wonder if it can take a roll-cage/extra safety features.
- wingerlang 10y agoI doubt they would put this kind of rig in any form of "stunt" mode. Seems like it carries reallly really expensive gear.
- berkut 10y agoCar ads have been using CG cars for almost 10 years now in a lot of cases, especially photos. A lot of product ads are as well - Ikea catalogue "photos" are almost always CG renders.
- stevecalifornia 10y agoMy only dream is to one day invent something as clever and useful as this (and to produce a marketing video as succinct and informative).
- duaneb 10y agoIt's actually less clever and useful than this makes it out to be. CG is already prevalent in car ads, so introducing a new physical rig isn't the game changer it is made out to be.
- PhasmaFelis 10y agoSo now car ads can be even less honest than they already were. Great.
- randyrand 10y agoThis is super commonplace. Look at apple's ads. Their almost all renderings. Most people don't care as it looks exactly like the real product.
- mkehrt 10y agoNo, they're mostly actual photographs by this guy: http://www.theverge.com/2013/5/8/4311868/the-illusion-of-simplicity-photographer-peter-belanger-on-shooting http://www.theverge.com/2013/5/8/4311868/the-illusion-of-sim...
- Fuzzwah 10y ago"actual photographs" ie: heavily retouched photos https://youtu.be/rqC2xpCaG80?t=68 https://youtu.be/rqC2xpCaG80?t=68
- graiz 10y agoMost car sites now allow the end user to customize their car with color, trim & options. I can see this being used to give the end-user a realistic view of what the car will look like. Mass customization of cars is increasingly possible with high-end 3D printers and tech like this may allow you to insert your own idea of what your car will look like into a Hollywood style commercial. At the end of the day, car commercials already show people drifting around corners and skidding to a stop. Realistic commercials of cars stuck in traffic isn't going to move any units.
- honkhonkpants 10y agoThe video looks super fake at around 1:05. The rear wheel is in the wrong spot.
- subinsebastien 10y agoIt took me a while to pause the video at the exact spot.
- habi 10y agoHere's the direct link to that time point: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OnBC5bwV5y0&t=65 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OnBC5bwV5y0&t=65
- callesgg 10y agoAnd the car looks like it has to low weight.
- talmand 10y agoThe whole body of the car has the wrong rotation at that point. The front tire is off as well.
- chii 10y agoI find it a bit sad that so much tech has been put into advertising, which, as an industry is inefficient and a costly zero sum game.
- function_seven 10y agoAgreed, but consider it an analog of war technology. Much of it finds its way to more civilized uses. In this case, what we have here is a great tool for vehicular motion capture that can be used in gaming and simulators as well. Ads may have been the motivation to begin with, but other uses can reap the benefits as well.
- arijun 10y agoWell, maybe not entirely zero sum--if the advertisement lets you know about something you'd want but previously didn't know about, that's a net plus. Then again, those diet pill ads and other scams are a net minus, so maybe it washes out to 0 net.
- chii 10y ago> if the advertisement lets you know about something you'd want but previously didn't know about, that's a net plus i count those things not as adverts, but as information sources. An advert is something that tries to convince you to buy _their_ brand of a thing, rather than informing you of the existance of a thing you didnt know about. Suppose there's a universal catalog which lists all possible products/services, then you'd have no need of the former, but the latter is still a zero sum game.
- sandworm101 10y agoSo it draws a shell atop the stand in? That isn't enough. It doesn't seem to model flex, body roll, vibration or even accurate suspension movements. It won't fool car guys.
- kerryfalk 10y agoThey state in the video that they can adjust the suspension (I imagine this is more than just spring rates and shock stiffness but they didn't confirm). Watching the videos I was actually impressed that it seemed to accurately model the difference between a mustang and a corvette (I am a fairly serious "car guy"). The thing that got me was an Aveo spinning the rear tires... They didn't state if they could change the drive wheels. In most ads I would guess this wouldn't matter much.
- sandworm101 10y agoThe rig they are using is modeling only wheel movements, not proper suspension setups. Can it model how a Fiat500 will lift a rear tire in a sharp corner? You cannot do that with such a low center of gravity.
- kerryfalk 10y agoI've seen Formula SAE cars do that. You can indeed make that happen. In that car it could be as simple as reducing the front spring rates and softening the shocks while putting a stiffer roll bar in the rear.
- NegativeLatency 10y agoYeah the CG is obviously way too low when they show the white sedan sliding around in the parking lot. Also they say "any" car, but what they really mean is any car with worse performance characteristics than this car. (Try using it to simulate a F1 car)
- ygra 10y ago> Try using it to simulate a F1 car Those usually don't get that much advertisement because not that many people buy them.
