MORPH MAKING TUTORIAL

        Featuring Dave Mason's DMORF and DTA Shareware Programs

      For more information, visit the GRAPHDEV forum on CompuServ


Morph, as in MetaMORPHosis, is the process by which one image
smoothly melds into another image. The process is used in movies,
television and commercials but until recently could only be done by
people with special hardware and software. Today, given the power of
PCs and the imagination and creativity of artists, mathematicians,
and programmers, you'll be able to Morph between any two images you
happen to have. Although the effect is normally done with faces, you
can use anything you like. Car commercials often Morph from one model
year to the next.

This tutorial explains the steps required to MORPH two images using
two excellent shareware programs by Dave Mason. The first one, DMORF
(Dave's Morph), is used to specify how the morph should look. It will
generate as many frames (image files) as you ask it to, with each one
showing a greater change from the first image to the second one. For
example, if we're morphing a picture of you at age ten to you at age
twenty and specify a 10 frame morph, then the first frame should
resemble you at age 11, the next at age 12, until you reach 20. (This
really works...). Anyway, when DMORF is done, you'll have 10 Targa
files named MORF0001.TGA through MORF0010.TGA (although you can change
these names). The next thing you'll do is run DTA (Dave's Targa
Animator) which will combine the .TGA files into a single .FLI file
which will default to the name ANIM.FLI. Finally, you'll run 

PLAY ANIM.FLI 

and watch yourself grow old. It's that simple!

Before going any further, read the file named DMORF.DOC. It explains
how to install DMORF and the basics of how to use it. It also explains
that these programs are SHAREWARE and that it's socially acceptable to
pay for them if you like them. Let your conscience be your guide. Once
you know it's installed correctly, come back here and we'll start
morphing.

We're going to try two different morphs using the sample files that
came with the tutorial. In the first lesson, we'll morph The
Terminator into Lieutenant Warf. (An ENFORCER Morph). In this morph
the faces line up fairly well, which greatly simplifies things. In
our second lesson, we'll have to work harder to get the right effect.

Keep in mind that MORPHING IS ART - NOT SCIENCE! No two morphs look
alike whether they're done by the same artist or different artists.
Also, what might appear like a mistake when you're doing it can often
turn into a great new effect you hadn't though of before. Just relax,
have fun, and use your RIGHT BRAIN.

LESSON 1:       Arnold -> Warf

You'll find several Targa (.TGA) files on the disk. We'll be using
ARNOLD.TGA (Terminator) and WARF.TGA (Lieutenant Warf). In case
you're curious, ARNOLD was captured from video tape using a
VideoSpigot from Creative Labs. WARF started out as a GIF file. Both
images were scaled to 240x180 and their backgrounds were removed
using Corel PhotoPaint.

THINGS TO KNOW:

1.      ALWAYS make the images the same size!!! 
2.      Removing the background results in MUCH better morphs. If you
        don't, the backgrounds morph too.

OK. Start Dave's Morphing Program with the BEFORE and AFTER images by
typing:

DMORF ARNOLD.TGA WARF.TGA

This will load ARNOLD as the BEFORE Image and WARF as the AFTER
Image.  Don't worry if they come up in Black & White, they're full 24
bit color images and the output images will be too. The buttons on
the bottom of the screen are explained in the DMORF.DOC file so we'll
just concentrate on building a mesh.

What's a Mesh? Before I answer that, let's look at how Morphing
works. Deep inside DMORF is a Pixel Interpolator. It knows how to
interpolate pixels from Point A to Point B as well as how to
interpolate the color of the resulting pixel as it approaches Point
B. The only thing it doesn't know is which points you would like
interpolated where. If you told it absolutely nothing, it would move
the point 1,1 in Image A to the point 1,1 in Image B and so on.  This
would result in a much simpler effect known as a dissolve, where the
colors from Image A slowly give way to the colors in Image B.
Obviously that's no fun. We want Image A to slowly distort both its
shape AND its color until it actually BECOMES Image B.  We'll do this
by specifying the KEY Points on Image A which are to migrate to Image
B. If we specify enough of them, DMORF will be able to interpolate
between them and give us a professional quality morph.

Now, what's a Mesh? A mesh is a series of vertical lines which
intersect a series of horizontal lines. The points at which they
intersect are the mesh points. We'll be drawing a mesh on ARNOLD and
on WARF such that each intersection (mesh point) represents a pixel
that we would like to migrate.

Before we go any further - when I talk about ARNOLD's LEFT EYE, I
mean the one on YOUR LEFT not ARNOLD's left (It's really ARNOLD's
right eye, but he's not here to argue right now).

Note that there is a frame around each of the images. Let's begin by
positioning the mouse on the frame directly below ARNOLD and under
his LEFT eye. Click the RIGHT mouse button. You should see a red
vertical line running through (or nearly through, depending on your
aim) his left eye. If not, you're not on the frame. Find the frame
around the image and try again. Remember to use the RIGHT button. Now
position the mouse on the frame to the left or right of ARNOLD but
lined up with the center of his left eye again. Click the RIGHT
button and you should now have a horizontal line crossing a vertical
line in ARNOLD's left eye. That's a mesh point.

