Slit Scan: Recreating an Analog Effect in Modern Software

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==Navigation==
00:00 Introduction
02:31 Sponsor
03:09 Long Exposure
04:35 Slit-Scanning
06:17 Recreating Kubrick's Stargate
10:44 The Limitations of 2D
11:56 Slit-Scanning in 3D
12:39 Recreating the Warp Drive Effect
16:40 Closing Thoughts
17:39 Credits
== Links ==
Join the official VTE Discord server: / discord
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My portfolio: camoncrocker.com

[@HarryNicNicholas]

i did my degree at kingston poly (london-ish) in 1982, one of our lecturers was bernard lodge who was one of the pioneers of slit scan. later i worked on the first resident evil movie and i met richard yuririch at the wrap party, he did slit scan effects on 2001: a space odyssey (along with douglas trumbull).

[@VideoTechExplained]

I forgot to credit someone in the main video! Thank you to Chris Kuhn for making and uploading the excellent 3D model of the Enterprise-D that I used throughout this video www.blendswap.com/blend/16226

[@xBINARYGODx]

You should probably pin this comment.

[@chocofrolik834]

Hi! Running your script freezes Blender indefinitely (Not Responding), could you help? I have the same setup, named the objects the same... tried decreasing the samples too, same issue

[@cjimcook]

Thank-you, Camon, for taking the time (and work) to animate your initial explanation of a slit scan a lá 2001. Another diagram reproduced the shot with a physical recreation, but the of why it worked escaped me until now. Cheers!

[@victorx4648]

The first thing that captures the attention is how good the camera conveys the details of your shirt.

[@TheStockwell]

8:44 When you pretty much claimed "Hey, kids! You can create one of the most laborious and time-consuming film techniques in the history of cinema!," I was thinking the last part of this video will either make my life complete - or break my heart. It was cooler than either of those. It's as Emily Dickinson wrote: "Hope" is the thing with feathers - That perches in the soul - And wants to grow up - To be Douglas Trumbull.

[@Maeve_Rose]

slitscan is also how they made the Doctor Who intro from Pertwee's final season to Tom Baker's second-to last.

[@JimLeonard]

Congratulations on coming up with the most clear and concise demonstration of the 2001/Doctor Who slitscan effect. I finally have something I can refer to people who don't understand how it was done.

[@Euthymia]

Aside from 2001, my favorite use of slit scan was in the late 60's/early 70's ABC promos. Movie of the Week, etc.

[@d.yitzgoldstein3515]

Brilliant work. Thoroughly enjoyed. The amount of effort in this video is stunning.

[@flexydex8754]

terrible*

[@Ice_Karma]

Just found your videos, and I'm loving them so far. Great content, great info, great presentation. Also love the occasional cameo from your kitty! 😻Just wish you didn't sound like you were shouting... 😿

[@andrewrossy]

Wow, this is fascinating and incredible. Well done. This type of content shows the absolute best of KZbin. Have sub'd and liked.

[@ThisIsAlan]

Thanks for the super informative video and incredible attention to detail!

[@willblanchpost5043]

Loved this video, well put together and extremely informative :)

[@heinzlu8671]

awesome video!

[@design_ref4215]

Thank you for sharing your 3D skills :)

[@miloplacas]

Great content, you are a great content creator

[@dodgyville]

Hilariously brilliant, well done

[@wex4sex]

Man, thank you so much for creating intelligent and constructive content!

[@sobo2]

Cool you are doing HDR videos. i mean real ones, not those whose purpose is to demo HDR. And great you explained that very effect. It's always stimulating to think about how they achieved those things back then, before they "were possible".

[@tristanwegner]

It is said, that to truly understand something, you must recreate it. This video is a good example

[@HJGibbens]

Many thanks for this. Been trying to work out a way to re-create slit scan digitally. Have managed to transfer your approach over to Cinema 4D/Redshift with promising results.

[@MannyBernabe]

excellent

[@allekalle5697]

Thank you so much for this Video! I love TNG and always wanted to know how that Warp effect was achieved.

[@timovepsalainen4927]

2023/02/09 Subs 5.04k I'm starting a counting, since you will blow up in future.

[@fransabeloquehace]

te banco bro so cra!

[@xBINARYGODx]

such a cute, talented, smart pants twink

[@optini1422]

Great Video! I have a question about a different topic tho. It’s about gamma correction. I can’t seem to understand why you can make better use of an 8 bit channel when you gamma correct it. Like in both cases you have a linear curve if you gamma correct it or not. What am I missing, pls explain 😅 Thank you!

[@KKAkuoku]

Thanks so much for showing how to properly recreate this effect. One question: is the code fixed to apply just one type of movement for the artwork or can it be altered to accommodate moving it up-and-down or forwards and backwards?

[@Grim2]

Now look into moire pattern effects! :D

[@kimothemo]

Hi, do you watch shows on Apple TV+? I need your opinion on their color grading.

[@timovepsalainen4927]

What do you get when you mix Captain Disillusion and Tom Scott? Video Tech Explained.

