SCANNING TECH
Schaefer showed the results to his director. “He didn’t know what to expect, but he was surprised at how much we could explore and in such detail. He understood instinctively that he could plan an entire movie, including blocking and camera placements, remotely. “You can measure things like doorways accurately to within two centimetres. That means you know in advance if a piece of furniture or a dolly can fit through this doorway, or how tall the ceiling is. It gives you a lot of options in your production office before you get to location.” Schaefer says he’d like to see location scouts equipped with such scanners. “A location scout will often come back with hundreds of pictures of different places, which can be confusing to look at. Also, they tend to shoot with super wide-angle lenses, so even a small bathroom closet feels like it’s the Taj Mahal. “When you’re done, you have a reference for every set and location on how it was dressed and lit. You can archive it, and if you ever need to do pickups, add close-ups or extend a scene in the same environment, you already have the entire set pre-built. You can then place it on a green-screen stage or in a volume. The scans are often high enough resolution – and even if not, the background walls in a volume are usually slightly out of focus anyway. It’s more than good enough for pickups.” He thinks it’s a tool the whole production can use. “I would bring in the production designer, the costume designer, all the heads of department and especially the grips, key grip and gaffer. You can point out the size of a wall to the production designer or set decorator, so they understand how to dress the space. You could even display the output inside a VR application and have someone explore it wearing goggles – though it can feel a little
THE PLOT THICKENS LiDAR scans processed into 3D splats can be used in Blender for scene layout
strange. For example, if you're in Grand Central Station or a massive concert hall, you would need enough physical space around you to walk the entire length of it in virtual reality because it’s so accurate – one metre in VR equals one metre in the real world.”
Schaefer suggests the K1/Jetset workflow could be integrated with an Artemis Prime viewfinder, allowing him to use a virtual camera with different lenses to previs, block and test camera positions and lens choices for an entire show using the scans. Among other benefits, this could help avoid costly on-location errors with a full crew. “This will transform how live-action productions can be conceived and planned,” elaborates Mack. “We can use VP from the earliest stages, with the entire team referencing the same 1:1 accurate scan of locations. In addition, we’ll be building software to best enable this process.”
THIS WILL transform how live productions ARE CONCEIVED”
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DEFINITIONMAGS
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