Thank you so much for this tutorial! I have been wanting to do this for years and when I got planet coaster I wanted to do something similar. Now I have some form of knowledge of how to do this in blender! Thank you once again I will definitely use this for some projects in the future!
If you use 3D tracking you can do vertical elements in the ride too. It's also a lot less work than manually tracking with a null object and it's built into newer versions of After Effects. But, it's also a little more technical, so I can understand not wanting to do it.
Ya know, I have no idea why no one attempted this in planet coaster. It has a LOT of potential! And could make for some fantastic ride creations! People who play planet coaster should learn how to use 3D programs and start making rides like these. The day When someone releases a 3D ride like this on planet coaster will make me really exited to see how it all turned out.
I agree! I can't wait to see what others do with this. I've got a couple of projects of my own that I'm working on, but they're far from being ready to share.
Awesome video! I guess you saw my tutorial as well, where I'm using Planet Coaster itself as the source image, but it's great to see another method - and you're explaining it very well. (even tho I have 0 skills on AE). Can't wait to see what you'll be doing with that!
Thanks! I actually hadn't seen your tutorial until after I came up with my method, although I did watch it prior to recording the tutorial. I had experimented early on with doing basically what you did, but I couldn't get the colors to match between the in-game textures and what was shown on the screen. I also had some issues keeping the entire screen in view, particularly when the ride vehicle got close. That's why I animate the zoom in this tutorial. I'm curious, in yours, did you also use the CC Power Pin effect? Or did you do the squinching with a different method?
For the colors, I'm usually using the non-bright screen, and then light-it up using in-game lights with close-enough colors... It's not ideal, but I like it better than the bright screen in most of the cases. Keeping the whole screen in view is indeed really tedious, so you have to design your scene very carefully and use the rotations of the car at your advantage. The zoom is really an improvement over my method. As for the squinch effect in itself, I got a friend to do that for me: Joseph AKA TheBeetles AKA the guy behind Terror Tracks. He did use the CC Power Pin, as he explained here: "I used this tutorial from the Creative Cow forums at: forums.creativecow.net/docs/forums/post.php?forumid=2&postid=1033706&univpostid=1033706&pview=t "1. Apply CC Power Pin to the layer you want to undistort. 2. Check "unstretch," and turn the effect off. 3. Align your four corner points with the distorted image. 4. Turn the effect back on. 5. KABLAMO! The distorted image is now rectangular and fills your comp." Now, here's some more because that's only one piece of the puzzle. The trick here is that you aren't doing this for a static image, so you'll have to repeat that process as an animation. Then once you're done, pre-comp that section with the CC Power Pin animation, and apply the Warp Stabilizer effect onto that precomp, which removes the imperfections from your CCPP animation."
Clever idea to use the non-lit screen and illuminate it with colored lights. I don't understand why the lit screens do weird things to the colors (I *think* what is happening is that it's converting from RGB to HSB and compressing the B channel, but I'm not certain). I tried manually tracking the corners of the screen but got weird wobble artifacts - it never occurred to me to use the warp stabilizer. But I think using the null objects and linking the CC Power Pin to those is mathematically more accurate. That being said, many years ago I had an internship at one of the animation companies that worked on the Spider Man ride, and got to look at some of their archived files. I can't say exactly how they did the squinch effect, since it's patented and protected by NDAs, but I can say that your method is actually closer to how it is normally done than my method is.
Also if you're interested in learning more about After Effects, Video Copilot has some really good free tutorials for people new to the software: www.videocopilot.net/basic/
Oh wow, I would kill to see how real comapnies do squinching! The patent (patents.google.com/patent/US6462769B1/en) is indeed quite vague on that. Our methods seems like they are workarounds rather than a proper solution, especially as we are loosing on resolution the more sideway we see the screen. I think nowaday 3D softwares are capable of simulating a virtual, distorded camera. TheCodeMaster started to experiment with Blender on that. I also remember seeing people doing real-time squinching using Wiimote (totally not related to theme park, but in the end the same trick). What is also amusing is that chinese companies also have fun with squinching, as seen here: ruclips.net/video/oA199Qky-IA/видео.html So they must know "the secret"!
A more simpler way is to mock up the scene and put the effects in pre hand. Then you can remove everything except for your scene, and crop the four corners!
Thank you so much for this tutorial! I have been wanting to do this for years and when I got planet coaster I wanted to do something similar. Now I have some form of knowledge of how to do this in blender! Thank you once again I will definitely use this for some projects in the future!
