Now you see it, now you don't

[spookjj]

I think building rooms to suite the projected images from a DVD, might be the most feasible solution. It's less expensive in any direction simply bc the software/hardware required is just too costly at this point in time. This way you can maximize your effects also as you see best, you'd need to supply room specs and designs of course. I really like this idea and reasonably for under 2k (cheap projector, dvd, room build). It also puts your company in the driver's seat for a while since you have full control over every aspect of the production. Heck, you could even sell some of the room props and set build items. Like Allen said, start small...maybe do single walls at first, vs. full room, or even corner of a room... see how everyone bites. I think though you will be hard pressed to find folks paying more than $250 for a DVD, then again, sell props to go along with the set can greatly increase the package revenue. Some of the items Allen mentioned would be unbelieveable, it's an awesome effect...find a way to get it into people's hands with a DVD package. My ignorance may be getting the best of me here, hopefully it can be done by projecting via DVD in the first place.

[freak 'n' stein]

Harold,
the internet is a terrible form of communication, in conversation Im sure the words in your original post would have been fine. But on the net they struck a nerve with me. I wasnt calling you a sheister I was just alerting you to your languange and how it could be taken.
I dont think our industry could support $20,000 rooms. I think you will have much better luck with a scaled down version.
I know you have ideas but if you needed to scale down the effect a few options are
On a window it starts fogged up and wrds appear (very ghosty)
Another limited size projection that could be cool is blood seeping under a door
foot steps appearing on the ground possibly leading a group
A projection onto a corpse's face laying in a coffin or
a whole body decaying rapidly on a slab
Grudge style black hair "growing" from an actress who starts in the right place

As far as posting the how, Are you using the BenQ 870? I suppose it depends on the length of the throw. Its exciting that you are using Open CV 2.2. I looked into that for a few cemetary statues I am planning on getting around to making eventually. Since you guys already know the software you might consider using its motion tracking and recognition capabilities the way I wanted to.
Cemetary statues that pick on member of the group and all turn their heads to follow them through the set CV can do the grunt work and servos controlling a pan and tilt can move the heads. That effect once into the industry could be used for crows or vultures in a tree, scarecrows in a field (that would creep me right out), lots of cool options. You guys are knocking on the door of really cool stuff.

For those of you who dont grasp how cool what they are talking about could be check out this demo
Its slightly different tech, but it will help you see the possibilities.
Allen H

Wicked Cool Video Mapping!!! I went to the "Mr. Beam" website to check out more of their work. I wonder how much they charge for custom work. I remember at the show I naively made a comment about the roaches being a simple DVD projection and was quickly corrected by someone at the booth. Now the roaches, yes, I understand how that needs to involve all that tech, but if you mapped out a room & projected it, I'm sure the same effect as the video could be achieved closely. As stated before, a Silent Hill room would be sickening!!!!!



.....I did a little snooping around and found some free tools that I'm sure, with some tinkering could assist in getting where you wanna go.

http://hcgilje.wordpress.com/resourc...jection-tools/

[dr0zombie]

I spoke with these guys over their other effects offerings back before TW. The technology behind it is impressive and very well put together. Without getting into my ‘day job’, from a project offering perspective what they wanted for the cockroach scenes was actually reasonable for the quality of the solution they delivered. You could price out the indiivudal parts and the sets and realize they were not some DVD on a wall. I have a cockroach DVD on the wall scene. I really like it. =) It looks cool… doesn’t TOUCH what they did…. not even close….What they are getting into is the start of what will be some amazing offerings for the haunt industry. This is really cutting edge cool…

My comments on 10K should have been prefaced with…. As a haunter struggling to open in year one… Someone like Larry might have a much different view on spending 10k or 20k for a room that truly leaves people walking away stunned over what they were placed into.

[HauntedPaws]

The method being applied to to make this effect is a heuristic search method to find the alignment between an imaged virtual scene and a real object. Once you have have the alignment of the virtual space and the real space within a given tolerance you are able to transition between the virtual scene and the real scene seamlessly. The software package was written in C# using .NET 4.0, the alignment was done using Open CV 2.2 and the rendering was done with XNA 4.0 . The target system is a multi-core x2 or core family processor with a video card capable of handling DirectX 11. The image was projected using a low end BenQ projector.

Now seriously did that really do anybody any good at all?

Most of the applications you listed are freeware and a PC of that capability is under $500? Where does come in production? If so it might be feasible to get more clients and roll out more themes ever year?

[Spookyfinder]

Again, I don't see what's so "new" about this...why wouldn't a blue-ray suffice? Our customers wouldn't ever know and I think having all this back-end technology is just stroking the "haunters ego". Their are simpler ways to get the EXACT SAME EFFECT that could bring cost down. Just saying. Am I going to talk about how to do this, NO...I'm not going to take business away from GeckoFX. I'd be glad to talk to them privately about it. -Tyler

[beardedbil]

Not to hijack this thread but we are doing this exact type of effect with digital video repeaters and custom animations. We have aligned ourselves with a full service animation house and will be developing custom projection mappings as every haunt would probably want something unique. Our first set we may create is that of a doll room, we don't want to give out too many details at the moment but Tyler if your interested get in touch.
Best,
Bill Rod
Dark Tech Effects

[geckofx]

Well

Allen, we like the Ben Q MP525 ST. Everything is so tight in our industry a short throw projector is really necessary and you can't beat the 525 for the price. And brother I totally hear you on how text sometimes just doesn't read correctly. We are really trying as hard as we can to be a transparent company and react to the needs of our clients within the bounds of what we are trying to accomplish. As I'm sure your aware of though it's not easy. We have enough ideas shooting around to keep us busy with new products for years, but unfortunately like the rest of this industry we are on a limited budget and are trying to start the process of finding out what people are going to be most excited about. And honestly buddy if you ever want to discuss something my cell phone is always on and my email box is always open. If there is a particular effect you, or anyone else for that matter, is looking for along these lines talk to us, maybe we can custom develop something for you while producing a new product for us. Everyone wins.

