I hear it's done with mirrors

[andrewducker]

After the sixth person on my friends list posted youtube videos of Hatsune Miki, Japanese virtual pop star, I finally got around to watching one of them this morning.

"" (Watch on YouTube)

How the hell are they doing that? At various points it looks to me like the lights at the side of the stage are sweeping through her, with no loss of fidelity. And she moves around (although not much - and there's clearly a _very_ bright light behind her). Was there a technology breakthrough that nobody told me about?

Comments

[recycled-sales.livejournal.com]

Might be something similar to the effects used here -

http://gizmodo.com/5652380/the-church-of-the-sacred-hologram

[bracknellexile.livejournal.com]

There's got to be a certain knack to filming it I'd imagine; synchronising frame rate and refresh rate or somesuch. I was trying to find videos of Within Temptation performing a duet with a virtual Anneke Van Giersbergen on their last acoustic tour that uses the same projection onto transparent screen tech but none of the youtube videos come across anywhere near as clear as it was in person.

I wonder if your vid is touched up in post-production...?

ETA: In fact, in an interview Within Temptation said that they themselves tried to film the show but generally failed because, to work properly, the projections need generally low light levels on the rest of the stage and, compared to a normal gig, there's not actually that much lighting in your vid either. So yes, I suspect the latest advance is in the filming rather than the projection tech which has been around for a wee while now (but obviously if you can't film it well, won't have made it to Youtube et al)

[nojay.livejournal.com]

If you look at the first few seconds of the Miku movie you can actually see the top edge of the 45-degree "mirror" stretched across the stage about three metres up. There's also a big gap between the front of the audience and the stage for the down-projector, another requirement for the illusion to work.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pepper%27s_ghost

It's an old trick, enhanced by the use of projectors and 3-D modelling.

[andrewducker]

Thank you!

[bohemiancoast.livejournal.com]

It's Pepper's Ghost surely? Which is one of those things, like the camera obscura, that's still delightful and fascinating despite having been around for a very long time.

[andrewducker]

Indeed it is. I was confused for a bit, because it looked like she was moving more than she actually does.

[chuma.livejournal.com]

All I can think of here is how awesome an Expo with a Street Fighter 4 in 3D projection would be.

[robhu.livejournal.com]

There's a bluray image of this concert floating around...