If you use 3D tracking you can do vertical elements in the ride too. It's also a lot less work than manually tracking with a null object and it's built into newer versions of After Effects. But, it's also a little more technical, so I can understand not wanting to do it.
Nice explanation thank you.
Very cool !.. Great tutorial !, Thanks for making it available ! Cheers :)
Ya know, I have no idea why no one attempted this in planet coaster. It has a LOT of potential! And could make for some fantastic ride creations! People who play planet coaster should learn how to use 3D programs and start making rides like these. The day When someone releases a 3D ride like this on planet coaster will make me really exited to see how it all turned out.
I agree! I can't wait to see what others do with this. I've got a couple of projects of my own that I'm working on, but they're far from being ready to share.
Very underrated!
Awesome video! I guess you saw my tutorial as well, where I'm using Planet Coaster itself as the source image, but it's great to see another method - and you're explaining it very well. (even tho I have 0 skills on AE).
Can't wait to see what you'll be doing with that!
Thanks! I actually hadn't seen your tutorial until after I came up with my method, although I did watch it prior to recording the tutorial. I had experimented early on with doing basically what you did, but I couldn't get the colors to match between the in-game textures and what was shown on the screen. I also had some issues keeping the entire screen in view, particularly when the ride vehicle got close. That's why I animate the zoom in this tutorial. I'm curious, in yours, did you also use the CC Power Pin effect? Or did you do the squinching with a different method?
For the colors, I'm usually using the non-bright screen, and then light-it up using in-game lights with close-enough colors... It's not ideal, but I like it better than the bright screen in most of the cases.
Keeping the whole screen in view is indeed really tedious, so you have to design your scene very carefully and use the rotations of the car at your advantage. The zoom is really an improvement over my method.
As for the squinch effect in itself, I got a friend to do that for me: Joseph AKA TheBeetles AKA the guy behind Terror Tracks. He did use the CC Power Pin, as he explained here:
"I used this tutorial from the Creative Cow forums at: forums.creativecow.net/docs/forums/post.php?forumid=2&postid=1033706&univpostid=1033706&pview=t
"1. Apply CC Power Pin to the layer you want to undistort.
2. Check "unstretch," and turn the effect off.
3. Align your four corner points with the distorted image.
4. Turn the effect back on.
5. KABLAMO! The distorted image is now rectangular and fills your comp."
Now, here's some more because that's only one piece of the puzzle.
The trick here is that you aren't doing this for a static image, so you'll have to repeat that process as an animation. Then once you're done, pre-comp that section with the CC Power Pin animation, and apply the Warp Stabilizer effect onto that precomp, which removes the imperfections from your CCPP animation."
Clever idea to use the non-lit screen and illuminate it with colored lights. I don't understand why the lit screens do weird things to the colors (I *think* what is happening is that it's converting from RGB to HSB and compressing the B channel, but I'm not certain). I tried manually tracking the corners of the screen but got weird wobble artifacts - it never occurred to me to use the warp stabilizer. But I think using the null objects and linking the CC Power Pin to those is mathematically more accurate.
That being said, many years ago I had an internship at one of the animation companies that worked on the Spider Man ride, and got to look at some of their archived files. I can't say exactly how they did the squinch effect, since it's patented and protected by NDAs, but I can say that your method is actually closer to how it is normally done than my method is.
Also if you're interested in learning more about After Effects, Video Copilot has some really good free tutorials for people new to the software: www.videocopilot.net/basic/
Oh wow, I would kill to see how real comapnies do squinching! The patent (patents.google.com/patent/US6462769B1/en) is indeed quite vague on that. Our methods seems like they are workarounds rather than a proper solution, especially as we are loosing on resolution the more sideway we see the screen. I think nowaday 3D softwares are capable of simulating a virtual, distorded camera. TheCodeMaster started to experiment with Blender on that. I also remember seeing people doing real-time squinching using Wiimote (totally not related to theme park, but in the end the same trick).
What is also amusing is that chinese companies also have fun with squinching, as seen here: ruclips.net/video/oA199Qky-IA/видео.html
So they must know "the secret"!
Is there a more a more simpler way to do this? Awesome job
A more simpler way is to mock up the scene and put the effects in pre hand. Then you can remove everything except for your scene, and crop the four corners!
@@Makamakazi yeah still a little confused by that I've got to be honest haha. Thanks though!
@@beniboy2k9 no problem!
Can you do a tutorial on how to animate for the projection dome?
Incredible
WOW!
Thanks!
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