Renaissance Look Using SA

[Chris LeDOux]

I shot a live action video recently and the look we are going for is quite similar to the one seen here http://www.renaissance-lefilm.com/espacepresse.htm for the animated movie Renaissance. Granted they were using 3D with motion capture..ect to achieve this look so different rules apply. What I am wondering though is if SA could treat my live action footage in such a way to achieve something similar. I lit the actors on a green screen with a noirish dramatic sort of lighting to them to help in the process (or hurt). Any input you have would be greatly appreciated. Thanks. Chris

[Synthetik]

I took a quick look at the example images you posted, and i think you could create something like that particular look in Studio Artist. Using the Threshold Image Operation might be one approach to getting the black and white contrast. Depending on how your actors are lighted you might want to use one of the LA algorithm options. So you could try a Soft Threshold or a Soft LA Threshold algorithm and adjust the controls to get the image detail you re looking for.

If you want it to be more cartoonish, then i'd probably use a hard threshold or la hard threshold and then vectorize the thresholded result using one of the vectorizer region effects to get a more cartoony look.

As far as the green screen, i'd probably just select that and fill with black, unless you get lucky and your threshold operation fill it in with black. However, that may not be the case for the settings you will want to bring out detail in your actors faces. The Selective Color Map Ip Op would be another way to turn the green background into solid black.

I'll try to post an example or 2 for you at some point.

[Synthetik]

One other thing, you might want to preprocess your source footage with an Ip Op like Smooth before running the Threshold Ip Op.

[Synthetik]

Is this what you are looking for:


This was done with a LA hard threshold in the Threshold IP Op followed by the vectorizer using the flat input technique.

[Synthetik]

Here's a different approach to a stylized noire look. I used 2 layers, a vectorized bw sketch in one layer and a underpinning min composited at 50% transparency created with the vectorized Threshold Ip Op processing to give the sketch some mass.

[Chris LeDOux]

John,

Wow thanks for your input. The really high contrast and no texture image is the one I am after for sure. I'll play with those settings and see if I can get the movie not to buzz. Thanks for your input.

Chris

[Synthetik]

Here's another example of the real high contrast look.


The way i made this was with 2 different passes of the Threshold Ip Op. I first used the LA Hard Threshold algorithm to get a lot of detail. However, for this particular source image it also adds a lot of noise and extraneous detail in the darker regions. So i did a second pass using the Hard Threshold with a Min Composite for the Ip Op, so it fills in the dark areas with solid black while still keeping the original detail in the face from the LA HArd Threshold. I then used the Vectorizer Flat Input Technique to smooth it a little.