Spot the Ball

#1

Post by mrbird » Fri, Jun 19, 2015, 7:30 PM UTC

Spot the Ball
projects.nytimes.com

Re: Spot the Ball

#2

Post by _alastair » Fri, Jun 19, 2015, 8:02 PM UTC

I'm one of the people that made this interactive - funny to see it on Hacker News! If anyone has any questions about it, let me know.

Re: Spot the Ball

#3

Post by corbinpage » Fri, Jun 19, 2015, 8:05 PM UTC

_alastair wrote: post #2

I'm one of the people that made this interactive - funny to see it on Hacker News! If anyone has any questions about it, let me know.

How do you construct the background image that replaces the ball?

Re: Spot the Ball

#4

Post by rwc » Fri, Jun 19, 2015, 8:11 PM UTC

corbinpage wrote: post #3

_alastair wrote: post #2

I'm one of the people that made this interactive - funny to see it on Hacker News! If anyone has any questions about it, let me know.

How do you construct the background image that replaces the ball?

Suspect they used Photoshop Content Aware Fill. http://www.photoshopessentials.com/photo-editing/content-awa...

Re: Spot the Ball

#5

Post by _alastair » Fri, Jun 19, 2015, 8:12 PM UTC

corbinpage wrote: post #3

_alastair wrote: post #2

I'm one of the people that made this interactive - funny to see it on Hacker News! If anyone has any questions about it, let me know.

How do you construct the background image that replaces the ball?

That's the work of Sam Manchester, deputy editor on the Sports desk and chief Photoshop wizard. I believe most of it is just cloning different parts of the photo to cover up the ball, though it can get more complex. For example, on the 4th photo of this previous round:

http://projects.nytimes.com/interactive/sports/worldcup/spot...

he actually cloned a players face from a different photo and pasted it in to cover up the ball. I have no idea how he does it so well.

Re: Spot the Ball

#6

Post by BillTheCat » Fri, Jun 19, 2015, 8:13 PM UTC

corbinpage wrote: post #3

_alastair wrote: post #2

I'm one of the people that made this interactive - funny to see it on Hacker News! If anyone has any questions about it, let me know.

How do you construct the background image that replaces the ball?

Sports photographers also take many shots in rapid succession. I bet you could clone the background from a shot a half second before the one in the article.

Re: Spot the Ball

#7

Post by hockeybias » Fri, Jun 19, 2015, 8:14 PM UTC

_alastair wrote: post #2

I'm one of the people that made this interactive - funny to see it on Hacker News! If anyone has any questions about it, let me know.

If the goal was to generate frustration, it worked with me. Quit halfway through...

Re: Spot the Ball

#8

Post by jmhobbs » Fri, Jun 19, 2015, 8:15 PM UTC

This is infuriating. I tried using where players were looking and it got me squat. Very cool though.

Re: Spot the Ball

#9

Post by bherms » Fri, Jun 19, 2015, 8:19 PM UTC

reminds me of bestofthebest's car raffle... since you can't really gamble in the UK, they do a skill based game that is exactly this... you buy guesses and then click where you think the ball is... the person each week with the closest guess to where a group of judges says the ball is wins the car of their choice

Re: Spot the Ball

#10

Post by ehmorris » Fri, Jun 19, 2015, 8:20 PM UTC

_alastair wrote: post #2

I'm one of the people that made this interactive - funny to see it on Hacker News! If anyone has any questions about it, let me know.

Very interesting to see the density of others' guesses. It doesn't seem to show every other guess though — how do you choose which ones to show?