Chris Manners

Reality in 360 Degrees

When Flipside Studios (www.flipsidestudios.com) started creating image-based VR scenes several years ago, the company's principal, John Greenleigh, already had 13 years of experience with photographing products and people. When the studio first got involved with VR photography, the tools were raw (or nonexistent), so the Flipside team members had to build their own. Their experience serves as an example of how to tackle tough projects with new gear.

At the time, online VR was relatively new and Flipside had little experience in the field. However, when Apple said it planned to create around 90 of these animations in the next year, the San Francisco-based Flipside decided to investigate. The team members found only a few examples of online image-based VR (or immersive image) files, so they approached some digital photographers who tended to be early adopters to get their advice. One photographer mentioned that Apple already made online image-based VR software, something Apple surprisingly had neglected to mention to Greenleigh's team.

So the roller coaster ride began. The studio agreed to invest in and learn the technology, and was able to work with Apple's engineers to develop the techniques needed to create high-quality image animations. The initial project involved shooting an Apple Power Mac 8100 with a digital camera and creating a simple horizontal VR movie. Flipside placed the computer on a turntable and moved it by hand. The studio was more accustomed to lighting objects for view from a single angle. Now the object needed to be illuminated from 36 positions. Getting the lighting correct required a lot of trial and error.

Building the rig

After shooting a few projects with the hand-turned turntable, the team at Flipside realized that automating the process would be more sensible. At the time, there weren't any off-the-shelf VR camera rig and turntable solutions, so a custom-built setup was the only option. To that end, Apple provided Greenleigh with the name of a mechanical and software engineer and designer, Lewis Knapp.

Together Greenleigh and Knapp decided to develop the camera rig and the object turntable as separate yet interconnected units. The rig consisted of a movable arm-on which the camera was mounted-that could extend and move up and down while keeping registration with the center of the object. The turntable was motorized and designed to turn in increments of 5 to 20 degrees. Custom software controlled a system of servo motors and pneumatic pistons that moved both the camera rig and the turntable.

The system that Knapp designed still provides more flexibility in positioning lights and moving the camera than many off-the-shelf systems.

The turntable and rig can accommodate objects as small as a laptop computer and as large as a motorcycle. Because the rig and turntable are separate components, it's easy to get between them to position lights with a great degree of flexibility.

Although Greenleigh's first attempt at creating an image-based VR movie involved a lot of trial and error experimentation, Apple was happy enough with the end result to put the movie online. As he refined his procedure, Greenleigh continuously reduced the number of lighting and positioning corrections he had to make in Photoshop, thereby reducing production time-a good thing, as Apple continued to shorten his deadlines.


Flipside's camera rig includes computer-controlled pneumatic pistons to raise and lower the rig, largely automating image capture.

Photocopiers in 360 degrees

As Flipside's reputation and client list grew, the studio starting working on more complex projects, including an extensive interactive VR tour for Hewlett Packard (HP). The company wanted to create a virtual tour of its LJ8100 photocopier to demonstrate how the copier could be customized with various options and components.

The development house hired by HP, the now-defunct MindSphere of Point Reyes, CA, convinced HP that a virtual showroom for the product would be a cost-effective method that let customers see how the printer could be configured. A MindSphere producer contacted Flipside.

Flipside sent four people to the shoot: a head photographer, two assistants, and one postproduction digital artist for proofing and retouching shots on-site. The client sent three people, including the producer and Web designer, who directed the shoot and determined how the machine should look, what lights would be appropriate, and what angles should be viewable.

One challenge of this project was how to illustrate the way viewers would add the copier's accessories, such as paper trays. The client wanted visitors to be able to configure their own virtual copiers. So Greenleigh and his crew had to ensure they shot the correct number of frames to illustrate the many accessories as they flew in from off-screen and were attached to the basic copier configuration.

Because the producer had nailed down a tight storyboard and naming convention at the preproduction meeting, keeping track of each frame of the movie was complex but manageable.

To avoid creating specific lighting setups for each object on a turntable, the Flipside team used broad lighting sources. To that end, large scrims and soft boxes surrounded each object with global illumination. Greenleigh used different light intensities on each side to make sure there was a shadow side and highlight side and that all of the planes separated, thereby avoiding a flat-looking shot. He didn't use colored gels. By the time a VR movie is compressed and viewed at 320x240, the color subtleties either get lost or create distractions.


The image-based 3D animations from Flipside Studios formed the center of a Shockwave project that let viewers create their own configurations of the HP LaserJet 8100. You can find teh Shockwave file on the Flipside Studios Web site (www.flipsidestudios.com).

