Thread: Animation of ghostly footprints to project? Anyone have or how to create one?

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There are (at least) two great threads on how to achieve the ghostly footprints effect:

Ghostly luminescent outdoor foot steps effect? (Haunted Mansion)

Ghostly Footprints

After looking over footage of how the Haunted Mansion achieves this effect in its "Escher" room of upside down stairways and noting the dissolving print element, I suspect they might be using projection. Look closely at minutes 22:11 through 22:17 in the video that follows:

The Haunted Mansion WDW – 2009 tribute in HD `Perfect Vision
http://www.martinsvids.net/?p=514

How difficult would it be to create an animation of green *shoe* prints on a black surface (as in reference video above) with about the same timing--and preferably with the dissolve. But even without the dissolve, the appearance and disappearance of green shoe prints would be terrific. I have nearly no artistic ability at all. But if no one else is interesting in giving this a try (e.g. creating video animation), what free software could I use on the PC to achieve this?

Here is a reference photo of the footprints. But it helps to view the video to see what I'm talking about with the dissolves and timing.


I'm not concerned about projecting a dozen+ pairs of footprints. Four or five pairs might be sufficient. My current projector ($50 Wonderwall) very likely isn't up to the task. But a good footprint animation video may compel me to buy a higher quality projector. Incidentally, here's a link to a thread with some test projections using the el cheapo Wonderwall. Not as bad as I expected:

Replace Discovery Wonderwall projector bulb with brighter LED bulb / Jon Hyers DVDs

I'm cross-pasting a good sub-conversation from another Ghostly Footprints thread:

Originally Posted by Distorted Designs

Make sure I am understanding this right. Basically you want to put a projector up somewhere, in a tree or something and project onto the ground. This could work but I think you will have a couple of issues to deal with. First is going to be is even when a projector is black it is still slightly visible so you are going to see a big square on the ground. You can change the settings to make this go away but by the time you do your foot steps are going to be fairly dim and you won't like what you see. The next hurdle you will have to figure out is going to be brightness of your projector. You are going to be projecting over a fairly large area, most projectors do areas less than 10 square ft. You will probably want to do something that will be like 30' - 50', going to need a really bright projector. To test your brightness I would take your projector to the second floor of your house and project onto the ground below and see how it looks. See if you can find a move that has a very simple scene with a black back ground and something bright moving around so you get an idea. If that works you will have to figure out a scale. You will have to find out exactly what height you will be projecting from so you know what size to make the feet in the video so you don't end up with giants feet. When you design the video I would do it in flash. It will be really easy to do.

You've got it right DD. Thanks for your comments and recommendations. It will be a bit of a challenge due to the things you mentioned. I'm nearly positive my current projector won't be bright enough to project from the second floor onto the ground. Although I may be able to mount one atop the roof above my front door entrance and get closer. Playing with contrast should help eliminate the black square. Wonder if laying black scrim down to enclose the square would help with that. I think you're right that I'd need a powerful projector to do this. And I definitely hear you on experimenting to find the correct size to make the shoe print pairs. I'd be happy with 10 feet of phantom walking space.

To make flash animations, what's the cheapest way to do so? Hate buying expensive software for one-off projects. I do so little with video or animation that it would likely be a waste of money. I've been experimenting with free open source animation software called Pencil, but can't quite get the bitmap layers to work. Anyone here used Pencil? I'm on a Windows platform by the way. Really should be dead easy to do this. Here are some pseudo steps:

1. Get shoeprint images (don't like actual footprints / toes since that's not how Disney implements the effect). Searching on images.google.com brings some up. The ones suitable for this application seem to be black shoeprints on a white background.

2. Load bitmaps / raster shoeprints into image editing of one's choice. I use GIMP. It's free and for the few times a year I use it this works fine for my purposes.

3. Use the Fill / Paint Bucket tool to color the shoeprints a glowish-green and turn the white areas black. The closest I could come to a glowing green knowing nothing about color is this (maybe it's "mint"; just need a proof of concept for now):

H: 0
S: 100
V: 3
R: 8
G: 0
B: 0

4. Separate the right and left shoe prints into separate image files.

5. Then work with the raster graphic footprints as-is. Or load into Illustrator (or something free like Open Office Draw) and convert into Paths / vector graphics. GIMP doesn't seem able to do this. Would be nice to be able to warp the shoe prints if desired / not lose resolution while reshaping. Not critical though.

6. Open animation software and alternate shoe prints. Would be great to get "lingering" shoe prints to dissolve / fade like Disney does. But plain old on/off would be perfectly fine. Don't care about nuances at this point. Just want to see if it's plausible.

7. Export to a movie format. Pencil on Windows seems only able to output SWFs (which I thought was shockwave flash / FLV--but my VLC media player recognizes FLVs and not SWFs...). I can convert FLVs to .avi or .mpg but not SWF.

What animation software would people recommend that is free or very cheap? Cheap to me means $50 or less. Are there any trial versions (free of bannered / watermarked output) I could use to accomplish this? I've been using the free open source Pencil but just can't see to get things to work using Import Image, then having images disappear in future "keys". Seems like once the image is placed and I move to a "key" a few seconds ahead, prior shoe prints won't disappear. Pencil is either very buggy on Windows or it's user error on my part (hoping the latter).

