slick new skills and safety site

[adambolonsky]

kayakpaddling.net

[djlewis]

kayakpaddling.net

Slick... maybe you mean the animations. Useful, accurate, grammatical, etc... well, check this exact quote...

"Sometimes there is no dock nearby, so getting into the kayak will be a little trickier. Then you should find a spot where the water is calm and deep enough so the kayak will not stuck into the bottom when you will sit in it."

It doesn't get much better from there.

--David.

[Kevin B (RPS Coach)]

Slick... maybe you mean the animations. Useful, accurate, grammatical, etc... well, check this exact quote...

"Sometimes there is no dock nearby, so getting into the kayak will be a little trickier. Then you should find a spot where the water is calm and deep enough so the kayak will not stuck into the bottom when you will sit in it."

It doesn't get much better from there.

--David.

Yeah, the animation is rather neat and it does allow for a few new views of certain strokes; however, it does lack many fundamentals and there are quite few opportunities for physical injuries in many of the demonstrated strokes.

[adambolonsky]

QUOTE(Kevin B @ Sep 24 2007, 12:53 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Yeah, the animation is rather neat and it does allow for a few new views of certain strokes; however, it does lack many fundamentals and there are quite few opportunities for physical injuries in many of the demonstrated strokes.

Huh? Could you be more specific about which injuries? And the mechanics of the injuries? I missed what you see...

Also, what are the missing fundamentals?

More than one way to skin a cat....plus the guy needs to be sure his porfolio materials are not only technically good viz. web 2.0 standards but I guess also spot-on also for the inevitable sniff-tests of technique-hounds.

[djlewis]

Huh? Could you be more specific about which injuries? And the mechanics of the injuries? I missed what you see...

Also, what are the missing fundamentals?

More than one way to skin a cat....plus the guy needs to be sure his porfolio materials are not only technically good viz. web 2.0 standards but I guess also spot-on also for the inevitable sniff-tests of technique-hounds.

OK, at the risk of dumping myself into the "technique-hound" basket, I'll comment.

The animations are superb -- don't think I've seen anything quite as faithful to (my understanding of) correct technique. But there are so many elements to good technique, a relatively brief rendering such as this is likely to miss many. One I noticed in the -- otherwise excellent -- forward stroke animation is a certain amount of air paddling, that is, pulling the blade backwards before it's fully submerged. And, of course, the rolling animation is utterly inadequate to the actual task of teaching rolling. I just viewed "The Kayak Roll" DVD again after several years, and I am struck by the number and subtlety of the elements you have to assemble to make their roll (or anybody's) work -- and the number of ways it can go wrong.

Another -- the upper hand in the draw stroke is much higher than I have been taught by numerous coaches, and may be an injury issue. The usual is at eye level. Also, the animation beautifully shows both the body and lower hand moving, which is good, but the text does not mention body movement, nor "face your work". Also, it shows only sculling draw, and omits the equally important straight draw.

Another -- the turn section shows an outside edge turn, but calls that a "carved turn." In fact, the outside edge turn actually skids the stern a lot more, and is indeed called a "skidded turn". The inside edge turn is a carved turn, that is, the bow and stern move laterally about the same. (Yeah, I know some instructors have this the other way around, but get someone to watch your bow and stern wakes sometime when doing outside and inside edged turns.)

Another -- the backward paddling segment shows only one style of paddling backwards, starting the paddle close to the boat (which, despite the text, is not the same as reversing a good forward stroke). But that style is likely to get a beginner yawing uncontrollably if they get up any speed at all. It's generally best to teach a wide backwards stroke first, with constant sweep correction.

So, my overall impression is that the animations are a tour de force, and that's the main point of this project, which was apparently a communications degree thesis somewhere. As for being of practical use in teaching kayaking, it's minimal. Not only does it not do justice to the many elements that need to be taught in an individual way, it appeals mainly to the visual learning mode, which is only a fraction of the picture for real instruction.

This is not meant as a unmitigated criticism of the site -- we just need to understand its goals. The approach could be taken further with some value to add to the mix of teaching techniques, especially the visual learning angle. But that would be a tremendous amount of work in the animations -- and, as you point out, always subject to the critiques of technique hounds. The way out of that is to show alternatives, but that's not only a ton more animation work, it can confuse a beginner. Also, you need a way to deliver the animations on the water so learners can immediately try things out. Strictly visual learning is problematic enough without a huge time lag between seeing an animation and actually getting on the water to try things.

BTW, I suspect the animations were generated by some kind of transformation of real paddling videos, which does not detract from their technical excellence. In fact, that's part of the shtick and makes them faithful as well as crisp visual aids.

--David

[adambolonsky]

OK, at the risk of dumping myself into the "technique-hound" basket, I'll comment.

