October 2003 Archives

My entry to this year's Daz 3D Calendar contest was more than a simple exercise of copy. I wanted to demonstrate (at least to myself) that it is possible to use Poser characters in a way closer to more classical art. To that effect, I looked for a recognizable painting and took on the challenge of reproducing something close enough to stand on its own.

The Raft of the Medusa by french master Theodore Gericault presented the challenges I was after : numerous characters, expressive poses, strong scene. And to complete the challenge, not a single "young half naked nymph" in view...

Working on this picture was a great learning experience. It was the occasion of many 'firsts' as well. To begin with the resolution required by the contest (12 inch by 12 inch, which translated into 4275x4275 pixels at 350dpi). I never worked at that resolution before and it proved to be different than what I expected - reducing a very large picture to a more reasonable size does add a higher quality feel to a scene.

It was also the first time I had to handle that many characters. Each character was created individually with Poser and imported one by one into Vue d'Esprit for an initial render. Vue handled the number of characters and complex lighting rather well actually.

The next 'first time' was the most important for this project - first time I spend a significant amount of time touching up a picture with a graphic tablet in Painter. Thanks to numerous online tutorials I could quickly find some basic techniques to paint clothing, clouds and hair, but tutorials are always leaving out some important details that come mostly with practice (such as the way different tools behave in Painter for example). I was impressed by the ease of use of Painter 8 - moving across the large image, zooming in and out, applying brushes at large sizes... everything worked beautifully. I just wished the layer system were closer to that of Photoshop though, but it is close enough as it is.

For a first attempt at handpainting, the result is satisfying enough to feel like I can move forward and maybe one day, actually paint something without a model.

Sometimes, an image you are working on can take a life of its own. This is what just happened for 'country girl'.

For the past few months, I have been trying to break away from the usual cliches of 3D characters (that is, something other than android-female-warrior-half naked). I believe a good way to do this is with more life like portraits.

I have been fascinated by the intensity that come through photographed portaits. A particularly striking example is the work of photographer Steve McCurry. There is something special in the way the people he captured on film are looking back at the camera.

This is what I tried to capture with this picture. One of his pictures of a little girl from Yugoslavia gave me the model I needed to learn from to capture the right expression and light, especially in the way it shines through her ruffled hair. This gave me also the occasion to use a 3D portrait as a base and bring up all the details with hand painting.

It is just as fascinating to see how a few touches of color and seemingly random strokes can bring details to a picture. Somewhere along the way, color turns into light. It is one of the closest thing to magic I can think of.

’Mr Managi’s garden’ is a picture I made for the monthly challenge in the Vue d’Esprit forum at Renderosity.

Today I found out it was selected as a winner by the forum :) Sweet ! This is the second time in almost 3 years that win that challenge.

This picture is special to me for a couple of reasons. It marks another step in exploring lighting techniques in 3D graphics. I was after a soft, serene morning light and I think it comes across that way. The problem is that, the more I play with lights, the longer it takes to render a scene. I guess it shows that no matter how optmized your system is, you will always find a way to reach its limits. In the end, it still takes me a few days to render a scene. The result is more detailed, larger, better textured, but it is still a few days. Just like when I started with simple geometric shapes a few years ago.

The other reason is that Mr Managi is really fishing under a dead bonsai tree in my wife’s office. We often joked about how sad he must have been to see his tree lose its leaves and die out shortly, This is a picture of the garden of his dreams, dedicated to my wife, Lori.