WIP - Kreola - Joel Hageman

#21

Dear James,

Thank you very much for bringing your concern to our attention.

One beautiful thing about art is that every individual artist can
interpret the same creative brief slightly differently.

For this DMP challenge I have provided a photograph which was shot by
the amazing Fabian Nagel:
http://d10syqgei4s0bt.cloudfront.net/kreola/kreola.jpg
and some simple but very straight forward instructions:
Create a locked-off establishing shot Matte Painting based on the
provided plate.
Treat the Matte Painting as clean-plate without animation elements.
Convey a feeling of the city extending into infinity.
Retain as much from the plate however much you find necessary to
communicate the proper look, and
improve the overall appearance of the shot by utilizing Matte Painting
techniques.
Your goal should be a production quality Styleframe ready to be
presented to the director for approval.

In general, this should be enough to go on but some artists sometimes
wish for additional information. In feature film production we often
have the luxury to be able to read through the script or screenplay.
As such, I wanted to let you guys have a sneak peak at part of the
original script. I chose to include a scene from the same sequence and
have explained in multiple threads that you should not use these as
dogmatic guidelines but only refer to it if you need further
background details or input. If this confuses anyone in any way,
please ignore the script excerpt completely.

The idea for this challenge was much like that for all the previous CG
Talk DMP contests, such as the Atlantis
http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=196&t=377687&page=2&pp=50
or the Natural History Museum one, which was also plate-based and had
a lot of creative entries that respected the original plate:
http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=491139 or
http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=196&t=484913&page=2&pp=50

That said, the main requirement of this competition is to extend the
given plate. Some of you decided to push the plate all the way into
the background and we felt it would be unfair to discourage anybody
from attempting such an enormous undertaking even though we did fear
that a few of the large scale concepts might turn out to be too
difficult to bring into a photo-realistic Matte Painting realm.
Naturally, we have been expressing this to all of you but it is not
necessary to re-start your work. Please, simply respect that other
artist’s visions might differ from your own visualization of a
scenery. Once again, please don’t use the extra background information
as a bible. You do not need to be looking down into a 200m drop. The
camera can be at the bottom or anywhere between the two, and so on.

We truly appreciate your participation and all the hard work everybody
has been investing into this Matte Painting challenge so far.
I personally hope to see lots of wonderful entries and would like to
apologize to anybody who has gotten confused about any specifications
of the contest due to the description I provided.

Please, enjoy the last week of our official DMP challenge. It is not
too late to join.

Kind Regards,
Milan

#22

Thanks Milan, but I think it would have been best not to post the background info on what Flussdorf looks like directly under the INSTRUCTIONS…

“The aim is to bring his personal project “Kreola After Earth: Phantom Memories” to life. It is a steam-punk science fiction tale…”

"Rirei walks out to the open balcony and takes in the mesmerizing street view of Flussdorf’s upper middle class section. The ancients built Flussdorf on two opposing cliff faces above the river. The gorge drops about 200m deep below and the houses are seamlessly carved into the rock. The lively appearance of the neighborhood resembles an old Tunisian Suk. Naturally, today’s society on Kreola wouldn’t remember any particulars of a market bazaar, nor planet Earth itself. Since the first generation of humans born on Kreola, especially the inhabitants within the walls of Flussdorf, have evolved into a multicultural community, understanding the need for one another, as the city itself expanded in every direction along the canyon.

Besides the significantly hot weather, the most memorable characteristic of this overgrown settlement is its unique ambiance with all the noise, smell and busy buzzing about."

#23

Hio James,

I’ve just caught up on yours and Milan’s post on the competition outline. I think what to take away here is that even though Milan had said “this is the clearest vision possible of this shot”, and even though it may be his story we’re supporting, the technical aspect of the vision of the competition and overall execution of all photo-realistic elements still stands. Milan may be expressing his opinion of Joel’s interpretation of the piece, perhaps in it’s purest and simplest form, but that is not the only and correct vision (even though this is from Milan, and it’s Milan’s story). There are 5 judges in this competition, and much like how Milan pointed out earlier (“One beautiful thing about art is that every individual artist can
interpret the same creative brief slightly differently.”), as judges, we are also bound by that as long as it fulfills the technical requirements of the definition of a matte painting is first. The artistic form, and vision, will depend on many other factors of the individual judge.