Photo Shoot Production

In the initial setup for the photo shoot, the copier base unit had to be positioned on a turntable, making sure the object was centered both on the table and within the camera frame. Laser lights and plumb lines helped to line up the copier, turntable, and camera on a single, centered point of reference.

The team attached a laser to a light stand arm, positioned it about four feet above the turntable, leveled it, and pointed it straight toward the center of the turntable. The turntable was positioned and leveled using standard bubble levels. When the turntable and laser were both level, the laser dot ceased to float around the center mark.

After aligning the turntable, the camera and rig were lined up with the center point of the turntable by using two plumb lines-one behind the turntable and one in front. Then the plumb lines, the center turntable dot, and the camera were aligned, and the camera was moved into position so that all of these registration points converged.

The copier was designed to support an optional base under the main unit, so the VR sequence had to accommodate the smooth animation of the additional base component being added. During photography, the heavy main unit-it took three people to lift it-rested on solid boxes with the same height as the optional base. Once the unit was roughly centered, the photographer took some test shots to watch the object turning in the lens. Front-, back-, left-, and right-side shots were imported into Photoshop, where the team could see whether the copier was centered and if there was even spacing from every angle.

Once the copier was centered on the table, the team established the copier's vertical center point and then programmed the camera rig software so the camera lens pointed at the center from all heights. The rig can set the camera a maximum distance of seven feet from the photographed object. Within that distance, the rig can maintain registration.

For this particular job, the large size of the copier dictated lens choice. With the rig set at its maximum distance, a 20mm lens on a Kodak DC420 digital SLR camera did the trick.

After positioning the copier, the team set the lights. The basic setup consisted of two 6x6-foot scrims with Arri 650W (watt) lights set on the left and right, a 3x4-foot soft box overhead, and a small kicker behind the turn-table. Behind the object, two Arri lights flanked and lighted white, seamless background paper.

This basic setup was then gradually finessed as the team determined how light worked on the turning object. Because the movie would be multilevel (i.e., viewable from above, below, and in between), the producers had to sense how light worked when the camera was at each level. They wanted to ensure that the object's visible parts were separated from the background.

After everything else was ready, they began shooting the movie of the base unit from each viewing level without the accessories or extra base. In order to keep the final file size small, they limited each rotation to 12 horizontal frames and shot five vertical levels, resulting in a total of 60 frames for the full rotation element.

After photographing the base unit, the rig was brought back to its first position and they began shooting a three-frame animation of the auxiliary base moving into the frame. Then they did all of the accessories. Each accessory was animated into the frame with three to four moves. Cardboard templates measured each step of the animations to ensure smooth movement. The additional components were attached to stands or suspended from wires that were later removed digitally.

After transferring all of the files to a workstation, the frames were named according to the storyboard's protocol. One by one, the images were color-corrected and the backgrounds removed. Once the files were ready, Flipside delivered them to a Shockwave pro who had been hired to develop the UI, add interactivity, and integrate the graphics.

You can see the final Shockwave project on the Flipside Studios Web site at http://www.holocosmos.com/sites/IdeaFinder/walkaround.html.

Although Flipside tends to favor Apple QuickTime VR Authoring Studio (www.apple.com/quicktime/qtvr), it wasn't the studio's choice for this project. Although standard QTVR object movies can contain hotspots to move viewers from one animation to the next, the HP piece couldn't have been achieved with QTVR alone. In addition to Photoshop, Premiere, and After Effects, the company uses LiveStage from Totally Hip (www.totallyhip.com) to add sprites, complex UI elements, and graphics. The studio is also exploring Java-based delivery technologies. But the choice of delivery mechanism doesn't affect the production process. The experience gained in capturing 3D interactive product shots isn't limited to any particular delivery solution.


Flipside's John Greenleigh leveraged his experience as a commercial photographer into expertise creating image-based VR movies.

Future market

The market for 3D product shots is still fairly young, and even with crash of e-commerce sites, the people at Flipside Studios are confident such shots will be important sales tools for online retailers. Once the ever-elusive goal of widespread broadband access hits, and there are more technologies for viewing it, image-based VR is destined to become part of the standard online shopping experience. Until then, however, the market will continue to grow slowly as companies with an existing track record and experience continue to dominate the online image-based VR market.


Although Flipside's image acquisition is largely automated, rigging and other details must be removed in Photoshop. The raw image on the left shows the turntable. The retouched image on the right doesn't show it.

Chris Manners is the design director of LimeVoodoo, a San Francisco-based design and motion graphics studio.