As most of the citizens of this planet find ourselves quarantined or self-isolated unsure of what the future will bring this recent poem by Philippe Dubost created with the Pixelstick and TouchDesigner resonates profoundly. "It's going to be ok. They say... Can we make it ok-er?"
As Philippe put it on his post "Quick poem written with Marie, this is the second version after it felt too passive and easy to just say "it's going to be ok." We felt like we have to use that worldwide electrochoc to change ourselves and take deeper care of each other. Revise our priorities, one step at a time. Challenge and bypass the system in which we are kind of stuck. If that clip can leverage some happiness to one single person then it was worth waving some lightstick in empty Montreal for the last couple nights."
We got in touch immediately to find out how this magical and poetic gesture was realized, and Philippe always community-minded and generous offered to make a tutorial and provide his source files. It's a surprisingly simple and elegant solution that can be achieved with even a flashlight or cellphone light and TouchDesigner Non-Commercial. Light up your nights, entertain family and neighbours, and please show us what you come up with!
BIG THANKS to Philippe for sharing and making it ok-er for us now <3
Philippe explains the making of:
I made this video experiment last week and I have received a lot of questions, so I figured I’ll make a quick tutorial and explain: how to do your own video light painting?
You can use any flash light or a more sophisticated device like the pixelstick to achieve the effect. It's not regular long exposure photo light painting. It is a simple post-processing video effect that you can achieve in a few minutes with the software and project files below:
TouchDesigner software Free version:
- Download TouchDesigner Non-Commercial
Project file and video example (you'll be able to replace with your own video)
- Download Project File
Step by step:
Set up in a dimmed light environment (doesn't work with bright daylight)
- Shoot a video (fixed camera) of you waving light around
- Bring the video to the software to apply effect
- Tracing of brightest pixels
- Masking of some regions
- Flicker + Glow + Reflections
- Slight Post-prod fake camera movement
- Record the output video
Info about the Pixelstick
It's a fun tool, but to be honest I didn't use it much since I bought it. Might be worth checking if one of your friends has one. If you're in Montreal, DM me, I can lend it to you for a few days.
Let me know below if you have any questions!
Hope that helps :)
Follow Philippe on Instagram