Advice on image editing - photo & render
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Hello,
a co-worker of mine who has a sliding wardrobe business wants to incorporate 3D into his service.
To avoid me having to model the full room, I'm thinking of this:Photo from a certain point in the room,
I render wardrobes in their chosen style, with realistic settings, at the right angle (yes this is already sounding hard to me...)
Using an image editor to insert the wardrobes into the photo.But what about reflections? I'm thinking going to where the wardrobes would be, taking a photo facing the room at the correct angle, and blending this with the wardrobe layer in the image editor in such a way that replicates reflection?
Basically I've just thought of this, it may be totally flawed, but either way I don't know how exactly to go about it.
Does anyone have any experience with something similar, or just any tips? Any help is greatly appreciated!Thanks
Mike -
V8 Pro has Photomatch that let's you do this AND render the image of the model and the photo if desired.
Unfortunately you can't do reflections or artificial lighting directly within Sketchup, but many renderers include that possibility, but you would then need to apply your photo-image as textures to a box making the room.
There are also tricks to make reflections within the SKP by making a component of the room and placing a flipped version of it behind any reflective surfaces, giving those surfaces some transparency so that the faked reflection look 'true'.
I suggest you do a bit of searching through these forums as there are several topics about this type of thing... -
Hmm interesting.
Photomatch may be helpful for positioning the wardrobes in relation to the photo.
The fake reflection technique though is no good, the image in the wardrobes needs to be as real as the photo of the rest of the room, so I'd need to use a second photo I think -
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Fantastic link
I'll start reading see if any of it is plausible for me
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Wow, that software's amazing, I don't understand though, is it not available yet? Would be perfect..
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Sorry to not only necro a thread but triple post, but I'm going to have another stab at this.
I'm currently downloading gimp to see if I could use it to get the desired effect.
A co-worker of mine has a bespoke sliding wardrobe company and if the client wants he gets me to model their room with the wardrobes in place and render it. But I'm just imagining how much easier it all would be if I knew how to just render the wardrobes correctly and get them in the original photo...Anyone have ideas on how to get it done with gimp or something similar?
Thanks
Mike -
<self-interest>
Well you could install LightUp (http://www.light-up.co.uk) that does artificial lighting + mirrors all inside SketchUp.
This is a screengrab from inside Sketchup:
</self-interest>
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Mike, what you want to do is not absurd. IT might just take some work and a few tries. For those of us who use photoshop a lot, it all sounds perfectly normal what your describing.
I don't know what a 'sliding wardrobe' is though. But I know you could go into an empty room and take a photo. Then write all dimensions down, save all the camera settings such as lens length. Then make the same room in SketchUp and put the clothes racks in it, then render. Then just paste the clothes racks into the original photo.
The amount of glass/reflective surfaces will of course make things a little more tricky. But you could always take some props with you when you take the photos and put them where the clothes will go, and see where and how they reflect in real life. Then just try to match that as best as possible by hand in gimp.
Go for it.
If you don't want to take photos of the place, there are plenty of renderers out there that can do a great job rendering the entire store as well. Then the renderer will take care of reflections as well. Adam posted a great example above. Good luck,
Chris
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Hey guys,
As a last resort I could go the fully rendered route, in which case I'll just use Podium.
However for the photographic route, the photo of the room I'll be editing wont be empty, as it'll be an in-use bedroom. Not a complete mess, but still. I'm just confused on how exactly to insert the render of wardrobes into it without it looking like just that! Also as for the reflections, the sliders are a lot like in this image:
http://i.ebayimg.com/08/!B)fjsPwCWk~$(KGrHqN,!isEv1+0C)7uBMNtTR5zZ!~~_3.JPG
Completely baffled on how to achieve that..would I take another photo and sort of "blend" it in? But if so I'm not sure of a decent workflow of knowing what photo to take, positioning etc... -
Aha, I think I'm starting to catch on.
Inserting things into an existing image in photoshop is a skill that you will refine the more you do it. It is a matter of paying attention to a few key things. The basics are:
scale
perspective (vanishing lines)
color tone matching
shadows and shading
depth - behind/in front of other objects in photoDo those things and its pretty easy and lots of fun. So go take a quick picture of a room. Then try to make a quick model of the wardrobe. See if you can get it to fit into the picture. Pay attention to everything above, then post it on here and you'll get some feedback.
Chris
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Well I have gimp, but I get the feeling what I'm trying to do doesn't really required photoshop
I have a picture of a room, and not a perfectly straight on one, which is good for working this out I guess!
Made a basic wardrobe shape, and for now just put a photo in front of it in sketchup for the reflections. not the correct reflections, just an image to try it.
I just downloaded fredoscale to see if I can get the rendered wardrobe to have the correct shape by morphing it into an angled shape that fits straight on.. let's see if this works.. -
If I were you, I would not morph the wardrobe.
You should place it in a basic room in SketchUp, then move the SketchUp camera around til it is in the same location as it was in the original photo. Nothing to perfect, just a close approximation. That will make it so that the wardrobe is angled about right to fit into the picture.
Then warp the wardrobe a little bit as needed in the photo, not in SketchUp.
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Hmm okay I'll stick to that route.
Only problem now is reflections, don't know if there is a plausible way of doing this, due to having to see the backs of objects in front of the wardrobes.. -
Well, that is up to you. It will be tricky. You'll have to take picture of them if you really want to try to show them. Or fake them in somehow by hand.
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Yep, considering reflecting 3D objects that are as close to the real thing as I can get, may work considering the reflections arent crystal clear.
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I'm confident in putting the wardrobes in the right place now, and using 3d objects to do the awkward reflections (eg. something in the middle of the room)
But the problem lies with the image behind the camera of the opposite end of the room. I'd like to use this to give a realistic overall reflection but it just isn't working right.. I can't get the image to span all of the wardrobes realistically (without stretching it out) and if for example on the wall to the side of the wardrobes theres a window, I have no idea how to simulate that at an angle
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Hmm, that is tricky. That's the kind of thing you could fake if you were showing to someone who is not familiar with the room. But if its for the person who sleeps in the room every night, its a bit tougher to fake stuff.
But, if you are putting in a large mirrored wall where they have none, they do not know exactly what the reflection should look like. So just getting close should work.
to get "close" I think you could stand where the wardrobe is planned to go and take a picture looking back towards the base photo. You will probably need a really wide lens - 18mm or so is my guess. I could be wrong though. If you have various lens options, I'd play around with them. And you will probably have to do some image editing on that image as well. It might need to be blended with the backsides of objects you have rendered or something. In other words, this will be an imperfect science.
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