An alternate reality game,
or ARG
is when a guy on the internet says
-I’m from the future.
-[Captain D] Or… -There’s a ghost in my house!
And a bunch of people agree to
pretend-believe his pretend-evidence because…
they’re bored.
Now, if you, who isn’t in on the game
come along and ask
-Is this real?
-[Captain D] The ARG guy goes…
-Yes, of course it is! Of course it is…absolutely!
If this was fake, I promise I would tell you…
but it’s really real! I swear on my mother’s life!
[Twinkle sound]
And if you happen to reply…
-Hmm, well…okay, whatever.
For one brief moment
the ARG guy gets to feel
like a very special boy.
One of the few ARG genres that doesn’t make my eyes roll
so far back they disconnect from the optic nerve
is…are…is
empty world vloggers.
These intrepid explorers
have become trapped in a version of earth
devoid of all other people.
And they manage to send us regular updates
from its eerily empty streets and buildings.
TikToker Único Sobreviviente
is the top name in the game.
but apparent copy-cat, Kilmaru
strangely seems to be more popular
with the younger crowd.
Probably because he’s got a sense of humor about it.
He doesn’t try to justify how cities that have been abandoned
for years still have functioning electrical grids,
mobile reception and gourmet meals.
Doesn’t shy away from over the top sci-fi plot twists.
Doesn’t sweat any tiny imperfections
that give away the game.
Because nowadays, in the year 2037
when you’re watching this,
everyone in the audience obviously understands
it isn’t real.
[loud thud]
[glass breaking]
Be that as it may, how does a genre like this
form spontaneously?
Did some recent planet-wide event
directly inspire the visuals?
Maybe. But maybe it’s deeper than that.
Maybe it’s about an entire generation’s low key
sense of abandonment
as they find themselves growing up in a void
between a rich past they never experienced
and a volatile future they’re about to inherit.
On second thought, it’s probably just cuz these videos involve
simple compositing tricks that every beginner VFX artist learns
at the start of their career.
Let’s us learn about them now!
For years you’ve listened to me explain the different types
of motion tracking…
point tracking, planar tracking, 3D tracking.
They’re all the same thing really.
You get the computer to follow tiny recognizable pixel clusters
from frame to frame, then use that to figure out
either the simple position and rotation
of the whole image,
the distortion of a flat area,
or an estimate of where everything, including the camera
is in 3D space.
And after you’ve done that,
but before you can add in a monster or whatever,
you often need to go through the important process
of erasing what shouldn’t be there.
Wires, shadows, a dot on a face…
Eww!
This is the ancient art of the paintout.
Do you have what it takes to master all three levels?
[chiptune version of Captain D debunk music plays]
In a point track situation,
painting stuff out of a moving image
is no different than in a still photo.
Just make Photoshop do it and stick the result in there.
Or use software that can automatically repeat
brushstrokes across multiple frames attached to
the point track data.
Say we wanted to get rid of those people back there.
It’s barely more effort than air-brushing cat fur
out of your selfie.
[chiptune version of Captain D debunk music plays]
With planar tracks we can erase subjects entirely contained
on a floor or in front of a flat wall.
What if a crazy director asked us to remove all the cars
from this bridge 10 minutes before the shot had to be shown
to the president of the world?
We’d just need to take the time to paint one convincing frame,
then let the area surf along with the warp of
the planar track for a flawless illusion of emptiness.
[chiptune version of Captain D debunk music plays]
And then there’s the S tier.
With a 3D solve, you can basically paint out anything.
Let’s erase this hapless camera assistant from the reflection.
Uh, did I say let’s? I meant I’ve already done it.
Did I say the assistant?
I meant the elderly couple sitting smack-dab
in the middle of frame.
How? By tracking lots of features in the scene,
then roughly reconstructing the individual surfaces in 3D
and projecting the shot’s image onto them from the camera view.
This lets us step outside the camera angle
and extract individual orthographic views
of all the areas we want to clean up.
Once these altered textures are projected back
onto the surfaces from their respective angles
and viewed through the original camera, it all comes together
and we’ve got a nice, clean, elderly-free bench.
And yes, with this technique you can erase reflections.
Even your own.
But that’s not what it’s about.
It’s about me. I’ll erase everyone else
so I could be the only one.
I’m special.
I’m a special boy!
The most special boy in the world! [words echo]
[sighs] Okay, back to reality.
[electronic music plays]
[car honks]