Photorealsim with real paint
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Ross, I appreciate your comments. Sidenote: Your avitar is wonderfully artistic but it makes you appear permanently angry. It lends a distinctive "flavour" to your comments", to me any way.
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Angry? My typical disposition is one of blissful glee.
In fact I could count on the fingers of one hand the amount of times in my life I remember being angry. I probably need therapy because I'm almost never angry -- hopefully there's no pent up anger about to explode. You guys are safe - it is hard to go 'postal' on a website.I'll think about a new avatar. There must be something that won't scare people.
Regards, Ross
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@ross said:
...I'll think about a new avatar. There must be something that won't scare people.
Regards, Ross
No, Ross, please, don't! You look so classic in this avatar - like an antique god or something!
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How about something more heroiclly enigmatic...
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LOL
I think we are getting off topic.
I've never been an "antique god" but in my earlier life I was in fact a rock god. I used to tour with the Allman Brothers Band, Stevie Ray Vaughan and others. I quit the rockstar life after getting hit in the head a few too many times with beer bottles during performances. I've fallen off a few stages too.
Regards Ross
PS -- now I'm just Bossy Rossy.
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Not to worry, someone will pick it up again if it is of interest and they have something to add. I have personally always felt that discussions should be allowed to ramble as they would in life.
Shoot, can't even see your knees in those pics, much less your face. Great breastplate, though.
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Susan, I'm the emperor in the chariot, not the centurion in the front!
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That butterfly riding in the chariot with you is looking like she thinks you really are an Emperor. Its harder to tell what the dude next to you is thinking --- was he doing something to the horse? The guy behind looks like he just saw something disgusting.
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Seeing the knees would Still have been nice.
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Well, just to go in order...
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the girl who looks like a butterfly is actually weraing the wings of the godess Victoria (accompanying the victorious emperor). I told them that there should be a virgin beside me but I only got her - quite sceptic about her state of hm...
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the other guy (left to me) is actually driving the chariot (member of the legio XV Apollinaris).
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the guy behindd me (AKA Kephalos in these forums) is a slave who is supposed to be whisperin into my ears: "remember, you are a mortal" - indeed he was whispering but saying things like "remember, I hate this thing so much and would rather be drinking beer". He's a young archaeologist fellow of mine though... The name "Kephalos" seems to be appropriate now as Greek names in Pannonia (my province) were mostly particular to slaves (kephalos = head in Greek).
Well, so much for now - I need to join the others in the (non-virtual) Corner Bar...
Edit: Susan, I'll try to find a picture of my knees for ya...
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You've got it all wrong...
Here's what was really happening:
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u guys are hilarious!!! LOL.. @ ross.. the last one was a good one!
and please dont ask bout my avatar.. i am just shy!
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Thanks Ross - I saved it and will share with the "team" if you don't mind...
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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 -
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"
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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 -
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. -
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
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Gosh that's pretty Stu.
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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
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