California Raisins Rockin’ the Rocks at Stonehenge- 3D Stereo Wigglegram GIF

Another kind of GIF that you can make is a Stereo Wigglegram GIF. You take two pictures that are almost the same except they are taken from two slightly different angles. When they are viewed your brain puts them together into one picture that has a 3D effect. Talky Tina’s DS106  August 2013 GIF Challenge #11: Get Your Wiggle on, with Friends! had us creating one of these 3D Jiggle GIFS.

Rockin’ The Rocks in 3D

This is one of those projects I’m not going to admit how much time I actually spent on it.  Let’s just say I was fascinated with the process and technical issues learning how to make these and I was really into it. The idea of having the California Raisins rocking with the rocks at Stonehenge tickled me tremendously. I’ve had a set of these little guys since the late 80’s, and now they sit proudly on a shelf in Studio B. (My basement where I do most of my DS106 and other digital storytelling projects.) Now that I’ve dusted them off, I’m thinking they might be making another appearance in a future stop motion video.

I created a couple of different versions and used different techniques and software as I was moving through the project. I started out with the Camera+ App on my iPhone 5 and downloading the pictures into Adobe Photoshop to create the GIF. I didn’t know how or how much I was to move the camera for the two shots to get a “slightly different angle”, so my first attempts didn’t quite look right. I then read Talky Tina’s post a little closer and she recommended an app called 3D Camera by Juicy Bits. The iPad version of the app gave me some guidance on how to actually take the photos.  You don’t just move the camera slightly by rotating your camera on the tripod like I did, You need to slide the camera in a straight line from left to right to get the two shots.

To create good 3D stereo images SLIDE your camera left to right, don’t rotate it.

Green Screen Stereo Wigglegram GIF. Created with 3D Camera by Juicy Bits

My decision to take the original stereo photos against a green background so that I could “easily” replace it with a background of my choosing from my own photo collection didn’t turn out as I had expected. I had ambitiously started out with the concept of having the band members and Stonehenge remain stationary, while only the guitar player popped out of the image. This was NOT successful! (See problem plagued GIF below and second successful version at the end of the post.)  Creating layer masks by using the quick selection tool required a lot of fine tuning to remove the haloed green around my raisins.  This was further complicated by the fact that I was doing this process on two different photos and couldn’t select exactly the same areas with each image.  Consequently, I had occasional bulges and valleys along the edges that had to be manually erased or rebuilt for each separate image so that your eye remained focused on the 3D effect and not the little anomalies as the photos switched back and forth. Here’s an original unsuccessful version for your amusement that is a fine illustration of these issues: green halos, bumps & valleys, instead of popping out of the screen it moves back and forth.

Unsuccessful first attempt at 3D Stereo Wigglegram. Lots of technical issues!

Ahhh… this is better… a second SUCCESSFUL version of the California Raisin solo guitar rockin’ at Stonehenge.

Stonehenge Solo 3D Stereo Wigglegram GIF