Main Street

[thenextside]

This is something I've been working on over the past week. I would love to get some feedback. There are areas that are still just plain geomatry.
Cheers,
Tim
http://www.thenextside.com/images/portfolio/images/MT09.jpg

[Eisner]

It looks great, the textures are very good, and the lighting.The heli-pads stand out a little bit.
Any chance of a a wireframe and original image?.

[imothep85]

Hi, very good, but too clean, add more noise on your picture, and add somes old textures for the walls for your buildings, its too clean. ;)

[kevjenkins]

dont add noise, get used to not putting in on. you cant add noise on a matte painting in a production environment, 2D add it later in the comp.

just keep working at what you have , look at the areas that are not blending in with the original photo. look at what makes the buildings that are real different to your 3d ones and keep going until they feel the same.

[thenextside]

Thank you all for your response. Kev your advise is very helpful. I fad wondered about matching grain. Good to know thats not my job. :) I'll be working on it tonight and post an update tomorrow along with the original plate and my unpainted geometry.

Cheers,
Tim

[thenextside]

Here is my geometry and the original photo. I seen to shoot on the shadow side of things a lot. Don't know why. The problem is that I end up fighting a lot of nasty grain in the shadow parts of the image. The buildings in the forground I'm having a tough time makeing colour adjustments to because the image quality is so poor.
Any thoughts?
http://www.thenextside.com/images/portfolio/images/MT09.jpg

[homer]

Nice job,
Before adjusting the colors, you might want to de-saturate everything and make sure the light values are working well (specially in the deep streets)
I think when you are happy with the values; it would be much easier to work with the colors.

There is also something with the grease or oil spills on the roof ( from helicopter oil I think) they look too soft to me, I suggest either remove them or give them more fine pattern or details, to match the scale.

[Aedilhum]

Looking cool! All I'd say it needs is more little details and grime painted over the model. Also, the skyway with the highway sign on it doesn't seem to be attached to the building accross from it. I think it needs to be moved farther back in space, right now it looks like it's just hanging their to my eyes. Or maybe it's the bright highight on it?
Cool work, like the style of the buildings

[rrische]

Thanks for posting the before and after stuff, as well as the geometry.
I didn't realize before that you were putting in a bunch of stuff that's
BELOW street level. I think if I were you I would study the brightness
of the sunlight hitting the street in the photo, and adjust your CG light(s)
accordingly. I'm not sure that effect is reading properly

[thenextside]

Rick, ya I'm strugling with what to do with the "ditch". Not sure if it should be much darker or have more of a blue cast. Perhaps there will be some artificial lighting going on, like signs or store fronts built into the sides of the walls. :shock: so many decisions.

Aedilhum, I've had a few people say that to me about the bridge. I think the problem is that all the other bridges end at the wall of the ditch so your eye puts this one in the same line even though I moved it in my model. It still registers like its in line with all the others. I'm thinking of building some kind of structure under it and connect it to the ground in front of the building. Like stairs to the ground or a tower.

Homer, ya I have been keeping an adjustment layer that makes everything grey scale. That way I can keep checking my values as I go. Very helpful.

[Aedilhum]

I think that if you add a harsh shadow from the building the bridge is attatched to onto the bridge it might fix the problem. Look at how dark and defined the shadows the buildings in the original plate are casting. and maybe lighten up the grundge right where it connects so that it blends together more.
keep it up.

[rrische]

About the ditch...I think the highest points (those closest to street level)
need some much brighter kicks of light to match the strong sunlight that's
on the sidewalks etc. Then let it fall deeper into shadow the further down
it goes. Also add a touch of bluish atmosphere as it recedes into the distance.

[Atmospheria]

Like rriche said. Add some contrast. The closest tops of the buildings should be much more brighter and th below level should be darker. Awesome job by the way.

[thenextside]

Thanks so much guys. This has been a huge help! Aedilhum, ya that sounds good about the shadow on the bridge. Rick, thanks for the advise. Your ideas sound like they will really do the trick. I'm on it!
Atmospheria, thanks for the compliment. I checked out your site. Nice work! Your vehicles rock! I love this one http://www.partycule.com/gallery/albums/userpics/normal_emrah_ship01.jpg
So cool. Mr. Church would approve. :D

Cheers,
Tim

[Atmospheria]

Haha! Thanks man... :D
Yea Mr. Church is a big inspiration. hehe

[thenextside]

dont add noise, get used to not putting in on. you cant add noise on a matte painting in a production environment, 2D add it later in the comp.

just keep working at what you have , look at the areas that are not blending in with the original photo. look at what makes the buildings that are real different to your 3d ones and keep going until they feel the same.