Open CV is a killer package. I learned how to use it when I was doing my graduate studies in robotics. We used it as our primary vision package. It's versatile, scalable, and pretty damn quick if you know what your doing. In respect of this project we have been using it for an auto alignment aspect. But it is becoming cumbersome and really seems unnecessary relative to these types of installs. A manual alignment seems like it will suffice and can keep the development time down. We are however using it do real time motion tracking and are working on applying that to several different effects.

Tyler, blue ray, DVD, computer, or video repeater only change the cost of the source by a few hundred dollars at best. The development cost however doesn't change. So from our perspective we chose a low cost computer because it offers the flexibility of changing the parameters of the effect. This allows us to offer a one size fits all approach to these effects. You don't have to build your scene based on what we did, instead you adapt what we did to your scene. At least you can now, as of the time of Transworld we weren't there yet. If you already have a projector that meets the specs necessary by our packages all you have to do is ask, we can subtract the cost of our projector from the cost of our units. Just ask. Again my cell phone is always on and my email address is always open.

We have a custom animation house as well, with an impressive resume of many movies and TV shows I'm sure most of you have seen. We can do a full 3D scan of your scene and overlay a digital scene onto your actual scene. And absolutely none of us can afford it. So what's the point? What we are searching for in all of our effects is a balance between cost and effect. The question we are constantly plagued with is how can we take these high profile ideas and bring them down into something that fits this industry both in implementation and budget? We believe that within a short period of time there will be other offerings along the lines of the effects we are producing. We welcome the competition and fundamentally believe that it will reinforce what we are doing. Bill good luck buddy it will be interesting to see what you can produce and what you're price point will be. I can tell you that most people in this industry would faint at the idea of Mac 2k XB costing 15k. and what's a glass gobo going for nowadays?

Hauntedpaws I really don't understand what you were asking. Yes the computer and projector package is just under $1000. And the rest of the cost is divided between development of the original product and all the labor associated with prepping a product for delivery to a client as well as operating a business, this internet connection doesn't pay for itself after all.

I would say that after this type of response further development of this idea will happen in some respect. Silent Hill is obviously something that not only we as haunters know but the public in general knows. So for this type of effect it seems reasonable that they would expect something along those lines and I should imagine that is the direction we will take this. Keep in mind however that what we show in the future is one implementation of the idea. It can always be scaled down from multiple walls to a single wall.

Thanks,
Harold Bufford
Dead House Designs
harold@deadhousedesigns.com
504-606-3294

[Twin Locusts]

I genuinely love these threads!

In only three pages nearly every tenet of Adam Smith comes to life. The validity of competition forcing innovation and quality and driving value perception and price. It would be great for young learners to see firsthand how people mix talent with tangible material to create a thing of value; I fear the most rudimentary aspects of economics and trade are being lost to a strict consumerist mentality. Vendors in every industry but particularly one as niche as haunting expose a raw pure form of supply and demand.

One of the things I do for a living is teach argumentation and debate to high school and college students and some of these quotes are perfect illustrations of the free market thought process. The most beautiful thing about it is that seller and buyer always live and die by the natural law of capitalism. The market may not dictate every move you make but it will most certainly tell you which were sound; and the market will decide your ultimate fate.

[spookjj]

There are those who will pay the premium for top notch productions (the few, Larry..etc) and then there are the many(myself and Tyler sounds like) that just can't see investing alot when the customers will for 3 seconds see the effect and move onward. So there's an immediate demand for the cheaper production(like DVD projections) and unknown lesser demand for the higher priced production effect. It's very competitive out there that's for sure, Hi-Rez is making a new DVD with insects that will sell for $60, will haunters know the difference in quality(yes) bc we'll sit there and look at it for 10 minutes and study it (lol), will the general public know who go thru the haunts -more than likely not.

It's funny if you think about it, folks pay thousands for great props but when it comes to video projection displays effects, people hesistate... I think personally, it's because it's not a tangible object you can look and feel it , lol.

If you can really do mind blowing effects like painting the room for under 2k then I'm very excited, but, it would have to be greater than roaches with a wow factor. Make sure your at a good price point so folks will buy the product and you can continue producing very good effects otherwise you'll be frustrated from all your efforts and low sales. Aka, why bother creating an effect that's too costly...remember who you audience is, not the haunters (honestly) the customers walking thru the dark haunts with little light that might not be able to appreciate the great detail in your product.
Much of this is obvious so just 2 cents and food for thought ...

[beardedbil]

Don't forget that this effect is not just limited to a scene in a haunt but could encompass a full facade or pre-show. Personally this is where I believe you will get the most bang for your buck because your guests WILL stop and see it, rather then run past it...

Here is an example a colleague of mine created...
www.darktecheffects.com/projection.mp4

[Spookyfinder]

Bill,

Very nice!!! -Tyler

[spookjj]

actually, yeah that's fantantic idea using for a preshow getting everybody hyped up!... still like to use within haunt though