Watch me set myself on fire!

Fire Starter
I usually hate videos of me, but thought this one was cool enough to share.

Download 512kb Quicktime Movie

First off, I’d like to point out that I don’t usually look quite so sinister & unsmiling. At least, I don’t think I do…

This is a little sideproject I’ve been working on. It’s taking live video from my iSight, then doing some basic motion detection and generating superfluous effects in OpenGL. It’s kinda fun to play with :)

[Update: Umm, hi to the Digg people. You’re a critical bunch, aren’t you? :p
Yes, the video is all done in realtime. Yes, there are people who’ve done this before. No, I don’t work at setpixel.com, and neither am I feelgood from Ars. However, I am borrowing his bandwidth, since you guys are totally raping mine. :) ]

· 2005-02-22 ·

  1. that’s so cool! — tao    Feb 25, 06:08 PM    #
  2. Dude
    How cool is that?

    I have a sudden urge to throw my PC outta the window for not being worthy…

    Keep working on the cool stuff man.

    Will — William    Feb 28, 12:20 PM    #
  3. That’s pretty darn cool… Didn’t really know what to expect but that is an intense and realistic effect. — Duane    Mar 2, 12:00 AM    #
  4. Hey I have also been playing around some with the motion detection samples and such school keeps getting in the way though, anyway wanted to say nice work. Maybe I will have something to show before too much longer :) — artkast    Mar 5, 06:05 PM    #
  5. very cool, man. you need to make that a filter for live video. imagine being able to use iChat av and say, “Sorry for the flames, you guys, but my ac is busted and everything has gone to hell around here.” — John    Mar 28, 07:03 PM    #
  6. that is f-ing cool.
    how did you you do it? — ronin    Mar 29, 04:12 PM    #
  7. wow this it´s a cool FX, it´s there any chance to have something like that ? I would love to have it specialy if it works with live video. — paulo Leyton    Apr 20, 12:28 PM    #
  8. Coolness. Does it require any CoreImage stuff? Is an amazing graphics card necessary, or do you manage to get decent performance on older hardware?

    Might do something like that myself. — James Dessart    Apr 23, 11:47 PM    #
  9. Thanks for the comments…
    It runs quite happily on my 1.25GHz Powerbook – the fire effect uses similar techniques to the way games do it, so it’s not hugely expensive.

    I’ll probably release this at some point, but I’m working on about 90 different things ATM so haven’t got round to it yet… — Jonathan del Strother    Apr 24, 06:21 AM    #
  10. sweeeeeeeeeetttttt, please release this.. So many code projects never get released that are so keen — trip    May 4, 06:25 PM    #
  11. Would absolutly love to see this released! So if you feel like it, it would be very much loved and appreiciated.

    -Roderic — Roderic    May 14, 09:35 AM    #
  12. Fella

    that is just fantastic and I love your gaslight plugin it is the best itunes plugin I have found bar none!

    I really hope you release this effect it is enough to make me go buy an isight! — Bodie    Jun 11, 04:55 PM    #
  13. Yes you must release that that would be so cool even if it doesnt have much of a point who cares coolness comes first — alex    Jul 10, 01:42 PM    #
  14. Great little toy. & I rather like the video of you…sinister might be a good look on you…at least when you’re emitting fire from your hands. :^) — MaxHedrm    Jul 17, 07:41 PM    #
  15. Link to movie is dead? — John    Aug 10, 03:52 AM    #
  16. Yeah, sorry about that. Fixed now. — Jonathan del Strother    Aug 10, 11:44 AM    #
  17. Hi, i’m late but i would to know what effect you have use for this video… — matthieu    Oct 2, 01:21 PM    #
  18. Matthieu – it’s all hand-coded OpenGL. Lots of additive blending and particle effects. — Jonathan del Strother    Oct 3, 08:42 AM    #
  19. Ok, thanks — Matthieu    Oct 3, 07:30 PM    #
  20. You have the skills. — Bruce    Nov 9, 06:15 PM    #
  21. That’s pretty cool. Props and a +digg too — Draconiko    Nov 9, 09:53 PM    #
  22. Freaking awesome! Talk about human torch effect, good work!