If you look over at WARF you'll see his mesh point. This is the same
physical coordinate as the one on ARNOLD and is where ARNOLD's eye
would end up if we weren't here to intervene. Since we don't want his
eye on WARF's forehead, place the mouse over the mesh point on WARF,
press the LEFT button and drag it to the center of WARF's left eye.
By the way, if you missed ARNOLD's eye before, you can move the mesh
point on his picture too. It doesn't matter which side you add the
points and where you move them. When you're done, DMORF simply takes
each intersection, reading from left to right, top to bottom, and
matches it with the intersection on the other image. It then
interpolates pixels and colors so that they migrate toward these
points.  Everything else just flows along. What you CAN'T DO, is let
these lines cross each other. DMORF will try to prevent this, but if
you trick it, don't be too proud of yourself - it will blow up later.
All this means is that you need to think out your work a little
before you start. The other thing you should do is save the mesh
points frequently. Press the SAVE button and type something like
STEP1.MSH and so on until you finish.

You now know everything there is to know (about morphing). You
probably don't believe that so I'll go right on talking. The point
is, once you specify the key points, DMORF is ready to interpolate.
As I said before, the more you specify, the better the morph.

Now let's do the RIGHT eye. Place a vertical line on either picture
that you like and then drag the mesh points to the center of each
guy's RIGHT eye. The next thing I'd do is add a point at the corner
of one of the mouths and then move the corresponding point on the
other face. You might want to add some points outlining ARNOLD's
glasses and make these match WARF's eyes. 

By now you've probably noticed that the lines are no longer
perpendicular. As I said earlier, Morphing is Interpolating. The
lines constantly interpolate to follow the flow of the mesh points.
If you haven't already done so, try pressing and holding the SPLINE
button. If you have the SPLINE MESH box checked when you generate the
morph, the splines will actually look like this to the pixel
interpolator. Sometimes these splines will appear to "go nuts". As
you add more lines, this often tends to correct itself. 

Save your work now by pressing the SAVE button and coming up with a
creative name other than LESS1_1 (or anything like that). Make sure
you give it a .MSH extension. Now press the LOAD button and retrieve
LESS1_1. That's what I created. It's probably different but similar
to yours. What's wild is that those (minor?) differences will result
in a completely different morph.

You can load my LESS1_2 through LESS1_4 files to get an idea of the
steps I took with this morph. I tend to work my way out from the
eyes, nose and mouth to the ears, hairline, chin, cheeks and then
down to the neck and shoulders. Feel free to experiment.

In LESS1_2 I've begun to outline the hairline and right side of the
head. By LESS1_3, I've finished the facial features. LESS1_4 seems
like a big step but all I've really done is click the mouse along the
frame in the areas in between where I was working to fill in the
gaps. DMORF did all the line bending. You can almost see how the
faces will warp now (if you know what to look for - you will after a
while).

Let's leave my LESS1_4 loaded and generate the morph. Then you can go
back to your version later and try it yourself.

In the middle of the screen on the bottom are some controls relating
to the number of frames to generate. I usually generate 20 frames
when I'm experimenting. The more you generate, the smoother the
morph. Television is 30 frames per second. If you're going to put the
results on videotape, you can figure out how many frames based on how
long the sequence should last. Anyway, scroll the FRAMES value to 20.
You'll notice that the LAST FRAME value follows along. You can set
the START and LAST frames independently, which allows you to generate
individual frames in the middle of the morph if you like.

If you look in the lower right corner, you'll see the word MORF. You
can change this to any 4 characters you like. The way DMORF uses this
is to generate output files using those 4 characters plus a 4 digit
frame number, ie. MORF0001.TGA, MORF0002.TGA, etc. Leave it alone for
now and lets generate a morph. 

PRESS GO.

If you weren't sure if your machine had a math coprocessor, here's
how to find out: If you see percentage figures flying by, you've got
one, otherwise, you might as well go take in a good movie (or get a
good night's sleep) 'cause this is gonna take a while.

Otherwise, in 5 or 10 minutes we'll be ready to take the next step.

PRESS QUIT.

You're back to DOS. Now if you do a DIR MORF*.TGA you'll see the
results. Now we need to assemble these into a .FLI file so we can see
the animation. (Actually, you may have Presentation software that
will assemble these in some playable format too). To make a .FLI
we'll use Dave's TARGA Animator - DTA.

The frames we generated did not include the starting and ending
frames since we already had these. Run DTA by typing

DTA ARNOLD.TGA MORF*.TGA WARF.TGA /P /S3

This will assemble the files (in this order) into a .FLI file called
ANIM.FLI. You can override this if you checkout the DTA.DOC file. I
leave it this way so that I can keep replacing ANIM.FLI with other
tries until I like the result. Then I rename it to something more
distinctive. The /P parameter causes a Ping-Pong effect which you'll
like. The /S3 parameter sets the playback speed to 3. You can
experiment with this if you like.

Now run

PLAY ANIM.FLI

How's that? If it's too fast (or slow), the number keys across the
top of the keyboard can be used to change the speed. Press ESC when
you're done.

CONGRATULATIONS! George Lucas has an opening but you'll probably have
to relocate.

OK. Let's do an "alien morph". We'll start with Mr. Spock and end with
ET! When we're done, you'll realize that all aliens look alike.

Start DMORF by typing:

DMORF SPOCK.TGA ET.TGA

As you examine the meshes for this one, you'll see that quite a bit
more stretching of the mesh points is necessary to get the right
effect. Proceed as you did in the first lesson. You'll probably want
to load LESS2_1 through LESS2_4 to study the way I did it and then
try it yourself. When you're done, you'll have my favorite morph.

Feel free to use CompuServ - GO GRAPHDEV - if you need help. The
authors as well as many users spend their evenings there. Hope to see
you there....

Ken