Just one question Kev, about the noise. I understand that you want to keep your painting clean and free of noise, but what do you do about parts of your image that is cloned from the original plate? Will the noise that you inherit from that be a problem? Also if you are adding images from other sources that have grain of there own, how do you deal with that?
Cheers,
Tim

[rrische]

Dealing with grain and noise is a big subject.
If I'm starting with a live action plate for a lock-off
shot, I take a number of frames (8 or 10) into AfterEffects
and frame blend them together. This makes the grain all
but disappear and I can use parts of it in the painting if
need be.
When using stills, it gets trickier. For skies, a method I learned
early on seems to work best, although it's tedious as hell. I lasso
a series of tiny feathered selections around like-colored areas and run the
median filter on it. Only do this on small areas that share the same
color and brightness and leave cloud edges untouched. It takes forever,
but the result will usually work a lot better than what you started with.
Nothing looks wors in a shot than frozen grain.
If I'm taking digital stills, I use a tripod and a remote shutter release
so I can take several stills and frame blend them. PITA, but it works.

Somewhere around this site is a prison yard shot I worked on, a day
for night thing from "Rocky & Bullwinkle". If you look at the plate, you
can see what frame blending looks like. All the people in the yard and
blurred and smeared, but the shot is virtually grain free.

[smooth]

Usually the compositor would match the grain inside his/her compositing software with the footage. Using Shake I've done this many times. Sampling from the footage you can get pretty close grain match and add that onto your CG material to match. So it's best not to add grain in your mattes. It's the compositors job.
If sampling in PS from a plate...you can always use the healing brush to smooth over any grain. The healing brush can be set to a flat texture that you can capture from a layer of pure white..then set the opacity so as to not overkill. Kinda like blending.
Using the method rische has...you can duplicate your layer in question..add median filter to it and a little blur if you want. Then mask ALL of it..and use brush strokes on the mask to reveal the median layer as much as you want. controling the amount with your brush strokes.
I learned this technique from a book that I highly recommend to anyone interested in knowing PS for photography work called : Photoshop Restoration & Retouching. AMAZING BOOK. Best money I ever spent on a book!
The healing brush as a blendier tip mentioned above is from a post I read about Seegmillers book "Digital Character Design and Painting using PS". I still haven't bought this one yet.

+smooth+

[Aedilhum]

rrische and smooth.
Thanks for posting your thoughts on grain management! It's great for us beginners to learn how it's done.
They don't teach us that stuff in school.

[thenextside]

This is great. Ive been fighting with grain for a while now. Thanks so much. Rick, the After Effects trick is fantastic! Ive never even touched the median filter! This will be a huge help. Smooth, thanks for your advise and the book recomendations! I'll check them out.

Cheers,
Tim

[rrische]

It's true, graining the composite is the last step before filmout.
It's good to know how to get rid of grain in the painting process.
And it's definitely good to know how to ADD it to the final comp
as well.

This discussion reminds me of an incident when I was at ILM. We
were in the screening room looking at dailies for "The Mummy". A
shot came up where the compositor had (accidently) forgotten to add grain
at the final step. I was shocked by how WEIRD the image looked without it!
In theory, adding grain seems like an unnecessary step. I mean, your work
is scanned onto film, and film by definition has grain, right? So adding grain
at the end would seem to "double" the amount of grain you'd want to wind
up with.
In practice, it doesn't work that way, and I still don't really know why. Even
all-CG shots have to have grain added to them before filmout. In dailies,
the shot we looked at was smooth and glassy, unnaturally sharp and clear.
Definitely one of the weirdest looking things I've ever seen on film.

[kaz]

having said that what is the amount of grain that you usually use? or it depends alot on the stock?

[B. Kachel]

Match the grain to the original footage.

[carbonmatter]

rrische and company - thanks SO much for turning on the lights for us regarding grain management!!! Tim and I have been scratching our heads over this one for a while, and this is the first clear explanation of how to handle it. This should be added to the tips and tricks forums - as definite plus!

Great work Tim... keep at this piece, it'll look great when you're done. About the ditch, I'd keep pushing it into the background... it could be a real optical problem for you.