CityScape sketch
 

After all that thinking of brainstorming what to do next n all that, I have started something already. Not sure if Im gonna think of it as a 'proper' piece just yet. For a start its smaller than the dragon picture, by almost half, and one thing I definitely told myself was that I would at least double the working size for my next project. So I might just think of it as practice, something for the sketchbook. Its similar to something Ive tried a couple of times before, albeit kind of halfheartedly, and something out of inspiration by a guy called Gutalin, whos posting lots of cool Geiger-esque images on ZBrush Central forum. He has a great way of creating architectural pieces with alphas in ZBrush, after having started from pretty rudimentary primitives in his 3d software. This is not really anything like his stuff, but just the idea of doing more architectural stuff was another thing I was interested in after the 'landscapey-ness' of the dragon picture.

where is the dragon? LOL...........dave

No Dave. No dragons. (allelujah!!) No Ive started seeing some improvements in that picture already, but Im definitely gonna let it go way into the background for a while...


...Was almost gonna use that image as a billboard advertisement on one of the skyscrapers in this, but that would have been impulsive and foolish :)


Ive been painting over this, and I believe I could take it further, but Im gonna listen to my instinct about the lack of scale and boring composition....

But I do kinda like the style.

... So...Im back to thinking how to include it as some part of a larger picture, ala dragon island. or perhaps I should take this as just prep work and build a fresh base in Maya. My imagination has become a bit stunted I feel. Ive been looking at concept art.org for some inspiration, which has helped a little. Just dont really know how to go about achieving the kind of scale im after.... hmmm...

Im getting annoyed by the pixel aspect ratio setting in photoshop squashing my renders when I import them, having to turn it off, and also how this image actually changed pixel dimensions from my render settings in Maya when I opened it in Photoshop. I think maybe I need to learn what device aspect ratios and pixel aspect ratios are and how the settings can differ between programs before I get to stuck in... Can anyone who knows anything in this area shed some light?

But heres an update.

that happens to you too? you render an image, show it in photoshop and it gets all squashed in unless you untick the stupid pixel aspect ratio correction thingy

yeah i never understood how that worked... and why it only does it sometimes and not every time or never at all.

try saving out the render as a different file format, might help


pixel aspect ratio is to do with how high and wide the pixels are
dunno what device aspect ratio but i'd assume it's related to hardware in the same manner

some things have square pixel aspect ratios like computer monitors, while other things are more oblong, like standard def TVs
it's retarded and i don't understand it properly or why it exists like that to begin with :p (or i might have been told but i just forgot)
google is your friend... sometimes

yeah, all the time.

its become a part of my routine. render, save as jpeg. open in photoshop, uncheck pixel aspect yada yada...annoying. and you get that dialogue pop up ...' pixel yada yada is for preview purposes only' or something.

it makes it hard when i want to combine renders. which i know ( hammer.horror) is a crazy way to be going about things, but mental ray crashes on me when i try to render out big images, say 8000 by 5000. im just experimenting really.

ha!

well, I thought this has something to do with anamorphic widescreen. It happens to me also, but i've never had a proper answer for it... I thought it was to do with the film back. beats me.

clicking square pixel in PS fixes it.

Chirone: oh right. Yeah,ill see if I can get any concrete info on google. Hammer: I actually clicked on that this morning. See what happens is, when I open a render in photoshop,i then uncheck pixel aspect ratio and the image sizes up to normal.but if I then marquee select that image,copy and paste it into a new file,it comes out as the squashed version, without giving me the option to uncheck it.so I have to free transform visually to what I think looks correct. I dont know if theres a setting in preferences that can bypass the process.its jst one more little hurdle you know...

Pixel aspect ratio specifies the ratio of width to height of one pixel in an image. Frame aspect ratio describes the ratio of width to height in the frame dimensions of an image. For example, D1 NTSC has a pixel aspect ratio of 0.9 (or 0.9 width by 1.0 height). It also has a frame aspect ratio of 4:3 (or 4.0 width by 3.0 height). Some video formats output the same frame aspect ratio but use a different pixel aspect ratio. (SEE FIGURE 1 attachment)For example, some NTSC digitizers produce a 4:3 frame aspect ratio, with square pixels (1.0 pixel aspect ratio), and a resolution of 640 x 480. D1 NTSC produces the same 4:3 frame aspect ratio but uses rectangular pixels (0.9 pixel aspect ratio) and a resolution of 720 x 486. D1 pixels, which are always rectangular, are vertically oriented in systems producing NTSC video and horizontally oriented in systems producing PAL video.If you display rectangular pixels on a square-pixel monitor without alteration, images and appear distorted; for example, circles distort into ovals. However, when displayed on a broadcast monitor, the images are correct.

apparently pixel aspect ratio concerns video.

it seems the two options mentioned above are the best fixes,

the only other possibly useful bit of info i found was that you can set the pixel aspect ratio in the advanced section when creating a new photoshop file

Here, its explained for you, it even tells you what pixel aspects (not device) just width and height

http://help.adobe.com/en_US/AfterEff...dea-7f3aa.html

if you leave the Device settings alone and just put in the width and height (uncheck Maintain width height ratio button) you should be okay.

