I have bunch of stock black & white animated silhouettes of people and I was wondering if I could somehow add 3D to them using Blender. So, would it be possible to somehow apply that video as a texture to a plane and extrude the black silhouette, giving it a third dimension?
I think what you are looking for is called Rotoscoping. Here is example of footage:
Here is more in-depth tutorial: http://vimeo.com/17775980
What sort of 3d effect do you want to achieve?
If your final is to deliver an animated mesh object, it can be done in a very long winded multi-step process.
However, if your goal is simply to add some depth/extrusion to a silhouetted plane, you can use the old trick that After Effects users have been using for quite some time to “Fake” 3D. Simply create a stack of closely placed planes with the same exact alpha on them. The closer your camera gets to the edge of the stack, the more planes you will need in the stack to maintain the illusion. But for simple camera work you may only need a few planes.
Use the Array modifier to create the additional planes. You can create an alternate material for just the middle part of the array stack. Leverage the end cap objects for your final silhouette image. This way you could colorize the extrusion, if you wanted.
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Atom, this is very ingenious! It may do for my project.
Thanks!