There was also some confusion in the “Instructions” as having the story be in there, while it should just be in the reference and supporting section of the competition. That’s up to the interpretation of the artists and the judges at the end.

Now Milan may like Joel’s vision currently, but there is still a week left to decide to see how it will all end up. First and foremost, it must be executed in a photorealistic manner for the style-frame matte painting to even be considered. The second, is the artistic nature, which has too many factors to list, as I don’t mind meld with the other 4 judges, and we’re not in the same room.

So what you have on your piece now James, is great, we just need to see all of the elements and lighting, textures and all finished to that matte painting form. The artistic aspect of it will be judged with what we have interpreted from Milan’s story. I wouldn’t scrap all of the work you did, it was great, in fact we featured it as one of the WIP of the Week’s! Keep on going, and execute it to your best ability in a photo realistic fashion.

Sorry to high jack your thread Joel for this quick discussion. Please everyone resume your great work in the competition for next week!

If you have any other concerns James, you can PM me directly, or post in the general KREOLA support thread where Milan has now posted as well.

#24

This is where I am with it. I was hoping to be further along.

There’s still a half and half look to it. The light side is still too light I think.

I didn’t straighten out the road any more. The turn just seemed to balance a little more to me.

Also still guessing with the shape of the water level. I’ve done more checking with the perspective grid. But there’s some sort of silly confusion that I’m not sorting out yet.

I pretty much didn’t budge a lot from the original concept. I think it’s to find time to finish.

As far as going with this design, I think it was for that reason. I was starting out a little late in the time line. So I felt it was best to just pick a concept and run. Plus I was following the threads, and it seemed one of the priorities was to get a basic pic together, avoid ambition, if needed, in order to finish. I wasn’t sure. Maybe I could have made more of an effort. Maybe I confused ambition with design requirements. I just felt it was better to get the pieces together, as late as it was, and make it. I’m definitely having to work on it a bunch as it is.

I think I have time to get this more rounded up. I’d like to post more often, knowing now how my work process is going.

#25

Joel, i think you´re right.

The main thing ist to finish this in time. I reckon that most of the entries will have to struggle with this tiny little detail. Well, including me.

Looking forward to your final. :thumbsup:

#26

H,

Hey, Torsten. Thanks for the reply. Good luck on getting done, as well. This weekend could help. Your pic is matching more the concept, which is neat.

I need to comment on the my screen, just to say so. The issue with high contrast from my video card could be pretty big. I’m looking at things on a different screen here, and the difference is quite a ways off. I’m not sure what to do about that, except send a note along that the final should be seen at higher contrast, to the point that the door on the left should match the dark of the doors on the right. Wow. Something needs to happen.

PS - Sorry about the dark letters above. Had to run. Maybe I can edit that.

#27

I was having the same problem with our other Imac. When I was working on the image on my 27inch model it looked great, but when I looked at it on the 24inch one it looked horrible, very high contrast, saturated colours, burnt out areas etc…

So I checked both display profiles and the 27 was set to Adobe RGB, while the other was Imac calibrated. Once I switched to the same profile, all of a sudden the image looked the same, so maybe try that.

#28

Congrats on the WIP of the week Joel! (actually posted a few days ago, but didn’t get a chance to reply for you yet). Keep it up!!

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10153399289370109&set=a.10150236256400109.461531.16448385108&type=1&relevant_count=1

We’ll have one last WIP of the Week before the challenge ends this week too.

#29

Wow. I gues I better get moving. Very neat, David. Thank you.

Well, I’ll tell you what also. I wasn’t sure what to do with my display problem. But I checked the video card settings. I have an Nvidia. I looked up advanced and troubleshoot. Just to see what would happen, I brought the slider for hardware acceleration down from full to none, restarted and bam, everything looked like the other screen. I can see more range in the darks. So that is a big help now. And James, thanks for the note. I’ll tell you what, my screen has an sRGB setting, so I went with that and that looks like a good setting to use as well.

I’m not sure what makes hardware acceleration give everything such a high contrast edge, but the fix should work better.

Thanks for getting back to me.

And thanks for the WIP of the week! Look at that.

I’ll make some more posts.

