It's optitrack (making of shows their UI)... I was a bit surprised it appears they dropped vicon (thanks to vrpn?). I've worked with both, both have pros/cons, but vicon is just so dead easy to calibrate (i.e. it just 'works'); it's worth the price of admission....
Definitely has CGI written in it. Like the last scene with them outside: the aspect ratio of copter to building... that's thousands if it's the palm size quads to be able to see them at that distance. But a lot of the motions look like standard kmel trajectories of past demos (fig 8, x-cross, spirals), so easy to replica relatively, even 'mocap the mocap' for CGI-ing virtual copters in the other scenes, rather than fully animating, hence a nice application to test the system possibilities. Still kudos to the kmel team! Would have been cooler if they did that dolly shot using a quadcopter with a camera gimbal :)
Glad I'm not the only one who felt the commercial was CG.
That is really disappointing if that's what they did. Another indication that quadcopters are at the Peak of Inflated Expectations. Some director thought it would be neat to have quads as "characters", there's a lot of buzz around these things now. But, they didn't move the way he wanted (even using a Vicon!) and so he decided to fake it.
Although there is some super technology in this video, the use of CGI by the director has completely undermined the Lexus brand for high end engineering. Initially one is gob smacked at the state of the art development that Lexus has aligned with. Only to quickly realise during the advert that the Director has increasingly resorted to CGI because the tech did not do what he wanted, to the point at the end of the clip where cgi is used to put 100s and 100s of quads in the sky.
The "making of the movie" clips are actually better adverts than the final polished advert.
These guys have done incredible work for several years. They do it very differently than what diy drones and other "roving" aerial robot efforts do. No GPS. No barometer. They use infrared beacons to triangulate position. Beautiful in simplicity. Daniel Mellinger's PhD thesis is also a great read: http://www.seas.upenn.edu/~dmel/mellingerDissertation.pdf Alex Kushleyev Diy drones Blog has had some great posts. Vijay Kumar and others at the GRASP at Univ of Penn are amazing. This was just another great example of where aerial robots will be heading....
Pretty cute little quads. Definitely have a "Batteries Not Included" feel to them.
But it seems to me that much of the footage in the commercial is actually CG. The movements don't quite seem right. ie: high bank angles with low accelerations. It just doesn't look right.
Comments
@R_Lefebvre: 240fps is a blessing for 'post'
It's optitrack (making of shows their UI)... I was a bit surprised it appears they dropped vicon (thanks to vrpn?). I've worked with both, both have pros/cons, but vicon is just so dead easy to calibrate (i.e. it just 'works'); it's worth the price of admission....
Definitely has CGI written in it. Like the last scene with them outside: the aspect ratio of copter to building... that's thousands if it's the palm size quads to be able to see them at that distance. But a lot of the motions look like standard kmel trajectories of past demos (fig 8, x-cross, spirals), so easy to replica relatively, even 'mocap the mocap' for CGI-ing virtual copters in the other scenes, rather than fully animating, hence a nice application to test the system possibilities. Still kudos to the kmel team! Would have been cooler if they did that dolly shot using a quadcopter with a camera gimbal :)
@Jason: funny that you ask... ;)
It's neat to watch. Now lets see them do it outside without all the IR cameras.
Glad I'm not the only one who felt the commercial was CG.
That is really disappointing if that's what they did. Another indication that quadcopters are at the Peak of Inflated Expectations. Some director thought it would be neat to have quads as "characters", there's a lot of buzz around these things now. But, they didn't move the way he wanted (even using a Vicon!) and so he decided to fake it.
The making of movie was great, impressive and real. The finished commercial, not so much...
We need a Pixar drone movie!....it has to happen!
Although there is some super technology in this video, the use of CGI by the director has completely undermined the Lexus brand for high end engineering. Initially one is gob smacked at the state of the art development that Lexus has aligned with. Only to quickly realise during the advert that the Director has increasingly resorted to CGI because the tech did not do what he wanted, to the point at the end of the clip where cgi is used to put 100s and 100s of quads in the sky.
The "making of the movie" clips are actually better adverts than the final polished advert.
Pretty cute little quads. Definitely have a "Batteries Not Included" feel to them.
But it seems to me that much of the footage in the commercial is actually CG. The movements don't quite seem right. ie: high bank angles with low accelerations. It just doesn't look right.