Im trying to find out a file size (not pixel) so you can type in the setting without getting distortion, Ryan Church or Dylan Cole have a size for matte painting which is like a standard to fit a wide frame. I did write it down ages ago but cant find it, I will get back to you

Jay

Essentially any wide setting will get distortion as its the final projection where its sorted out. Hence the images being nice once you sort the aspect in PS

Having just spoken to a friend here at work who was on Terminator 4, he was saying the plates were at 2048 x 1152 but after the reformat for output (with your black bars top and bottom) the ratio is actually 2048 x 1152.

Pixel size at the end of the day for output is entirely up to you yo can double it and treble it etc as long as it renders;)

hope this helps

Jay

Thanks jay. Ok, the 2000 by 1100 (approx) sounds a good working size. Ive well over done it then in that case.i guess I have to weigh up whether I want to tackle more common matte painting dimensions,or get a nice a3 or a2 printout.. I can always resize my final base image once done.better to scale down than up isnt it.

P.s. Ta for the heads up on dylan cole and ryan church. Jst checked dylans website.great stuff.

If you are going to print at the end of the day, Its work considering downsizing the image size but upping the res to 300dpi, which is standard print res

Jay

got my base image done. Wasnt quite as far as I wanted to take it, but again, impatience gets the better of me. Just went for a single render rather than a montage of several. Im a bit disappointed about that actually, as I was looking forward to zooming right in close and really working that detail, but fingers crossed I dont think its coming on too bad, so I'll plug away with this for a few days I think...

This is about 2200 x 1100, 300 dpi, pixel aspect yada yada(my new official word for it) of 1 (I think!)

Looks great! I really like the tonal range (is that the right term?). How much of this is 3D, zbrush? and how much is photoshop?

Thankyou Stwert. Im quite excited about it! I want to keep my fingers crossed that I can keep it on a good path. I have some quite clear ideas about what how and where to add work. Just, yeah, really hoping I can make good of this.

It is nearly all Maya. Ive only done an hour or so painting. When I made the three skyscrapers that are in the back of the picture (what you could see in the pictures at the start of this thread) I took them into z, made myself some alphas of squares, to put in the windows. I didnt want to be too precise, just more to lay down some markers as I knew theyd end up being seen from a fair distance. But I wasnt too happy with the composition, so Ive spent some time over the last few days, expanding the city, building the geometry down below, and playing around with renders. I wanted to make a huge image, I had 16 (!!) perspective cameras set up, all covering a different patch, and made a montage of the renders in Photoshop. But it really was so much hassle. If i added a bit of geometry Id have to re render four of five times, then cut and paste, position, sort the hue and saturation and stuff. So...yeah. 80% Maya, 18% Photoshop and 2 % Z. But its all Photoshop from here. I have had a lucky accident with the way the lighting has caught the zbrush work though, to give me a headstart on all the windows...only half intentional..

Any chance we can see the wireframes from Maya? I know everyone asks that... I'm curious cause it has such a nice painted feel to it (same with your dragon market pic).

yeah...no worries

ps stwert. I have tried to loosen up the feel, working on that dragon pic felt so tight, I was really rigid the whole time, I wanted to let loose abit on this. Will tighten up again later on.

Hi all. A little update on this, need to get some frustration off my chest!... Im finding it hard to loosen up. Its been along time since of painted, painterly like, and at the moment its taking me about an hour to do just a little bit of work. I would like to get my speed up. Its silly I guess, as one of the main benefits of digital art is the ability to undo, so the fear should all but be gone from making marks, but, am finding it slow going. Im going to try and post less with this picture than I did with the dragon picture, I think sometimes I get caught up with the posting my focus actually gets drawn away from the image, and I dont want to suffer overkill as much as I did with the dino_chick thread.

Im feeling quite constricted by the scale and composition of this piece, its making me feel a little trapped/claustrophobic. I bought The digital painting Bible by Gary Tonge a few weeks ago, and ive really been admiring some of his work, digital paintings, but very spacious, with a real nice sense of atmosphere and light....but thats inspiration for the future.

Hopefully the more I can grow in confidence, the quicker I can work. Im getting so many ideas and want to try so many things at the moment Im actually having trouble going to sleep, its making me think of those kids on the advert who cant sleep cause theyre so excited about going to Eurodisney!

Here is an update I feel I want to post, will try and make more genuine progress between posts from now on as I say. Hope its coming on ok...

...

looks quite pretty!

Pretty!!? Thats like when your'e a bloke and a girl tells you that you're... 'cute'...:headbang:


;)

Hi Ben
Yes I think it looks Pretty LOL, first rule is do not let any one know what switches your buttons.............looking stylized dave

Looks delightfully gorgeous, dahling.

Sorry... I mean visually appealing.