The animations are superb -- don't think I've seen anything quite as faithful to (my understanding of) correct technique. But there are so many elements to good technique, a relatively brief rendering such as this is likely to miss many. One I noticed in the -- otherwise excellent -- forward stroke animation is a certain amount of air paddling, that is, pulling the blade backwards before it's fully submerged. And, of course, the rolling animation is utterly inadequate to the actual task of teaching rolling. I just viewed "The Kayak Roll" DVD again after several years, and I am struck by the number and subtlety of the elements you have to assemble to make their roll (or anybody's) work -- and the number of ways it can go wrong.

Another -- the upper hand in the draw stroke is much higher than I have been taught by numerous coaches, and may be an injury issue. The usual is at eye level. Also, the animation beautifully shows both the body and lower hand moving, which is good, but the text does not mention body movement, nor "face your work". Also, it shows only sculling draw, and omits the equally important straight draw.

Another -- the turn section shows an outside edge turn, but calls that a "carved turn." In fact, the outside edge turn actually skids the stern a lot more, and is indeed called a "skidded turn". The inside edge turn is a carved turn, that is, the bow and stern move laterally about the same. (Yeah, I know some instructors have this the other way around, but get someone to watch your bow and stern wakes sometime when doing outside and inside edged turns.)

Another -- the backward paddling segment shows only one style of paddling backwards, starting the paddle close to the boat (which, despite the text, is not the same as reversing a good forward stroke). But that style is likely to get a beginner yawing uncontrollably if they get up any speed at all. It's generally best to teach a wide backwards stroke first, with constant sweep correction.

So, my overall impression is that the animations are a tour de force, and that's the main point of this project, which was apparently a communications degree thesis somewhere. As for being of practical use in teaching kayaking, it's minimal. Not only does it not do justice to the many elements that need to be taught in an individual way, it appeals mainly to the visual learning mode, which is only a fraction of the picture for real instruction.

This is not meant as a unmitigated criticism of the site -- we just need to understand its goals. The approach could be taken further with some value to add to the mix of teaching techniques, especially the visual learning angle. But that would be a tremendous amount of work in the animations -- and, as you point out, always subject to the critiques of technique hounds. The way out of that is to show alternatives, but that's not only a ton more animation work, it can confuse a beginner. Also, you need a way to deliver the animations on the water so learners can immediately try things out. Strictly visual learning is problematic enough without a huge time lag between seeing an animation and actually getting on the water to try things.

BTW, I suspect the animations were generated by some kind of transformation of real paddling videos, which does not detract from their technical excellence. In fact, that's part of the shtick and makes them faithful as well as crisp visual aids.

--David

Thanks, David. Informative, measured and well-thought-out -- as usual! I still think the guy's work is great. First time I've seen anything like it and I hope he does a lot more.

Adam

[djlewis]

Thanks, David. Informative, measured and well-thought-out -- as usual! I still think the guy's work is great. First time I've seen anything like it and I hope he does a lot more.

Adam

What would be really useful would be the ability to play and replay segments with even finer control, zoom in and out on specifics, and visual annotations -- arrows, circles, notes, etc -- right on the video pointing out crucial teaching elements for each stroke or maneuver. That would overcome some of the shortcomings of live on-water demos... assumning, again, that you could somehow play the animations on the water. I guess doing it in dry-land class wouldn't be so bad, if you backed them up with immediate on-water live re-demos and student's own attempts.

IOW, this technology might be the beginning of something very useful for kayaking (and other physical/athletic) learning. It depends a lot on how much time, work, fancy equipment and expertise is required to make these -- whether non-technical folks could make detailed series without breaking the bank.

Apropos of that, I'm more certain than ever that these are made somehow from live videos. I occasionally see a series of commercials on TV with a similar technology, so I assume it's out there. Anybody know -- I tried a Google search but could not turn it up.

--David

[FrankR]

Apropos of that, I'm more certain than ever that these are made somehow from live videos. I occasionally see a series of commercials on TV with a similar technology, so I assume it's out there. Anybody know -- I tried a Google search but could not turn it up.

--David

Its called rotoscoping. Don't know a lot about it, but here are some pointers from the first page of a Google search. I think it has to be done frame by frame, which would make it pretty expensive in terms of time and resources.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotoscope

http://www.toonyphotos.com/

[djlewis]

Its called rotoscoping. Don't know a lot about it, but here are some pointers from the first page of a Google search. I think it has to be done frame by frame, which would make it pretty expensive in terms of time and resources.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotoscope

http://www.toonyphotos.com/

Thanks! I followed your clues to this article...

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/9.02/wakinglife.html

Which says...

