Filed under: iLife, Internet Tools, Leopard
Getting the iChat hologram effect back
When Leopard was released a lot of folks (well okay, just Star Wars geeks, but nonetheless) lamented the loss of the hologram style iChat AV effect demonstrated back at WWDC. Well for those folks, a little birdy told me that the Quartz Composer file for this effect can be downloaded here (download link). Just pop it into your /Library/Compositions folder, restart iChat and it should be available as one of the video effects. This file was apparently taken from one of the earlier developer builds of Leopard.If you want a different take on the same idea, there's also a fan made version over at Mac Rumors.
Get a WordPress.com Blog
![TUAW [Cafepress]](http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.tuaw.com/media/tuaw-cafepress-promo.png)


Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
jonathan ober said 5:03PM on 10-30-2007
and may the force be with you.
not sure if i will download this video effect, but it looks sweet at least. kind of a fun one to play with.
Reply
Justin said 5:05PM on 10-30-2007
I still can't get my backround in iChat to work without me being really pixilated. It looks no where like the website or videos I seen from apple
Reply
craig said 5:08PM on 10-30-2007
dead link...
I WANT HOLOGRAM!
Reply
Henry said 5:15PM on 10-30-2007
I agree with justin, mine's all pixelated. I think you need a flat wall with nothing on it, like mirrors or anything.
And as craig rightly said, dead link.
Reply
Michael Grothaus said 5:16PM on 10-30-2007
Dead link
Reply
Bob S. said 5:20PM on 10-30-2007
Yup, dead dead dead.
Reply
MegaMe said 5:22PM on 10-30-2007
try this link:
http://fileupload.ning.com/dl/?9347136
Reply
Graphikos said 5:25PM on 10-30-2007
Here ya'll go... ;)
http://fileupload.ning.com/dl/?9347136
=D
Reply
k said 5:28PM on 10-30-2007
any chance this could work in tiger?
Reply
Jason said 5:36PM on 10-30-2007
Can anyone tell me how to get this to work in Tiger? Does it work in Photo Booth?
Reply
Johnny said 5:38PM on 10-30-2007
My experience is that you need bright, constant lighting with background color which completely contrasts your own colors. I have a goatee and unless there is a very bright white background, it almost always pixelates and on dark backgrounds, becomes one with it.
Reply
nagrom said 4:58PM on 10-31-2007
it works pretty good for me, but i'm in a pretty bright office. if you want it in photobooth, follow the instructions in the macrumors link.
Reply
Jas said 5:52PM on 10-30-2007
Hmm i think they meant to leave it out, looks washed out and flat NO WHERE near as good as the keynote version, laaame. Im trashing it
Reply
Indiana said 5:59PM on 10-30-2007
Wasn't there also a sephia, old style screensaver? I realy liked that... can someone post that too?
Reply
jonathan ober said 6:13PM on 10-30-2007
i was in a room on sunday that had some college flags on it, moving with the air in the room...it was kind of funny how some people who were on camera had flag size chunks out of their body. very sweet! fun effect.
anyways, i hear plain background/green screen being best works the best. that's probably what apple used...although that one guy was in a white room, perhaps he took off his straight jacket to do the overview of leopard for us.
Reply
johnnycakes said 6:17PM on 10-30-2007
does anyone know how to use this in photo booth?
Reply
ajvankesteren said 6:16PM on 10-30-2007
It *should* work in PhotoBooth- there's a short how-to on the mac rumors forum (haven't got link right now, it involves copying the qtz file into the resources folder of PhotoBooth and editing a plist). I can't get it to activate in PhotoBooth however, the effect just doesn't show up...
Reply
BrianEnigma said 6:21PM on 10-30-2007
I'm still waiting for someone to release the security camera screensaver that was shown in some of the earlier Leopard betas, but isn't in the final release.
Reply
John W said 6:29PM on 10-30-2007
Both the sepia and the security screen savers are included with the Developer Tools that come on the Leopard Install DVD. Install the Developer Tools, then look for the screen saver files at /Developer/Examples/Quartz Composer/Compositions/Screen Savers. Put the files from there into /Library/Screen Savers, and you will be able to use them.
Reply
Blair said 6:30PM on 10-30-2007
Brian:
It's available if you install Xcode. It isn't all that special though.
For those having trouble getting it to show in Photo Booth, you have to replace one of the user defined effects in EffectsOrdering.plist within the Photo Booth app package. Once you've put the .qtz file in the main Contents/Resources folder of the app, just removing the trailing slash and make sure you are capitalizing the name the same way as the file is capitalized. Just enter the filename, rather than filename+extension. Restart photo booth and it should show on your last pane of effects.
Reply