I'm fairly certain someone who uses Photoshop / Illustrator / and the most basic of animation software could whip something up like this in a jiffy. The harder part would be, like you said, experimenting with brightness, size, and the projection surface. Failing problems with the projection surface, it sure would look cool as well to have ghostly shoe prints walking across roof shingles. I've seen this before so I know it's possible.

I'm experimenting with GIMP photo editing software (free) and Windows Movie Maker on XP (free).
A simple "ghost walk" is possible. But I don't think I can get shoe prints to dissolve.

The idea is to create my own animation using a 640x480 picture canvas with GIMP (IrFan view or even MS Paint might work too).
Frame 1 is a right shoe print. Frame 2 is a left shoe print (contains F1 print also). In Frame 3 a new right print appears while the original right print gets deleted. And so on.

Some random bits and thoughts:

* Instead of a horizontal walk, say, from right to left, a sinewave-type path could be created to fit more steps into the same projected space. Think of old-style dark ride pretzel curvy tracks where they make a longer ride duration within a small ride building
* The color of the shoe prints could be messed around with to compensate for the projector's power. Wonder if "distressing" the prints in any way (vs. using a solid color) would improve or worsen the effect
* The steps could stop and linger at a mid-point of interest, or at the end of the walk, to add interest and duration to the walk, given the limited projection space

This works indoors with my cheap $50 projector. Don't know about outdoors--unlikely. Ended up using GIMP + Windows Movie Maker. Maybe someone can post a better source video. I really don't know what I'm doing with the software.


Ghostly footprints projected in a semi-dark hallway. If I flick the hall light on the projection disappears completely. This is likely due to the distance. If I recall correctly this is projected from about 16 feet away:


Ghostly footprints projected at top of stairwell. Projector is a lot closer here. Didn't turn hall lights on, but you can see the natural light coming from downstairs:

Maybe someone who has or made a ghostly footprint prop would be willing to video them for this purpose and you could create your own video effect DVD from it to use with your projector. I could see using them in a partial opened garage for example. Easy to hide the projector in the area where the garage door is partially down and the garage should be a nice dark area to run the projector. Most garage floors are a light gray or could be easily covered with some white plastic or canvas to create a nice light colored projection surface.

Thanks Spookie. Think what I have for now. Wish my projector was a wee bit stronger. Did an experiment tonight projecting down from the front door roof to the lawn and it actually worked! Too faint to capture on video though. It's exactly what I want. Just too faint with all the street lights around. But again, that's with a really cheap projector. Still going to research on switching out for a stronger bulb--maybe the LED.

Also, wonder what's stopping me from just removing the halogen and manually shoving in a super-bright LED (e.g. ~3 watt) flashlight and seeing what happens. Looking into one of those LED flashlights nearly blinds me. Looking into the lens of the projector with the halogen that's already there is a yawn.

As I've reported before, I did a test run of using a cheap Wonderwall projector for the ghostly footprints / ghostly footsteps Haunted Mansion-style Halloween effect. The lumens was insufficient for long-throw outdoor yard use projected from a 2nd story window. If I got out on the overhang above our front door, I actually could project usable footsteps a short distance along the concreate walkway to the front door. When I was running my tests, I was unable to get any good video of this with my point-and-shoot digital camera. But it did work. And I have a street lamp contending with the light from the projection--so others may be able to achieve better results.

Wondering if anyone has tried duplicating this effect using a higher lumens projector like the Digital Galaxy DG-747? This has a reported lumens rating of somewhere between 2200 and 2500 lumens vs. the sub-1000 lumens of the Wonderwall.

I love seeing the progress others have made, and the innovation, with mechanical implementations of the ghostly footprints effect. But all I want is the effect with minimal setup, take-down, and fuss. Not to mention my electronics and mechanical abilities are near zero. Projection meets my needs better than fashioning mechanical props. And I love the fact that I don't have to worry about being rained-out, people tripping over something, etc with using projection vs. something electro-mechanical.

For me, using projection for this effect ups the spookiness (projection is an ethereal thing). It also ups the variety. I could imagine creating video for a variety of footstep paths throughout the front yard. Perhaps having several loops played in a shuffle fashion. Here's hoping Hi Rez Designs, Jon Hyers, or someone else out there with the knowledge, skills, abilities, and passion will create a Ghostly Footprints / Ghostly Footsteps projection DVD. Achieving this effect would be so much easier that way.

I've never read the thread but there is one discussing how others have blocked out street lights.....Maybe there is a workable solution in that thread to make your space a little darker and then the light source in your projector would be sufficent.....Ebay used to have alot of projectors for cheap....Haven't checked lately....Good Luck....ZR

Originally Posted by ZombieRaider

I've never read the thread but there is one discussing how others have blocked out street lights.....Maybe there is a workable solution in that thread to make your space a little darker and then the light source in your projector would be sufficent.....Ebay used to have alot of projectors for cheap....Haven't checked lately....Good Luck....ZR

Thanks ZombieRaider. Halloween isn't very popular in my neighborhood already (bible belt) so blocking out the street lights isn't an option. But it's cool to know others have done this. Ebay projectors are cheap but replacement lamps / bulbs are often many hundreds of dollars. So I'm thinking the DG-747 might work well (cheap replacement lamp/bulb).

If you had a low light video camera I wonder how difficult it would be to make your own footage of traveling footsteps with footprints painted with GID paint and shoot a bunch of frames with one foot, then add another for a few more frames, and then additional prints step by step for more frames (and take off some of the earlier ones) to reflect movement. Edit the video in software and tweek it as need be and use as footage for the projector.