#30

Congrats :bowdown:

#31

If your screen is un-calibrated, try turning everything off and using sRGB IEC61966 with a 2.1 gamma. That should be the safest. Colour profile issues can be troublesome sometimes. To test it, you can always post a few different versions here and then check on a different device, such as an iPad or a public PC or even a smart TV. The important thing is your gamma. As long as you match your values to the plate, there will be no problems or bad surprises at all. That should be your best bet.

#32

Milan,

Thanks very much. I will definitely check into all the options.

Still gunning for this pic. Looks like I finally have a way clear for the weekend. Keep working on it.

#33

Hi,

This an update. I’ve been working on it all today. Really hoping for time tomorrow. This is where it is now.

Posting a final also in the MP finals. Thanks all. I’ll keep working.

#34

1024 rez, it probably looks more done than it is. But I’d like to try and find time today. Need to hurry out the door.

#35

This is my image for the project. Obviously many things left in corners and such. Quite scratchy. But I’m still glad I got this posted, and spent some time on it. I think you do learn as you go.

So, thanks to all the creators of the project. I like trying to make something happen. And there are a lot of versions of Flussdorf, which I really need to review. Plus: sleeeep.

#36

That´s right, get some sleep, you did very well.
Sure, there are a few little glitches here and there but by and large you created a wonderful atmosphere.

Btw. the way you treated the dish was perfect :smiley:

#37

Well, I’m glad that dish worked out after all. Hey, thanks a bunch for the notes. I did try to get an atmosphere to this.

Hey, for your final, I 'm not sure what’s missing for a matte. It has a bunch of things to it, and a lot of space. I’m glad it turned out like the original concept. I like it.

#38

Dear Joel,

You are definitely on the right track. Matte Paintings however need to feel like realistic photography as an ultimate goal. Your path is set correctly, it merely comes down to some additional techniques in your skill set at this point, which you can learn by practicing such things as integrating more photo elements or getting used to the healing brush tool in Photoshop.
You have made it especially tricky by creating the foreground from scratch. Which is a great exercise that you should continue even after the deadline of this competition. Try continuing that brick/rock wall while keeping the textural quality from the plate.
I think this can still become a very strong piece for your portfolio.

Good Luck,
Milan

#39

Hi Joel,

Well done on the integration of some of the buildings. My apologies for your thread being hijacked earlier in the comp. I’m glad to see you pushed through.

I agree with what Milan is saying about the foreground elements, as they are the most important in a photo real environment, being closest to the camera and the largest in terms of detail. Depending on depth of field of course, as sometimes the FG is blurry.

A couple of small things that might be helpful if you are going to keep working on the image, which I think you should as a portfolio piece is the right hand railing and the antenna.

At the moment I think you could slide the two right hand buildings to the right, (or slide the railing to the left) which would then open up room on the walkway in front of them. At the moment the railing runs into the second building with no way past to walk.

The antenna, if compared to the roof it is sitting on, is leaning toward us at about a 45 degree angle, so if it was tilted back on the same perspective angle as that roof it would sit better.

It should be pretty easy to find some photo reference for the FG buildings walls and door etc, that can be chopped up and re-arranged to suit. The water too needs work, and there are plenty of reference photos out there, for example the canals in venice would suit your image, with the water level being close to the buildings.

When searching internet images, especially for FG use, make sure to choose one of the “larger than 2mp or 4mp” options.

Best
James

#40

Hi,

Thanks for the responses.

I think it’s a great idea to keep on with this. I actually was thinking of leaving it where it was. But I don’t see any reason not to finish up, now that you’ve mentioned it. Even further develop it. I’d like to see it done, too.

Milan - Working on the painting practice sounds great. That’s something I would like continue. The bricks sound like a plan. Being able to use other techniques would be wise, too. That’s true. The healing brush could come in useful here, I think. I admit, I haven’t done a lot with it. I’m looking into updating my techniques, which I think I should do.

James - That water. It’s a subject. Several versions of it. I was looking at Venice stuff while doing it. I just need to key in on the look of it, I think. I’ll have to take another look at the antenna. In a big hurry at that point. Giving the picture more air, with moving the sides more, might just work. I have a reluctance to just move pieces around. But I’m sure it isn’t unusual. The Ewok celebration had bits of projected footage. And the fact is, this is computer work, where lots of things can happen. I noticed that railing too.

Thanks so much for the notices. I’ll update on things.