# Flaming peppers ghost



## Spanky (Oct 8, 2007)

Hey all,
I had an idea about having a talking prop as a background for flames projected with a peppers ghost type set-up. My question(s) are: Does anyone know of an cheap animation program that can generate a fire animation? Can this program set up a (forgive me I'm trying to acess my high school AV knowledge) Chroma key, I think its called.? Ya know the green screen background. I want flames to be around the prop, not covering it. 
Any help or ideas are appreciated, as always.

Spanky


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## Fiend4Halloween (Aug 28, 2008)

Great avatar Spanky, love it! For a fire animation, go to somewhere like Youtube and type in Virtual Fireplace, you'll find a lot of clips that you can loop. Also, they sell virtual fireplace dvd's if you wanted to go that route. You could set a tiv on it's back so the screen faces up, slant a piece of plexiglass from the base of the tv, to whatever you want to lean it up against, (see Big Scream TV vid for example on Youtube probably), and place your prop in front of that so it's basically a Peppers Ghost effect, but with props and a flaming video. Hope this helps.


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## Spanky (Oct 8, 2007)

thats exactly what I'm thinking, but I want a little more control over _where_ the fire is in relation to the prop in the background. I want it around the props shoulders, coming out of eye sockets ect. The video might work, but i still need a chroma key overlay, I think.


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## Mr_Chicken (Nov 26, 2008)

There's really no inexpensive, realistic fire generator out there. I would use detonationfilms.com (free sfx stock footage) for the fire. Chroma keying isn't really going to help you here. From what you've said, you're going to want to use a few different instances of the fire composited in the appropriate locations. Then mask out the areas that you don't want to be flaming.
It's going to be difficult to line it all up, and keep in mind that if your viewers mave side to side, the fire won't always line up.
As far as compositing software goes, I use Adobe After Effects, but any video editor that can do multiple layers should suffice for this project.


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## Spanky (Oct 8, 2007)

Thanks Mr. Chicken! 
I kinda figured that it would be off when viewed at anything but the optimal angle, I'll have see how much I can limit the view if I can get this pulled off in the first place.


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## Terrormaster (Sep 27, 2007)

Spanky, maybe you could do TWO layers of peppers ghost. The first layer would be in the background behind the prop with the flame on it. The second would be in front with smaller flames on it. Maybe add some red uplighting directly on the prop using a LED flicker effect. Not sure how much the uplighting would interfere with the Pepper's ghost effect though.


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## Spanky (Oct 8, 2007)

hmmm interesting... time for a mini mock up experiment, i think.


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## Sickie Ickie (Jun 20, 2006)

Not hitek here, but for the eyes have you thought of using small round mirrors angles down 45 deg to a vid of fire?


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## Revenant (Mar 17, 2007)

I think I'd probably just build a prop with faux flame effects built in and then do a straight-up peppers ghost with it. I haven't seen it done, but I bet a faux flame would look even better as a Pepper's than straight-on, because the unlit portions of the silk would barely show in the reflection if you have your lighting well controlled. Just a theory. If you're dead set on using real or CGI fire, I think it'll cost you for the software.


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## Spanky (Oct 8, 2007)

Well I want it to be a ghostly fire (think blueish) that intensifies and recedes depending upon whats hes saying. Revenant, I like your idea. If I could control the LEDs on the faux fire and make them stay on, transistion, and flash at specific times, that might be a winner. any Ideas on LED control?


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## DarkLore (Jan 25, 2009)

It must be the software developer in me that makes me suggest this...but my first thought would not to be searching for a virtual fireplace. I'd use Flash to create my own wall of flames. Which could be displayed on a large monitor or torpedo projector.....then reflected or whatever.

Example...

http://www.flash-filter.net/fire-flame-effect.phtml

I'm not sure what the chroma key theory was. Using flash you could mask off an area of the animation. Or display the full animation...and use a video solution to mask the image.


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