real time visual effects

Gausst developend a proprietary virtual set laptop system for Green Zone. The solution used a combination of mechanical tracking for zoom and focus with inertia tracking for pan, tilt and roll. For rendering we used Maya. On set we did virtual ovelays and camera angles for Republican Palace, Assasin's Gate, Victory Arches and Saddam International Airport, amongst others. The live composites were great help during production as well as in post production. To the best of our knowledge this is the first time a laptop has been used as a virtual set tool on location during a movie shoot. Especially with the combination of live camera tracking and video composite inside of Maya on a laptop. Using a laptop is particulary important for speed during production. For every new camera location the laptop ran on a battery and did not need to be rebooted. It's light and easy to move around on set. Using Maya means there are no import/export issues to deal with, and this makes it especially easy to communicate with post production. Many thanks to Peter Chiang and Jesper Kjoelsrud and the rest of the VFX team for getting us on the show and being such a nice gang to work with. A special thanks to my colleagues Jack Buffington and Roman Lehmann for a fantastic lunchbox and a great time together. Green Zone: Official Website| Watch Trailer Her

Green ZoneIMDB Link. Gausst succesfully completed its work on Green Zone, using a proprietary virtual set solution.

Gausst recently finished shooting a test for Blue Man Group. Here is Stein Gausereide with the Blue Men at Occidental Studio's Smart Stage.

Comedy Central`s hit show Mind of Mencia used Gausst when shooting a comedy sketch called "Video Game Hell". The 4 minute sketch was shot in one day using Occidental Studios Thompson LDK6000 Worldcam as well as their FreeD tracking system for the job. Gausst worked closely with the filmmakers to virtually scout locations during the shoot and recorded all axes of movement for Tom Polson of 3d Paint/Fx to use with 3D Studio Max. Tom was able to use 100% of the camera data that Gausst provided from the shoot.

Gausst and Occidental Studios teamed up with Liquid Films and Director David Kennedy, DP Damian Acevedo and Engine Room Visual Effects for the making of this 3 piece commercial campaign for Table Mountain Casino. Gausst worked with Andrew Honacker and Mike Romey from Engine Room to allow their VFX graphics to run real-time for live preview composite on set as well as providing them with camera data for every take of the shoot. As you can see from the making of movie above there are no markers on the green screen and the data provided was top quality. Gausst utilized the Occidental Studios "FreeD" tracking system to preview and record all axis of movement. Gausst calibrated 11 Arri prime lenses for the job, shooting the commercial with an Arri 435 film camera. 35 shots were used for the three commercial spots and Engine Room was able to use 100% of the camera data with no need for manual match moving in Post-Production.

Gausst recently finished shooting a dance-along fairytale DVD project for kids in High Definition 1080i. Gausst co-produced the project together with partner Born to Play Productions. Six kids get trapped inside a music box, only to find out there is a prince trapped inside as well. The prince helps them explain how to get out of the box by dancing to the music and gradually figures in the music box come to life. The Music Box was shot two days on location in Ojai, California, and three days on green screen, live to disc, at Gausst - Occidental Studios’ Smart Stage in Hollywood, California. The project was shot in English as well as Norwegian in 5 days, using two cameras with optical and mechanical tracking. We are currently editing. Visit the trailer on youtubeand support us with your voice.

Gausst worked with Director Jim Edwards and Four Square Production on this Breast Cancer 3-Day Walk commercial campaign. Tom Polson of 3DPaint/FX built 3d models of a kitchen, a restaurant and an office that was used to visualize the live composite in Autodesk’s Maya software on set. The entire shoot was pre-visualized with Maya and the camera moves where captured live on set. The final renders were completed using Autodesk’s 3d-Studio Max software. It was a one camera shoot and Occidental Studios FreeD optical tracking system was used.

