Camera robots are what you see in movies and think it's computer generated. These robots link up to the camera you're working on, focus your lens during the movement, and make for great videos. Marques Brownlee from MKBHD shows us the capabilities.
Imagine controlling the motion of the camera by using an Xbox controller. Well, this is what they've done. The footage it captures looks almost as if it's generated by a 3D graphics application like Autodesk Maya or Flame. It's called Motorized Precision for a reason.
I've always thought Apple's product videos were made using CGI, but looking at this robot's capabilities, I wouldn't be surprised if they have a couple of these in studio. If you're a vlogger or someone that makes videos for a living, I can imagine it must add production value and great looking videos within a couple of takes without the need for a lot of additional equipment to set up, or team to put together and instruct.
Obviously this robot will mainly remain in the studio, but if it were surrounded with a green screen, keying in a setting isn't that hard to do either. One thing is for sure, this robot will certainly open up the world for product video production and it's perfect for Marques Brownlee's tech reviews he does on YouTube.
This just blew my mind...where can I buy one!?
Yeah thats cool until you mess up and it comes around and hits you.
I guess the next thing in development is spatial awareness for the robot arm. Put a 3D spatial camera on top, put some clever software behind it, and voila, it could make a 3D model of the scene in real time, and do circles around the actor even if he or she moved erraticaly without any (ehm ehm) danger just like an autonomous car or a drone. Actually, spatially aware robots that can interact with humans reliably are already being made for other industries, or at least prototyped.
I need dis
Awesome tech,no doubt. I just can’t put my finger on it, but final moves feels too robotic to me.
this was an awesome post
I was so impressed by Kira when I first saw it that I've been saving money and learning how to program in my spare time for the past 2 years because I'm making my own version of one of these.
It's been a process. I've got the UDP running to the game controller, parsing for the motor controls, carbon fiber design and I just started to CNC some joints at local maker space. I just pulled giant motors out of an old industrial 3d printer last week. Mine will be smaller and have a 7-foot high reach to it but should have the same speed and smoothing capabilities.
Also, check out the guys from the marmalade, they do amazing slow-mo robot shots
www.themarmalade.com