Hello Folks, 
I have a scene in a movie where there is a dialogue between a main character and a hologram. 
The method I am using is to setup the scene between the characters like you normally would. Then, 
make three movie files:
1) The non hologram character alone in the scene


2)The hologram character with only bright green (emits and receives no shadows) with full illumination


3)Go to a video editing software and chroma key the green video on top of the main video or (2) on top of (1), I also added blue glow and a
TV simulator effect plus I made the video a little bit transparent:


Since both characters were setup originally in the same video scene, all camera movements will work perfectly and no tracking is required. This work as long as the hologram is overlaying the rest of characters and objects in the scene. If the hologram is to be blocked by a character or object, then a third video of the blocking object has to be rendered so that it blocks the hologram. Let's call that video (0) then it is on top (2) which is on top of (1)

4)Here is a video edited


This is an obvious technique but if you have never seen it, it may escape your imagination. Any questions, just pm or comment. 

Very interesting pedrosura,

I haven't experimented with hologram effects in iC7 yet, iC6 didn't get get very good results for me at all so that project got shelved. 

But you've sparked my interest in trying again with iC7 and PopVideo, should be interesting to play with.


Dell XPS 8900, Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-6700 CPU @ 3.40GHz, 3408 Mhz, 4 Core(s), 8 Logical Processor(s), 16 GB RAM, - 4 GB GeForce GTX 745, NVIDIA compatible.
Acer Aspire V Nitro Laptop,  2.5GHz Intel Core i5-7300HQ processor with 6MB cache,  256GB solid state drive, 16GB Ram,  4 GB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti graphics.

This technique would have worked on IC6. The only difference would have been that IC7 looks better b/c of PBR. I would suggest to stay away from PopVideo. This hologram is 3D so it looks better when the camera flies around, while Pop Video is 2D. Also, this technique is a lot simpler and you can do it very quickly. 

You could also have played with the Opacity/Transparency of the hologram inside iClone.

Nice result though.  So many ways of attacking and solving a problem.  Thanks for sharing.

Here are a couple expriments I did a while back.
The "animated texture" is actually "Caustics" Substance material, not a video.

On this one, the character is less (zero?) transparent - I was working more on the dress here.

---

iClone 7... Character Creator... Substance Designer/Painter... Blender... Audacity...
Desktop (homebuilt) - Windows 10, Ryzen 9 3900x CPU, GTX 1080 GPU (8GB), 32GB RAM, Asus X570 Pro motherboard, 2TB SSD, terabytes of disk space, dual  monitors.
Laptop - Windows 10, MSI GS63VR STEALTH-252, 16GB RAM, GTX 1060 (6GB), 256GB SSD and 1TB HDD

You can skip the green screen altogether by turning off everything except your 'hologram' character and rendering as PNG frame sequence with alpha - you'll get a cleaner edge and transparency.

Exactly. I am adding a TV Simulator on top of the Chroma Keyer and the TV simulator distorts everything. On top I have glow so I found that it wasn't worth the extra effort. But for a sharp hologram, it's an excellent idea. 

It looks nice indeed. The only thing I don't like about turning opacity down is that you start seeing the interior of a character. When you render a character and you make it transparent, you only the the surface of the character combined with empty space. 

Great work! Would love to see more of the story!

Thank you for the kind words.

"Seeing the interior of a character" was one of my frustrations, especially with regards to the eyes and teeth.  But depending on what a person wants to do, and how much effort you want to put into it, character transparency is an option to consider.

---

iClone 7... Character Creator... Substance Designer/Painter... Blender... Audacity...
Desktop (homebuilt) - Windows 10, Ryzen 9 3900x CPU, GTX 1080 GPU (8GB), 32GB RAM, Asus X570 Pro motherboard, 2TB SSD, terabytes of disk space, dual  monitors.
Laptop - Windows 10, MSI GS63VR STEALTH-252, 16GB RAM, GTX 1060 (6GB), 256GB SSD and 1TB HDD

@Justaviking

Not to get too far off-topic here, but is this the shareware "Bruno Caustic Generator" or a 'paid' Caustic Substance?  I downloaded the Bruno effect but nothing shows on the object I applied it to in iClone.


Reallusion Certified Director / Reallusion Best Visual Award / Reallusion Certified Content Developer
See all the G-Tools Plug-Ins available for iClone here: G-Tools Plug-Ins