Cute can mean "omg you're such an adorable cuddlesmushykinz" or it could mean "I can totally see myself doing things to you". It's not bad either way lol.

But anyways onto the piece, it kinda looks like Shinra is opening a new branch. Are you going to give it a more saturated look?

It scares me that you would think these things concerning a piece of Cg art...

( Said after my recent posts in the Piracy thread Hah! )

The Work is looking nice.
Will look forward to its completion.

G-man

ben you say it like i said something bad :p
i'll say things a little more manlier like stwert over there next time ;)

i always read or hear cute to be the first... not 'i need to rape you now' although that's more extreme than the second interpretation

i kinda thought that too... or more that this belongs in Xenosaga

chirone: i am sorry. im not sure how to say what i mean. im glad you got my point about the cute. but it was not a bad thing for you to say. i guess at the time, whatever mood i was in, i took it slightly the wrong way. i meant no offence in my reply, and first and foremost i hope you know that. i am greatful of all responses on this forum. i have been pretty stressed out of late, and progress seems to come so slowly while time is going by so quickly. once i get going on a piece, i seem to get so immersed in it, but in the wrong way, i lose sight of the enjoyment factor. i think i put so much pressure on myself it takes alot of the fun out of what i am doing. and having started visiting cg society alot recently, and being so impressed by so much of the work, i come back to my own with that feeling, again, of how much id like to learn and improve but how to make that happen...

.... the name xenosaga rings a bell, but only slightly...im guessing it has a kind of washed out colour scheme following genny's post, and so yes, i didnt fully realise how bleached out it had become. theres a way in photoshop of creating one layer from all your others without actually merging them all. ive seen a four button hot key for it but forgot what it was. it was in a book i have so have to flick through and find it, and, when i do, ill try playing with the saturation levels. i also think maybe playing with the contrast might help?

and genny: this is why a little while ago i was interested in that gamma correction. ive seen your blog on it, i want to go into that further at some point.

jay: got an a2 print out of the picture so far, the 300 dpi worked fine. cheers. its interesting seeing it on a new scale, helped me to see bits for improvement. though some of the blue tones didnt come out at all. perhaps an rgb/cmyk issue?

dave...im learning....slowly....
g-man: thankyou.
oh and genny: if i ever get called cute again, i will be keeping option 2 in mind !

:beer:

an update on this. Im still working on it, slow as ever...

start my course monday so I dont know how much I'll be able to do for a while.

I think this is a really significant improvement. Nothing I can point out specifically, but it really jumps out a lot more. Maybe just brighter overall, with some good detailing, texturing and lighting. Of course I can't look at it while I'm typing this, which would be nice. Keep it up!

thankyou :) ... will do.

Looking good. Not too sure about that lens flare though.

the painting on the bottom right part looks a little out. perspective-wise. did you matte paint the top half or the picture?

btw, how is the course going?

No? What the quality of it, or its point in being there at all? I think it worked slightly better before I stuck the post in front of it.

The bottom right part? do you mean the floor/wall, or the carriage-like object with windows?

The whole thing is just an untextured Maya render, painted over in photoshop. But I made an alpha of squares to pattern the buildings in zbrush. Then when I rendered in maya I used Physical sun and sky, but rotated the sun so that it was more of a late evening/nighttime look, but the way the light caught the edges of the normal map, created all the windows. A bit of a lucky accident, although they do get very grainy on the centre and rightside buildings. The only photo bits Ive used so far I think is the kiosk windows and the blue bit on top of what I have been thinking of as a ticket machine next to the kiosks. Its all that time spent going through Liverpool St station coming out of me I think!

And yeah, the course seems to be ok so far, thanks for asking. It only started Monday, but the tutor has been pretty prompt in responding to questions, and has really got accross the emphasis that the course should be fun aswell as rewarding, which I thinks good. Ive been at work the last couple of days so today is my first day to really get stuck in. Its concepts week this week, basically have to come up with some/an idea/s to make into a full matte painting. Theres no criteria at all. So challenging right from the off. I dont really have any idea so far. Gonna search around for inspiration, and just open photoshop and start drawing i think.

The latter. I mean, I can't see what could be causing it so it seems a bit arbitrary. Good luck with the course.

You are probably right Genny. Im not really a camera person, so I dont really understand what actually causes lens flare. I guess its when a certain light hits the camera lens at a certain angle. Does it only happen with sunlight?

Like the light in the boat in the dragon picture, and the light on the post and middle background building, im just finding as i've been using photoshop, painting effects like that which I've always thought cool when Ive seen them in other pictures, is, well.... cool. Like painting light fog and smoke too. i just find it really cool! Its easy to get carried away!

And, thanks. The instructor has liked my concept image, so its all good so far.

I'm not really a shutter bug myself. But I do remember reading that they are caused by light from bright enough sources getting into the camera and bouncing around off stuff inside before getting to the sensor. So no, its not just with sunlight.

Shutter bug! ha ha!