The Research And Implementation Of Cinematography Simulation System

As the cinema VFX industry develops,CG technology is more and more required by movie production.The ratio of CG production in a movie production keeps going up.In the past time,CG production mainly takes place in the postproduction after the production finished.But now the trend is that CG technology gradually takes participant in production,involved in the filmmaking before the principle cinematography begins.The new workflow can save up time and money for the live shooting,meanwhile it can improve the efficiency of the CG production in postproduction.But the workflow brings up some new demands on filmmakers,they need some basic knowledge about CG technology.Sometime only by real practice,can filmmakers unleash the full potential of the new workflow.Based on analysis of the current workflow,this thesis reveals that in the traditional CG workflow,the virtual camera in a 3D software application is operated by standard input devices like keyboard and mouse.Furthermore the movement trace of the virtual camera is controlled by key-frame animation.This traditional operation manner lacks intuitiveness,requiring much practice to get used to.For directors and DPs,on one side,they cannot fully use their experience on the familiar conventional cinematography equipment;on the other side,if they don’t take time to practice operating the software,they will have to entrust the shot designing work to the professional CG software operator.But the potential risk here is: the difficulty to transfer ideas into CG software operator’s mind.If the communication failed,the operator may not exactly follow the directors and DPs and design the shot as they have imagined.According to the problem mentioned above,this thesis builds up a simulation hardware system,which has identical movement manner as the conventional cinematography equipments.The system can collect the movement data of the hardware by using some electronic and mechanical components.After processing the collected movement data,a corresponding application is developed to drive the movement of the virtual camera in 3D software with data from the simulation hardware system.Directors and DPs can use this simulation hardware system as the Human-Computer Interface with 3D software to operate the virtual camera,which could leading to an improved workflow.