Photoshop
Bryan O’Neil Hughes on Adobe Photoshop CS5
Jun 16th
Bryan O’Neill Hughes posted a review of Adobe Photoshop CS5 new features on Scott Kelby’s, the president of NAPP the National Association of Photoshop Professionals, blog. Bryan O’Neill Hughes did not mean to speak about major feature set which has already been explained extremely thoroughly, but he dwelled on some of the tricks, polish and little known tweaks that went into making these features so magical. So, here is the “inside scoop from the perspective of a product manager”.
Lake Cabin Illustration
Jun 3rd
Here is a lake cabin illustration that I just completed. The model was created in 3DS MAX Design 2011 and rendered using the V-Ray render engine. If you have any technical question feel free to post them here.
Composition is one of the most misunderstood concepts in any form of artwork. It has been said that you can be the greatest painter in the world, but if you don’t know how to compose properly, your painting will fall apart and the same goes for digital art/illustrations/renders.
Like all illustrations of mine, this one started off in my head. First I decide what would make this image special and I decide on a focal point. These cabins are on a lake, very close to the water, and have windows and a deck facing the South. I like to play with contrast so I typically place my camera about 45 degrees from my light source (in plan), with the focal point being in the light. Since the cabins are on the lake facing South I know that you would see the sunrise so I took advantage of the glass on the sliding windows. I chose the sunrise in the reflection as my focal point.
To bring the viewers eye to my focal point (composition is really about moving the viewer’s eye) I placed the boat in the foreground, pointing towards my focal point. The boat was tipped slightly away from the camera so it wouldn’t bring so much attention to itself. I used yellow on the boat to help the viewer up into the image knowing the eye associates colors and the sunrise in the reflection is yellow too. The focal point is also 1/3 to the left of center and about 1/3 below center, which is were the eye is naturally drawn to in an image. I usually have my horizon lower, but I wanted at least as much blue water as blue sky (the water and sky are blue, which are complementary colors to my focal so it brings the illustration into balance).
Below are some screen grabs of my V-Ray settings:
VFB Frame Buffer
Global Switches
Antialising
Image Sampler
Environment
Color Mapping
Camera Type
GI
Brute Force
Light Cache
Caustics
DMC
Displacement
Systems
Elements
V-Ray Camera
HDRI
Gamma
I can comfortably say that I have never used the same settings for any 2 scenes so these settings might not work for you, but it might be a good starting point. I am running a render farm with 90Gb of RAM and 24 processors so unless you have an equivalent farm these settings might be to high for you.
Below find some Photoshop CS5 post screen grabs:
(coming soon…)
Z-Depth
Apr 2nd
Below you’ll see a Z-Depth pass, yet another trick that allows you to do some post production work on your illustration. The Z-Depth pass allows you to quickly mimic a cameras depth-of-field lens trick. Gaussian blur in post allows you, while using the z-depth channel, to control the blur from light to dark. Doing this allows you to have a foreground, which is important for your composition, but it will not overpower your illustrations focal point.
Ambient Occlusion
Apr 2nd
Ambient = Dark
Diffuses = Light
An Ambient Occlusion pass returns a gray scale image with intersecting geometry darker. This technique allows you to do some post production using layer manipulation. Revit 2011 has some built in Ambient Occlusion capabilities so be on a lookout in the next release.
The below image was created via a script and I use this technique on almost all of my work. It gives your illustration a more realistic feel. This is also how I create the museum board stills and animation.
Winter Scene
Dec 15th
I can find at least one good thing about winter…. being able to do a winter scene. Below is a quick scene I converted into a winter scene for a client.
Roy Lake Lodge
