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This reminds me of a loosely related tale. In 2008 I was hired by a game studio to build a HW/SW system for synchronizing a Canon EOS 1D Mark III and a series

This reminds me of a loosely related tale. In 2008 I was hired by a game studio to build a HW/SW system for synchronizing a Canon EOS 1D Mark III and a series of studio flashes. The idea was to use its ability to take ten pictures a second to take a rapid succession of images with very different lighting. The images were then processed by a series of tools I'd helped develop the previous year. The timeline was pretty tight, so I had to begin development before I had the camera. I contacted Canon support to confirm that the 10 pics per second was only when given a continuous signal and to ask which speeds it could reach when taking separate pictures via remote trigger. Their support tech insisted it was irrelevant since I couldn't possibly press the button that fast. I tried, to no avail, to explain that it was a computer sending the signal and it could do so (with the hardware I had) a thousand times per second. Reluctantly, he forwarded the question to their technical support, who never answered. I ended up using a continuous signal and having my program listen to the remote flash connector. It worked splendidly.

sroussey 6y ago
I’m curious to see what the visual effect ended up being. Any link to an example?
- numpad0 6y ago
  Sounds like a 3D capture rig than visual effects.
  - Agentlien 6y ago
    That's correct. I can't say too much about the details. It ended up working really well but wasn't used in production for reasons of internal politics. The guy who had the original idea for the system, a former classmate of mine, later went on to start his own company, Quixel, based on similar ideas.
    - cbozeman 6y ago
      > wasn't used in production for reasons of internal politics In other words, some insecure shithead's ego got stepped on and he couldn't handle it. I guess it could have been a woman, but since women are higher in trait agreeableness, I doubt it.
- dorkwood 6y ago
  It sounds like it might have been involved in a process such as this one: https://mobile.twitter.com/AaronCovrett/status/1125409161808838658 https://mobile.twitter.com/AaronCovrett/status/1125409161808...
- sp332 6y ago
  If you capture an object with light from various angles you can "re-light" it in post-processing. Drop it into different scenes and have realistic lighting coming from different angles. https://augmentedperception.github.io/therelightables/ https://augmentedperception.github.io/therelightables/
  - xuki 6y ago
    Wah this is magic.
    - sp332 6y ago
      Paul Debevec has been working on this steadily since at least 1999. http://www.pauldebevec.com/FiatLux/ http://www.pauldebevec.com/FiatLux/
    - WrtCdEvrydy 6y ago
      Light doesn't exist, it's made up.
    - michrassena 6y ago
      I recall something like this was done for a presidential portrait a few years ago. https://fstoppers.com/bts/how-smithsonian-created-insanely-accurate-3d-model-president-obama-48294 https://fstoppers.com/bts/how-smithsonian-created-insanely-a...
- reitzensteinm 6y ago
  Sprite Lamp sounds like it may fit the bill as an example, as well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fy3FvPg01w0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fy3FvPg01w0 Given the author's other post about a similar technique going on to be used at Quixel, presumably they were inferring normal maps from lighting data, and later metallic, AO, smoothness etc maps for PBR.
SulfurHexaFluri 6y ago
> Reluctantly, he forwarded the question to their technical support, who never answered. Because they don't know off the top of their heads and would have to test it to be sure which is a huge amount of work they don't have to do.
- serf 6y ago
  >Because they don't know off the top of their heads and would have to test it to be sure which is a huge amount of work they don't have to do. And that's called... poor customer service. Had I been faced with that behavior and had the freedom to switch vendors as OP I would have -- meaning that support behavior isn't without flaw, they lose a certain threshold of customers.
  - SulfurHexaFluri 6y ago
    Not a single company is going to recreate your unsupported setup to see what would happen and let you know unless there was a huge payment being made. Since the only reason OP is doing this is to save time, it would make no sense to spend weeks going around to each vendor trying to work out which one to pick. And often support people give wrong info, you may eventually find a vendor that just says "Sure you can do that" and then you get it and find out you cant.
  - varjag 6y ago
    This is just self-aggrandising. No mass production vendor would do R&D for your bizarre use case unless there's clear PR potential or you are ready to pick the tab.
    - nucleardog 6y ago
      Yeah I used to be in a weird position where most of my time was spent figuring out how to use and abuse a bunch of off-the-shelf things to build out one-offs of whatever crazy crap people could come up with. Lots of hardware and software reverse engineering and integration. I’d never in a million years expect a company to do my R&D/integration work for me when I’m buying one mass-produced consumer item and using it outside of its intended use-case.
offtop5 6y ago
Wouldn't it of been easier to just buy the camera and send it back if it didn't work ?
- SulfurHexaFluri 6y ago
  Cost isn't the issue in their comment. Time is. By the time you test it its already your time used.
  - offtop5 6y ago
    How exactly would Cannon of tested this for them. It's a odd use case with a custom setup
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

sroussey 6y ago

I’m curious to see what the visual effect ended up being. Any link to an example?

