christmas house projection mapping

Check out the new show on the new house for 2020!

   • Christmas House Projection Mapping (New Ho...  



Great content on a residential home. Way cooler than just lighting on a house for Christmas. A much better recording this year, now in full HD!

Warped and projection mapped using Christie/Coolux Pandoras Box Media Server. Warped in less than an hour! Only one BenQ 2500 lumen 1280x800 .37 lens projector was used.

A little side note... You may notice the content was built linear and not from perspective. This gives more flexibility and projection options. If the content had been built only using a perspective workflow, the projector's position would have to stay fixed forever, from that vantage point. By mapping the building linear, and warping by setting different UV textures for each surface, we can achieve the same amazing result with multiple and different projector locations. We can always add more projectors in the future from any angle. The limiting factor then is the resolution scaling of the content vs the actual pixel density. Very cool.

Other than the previously mentioned tactics, this content was created mostly in Photoshop and then composited in After Effects. There are a total of 8 segments, Log Cabin, Grinch, 1964 Rudolf, Just Lights, Perspective Line Drawing, etc etc. Each segment was made up of many layers ultimately rendered in a 2d flattened movie 2048x800 pixels. There is also a badass test pattern that makes it repeatable every night, as the projector is physically re-installed within minutes every evening at dark.

Aspect ratio is the most important thing here and its verrrrry custom as you can see. The content in the bottom right corner of the video is showing how the house looks when it is flattened out. I had to physically measure the house and then flatten it all, to achieve this 2D super flexible workflow. The limiting factor is the vertical pixel count of the projector typically, so this is how we arrive at the total pixel render space of the content. This flattened linear map of the house is super flexible for adding as many projectors whenever and wherever we want on any surface of the house.

In addition, some of the content was actually created from a perspective based workflow. An old technique called camera obscura! I kid, seriously though, if you take a picture of the surface from the perspective of the projector, this picture then becomes your template for creating content in AE or PS or whatever. The key is that this picture is also the picture that is used in the warping step. This conforms the content created to adapt from the lens of the original camera picture to the lens inside the projector. Warping is a standard feature of Pandoras Box Media Server. The down side of this technique is, of course, the projector placement is fixed.

The segments are then placed in the timeline of Pandoras Box software and played in real-time linearly, or in any order we want by clicking a button on an ipad or android.

Both of these methods are still 2D deformations. A third way involves a 3D workflow using 3D objects with mapped textures, in true 3D space.

There is a FREE trial of the Christie/Coolux Software. www.coolux.com