Mirror Morphing Samples (Quicktime movies)

• Batboy (517 k)
• Jim Bumgardner (2.1 megs)
• Mona Lisa (3.4 megs)
• Elvis Stamp (3.6 megs)

"Mirror Morphing" is a simple trick I stumbled on back when Gryphon's Morph software was first introduced for the Mac. It's an easy effect that hasn't been exploited much. The effect makes a 2-D picture look 3-D by making it appear to rotate. People often comment that it looks like a 3-D hologram. When done well, it doesn't look like the classic (and overused) morph effect.

To accomplish it, follow these steps:

1. Start with an image of a face as you want it to appear in the first frame.

2. Using an image processing program such as Photoshop, make a copy of the image that is horizontally swapped (a mirror image). This will look like the last frame.

3. Using Gryphon's Morph, or similar software, morph from the original image to the mirror image, just as you would morph from one face to another. The left eye on the first image maps to the "left" eye on the mirror image (which is really the right eye), etc.

4. Use Ease In/Out to emphasize the frames that show rotation, and to minimize the symetrical image that occurs halfway thru the sequence. This image is a give away if the movie is shown multiple times, but most people don't catch on to the effect when shown the movie only once or twice.

Tips

• This technique will work with other images other than faces. The main requirement is that the images need to be symetrical about a central axis.
• If the face is heavily shadowed on one side, the effect isn't as striking and looks more like a cross-dissolve.
• The effect can be particular striking when applied to images that are obviously 2-D, such as famous paintings, or engravings from money.
• The effect can be particularly eerie if the morph is done very gradually, so you don't notice the image is moving right away.