Go behind the scenes with SISU Cinema Robotics and the precision imagery their ‘cinebots’ can pull off.
It was at a commerce present referring to engineering and automation when a videographer urged to the corporate SISU that they put a digital camera on one among their current programmable robotic arms.
All of a sudden, the thought behind SISU Cinema Robotics was born, and it now sells a variety of ‘cinebots’, successfully programmable movement management robotic arms that may maintain cinema cameras and obtain repeatable strikes and sometimes inconceivable pictures.
You’ve seen the outcomes of filming with these cinebots in lots of commercials, the place, say, slow-motion items of flying meals fill the display, or in TV exhibits or movies for a wide range of elaborate pictures. SISU’s essential promoting factors for the bots, other than permitting these very cool in-camera pictures that human digital camera operators can’t essentially do, is that they are often arrange and programmed in a short time on set or on location.
However, how do the cinebots work? We requested the workforce from SISU Cinema Robotics to interrupt it down.
The tech behind the bots
SISU has three completely different robots (the C14, C20 and C31) in three completely different sizes, made up of the arm unit itself, a transformer field, and base or any observe. The arm lengths vary from 1.4 meters to three.1 meters. “Our methods include the robotic on a pedestal or on a observe,” explains SISU head of promoting Michael Morgan. “They’re all six axis arms, so that you’ve bought full management over the place in addition to rotation, with six levels of freedom.”
To regulate the robots, SISU employs each a pill and a wand setup. “You’ll be able to transfer the robotic with the wand after which program strikes with the pill,” says Morgan. “With the wand, there’s a set off on it and also you squeeze that set off as when you’re just about grabbing the digital camera. So no matter you do along with your hand, the digital camera is simply going to observe. There’s additionally a joystick, which is extra such as you’re driving the digital camera round such as you would in a online game. The system at all times is aware of the place that wand is, irrespective of the place you’re standing on set. You’ll be able to transfer round or you’ll be able to transfer to the opposite facet of the set and it is aware of. You by no means need to suppose backwards.”
The thought is to get the digital camera into the place you want, after which you’ll be able to set a keyframe on the pill in your timeline. SISU has developed software program in-house, referred to as SISU Lab, that permits the interplay between wand, robotic and pill.
“There are then methods to import information from, say, Maya to herald strikes,” provides SISU VP Jeremy Allen. “Plus there’s FBX import and export. You’ll be able to export FBX information which might then be utilized in Blender, After Results, you title it, to have that place information for the digital camera. Or you are able to do it the opposite means. You’ll be able to construct a digital camera path in one among these packages, Maya for instance, and import it into SISU Lab after which run that transfer in actual life on the robotic.”
The smallest of the SISU cinebots can carry a digital camera (or in fact different tools like lights) as much as round 16 kilograms, and the most important as much as 20 kilos. “We frequently put the RED KOMODO on there, we frequently put an ARRI LF on there, and the Phantom cameras, too,” observes Bryan Altham, an advisor and advisor to SISU. “The Sony cameras have gotten widespread on the robots as nicely.”
SISU’s intention with their cinema robots has at all times been to have them considerably self-contained, and as transportable as potential for fast setup and operation. Altham, who has labored for a few years on a variety of Hollywood productions, remembers the problem of taking pictures movement management. “Ten years in the past, if somebody stated to me we’ve bought a movement management shoot arising, I’d suppose, ‘Properly, that’s a day proper there in scheduling.’ I’ve been by that many, many instances. However with SISU and the way in which you’ll be able to deliver within the robotic, and use the wand, reposition the arm to wherever you want, you’ll be able to do a number of pictures in at some point.”
Bots in motion, together with for VFX
Amongst commercials, impartial movies, motion scenes and even ‘glam bot’ moments, the SISU cinebots have discovered a number of makes use of in current instances. This consists of on the planet of visible results and digital manufacturing. For instance, the cinebots have, by way of their Reside Hyperlink capabilities with Unreal Engine, seen operation on LED partitions. They’ve additionally been utilized for filming a number of movement management passes to assist construct up components and tiles.
“They have been used on a Toyota industrial shoot not too long ago,” relates Allen, “the place it was a nighttime shoot they usually folks getting out of the automobile all kitted up in neon. They took the 20 extras they’d within the background they usually ran that very same transfer 5 instances, that’s, take 20 folks, have them begin right here, run right here, then deliver them again to a unique location, combine them up and have them run once more. After which have them run once more and do the identical transfer. Layering them up made 20 folks seem like 100. So abruptly as an alternative of getting to get 100 extras, you solely want 20.”
In the meantime, Ember Movies employed a SISU cinebot for filming scenes on the Apple TV+ collection Prehistoric Planet, as Morgan explains. “They used the FBX import instrument that we’ve got and used Maya to animate a dinosaur consuming. Then there was a dinosaur head constructed which was placed on the robotic they usually shot it in-camera doing that movement which seems a lot extra actual than if it have been accomplished in CGI.”
The SISU workforce really feel like there’s virtually no finish to the place the cinebots will flip up. “I imply,” says Allen, “the final half of the yr we positioned a robotic in India, which is our first robotic there. That was for a Bollywood shoot with one of many largest actors they’ve. A few of the motion scenes they have been filming with the robotic have been out on a seashore location–the way in which individuals are utilizing these has actually been diversifying rather a lot not too long ago.”
SISU can be at NAB in April, partnering with MagicBox to showcase the MagicBox Cellular Digital Manufacturing Superstudio Gen 2.0 with using SISU robots. Discover them at sales space C8045.
