Photorealsim with real paint

Gaieus

Thanks Ross - I saved it and will share with the "team" if you don't mind...

Stu

Susan,
Seeing this thread has morphed into just about anything, I'd like to ask you a question that has been bugging me for ages.
As I understand it, Artlantis and a few other PR renderers have epix. export to Piranesi?
So....does this mean that say, a PR render from Artantis, exported into Piranesi still maintains it's 3D ness?
In other words, could I open that epix. file in Piranesi and then import an ImageCels tiff. tree, for example and place it behind a building or anything else in 3D space?
This would be great for filling a rendered PR hard landscape with PR entourage.
Stu

sorgesu

Well, the short answer is yes, but not how you may think.
An Epix file, regardless of which application it comes from, is actually a Tiff file with 2 extra channels imported. The "materials" channel maintains all of the Material assingment info for every pixel. The "depth" channel maintains mathematical data indicating how far each pixel is from the viewer and thus which pixel is intended to be behind which pixel.

That is how Piranesi handles the the "3D"ness of the image. You can actually switch the mode of viewing and see a visual representation of what is in each channel. The Materials Channel protrays you image in large flat blocks of colour: one colour for each material. This channel can actually be exported as a an image and used as a layer above the regular image in Photoshop to make masking easier. You can see the depth channel in shades of gray. If it helps to think of it this way, you can think of them both as layers, lurking beneath the imaage and the data from these layers can be alternately or in combination be "locked on to" in order to create a selection.

I know someone who is a Photorealstic renderer using ArchiCAD and he bought Piranesi using it exclusively for placing 2D entourage correctly in perspective. Shadows included.

"yes"

Stu

Thanks Susan,
Thats pretty much the answer I was hoping for.
The only renderer I have really used is Kerkythea but I have found it painful trying to render 2D entourage. Similarly, adding the entourage in PS is clunky. From the Piranesi demo, I remember how easy it was to import 2D PR 'cutouts'. These however clashed with the less than PR SU output.
I can understand your Archicad guy and it might just be the path I'm headed down!
Thanks again,
Stu

sorgesu

Stu, I would not be a good friend if I did not point out cheaper alternatives for you. ArchVision sells a product called "Composer", can be used as a Plug In to Photoshop, for about $250 which does a fair job at placing entourage in perspective. It works by the user finding and placing the Horizion line in the image and a sample "person" is placed on the "ground" and sized so the "eye" height is on the horizon line. It uses that info for sizing entourage.
Now the shortcomings are that it works only for RPC content, but that is also possible to work around since they provide a free RPC maker if it is not for commercial use ( as in reselling the entourage content, not as in making renderings). So you could take your image cells stuff and make it into RPCs, defining a height etc. Then bring it into Photoshop through Composer.

The other shortcoming is that it is less precise than the Piranesi version. Next, in Piranesi you can actually place entourage "behind" things but in Photoshop/Composer you cannot. You would still need to "cut" around the bits of the entourage that needs to go behind a car or a chair or whatever. I also found Composer a bit cumbersome to use because it also brings in the RPCs through some project "organizer" that I found counter intuitive, time consuming and cumbersome about 2 versions agoe.
However, as I said, for placing and sizing in perspective, it is quite adequate and a cheaper solution.

Stu

Thanks Susan,
I did check out Composer quite a while ago but didn't feel it would be a whole lot of use, and RPC stuff is pretty expensive and limited in variety compared to ImageCels, for example.
I find it relatively easy to import tiff. entourage into PhotoImpact and scaling them.... and by extracting sections as layers its possible to get that 'behind the wall' effect [see attached...sorry Coen it's only a little one ]. But no way as easy as in Piranesi.
Stu

sorgesu

Gosh that's pretty Stu.

Ray Brown

Susan:

When I was in school back in the year 1563, our graphics teacher (C.L. Martin, who really did "write the book") taught pencil, pen, watercolor, and tempera rendering techniques, using the same design (of our own) hand drawn on illustration boards. We practiced it all: shades and shadows, line control, textures and materials, and entourage.

Of all of it, the tempera gave people the most trouble. It's not in any way easy to manipulate in a way that looks believable or even professional. And although my hat's off to anyone who can use it well, I have a personal bias against the stiffness, overly bright colors, and infinite depth of field that most tempera renderings exhibit. Especially the stiffness. There's not much romance to it, and not much for the viewer to fill in through his or her own perceptions and imagination.

I think rendering is a two-way process of communication. While it often needs to portray the final appearance of a project, the best renderings do so while inviting the participation of the viewer, thus "selling" the project more effectively. No matter how hard-nosed and "business-like" the viewer thinks himself to be, I believe most people make decisions emotionally, then use
logic to ratify them. That's why I'm just no fan of PR.

Ray

sorgesu

Ray what is difficult to handle by "hand" is easy peasy digitally. With the points that you'v just put forward, you just made a case for Tempera look-alike on the Computer. Starting from a SketchUp base, which already looks like Tempera, just needs a few colour blends, it is a no brainer for the computer.

Ray Brown

Yeah, I've been playing a bit with Doyle's techniques as shown in the 3rd edition using photoshop over a SketchUp or hand-drawn base, and adding a little hand work. I'm not very facile with it yet, and haven't really had the time to spend on it that I'd like, but I do see the potential benefits of letting each tool do what it does best. I'm not a complete Luddite...