Each actor was drawn, or "interpreted," by a different artist, intentionally lending every character a distinctive style - the antithesis of what goes on at animation houses like Disney, where the goal is seamless cohesion. Sabiston's roto-ware, used with Wacom pens and tablets, enables artists to paint over DV footage in ways similar to putting brush strokes on paper or canvas. The result - an eerily precise replication of human expressions and movement - is accelerated by the software's interpolation function, which frees animators from having to hand-draw each line in every frame. Instead, the computer connects fluid lines and brush strokes across a wide range of frames.

Sabiston, who has a graduate degree in computer graphics research from the MIT Media Lab, says he wrote the software because he couldn't find anything off the shelf. Though his invention saves time, it still requires the tedium that is animation's hallmark. It took up to 250 hours to make one minute in Waking Life. The process is not for the faint of heart.

So, looks like this is better than the original rotoscoping, but still pretty time-intensive, and will not lead to large quantities of instructional videos any time soon. Oh, well.

--David.

[spider]

Ok, I checked it out to see what all the talk was about. Fine looking fellow. Wish I looked so good doing half as much.

Had the guy paddling his brains out by just dragging the little dot thing back and forth at whatever speed you want.

He didn't even work up a sweat !

Not the end all of end alls but nice stuff to go along with all the other info out there in video/ computer land.

dare I say it was fun...

[hopefloats]

Desperately wish I could find the job that would willingly train and pay me to animate things like this all day! I'd thoroughly enjoy that kind of "tedium." Heavy sigh, I'll go back to typesetting now...

[Phil Allen]

Desperately wish I could find the job that would willingly train and pay me to animate things like this all day! I'd thoroughly enjoy that kind of "tedium." Heavy sigh, I'll go back to typesetting now...

There are many art schools with intensive programs in animation (my kid just started at one). However, one has to pay upfront for the hoped for job later (and believe me, we're paying).

Phil

[adambolonsky]

There are many art schools with intensive programs in animation (my kid just started at one). However, one has to pay upfront for the hoped for job later (and believe me, we're paying).

Phil

Thanks for all the info, guys. I've contacted the site designer and we're going to be working together on better US English localisation for the text.

[FrankR]

Thanks! I followed your clues to this article...

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/9.02/wakinglife.html

...

So, looks like this is better than the original rotoscoping, but still pretty time-intensive, and will not lead to large quantities of instructional videos any time soon. Oh, well.

--David.

Don't give up yet. That article is 5 years old - and the advanced computer they used was a Mac G4. I'd bet that techniques have improved significantly since then. If any of this can be automated then it would be a perfect parallel computer operation - something that could be distributed over the network, like the SETI project.

By the way "motion capture" is another way to do this - it involves putting sensors on a subject and then capturing their 3D position over time. It don't know if it can be combined with rotoscoping or is a separate technology path.

[brwells]

<BR>By the way "motion capture" is another way to do this - it involves putting sensors on a subject and then capturing their 3D position over time. It don't know if it can be combined with rotoscoping or is a separate technology path.<BR>

When this discussion started, I thought instead of guessing at the technology being used why not ask the designer directly.  I have had a nice exchange with Niko in Finland regarding this discussion and he has now seen this thread on our website.

Here is his response which he asked me to post:

The animations are made with 3D software and without any motion capture.

For some movements there has been reference videos but 90% percent is

made by using pure "muscle memory" (is there such term in english?). (He is referring to his memory of how his muscles perform the various strokes, etc. - Brian)

The animating is really time consuming so I have to be very selective

about what techniques to teach. And as Djlewis pointed out, too many

alternative techniques will confuse the users.

For example there is only sculling draw and no straight draw. The reason

is that I have not yet found a situation where a straight draw would be

a considerably better option.

The website is not intended to rival on-the-location instruction, but it

can be used as a supportive material. We have to remeber that many

paddlers have never had any professional instruction, or buy

instructional DVD:s or books.

When things are teached on internet, it is always balancing between all

the important nuances and keeping things concise. Eskimo roll is a good

example of this. It is a relatively simple movement that takes maybe

three seconds to perform. Yet there are books and DVD:s devoted to that

one thing only. I'm not saying that it is stupid, but for most people

too much theory will only make things too complicated.

There will certainly be more tutorials every now and then. I am

currently planning to do a set of tutorials about how to cope with the

waves.

In future I will also have more tutoring from Finnish Canoeing

Association and some other instances.

But I would be really pleased to hear all proposals and nags about the

content from you aswell. So if I have time, I can tune the old tutorials

as well.

I invited Niko to join the website and I certainly hope he will do so.  By the way, the software he used for the animations are: Hexagon 2 and Carrara 5 Pro.

Hexagon http://www.daz3d.com/i.x/software/hexagon/-/?

Carrara http://www.daz3d.com/i.x/software/carrara/-/?

These look like beautiful 3D modeling and rendering applications.  I also wish I had time to work with this type of software.  Sure beats programming medical applications all day.

Brian