When you’ve analyzed
as many trick videos as I have, you develop a sense for it. That’s simple wire removal, that’s just a thing that happens
when you do that, and this is, of course, a person in green
keyed out from under plastic… hmm. Well, you can see the second guy
through the first one, and you can kinda see the underside
of the sheets with no one there, which is not something you can just—
and the whole thing is happening in a real, moving shot. For the first time ever, I’m at a complete loss as to
how in the world this could’ve— Oh, okay, I got it. I got it. Um, but I can’t really explain it to you. See, this isn’t just some gag
by a kid on the internet. It’s part of a whole series
of legitimate video art by a digital artist
with a Star Wars–worthy name of Kiyan Forootan, and to break down the super-advanced
techniques he used to create this, I’d have to basically first give you
an entire background fundamentals course in computer graphics. So let’s do it. [clears throat] [piano music]
Points connected by lines form a polygon, which defines a flat surface. Many polygons interconnected
at various angles define three-dimensional structures
in the computer so efficiently that a 3D model of this fake cap
could totally fit on a floppy disk. Ah, crap. That was an antique. Of course, it would look
like total garbage unless it’s shaded. Through various algorithms
to smooth out polygon edges and calculate how light would interact
with surfaces in the real world, we can mix a bunch of textures
and make the models look very realistic. The resulting image files are much bigger, and the time and processing power
it takes to render them can overwhelm even computers like this— Ah, [bleep]. That was brand new. To make the models move like in all your favorite animated films
and games and… game-films, we have to puppeteer them by hand,
but virtually, like stop motion, but better. But also we don’t have to. Sometimes we can just make human monkeys
jump around in the real world and capture their motion. Real human monkeys are prone to forming overly high opinions
of their own performance, but motion capture data
is humble and low-maintenance and can be applied to anything, like a monster house! Or all the surreal dancers
in this Major Lazer video. But not this dancing baby from the ’90s. This wasn’t done with motion capture.
Stop thinking it was. And sometimes the animation
can be procedural, where we make math do all the work
by simulating real-world dynamics. There’s particle dynamics,
rigid body dynamics, soft body dynamics, and cloth dynamics. Congratulations, you now understand everything about
computer-generated images, with the exception of a few minor details. Now, let’s reexamine
the Dancing Phantoms clip with your new, educated eyes. Kiyan filmed a real background,
tracked the camera motion, and placed generic
human 3D models into it. He then threw virtual sheets over them
using cloth simulation. To make those look real,
he also probably photographed a spherical panorama of the location
so that the environment cast light and reflections
onto the sheets. And finally, he just…
turned off the humans. But the most important element
of this whole thing is, of course, the motion-captured dancing,
and to recreate that, I spent a few thousand dollars
on a state-of-the-art active marker optical
performance capture system that can… wait, I’m being told now
that you can actually download all kinds of motion capture samples
for free from the Internet. That’s probably what Kiyan did. But it makes me wonder. If the dance motion capture is pre made,
and the sheet behavior is simulated, and each of theses phantom clips
is set to commercial pop songs, [“U Can’t Touch This” plays] Then what part of this is the actual art? Is it the shiny colorful plastic? I guess the shiny colorful sculptures
of Jeff Koons are considered good art and so are the infantile scribbles
of Robero Britto, but Jeff Koons has been known
to copy other creative works and has been sued for it. And Brito sued others
for copying his style, and that Major Lazer video
isn’t a Major Lazer video at all, it’s an intro for an awards show
made by Method Studios, and even though Kiyan Forootan is nowhere
in the credits of this project, the stylistic similarities are striking. And guess which predates which. [chuckles]
The art world is terrible. I’m glad I’m on YouTube.
This guy puts as much effort into five minutes as some YouTube celebrities put into their entire careers.
This was way too professional for a 5 min youtube video.
Captain D deserves his own TV spot.
Can't believe he doesn't even have 700k subs after 10 years.
Dang.. I thought Serkis toned down his digital makeup rhetoric a while back :D
"The art world is terrible" sad but true
Yeah, Captain D! This one was so informative!
His character he plays reminds me of a old VHS film i would watch on at school on a tv with wheels.
That fucking mic drop at 4:30
Thats seriously a very good explanation of 3d computer graphics. Really gets the gist of it without going into too much detail.
Of course it only touches the surface of what 3dCG is but it goes over the basics well despite being just a minute or so long