- doctorpangloss 10y agoIn case anyone is wondering why you would use a CG car instead of a real car: The purpose of this vehicle is to allow large feature films to shoot with the Blackbird and sell a product-placed vehicle in post-production to the highest bidder. It's a brilliant way to maximize the value of the placement. The Mill obviously doesn't spell this out in their press release. But this is all about native advertising.
- whazor 10y agoPretty interesting, you could sell to different bidders in different countries.
- legitster 10y agoThat might be true except cars have vastly different wheel sizes and wheelbases. One video would only work for a single platform. Even then, the company states that the rig is customized per car to get the ride height and tire size right. I think they use CG cars instead of real ones for the same reason everything is CG: cost. It's cheaper to just rent one of these from a local film studio than sending out a small fleet of actual cars to film in whatever salt flat they are using this time. It also gives them more control of the look and design of the car. Did you know that 75% of the items in an IKEA catalog are CGI? Also, I wouldn't be surprised (given the tight release schedule of some car models and the secrecy around them) that this lets them film the advertising of a car concurrently with the final production stages. They don't have any cars coming off of the line to shoot with, so it's easier to rig up the wheelbase (which is established early in production) and get the marketing done concurrently.
- justinator 10y ago> That might be true except cars have vastly different wheel sizes and wheelbases. I see you didn't watch the video where they showed the wheelbase, wheel sizes/design, width of the platform, as well as suspension tuning can all be adjusted easily.
- stbtrax 10y ago
- mattalbie 10y agoI work at a competitor to The Mill so I have a little insight into this process. Ad agencies have grown accustomed to spending an enormous amount of money on VFX to make the cars in their spots look as perfect and attractive as possible (same with soda, people's faces, etc). They call this "beauty" work. For high end commercials this single line item can be over $30k (though I'm pretty sure The Mill charges more than I do). Most of the car commercials I do end up with full CG cars regardless of what they shoot because 1 they want the cars to look perfect, 2 they want to enhance the cars attractive qualities beyond all reality, 3 they want to be able to control every pixel, 4 they want to change elements of the car for different markets. That last one is probably a big reason The Mill would invest this kind of R&D in the project. Doctorpangloss's point about product placement is no small thing either. As foreign markets become a bigger part of box office take being able to sell 5 different product placement deals in the same 20 shots is a big win.
- jessriedel 10y agoBackground from Wikipedia for others: "The Mill is a VFX & Creative Content studio headquartered in London, United Kingdom, with three offices in the United States... The Mill is usually well represented at the numerous Advertising and Visual Effects awards ceremonies world-wide each year." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mill_(post-production) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mill_(post-production)
- samwestdev 10y agoBut how do you chroma key the blackbird out of the video?
- izym 10y agoFrom what I could see, you don't. Rather it seems like they're just putting the render on top of the video, which fully occludes the blackbird.
- amelius 10y agoBut how do you film somebody getting in and out of the car?
- theoh 10y agoIs that an action that typically appears in filmed car advertising?
- jessriedel 10y agoIt's fairly common. Think the successful male stepping out of the car and greeting his attractive wife.
- alkonaut 10y agoVery specific to different cultures I think. I was very surprised when I visited the US and noticed cars being marketed towards men with attributes like "tough" etc. In Scandinavia it's always practical/classy/stylish or humorous. It would be impossible to market a car with some rock music and a man appearing successful by having an attractive wife (maybe just maybe if the woman was driving)
- jessriedel 10y agoThat's kind of beside the point. Whatever the cultural difference, there are plenty of European car ads that feature shots of people in the car, or entering/exiting it.
- theoh 10y agoI was able to confirm it by watching a "top 10" of car ads on Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eekrb4wJl-k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eekrb4wJl-k The ad "tall girl" (Volkswagen, 2013) has a shot where a man exits a small car and is effectively measured against the car and even the frame (his head is cropped when he straightens up). The idea is that it shows that, after a string of shorties, she's about to meet someone who is tall enough for her. Interestingly the first ad in that Youtube video is the animated dancing robot Citroen C4 from 2005 -- entirely CG. There's also a full scale model car made out of cake, and other humorous tricks. Not a lot of potential roles for the Blackbird. Another collection of ads (top 10) starts with a VW car driving along with a dog with his head out the window. I think that would pose similar problems for the Blackbird methodology. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuXJwR7SKok https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuXJwR7SKok It's quite possible that witty art direction and the whole VR/environment mapping/mass customization agenda of the Blackbird are products of two groups of people who just don't intersect in reality.
- amelius 10y agoWhy do you need a rig? Can't ML algorithms predict what kind of movements a car should make to look realistic?
- talmand 10y agoThe rig helps with the outside environment as well. Don't have to fake tires going over multiple surfaces when you filmed real tires. Then there are the reflections. And so on.