Transformers Takes Baby Step Into Augmented Reality Video
To help promote next week’s summer movie behemoth Tranformers 2, Paramount recently launched a web site using augmented reality, in which real-world data is merged to a virtual overlay. That’s a fancy way of saying the site uses your web camera to capture video of your face, then plop Optimus Prime’s robot head onto yours. (If you don’t feel like installing the required Active X plug-in, here’s a video of it in action.) Now you can pretend to be a Transformer without having to legally change your name, like a National Guardsman famously did before going to Iraq. I accidentally left the site up during my lunch break, then glanced at my laptop to see Optimus Prime in my living room, noshing on chow mein.
If you’re not a Transformers fan, however, it’ll probably entertain you for roughly 30 seconds. There doesn’t seem to be any functionality beyond the head-matching gimmick, which is disappointing. An option to send “I’m Optimus Prime!” screenshots to friends, for example, or post videos to YouTube, would have been nice additions. (When it comes to using augmented reality video in marketing, I prefer the much more interactive General Electric’s Smart Grid campaign from earlier this year.) At best, then, it’s a very small baby step into augmented reality, but thanks to its connection with a prominent Hollywood movie, will probably introduce a fairly large audience to this still relatively obscure technology. We can only hope future online video productions explore augmented reality’s full potential.
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[...] as a stage pops up from the chip bag. Similar augmented reality campaigns were used to promote Transformers and Star Trek. You can find more details on the tech here. You can find more details [...]
Blink 182 in new "augmented reality…
— 10:26 AM on July 7, 2009
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Now imagine if they’d bothered with having even the basics of a facebook integration; it could have easily been a rather popular project.
As it stands now, it’ll be noticed by a few, and missed by the vast majority of its target demo.
Yeah. I LOVE action movies, but I thought Transformers 2 was a little weak. Although the mom was fricken hilarious, the second half of the movie got boring. The big, climatic fight at the end wasn’t very climatic at all, and it went on so long that the special effects weren’t really special anymore. heh. I’ve never really been a fan of the special effects shots, anyway. There are way too many close shots where you have no idea wtf is going on. When they had bumblebee transform like half way through the movie, the camera angle was from far away, and it looked gorgeous. I wish more of the movie had been like that. sigh. But yeah, I did have fun with the movie though…. I just understand why lots of critics hated it. Anyway, nice post. :)
movie very fun