Gausst helped out pre-visualize the storyboards for Fedex’s “Moon Office” Super Bowl commercial. The whole production team from Award Winning Director Traktor came in to the “Smart Stage” for a Friday afternoon session prior to shoot and went through camera angles, timing, scaling of virtual vs real, and so on. The recorded video was used as a previs template for the commercial shoot.

The Seven New Wonders of the World – The Internet. Gausst was commissioned by VR_Set to help out ABC and Good Morning America to visualize the inside of the internet for their campaign “The Seven New Wonders of the World”. Gausst worked with ABC’s designers to get the graphics looking good in real-time and went to New York for the two hour show. Elisabeth Vargas was presenting the show as inside of the internet. It was a one camera shoot, live to air, and Gausst was using a mechanical tracking system for the job.

Gausst finishes a test shoot for director Randal Kleiser. Shot with the Dalsa Origin camera in 4k. Gausst integrated with Dalsa in one day allowing their DVI output to be composited in realtime, calibrated their lenses and made it work with the FreeD tracking system. All axes of movement was recorded and the camera data will be used for final 4k rendering by Local Hero Post. DP was David Stump, ASC. See Dalsa 4K workflow >

“Red Riding Hood”, which was recently released on DVD, is the first known feature film in history to be shot using live virtual set composites for the majority of its backgrounds and thus allowed for on-set visualization during the entire shoot. In addition to live on-set preview, the same camera data that was used for the live virtual backgrounds was saved and used in post-production. "Red Riding Hood”, directed by Randal Kleiser, (Grease, Blue Lagoon…) is a modern version of the fairytale about a young girl walking through a forest to visit her sick grandmother, with contemporary dialogue and music told in a graphic MTV style. The film was shot with two Thompson Viper HD cameras. The computer generated sets and backgrounds were visualized in low-res composites on set and camera moves were driven live on set by encoder data from every axis of movement. David Stump was Director of Photography. He used a Chapman hybrid dolly (Boom and track), Sachtler Fluid head, Arrihead 2, Aerocrane (Boom Swing and Track), Aerohead, zoom and focus (for both cameras) and Preston FIZ that were all fitted with encoders which were read to drive imported Softimage XSI sets in sync with camera output for on set composite viewing. XSI sets were generated in pre-production and on set by Sandman Studios, and Sandman were able to load the recorded camera data into Softimage XSI immediately after every take. The entire shoot was completed in 18 days. 85% of the camera data was used as is. 1206 shots out of the 1211 VFX shots of the film used the camera data captured live on set. A making of video can be seen by clicking images above.

Gausst and Occidental Studios teamed up with Santa Monica Dance Studio to throw a live performance act at two 'Open House' events. The events where held at Occidental Studios’ “Smart Stage” where Gausst is located. Altogether more than 600 people attended the two demos and got to see monks, 'Bond'-girls, a ballerina, as well as a break-dancer in the one-camera, 5 minute piece that ran every 30 minutes throughout the events. Altogether, there were four concepts, four songs, and three virtual sets with animated live transitions in the show. Click on the images above to see the live performance. The demos used Occidental Studios’ FreeD tracking system. On display was also a groundbreaking tie-in to Radio Recorders Music Studio on Santa Monica and Orange, using the Technodolly, as well as a live motion capture integration with Motion Analysis. See below.

Gausst and Occidental Studios have teamed up with Motion Analysis to offer live action integration with actors and motion capture characters while the camera is moving. The result is amazingly accurate and combines the Motion Analysis Infrared tracking system, Occidental Studios’ FreeD tracking system, and software from Vizrt, Gausst and Motion Analysis. Autodesk Maya is used as the real-time renderer, allowing you to use the same software from beginning to finish of your project.

Still photography as well as moving video plates can be used within our system, giving you the opportunity to bring any location in the world to the studio .

Gausst and Occidental Studios have recently integrated successfully with the Technodolly from Panavision Remote Systems. The Technodolly is a Technocrane on track that can record and repeat moves.