tween

May 16, 2007 9:14 AM

Life Imitating Web. Experimenting with very simple, life-like scenes in Flash by Ka Wai Cheung
posted by sluglicker (14 comments total)

I've been playing around with some of these ideas since filmgeek's previous post (you can see the rest of Missing Pages here). Still have not figured out how he did the long, slow zoom-in between the two huge structures, though. The ideas by Ka Wai Cheung are self-described as simple, but very instructive and excellent fuel for the imagination.
posted by sluglicker at 9:15 AM on May 16, 2007 [1 favorite]

how do i imitat web
posted by rxrfrx at 9:30 AM on May 16, 2007

Interesting stuff! Not exactly trompe l'oeil, but the techniques help ground the vector characters and make them feel like part of the scene rather than just floating in front of a backdrop.

I'm reminded of what Scott McCloud calls the "masking effect" where relatively cartoonish characters are placed in front of incredibly detailed backgrounds. The effect is used very well in Japanese comics, and I could see something like that applied to Flash, with effects like these linking the foreground and background.
posted by L. Fitzgerald Sjoberg at 9:30 AM on May 16, 2007

the rain is pretty cool
posted by 2shay at 9:35 AM on May 16, 2007

Though this is by no means as experimental as the post, I did some backend work on a flash site that I really liked and the design sensibility was similar.

http://www.mwardmusic.com/
posted by lumpenprole at 10:06 AM on May 16, 2007 [1 favorite]

Interesting stuff. I think a little rotoscoping would go a long way to making this a really eye-popping effect.
posted by boo_radley at 10:10 AM on May 16, 2007

Computing the exact behavior of an object via the equations of physics can get complex and computationally expensive, especially in a general-purpose CPU, hence the growth of hardware physics engines (eg PhysX) that offload the bulk of the number crunching to dedicated silicon.

So, finding or creating a "hack" that gets you 95% of the way there in a specific situation ("there" being whatever effect you are trying to reproduce visually) without having to do the computational heavy lifting necessary for the general case is cool, but I'm afraid I see the images here and, unfortunately, to my eye, these hacks are only getting the developer about 30% of the way there.

Take the raindrops for example - if you sort of squint and don't look too closely, they kinda sorta look a bit like raindrops. But look at all closely and you notice that they really don't look anything like raindrops - why do they have long, uniform tails, for example? Why do they not descend vertically, but apparently drift sideways as they fall? Why don't they accelerate at all? The drips coming off the streetlight are better, but are kinda ruined for me by the other "raindrops".

Similarly, using varying opacity to simulate low, thin cloud for the airplane looked OK, but the plane itself was totally unconvincing, in fact, distractingly so. The reflections of the bird on the "water" looked really fake, too.

Anyway, I guess maybe the point is that the developer believes that s/he can replace 50,000 lines of really complex general-purpose code with 5 lines of simple (I'm making these numbers up, by the way), special-purpose code, and while I agree with the sentiment, maybe it would be more reasonable to try cutting down 50,000 lines to 50, or even 500.
posted by kcds at 10:55 AM on May 16, 2007

I don't think the construction "x imitates y" means what he thinks it means.
posted by nasreddin at 11:01 AM on May 16, 2007

For a much more interesting set of experiments, pay a visit to Mr. Skinner
posted by popkinson at 12:15 PM on May 16, 2007

craptacular flash mastery in itself - not to mention the text.
posted by FidelDonson at 1:43 PM on May 16, 2007

Each time he referred to a "realistic" effect, I was left thinking just the opposite. The rainfall was just bad, especially the way-too-slow drops from the lamp post. I guess the site is only supposed to be exemplary and not a final product type thing?
posted by adamms222 at 3:33 PM on May 16, 2007

I'm not sure this is something that is new or "experimental" because of limitations specific to using Flash, which I don't have much exprience with. But all of these techniques like using easy ease and curves on keyframes to simulate more realistic motion is something that pretty much everyone does in most other visual effects programs like After Effects. The thing of animating basic planes to simulate birds, butterflies, etc. are pretty common as are blended duplicates of an object or layer to create reflections when attempting to blend CGI with live footage, or realworld stills. I guess I'm missing why this is bringing up anything new.

I mean if you don't do any vfx work or know much about it might introduce ideas and techniques you're not aware of, but the "art" trappings encasing the ideas and the vibe of it being some kind of discovery through describing it as "experimental flash" make it seem to me a little ridiculous, like trying implying that you discovered the use of a vanishing point in drawing/painting because you just figured it out yourelf.
posted by coogerdark at 4:55 PM on May 16, 2007

how do i imitat web
posted by flaterik at 11:21 PM on May 16, 2007

Isn't this art imitating life, rather than life imitating art?

I was expecting maybe real-life versions of Flash cartoons, or something.
posted by Many bubbles at 5:29 PM on May 17, 2007