    Came from Digg ;) — Big D    Nov 9, 10:15 PM    #
  23. Bravo — Arizona_Glover    Nov 9, 10:53 PM    #
  24. Yeah, it’s cool, but just wait until the flames reach his balls. — Donald    Nov 9, 11:06 PM    #
  25. Hey
    Curious to know just what aspects of motion detection you were working on? Namely, I’ve yet to find good surveilance/security software that would start “recording” events whenever anything within the frame moved (on the Mac). Keep up the good work! Erik, Richmond VA — EG    Nov 9, 11:55 PM    #
  26. Build that into the iChat thing Steve showed for Front Row…. — mcp    Nov 10, 12:27 AM    #
  27. Sick!!! Can’t wait to see what’s next. — karras    Nov 10, 12:36 AM    #
  28. nice effect. good work. — Ray    Nov 10, 12:49 AM    #
  29. i think i just pooped myself — the kochinator    Nov 10, 12:54 AM    #
  30. Pretty cool. Good job fireman. — Andrei    Nov 10, 01:03 AM    #
  31. man that is so cool! it looks like you’re from charmed or buffy or something! — miscblogger    Nov 10, 01:33 AM    #
  32. This is very much the same what EffecTV does:

    http://effectv.sourceforge.net/

    Except that EffecTV does not need OpenGL. — Bisqwit    Nov 10, 03:21 AM    #
  33. that was gay — Turd Blossom    Nov 10, 04:16 AM    #
  34. old stuff, if you know effectv (http://effectv.sourceforge.net/)

    no digg ;-) — Igor    Nov 10, 04:43 AM    #
  35. very weak; the effects aren’t that realistic at all. — getskillz    Nov 10, 05:09 AM    #
  36. Awesome effect! How did you do it? — WZot    Nov 10, 05:58 AM    #
  37. Digg

    :-)

    Cool — Saleem    Nov 10, 06:32 AM    #
  38. Thats Amazing. I’ve seen other effects like this but by far this is the best. Keep up the good work. — Faren    Nov 10, 06:33 AM    #
  39. That’s awesome. When you release this, would you by chance release the source code? I would love to take your motion detection and add other effects ontop of that. — Adam    Nov 10, 07:10 AM    #
  40. Great work there man. That would be awesome to use in VJ type software. Image inputting live video then have those effects on top of it real-time, killer stuff. — Sebastian    Nov 10, 09:38 AM    #
  41. why would you hate videos of yourself? you’re not bad looking, at all ;) — meb    Nov 10, 10:48 AM    #
  42. Very nice considering that you’re bashing out GL code. When I first looked at it I thought, “Wow, oh boy. Another amateur who’s demonstrating his mastery of After Effects plugins.” because I see 50 demo reels a day from people looking for a job in post production who think that they can just go and get a $50/hour job by learning a cracked copy of AE. You however could probably make this a plugin for After Effects and make a small bundle. You see, that kind of motion tracking needs to be tweaked by hand. Someting like this could really speed up the process. Something to consider. Keep it up. — Steve    Nov 10, 07:52 PM    #
  43. That shit was gay. And you look gay too. Superfag. — Rick James, bitch    Nov 10, 09:19 PM    #
  44. Hmm. I guess I better tell my girlfriend. — Jonathan del Strother    Nov 11, 04:13 AM    #
  45. Rick James is Dead Bitch.
    Twin Darkness Forever — Dave Chapelle    Nov 22, 08:42 AM    #

  46. Dude, thats cool. How did you do that? When can I get it?! I Want it!

    — Zach Forrester    Mar 14, 01:28 PM    #

  47. Damn cool, must be a lot of fun to play with. Download? ;-)

    — Thijs van der Vossen    May 30, 03:36 AM    #

  48. Sweet, nice work! Can’t wait till you release this…

    — sky    Jun 22, 06:03 AM    #

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