I haven’t seen the World of Warcraft South Park yet, but I did manage to catch the recent stopmotion/claymation episode of My Name is Earl before I left Australia.

DV.com has an interview with the production leads for the segment, containing plenty of background, logistical information on how a special episode like this takes place, as well as some After Effects workflow tips, and information on flicker removal techniques for time-lapse or stop-motion photography:

Matlosz handed 1920 x 1080, 24p digital still image sequences off to Buck, who took them into After Effects.

Buck: I use a plug-in from The Foundry’s TinderBox collection called Deflicker. It has six or seven different ways to remove flicker from the stills. You can perform multiple passes with each different setting. One of the hardest things to do is keep the frame-by-frame lighting consistent.

Matlosz: Digital cameras aren’t designed to be frame accurate with luminance, chrominance, gamma, anything. Those things don’t stay consistent frame by frame. They just don’t match. That’s the one issue you have shooting digital time-lapse or digital stop-motion.

Buck: What really kills the stills is any kind of camera moves and rack focuses, so the Deflicker filter was a lifesaver. But there are times when even Deflicker falls short. Times when a light is bumped or a bulb goes out and needs to be replaced. For those kinds of problems, we adjust the levels manually to ensure frame-to-frame consistency.

I’ve dealt with some of these issues before, but even with everything locked off on a manual lens there is often some flicker remaining. Deflicker seems like the obvious answer.

It’s not hard to imagine a world in which customized game tools become simple 3D environments for producing truly original visuals — work that looks unrelated to the game engines that power it. The fact that 3D engines are designed for real-time operation makes them even more appealing for live visuals and VJ work. Artists like Julian Oliver have produced whole music and visual performance pieces, as we’ve seen on Create Digital Music.

So, could the fact South Park did an episode this season with World of Warcraft mean full productions are close at hand? Absolutely, and thanks to the good folks of machinima.com, we’ve learned all you’ll need is:

1. The production, animation, and technology team of South Park
2. Maya
3. Access to original 3D models from Maya from a company like Blizzard
4. 12 PCs and one MacPro
5. Folding tables (no details on what kind here … you may need a nearby IKEA)
6. A budget (admittedly bare-bones) from Comedy Central — this part you can probably muster
7. 28 members of the staff at Blizzard to help you out
8. Lots of time

Be sure to read the whole interview; it’s fantastic. Ultimately, to get more expression out of the characters without programming, Maya filled in for the character shots. In the true ghetto-fabulous tradition of South Park, though, the team used my favorite Mac video capture tool, Ambrosia’s inexpensive Snapz Pro, to grab in-game footage from the actual World of Warcraft. (And if you haven’t seen the episode, by all means, please do!)

“Make Love, Not Warcraft” [Behind-the-scenes interview on machinima.com]

Okay, granted, not the most practical approach here. I still think game engines could make for interesting custom visuals, though, and the fact that some of the footage really did come from the game should raise a few eyebrows. Now go hack those textures so it’s not recognizable, and send the results.

[tags]television, machinima, 3D, behind-the-scenes, oddities[/tags]