There’s no way these aren’t CGI:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uj0v1BgzUdc
And yet, somehow, they’re real*:
Gizmodo writes,
The ad was made possible by the folks at KMel Robotics who’ve developed a whole suite of tools to program and control the swarm of quadcopters. They’ve even adapted an infrared motion capture system—typically used for computer animation—to keep track of all the drones mid-flight, and individually direct them to where they need to be.
*I’m still skeptical about the last portion.
I’d vote for real. Searching YouTube for aggressive quadrotor(!) and quadrotor swarm brings up equally impressive stunts.
The catch right now is the swarms require arrays of external cameras to track and plan the ‘copters motion. We’ll get the NSA spycopters coming down the chimney when those cameras move on-board.
Whoa – awesome!
I have seen other tech stuff about controlling swarming vehicles – but they were land based.
Reminds me of Batteries Not Included
“…we were able to augment a lot of in camera shots and indeed develop others entirely in CG.”
http://www.themill.com/work/lexus-swarm.aspx
Sharing this on Favebook – a friend pointed me at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2itwFJCgFQ&feature=youtu.be
Also interesting.