numpad0 6y ago
Sounds like a 3D capture rig than visual effects.
- Agentlien 6y ago
  That's correct. I can't say too much about the details. It ended up working really well but wasn't used in production for reasons of internal politics. The guy who had the original idea for the system, a former classmate of mine, later went on to start his own company, Quixel, based on similar ideas.
  - cbozeman 6y ago
    > wasn't used in production for reasons of internal politics In other words, some insecure shithead's ego got stepped on and he couldn't handle it. I guess it could have been a woman, but since women are higher in trait agreeableness, I doubt it.
dorkwood 6y ago
It sounds like it might have been involved in a process such as this one: https://mobile.twitter.com/AaronCovrett/status/1125409161808838658 https://mobile.twitter.com/AaronCovrett/status/1125409161808...
sp332 6y ago
If you capture an object with light from various angles you can "re-light" it in post-processing. Drop it into different scenes and have realistic lighting coming from different angles. https://augmentedperception.github.io/therelightables/ https://augmentedperception.github.io/therelightables/
- xuki 6y ago
  Wah this is magic.
  - sp332 6y ago
    Paul Debevec has been working on this steadily since at least 1999. http://www.pauldebevec.com/FiatLux/ http://www.pauldebevec.com/FiatLux/
  - WrtCdEvrydy 6y ago
    Light doesn't exist, it's made up.
  - michrassena 6y ago
    I recall something like this was done for a presidential portrait a few years ago. https://fstoppers.com/bts/how-smithsonian-created-insanely-accurate-3d-model-president-obama-48294 https://fstoppers.com/bts/how-smithsonian-created-insanely-a...
reitzensteinm 6y ago
Sprite Lamp sounds like it may fit the bill as an example, as well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fy3FvPg01w0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fy3FvPg01w0 Given the author's other post about a similar technique going on to be used at Quixel, presumably they were inferring normal maps from lighting data, and later metallic, AO, smoothness etc maps for PBR.

SulfurHexaFluri 6y ago

> Reluctantly, he forwarded the question to their technical support, who never answered. Because they don't know off the top of their heads and would have to test it to be sure which is a huge amount of work they don't have to do.

serf 6y ago
>Because they don't know off the top of their heads and would have to test it to be sure which is a huge amount of work they don't have to do. And that's called... poor customer service. Had I been faced with that behavior and had the freedom to switch vendors as OP I would have -- meaning that support behavior isn't without flaw, they lose a certain threshold of customers.
- SulfurHexaFluri 6y ago
  Not a single company is going to recreate your unsupported setup to see what would happen and let you know unless there was a huge payment being made. Since the only reason OP is doing this is to save time, it would make no sense to spend weeks going around to each vendor trying to work out which one to pick. And often support people give wrong info, you may eventually find a vendor that just says "Sure you can do that" and then you get it and find out you cant.
- varjag 6y ago
  This is just self-aggrandising. No mass production vendor would do R&D for your bizarre use case unless there's clear PR potential or you are ready to pick the tab.
  - nucleardog 6y ago
    Yeah I used to be in a weird position where most of my time was spent figuring out how to use and abuse a bunch of off-the-shelf things to build out one-offs of whatever crazy crap people could come up with. Lots of hardware and software reverse engineering and integration. I’d never in a million years expect a company to do my R&D/integration work for me when I’m buying one mass-produced consumer item and using it outside of its intended use-case.

offtop5 6y ago

Wouldn't it of been easier to just buy the camera and send it back if it didn't work ?

SulfurHexaFluri 6y ago
Cost isn't the issue in their comment. Time is. By the time you test it its already your time used.
- offtop5 6y ago
  How exactly would Cannon of tested this for them. It's a odd use case with a custom setup

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]