As an immersive developer, I love creating VR/AR, but outside of work, I’ve always had a passion for painting and oil on canvas in particular. So, this year, I set myself a challenge which I’ve labelled ‘Dan’s Dailies,’ where I create one piece of art a day and share it with the world. During my research to find some reference pictures, I came across ‘EbSynth,’ a piece of software which allows you to turn a video into a ‘painting style’ animation. A fantastic way to combine the day job with my passion for art. So, how does it work and why might it be useful to an event leader or experiential enthusiast?
Picture courtesy of EbSynth
In a nutshell, EbSynth requires two things: an image sequence of the video, which will have the ‘painting’ effect added and ‘keyframes’ that tell EbSynth the style you want to achieve. When you sync them, the software tracks the visual data and calculates the optical flow. At the end of this process, it can export an image sequence to your video editing software with all frames of your original video styled in the same way as your keyframes. Your video has become an animated ‘painting,’ just like the portraits at Hogwarts in the Harry Potter movies. I obviously wanted to have a go myself.
I downloaded the currently free Beta version and set to work recording my video. I used my desktop DeLorean from ‘Back To The Future,’ which meant first recording a short video sequence and then creating a couple of ‘keyframes’ to show EbSynth how I wanted my masterpiece to look. This also tells EbSynth about the angles of the object you are filming.
Video courtesy of Dan Stringer and EbSynth
After ‘painting’ over three frames, I ended up with the style that I wanted to apply to the entire video. I was pleased with the final result, which you can see here:
Video courtesy of Dan Stringer and EbSynth
So, why is this exciting? At the most simplistic level, EbSynth allows you to create a high quality, stylised video to engage your attendees in a different way from traditional film or animation. It takes you by surprise, as you expect a painting and then, Hogwarts-style, it moves. Perhaps you can make imagery or content come to life at your next experience. You could even commission an artist to paint keyframes in particular styles suited to your event or exhibition concept and branding. Imagine this custom footage presented to your audience as an opening moment to your event, or on the entrance to your booth on giant LED screens. You could even use EbSynth with a green screen to take your audience on a journey, with presenters seemingly appearing from stylised versions of different global cities.
As well as making it into the latest edition of ‘Dan’s Dailies,’ it’s also given me food for thought when it comes to our ongoing search for the next innovations in event technology.
Header image courtesy of and EbSynth
