3D vs. Billboard Trees and People
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ThomThom,
I'm sure you are aware, but http://www.turbosquid.com/ has some nice bundles. I have purchased a couple for offices in the past.
Is there a way to 'bake' in the shadows (this can be done in 3ds max)? That way I could get the shadows from 3d trees on one layer, then do the final render with image billboards.
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I appreciate this discussion. I usually end up leaving the scenes void because quite frankly every time I add entourage it looks phony.
I'll follow any lead suggested. -
Currently my thoughts are:
People:
A. Clipped Images.
Use really nice clipped images, turned into face-me billboards. Being careful to find images that have 'neutral light' on them.
Pros: no photoshop time
Cons: flat appearance, doesn't work from birds-eye, time consuming to build these.B. Low-poly people with textures.
Pros: no photoshop time, works from birds-eye, true depth
Cons: doesn't work up close, hard/expensive to find a large number of good ones.C. High-poly people with textures.(does this exist for SU?)
Pros: no photoshop time, works from birds-eye, true depth
Cons: doesn't work up close, hard/expensive to find a large number of good ones, slows computerD. Place holder billboards, photoshop people on top of place holder
Pros: easy to add large variety of people images
Cons: Post process time, lighting may not look right.Trees:
A. Clipped Images.
Use really nice clipped images, turned into face-me billboards.Use really nice clipped images, turned into face-me billboards. Being careful to findimages that have 'neutral light' on them.
Pros: no photoshop time
Cons: flat appearance, doesn't work from birds-eye, time consuming to build these.B. High-poly Trees
Pros: no photoshop time, works from birds-eye, true depth
Cons: doesn't work up close, hard/expensive to find a large number of good ones, slows computer, very hard to find range of species, very few look organic and realisticC. Mid-poly Trees with post process.
Use Mid-poly trees to accomplish depth and shadow. In photoshop, overlay real images on top of mid-poly trees.
Pros: Realistic (?)
Cons: Lots of post process time, hard to accomplish with a grove of trees -
It's not a one-size-fits-all solution (doesn't work for overhead at all), but I like the long exposure style photographs where the people are blurred. I've had good success with this technique because it requires very little accurate detail on the people. I use some of the cut-out photo people from the 3D Warehouse, copy them onto a new layer in Photoshop and use the motion blur filter. Like I said, not a universal solution.
Speaking of no universal solution, maybe a list of techniques and/or do's and don'ts for different situations would be helpful. Here's a very quick start. Please edit:
I. Eye-level:
a. Close-up
- NOT low-poly 3D
- Long-exposure style blurred 2D photo people
b. Distant
- 2D photo people (there are some in the 3D Warehouse)
- 2D sillouettes as reference to post-pro
- Low-poly 3D
c. Crowded
- 2D sillouettes as reference to post-pro
- Post-pro in foreground, low-poly 3D in background?
d. Sparse
- Very, very careful Photoshop?
II. Overhead:
- Low-poly 3D people
- NOT 2D people
- Post-pro only may be too time consuming? -
+1 ledisnomad!
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Someone I believe is very tasteful in his use of entourage is Free Agent. http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?p=254467#p254467
If I am not mistaken he uses photoshop post pro for his work.
He seems to have uncanny taste in the numbers and placement of the people he uses.(IMHO)
There are examples in the above links of closeup, overhead, and distant use. -
Good thoughts ledisnomad. Entourage Guidelines are excatly what I'm trying to develop for my work flow.
@ledisnomad said:
d. Sparse - Very, very careful Photoshop?Do you mean just free-hand pasting in photoshop without any reference?
Cheers,
Nathan -
@dale said:
Someone I believe is very tasteful in his use of entourage is Free Agent. http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?p=254467#p254467
Yes - he's got a very nice style. Too bad he's not been very active lately.
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@thomthom said:
@dale said:
Someone I believe is very tasteful in his use of entourage is Free Agent. http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?p=254467#p254467
Yes - he's got a very nice style. Too bad he's not been very active lately.
Second that. I would like to hear Free Agent's thoughts.
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@dale said:
Someone I believe is very tasteful in his use of entourage is Free Agent. http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?p=254467#p254467
If I am not mistaken he uses photoshop post pro for his work.
