As requested, I have added information at 4.1 in the project plan. I also made some minor updates to the time schedule and document plan. You can find the new, revised edition of the project plan in both the MS1 and MS2 directory, document name: “tomhil-6_25d_projplan_rev.doc”.
This week I have also done some more serious testing of the techniques used to create a 2.5D scene. I took a royalty free photo found on the internet, used it as an image plane and created coresponding geometry in Maya. Then cut the photo into fore- mid- and background in photoshop and painted in the missing areas in each layer, just as I had in the previous test with the dvd-box. Then I projected the different layers on the geometry in maya and animated a camera to render the finished clip.
This test was very valuable, among the things I learned from doing it was:
1 - The possibilty to sculpt the geometry in maya to match the 3D shapes and bulges in the landscape portrayed in the photo, and not just the outlines of them.
2 - The level of detail needed in the geometry depending on distance from the camera.
3 - The placement of the different fore- mid- backgrounds in relationship to each other to create the feeling of correct distance and perspective compared to the photo.
4 - The ammount of overlap correction in the different layers that is needed. Also depending on distance from the camera and camera movement.
5 - To which extent the clone tool can be used when correcting overlap between layers.
This is the photo that I used:
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Halfway through the process…
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And the result:
Yesterday (tuesday) we had presentations for all of the specialization projects. I have to say that there were lots of interesting information and updates on the other projects and everyone did a good job presenting their individual projects.
Besides doing my presentation, I have also had some time to reflect on the theme for my painting. The main idea have been a jungle theme and I have also portrayed different jungle scenes in my sketches and concepts. One thing though, I have not been too excited about the very narrow palette I have been using. It has almost entirely consisted of blue and green hues. Like this concept that I made this weekend:
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Pondering this, I incorporated some bare rocks and cliffs in my latest concept, thus adding some earth color hues into the palette. This way I can use the broader spectrum of colors, especially the complementary aspect of the reds in the rock and the green in the vegetation, to make the scene more interesting to the eye.
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/Tomas
I have published the Milestone 1 documents, you can find them to the right, under “PROJECT FILES”. —>
I decided to try out a few of the valuable painting techniques I have learned from reading the literature. They came to good use while painting this concept. I feel that I am closing in on what I want the final motif to be. When finishing this piece I realized that I want more space in the scene, a larger and deeper valley, and more distance between the camera and the center of attention. I like the idea of using a very dark, almost silhouette foreground of plants which helps guide the eyes of the viewer into the picture.
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The last couple of weeks, as I have been sketching, I have also been collecting reference photos from the internet. I decided to put some of them together as documentation.
Here are the references:
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and
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/Tomas
This week I have been continuing reading the chosen literature, mainly “Matte Painting”, Altiner, Cole & Stoski, Ballistic Publishing. I learned a lot from reading the chapter called “Desert City” (pg 26 – 35) especially concerning the level of detail needed in the fore-, mid- and background and some info on the use of photo textures: “I used the texture by copying it into a new channel and making a high contrast version of it. By making a selection of the new channel, I could now paint on my background with a large soft brush to lay in the rocky highlights. I inverted the selection and painted into the shadows. This technique works best on distant objects…” (pg 28) and blend modes in Photoshop: “I continued to use the Color Overlay blend mode to help the photos fit into the scene – particularly on the shadow side. Sometimes I will decrease the opacity of the layer to allow some of the color of the sketch to come through and decrease contrast in the texture layer:” (pg 30). I will certainly use the knowledge I have gained from reading the literature when creating my final painting.
I have also made a few more quick sketches, this time adding cut out plants from photos in the foreground.
Here are the sketches:
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I wanted to get a little more insight into the 3D aspect, the technique of camera mapping in particular. So I decided to follow this cameramapping tutorial. This was a very valuable exercise, since this technique is entirely new to me. I learned the basic technique of separating the original image into different layers and edit these layers so that they would be suitable, i.e. painting in the missing parts of the table surface that becomes visible as the camera moves around the DVD-box. I also learned the whole process of creating corresponding geometry in 3D and the problems of lining them up with the perspective in the photograph. I learned how to create and use a fixed camera as a projector for the textures on the geometry and I also learned which type of material to use to get the best result, considering lighting. I followed the steps and made my own clip using the photo below.
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And the result.
/Tomas
I have been reading some of the chosen literature, and learned some valuable information and tips on how to paint a suitable matte painting. One of the best tips came indirectly from reading the chapter about the well renowned matte painter Dylan Cole in “Matte Painting”, Altiner, Cole & Stoski, Ballistic Publishing (pg 9-19), this compelled me to visit Dylan Cole’s homepage: http://www.dylancolestudio.com/. Where Cole talks about the normally used image size for matte paintings: “I usually like to work at 4096 pixels wide which is double film resolution. I do this so that I can get in there and scribble and paint anything I need to. When it gets resampled down to 2k it all comes together and “congeals” nicely. I also paint at a higher resolution because sometimes a client will want to either crop or push in on a painting. Without the extra resolution, this could be a repaint”. This is very useful information for this project, since it gives me a hint about how long time and how much effort the painting phase will take.
I have also done some quick sketches on some of the inhabitants of this “prehistoric valley”. I like the idea of bringing life to the scene by adding a group of sauropods, whose long necks slowly sway above the forest canopy. Another idea is to include one or several pterosaurs gliding across the sky.
Well, so far they are only ideas and might be kept, scrapped or transformed throughout the process.
Here are the sketches:
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/Tomas