[@groovierrrx1316]

Hey Video Tech Explain. You have very good content. But can you create a video explaining what is Dolby Vision for Gaming in greater details? Also another video explain Dolby Vision Derived SDR format? Thank you for your time

[@artstation707]

Hey. That's interesting. Can you explain your script line by line or give us a breakdown of it in neutral language so that scripts for different software can be created?

[@video2000ification]

This video is very informative. I noticed you successfully recreated the Doctor Who intro from the 70s. I'd like to know how to use slit scan for different shapes...

[@VideoTechExplained]

I assume you're talking about the 4th doctor titles? My latest recreation of those actually doesn't use slit-scan, even though that's how the original was done. Maybe someday I'll revisit that project and redo it with slit scan! But in my video it was just done with textured tunnels in Blender

[@video2000ification]

@Video Tech Explained Thank You, I was also looking to do it in Blender PS I'm definitely referring to the 4th doctor titles

[@artstation707]

@@VideoTechExplained Oh, so you never managed that in Blender. How would you go about it? I use 3dsmax and have a working setup using motion blur and Vray. It just needs some tweaking to get the inside of the circle to render.

[@VideoTechExplained]

@@artstation707 I did achieve slit-scan in Blender while working on this video and its accompanying title recreation. But the 4th doctor titles were made before I developed that workflow

[@artstation707]

@@VideoTechExplainedOkay. So would it be possible to go through the steps? Here's what I did. 1. Create a black plane with a circular slit in it. 2. Place behind it a plane with a pattern texture. 3. Move the camera toward the planes, while moving the pattern plane across. Motion blur is enabled with trial and error settings. Results are the slit scan tunnel effect, but the inside segment of the black plane (a circle), remains black and moves towards the camera. I tried creating secondary slits in the circle segment, but that didn't really work. What do you suggest?

[@xlista1543]

Hi guys. I'm a bit confused about the py code on 10:33. What does this code do? Just write the "speed" value to the file name after rendering or what? Thank you for understanding.

[@amx360]

I don't know how to get the python code to work either. You have any luck?

[@amx360]

Hey I think you can do it without the script. In the graph editor, change the cameras Y Channel to cyclic and change the Key to linear and then you can move the artwork with key frames to any speed you like -make the pics channel linear too.

[@artstation707]

@@amx360 Using 3dsmax, how would this work?

[@ChloaFifteen--she-her--]

Hey! I can see you overthunk the process needed to animate the slitscan process in Blender. No scripts are needed. Once the camera has been keyframed to move towards the slit, you can just apply a Cycles modifier to the axis the camera is moving on via the graph editor. 0 Python scripts are needed to achieve this effect and you can animate the background as you would in a normal animation. Also worth noting that depending on your setup, Center on Frame should still be fine.

[@chocofrolik834]

Could you explain in more detail how to do that? I'm not too experienced with that side of Blender

[@ChloaFifteen--she-her--]

​@@chocofrolik834 I originally explained it a bit briefly for the sake of brevity, but yeah. The Cycles modifier isn't a mesh modifier as you usually hear the word modifier, rather it's one of a few modifiers you can apply to an objects' keyframes though the graph editor. You can pull up a new window by dragging the corner of another window (e.g. top left of the timeline for a window below the viewport) and clicking the editor type dropdown (appears at the top left side of all windows, near where you drag). After that , it's as simple as making the keyframes to cycle. On any frame, keyframe the location of the camera, and on the next frame, keyframe the camera to move forwards. Over the graph editor with the camera still selected, press A to select all keyframes and press T to bring up the interpolation menu. After setting the keyframes to linear, go to the keyframe outliner on the left and click "Y Location" (go through the dropdowns if it's not there already) and go to the "add modifier" button that's appeared on the right after clicking Y Location (if again it's not there, click N to bring up the tools panel). Click the "add modifier" button to bring down its dropdown menu and click "cycles". THe modifier should take effect now and you should see the Y keyframe on the graph become a sawtooth. This does the same as the script except you're free to animate anything in the scene and render it as a normal animation as the slitscan effect is being handled entirely using Blender's usual tools.

[@chocofrolik834]

@@ChloaFifteen--she-her-- Thanks for the excellent explanation! I just have one thing to ask - using your setup, how would you automate the process of offsetting the pattern and rendering multiple times to get a moving/animated slitscan tunnel video?

[@ChloaFifteen--she-her--]

​@@chocofrolik834 Since the camera movement needed to create the effect happens on each frame, you can render it as a normal animation. With the slit setup from the video and the camera cycling through its approach towards the slit on every frame thanks to the cycles modifier, you can just keyframe the pattern behind the slit to move like in a normal animation (again, best use linear interpolation on the keyframes so the movement is consistent through the sequence) then you're good to go. Glad you found my explanation helpful!

[@chocofrolik834]

@@ChloaFifteen--she-her-- With the pattern moving like a regular animation, won't the resulting frames of the animation not flow? I tried myself by keyframing a start and end point and the resulting render frames don't follow on from each other to create an animation. Am I doing this wrong?