He seems to have uncanny taste in the numbers and placement of the people he uses.(IMHO)
There are examples in the above links of closeup, overhead, and distant use.Look closely at the first images (African Market). The raw rendering has shadows from a tree, but the tree doesn't render. How is this done??!! That could be helpful. Is this an option in VRay or was that from Max?
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@thomthom said:
Yes - he's got a very nice style. Too bad he's not been very active lately.
I sent him a PM asking him if he would mind explaining his workflow. I'm hoping he will jump in.
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Hey presto!!
my thoughts on entourage is: photoshop photoshop photoshop. i only ever use 3d people for distant aerials otherwise i use dosch top people (and there are a couple others) which is photos of poeple taken from a higher angle.
3d plants is fun but not very flexible so i would suggest a mix of 3d and photoshop vegetation, the 3d plants should offer a good example of how u would treat the photoshop plants light-wise. and personally i find it far more satisfying to have a good render with photoshoped vegetation rather than 3d. also 3d plants really cant fit into the high pace of a professional work flow.
i draw personal inspiration from MIR (http://mir.no/) when it comes to enterage, i think they have it spot on, u can even see eddie murphy in a couple of renders.
at the end of the day however it really is: "practice makes perfect" however tedious that might sound. ive had quite a bit and still feel im far from the MIR quality, because once you think you mastered one aspect of the rendering process (entourage) then u feel u need to work on another (lighting and environment)but then notice ur initial process could use more work. so progress is slow...
Thom: im still active, i'll do another big gallery post soon, if i posted all the time it would become "Old Hat" nothing special.
Focpt: in max u have object properties where u can specify invisible to camera, im not sure how vray for SU has advanced but the way i used to do it in SU was to place the tree billboard then on the face facing the camera apply a 100% transparent material so that its "invisible"
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Sean!
Good to see you again! -
Sean, do you create your own resources for people and vegetation? What's your main source?
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we have quite a few bought people and plant libraries (and some won libraries from competetions) however my favourite libary is my general folders which consist of free and manually cutout people, from site like vyonyx and archiforge and kropped.com, theres even quite a few on the warehouse that u can rip from the models posted on there. for trees however they are often to low res to use as a feature element.
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Yes Sean, thanks for doing this.
Are you using lighting resources in photoshop, i.e. Filter/Render/Lighting Effects to manipulate lighting direction?
Also I think you've raised real good point about vegetation, and I think we should add it to this discussion.
Nothing slows me down more than adding 3D plants, so I'm using photoshop more and more. The only problem with this is trying to make sure all scenes have co-ordinated plantings.By the way Sean, do you have any new work we can have a peek at?
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This is really helpful. Thanks Free Agent for your process. To summarize so far...
Possible entourage workflows:
I. Eye-level
a. Post-production. Web resources include:
i. vyonyx.com
ii. archiforge.com
iii. kropped.com
b. 2D silhouettes as reference (and shadows), then post-production
c. 2D photo face-me components (potentially with long-exposure style blur)
d. NOT low-poly 3D
II. Overhead
a. Post-production
b. Low-poly 3d people if distant (NOT 2D people)Possible vegetation workflows:
I. Post-production
II. A few 3D for lighting reference, then post-production
III. 2D face-me components as reference and shadows, then post-productionFree Agent, could you explain the shadow trick in a little more detail? If you apply a 100% transparent material in SU, doesn't that affect Vray's (or other renderer's) material?
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Wow, really great infomation. I have a lot of work ahead of me, but I feel like I have some direction now. Thanks for your input Free Agent
Good summary Ledisnomad. Thanks.
@unknownuser said:
....really cant fit into the high pace of a professional work flow. ...
you are speaking my language!
@unknownuser said:
Focpt: in max u have object properties where u can specify invisible to camera, im not sure how vray for SU has advanced but the way i used to do it in SU was to place the tree billboard then on the face facing the camera apply a 100% transparent material so that its "invisible"
I will have to give that a try, thanks.
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@unknownuser said:
Focpt: in max u have object properties where u can specify invisible to camera, im not sure how vray for SU has advanced but the way i used to do it in SU was to place the tree billboard then on the face facing the camera apply a 100% transparent material so that its "invisible"
Ok, I figured out how to make 'invisible' materials in VRay:
http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=322&t=35491
yee-ha.
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focpt, thanks for the link! Invisible materials, here I come.
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