Although we predominantly focus on the Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC) industries, Lanmar will occasionally work on a project for the entertainment industry. We recently worked on a project that involved scanning several historic Texas stadiums for a movie and this inspired me to write about this and other applications of scanning to the entertainment industry.
Because there are so many applications for scanning in the entertainment industry, I’ll focus on three concrete case studies that use scanning at different scales.
- Large Scale: Scanning entire landscapes to get exact replicas for video games.
- Medium Scale: Scanning specific environment for camera matching.
- Small Scale: Scanning individual people to create character doubles.
LG: Sports Facilities for Video Games
Topography derived from the 3D laser scans of Augusta National Golf Club.
3D Laser scanning of sports venues for video games is becoming widespread. Two notable examples are the Tiger Woods PGS Tour 12 and FIFA 15.
Capturing data about the topography of vast spaces such as golf courses is significantly faster with a laser scanner than with traditional survey methods. You can get a much more subtle level of detail about each hole and create a more genuine sense of place.
“For the first time ever, EA Sports utilized a new state-of-the art laser scanning technology at Augusta National Golf Club to laser scan every hole featured in the game. This will provide players with the most authentic digital representation of the Tournament and Par 3 courses. Every tree, every azalea and every undulation in every green was recreated down to the smallest detail.” New EA Sports Golf Game Touts Laser Scanning by SPAR Point Group staff
FIFA 15 also utilized scanning technology to capture both information about stadiums and the faces of the players. This technique is referred to as creating “character doubles” and will be discussed later.
M: Camera Matching for Historic Film
For the medium scale example, I’m going to use one of our projects, in which we scanned multiple historic stadiums in Texas to be used for camera matching in a movie about a Texas football player.
Using the scans combined with models of what the stadiums used to look like in the 1930’s, the editors are able to determine authentic camera locations and more correct camera angles in the movie. They can match historic building boundaries by finding their exact location in the 3D point cloud.
Scans of the UT Austin Stadium and historic photos of the stadium from the 1930’s that will be used to recreate the stadium and match camera locations.
SM: Character Doubles
The use of character doubles created through 3D scanning is incredibly widespread both in film and in video games. It allows for the quick creation of replicas of famous or historic individuals. Since modeling from a scan is significantly faster and more accurate than modeling from photographs, more detail can be put into the model, or a higher variety of characters can be created for the game or film. 3D scanning also allows for the creation of more authentic facial expressions per individual person.
Mark Ruffalo 3D scans and CG model for The Avengers.