Bringing photos to life with depthmaps and parallax
As an artist you need to keep yourself aflame and inspired in order to run long marathons in industry. One of the best ways to do so, is bringing something to life. This playaround is an example of a quick way to bring a feeling of space and atmosphere to still moments on photos.
You simply take a photo you like, paint depth map in photoshop (in a preliminary step I used a Topaz Lens Fx plugin https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGigAEFKPz4), then make a parallax GIF in any soft using depthmap (I used Depthy.me site to get quick result, but site don't work anymore).
I think nowadays the quickest way to achieve that is AfterEffects, a whole youtube is at your service with loads of tutors.
Photo Credits: pikabu - @zuzaka
Hand painted depth map (Photoshop)
Parallax gif: a kid in a forest
Parallax gif: ants on berries
Parallax gif: a nutshell
Parallax gif: mushrooms
Parallax gif: St. Petersburg city
Photo Credits: pikabu - @FionaGallager
Hand painted depth map (Photoshop)
Parallax gif: a factory maquette
Parallax gif: a road
Parallax gif: a road
Parallax gif: a child print in snow. Natural depthmap taken straight from photo
Parallax gif: organic polymer
Natural depthmap taken straight from photo
Parallax gif: an old house among concrete jungle
Photo Credits: pikabu - @Rfgklgihlktxh
Hand painted depth map (Photoshop)
Parallax gif: St. Petersburg yard
You can also easily play around with z-depth taken from G-Buffer of some games (These taken from AlienIsolation via IntelGPA)
A lab parallax screenshot
Xenomorph last glimpse parallax screenshot