| » Forum Index » The Friday Challenge » Topic: Challenge 393: House the Legosaur |
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Posted on 16/03/12 09:00:02 AM |
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Steve Caplin
Administrator Posts: 7052 Reply  |
Re: Challenge 393: House the Legosaur
A speedy entry from Vibeke this week, with a neatly pixellated house as a backdrop - and it's rather a good effect: I like the fact that the sky is left plain. But as it's such a sunny day, shouldn't the dinosaur cast a shadow on the house? A novel approach from Nick Curtain, who has pixellated the background where the dinosaur was originally located - a tricky selection job! Are the squares all too regular and head-on, though? I like the accompanying shadows and posterization, though. A clever entry from GKB, with two Lego cavemen chasing the dinosaur. In which case, shouldn't hey both be behind it? And, er, aren't you missing a shadow from those mountains? Most impressed with the Lego pterodactyl - who'd have thought they made something like that? Much better mountain relief in the second entry! A wrecked Lego city from Ben Mills - with appropriately brick-shaped pixellation. But the pattern is too flat: would be great if it bent in perspective around the corners of the buildings. A fine array of Lego goodies from Ant Snell, from the magnificent Mount Rushmore to the kneeling couple at the front. Add a few shadows, and tone down the bright green of that base and it will look a lot more natural. Highly realistic ground and trees from brewell, with a real 3D sense to them - were they built from pieces of the original dinosaur? That's the approach I would have taken. Hard to read the background, though: I can't make out what the texture is doing. A remarkable entry from BigVern, built using Photoshop's 3D tools: I really like the way you've used Repoussé on the dinosaur to spin it around to a different angle. The scenery is beautifully made, but perhaps just not possible in Lego! Making a texture map of the bumps would allow Photoshop to render them more convincingly as 3D protuberances - might be worth a try. A remarkable second entry - I'd be very interested to know how you got After Effects to animate this 3D scene! A detailed and pixellated background from Deborah Morley, with a lot of shading and extrusion. I think though, it would be more convincing if you split it into pieces, and used a larger cell size on those more in the foreground; otherwise, it just becomes a flat wall in the distance. I like Eva Roth's rendering of the original scene: the technique works well on the ground and the plants. But the effect also flattens out the background, pushing the plants right back to the far wall. Using the same effect on selections would be more productive! I really like the second entry, using the Lego modelling program - what a terrific way to build up a convincing background! I might change that lime green sky, though. It's a bit bilious. A detailed entry from Deb Raskin, with very cleverly made trees - I like the sense of different planes here, at different angles, which really accentuates the perspective of the scene. The plants in the foreground may not be Lego, but they're certainly nicely textured! I like Frank's approach of the whole image being built as a mosaic of Lego - a clever idea. You should see if it's possible with the background pixellated with the Mosaic filter to match the size of your Lego tiles: this would give the impression of it being built of coloured Lego, rather than being painted on top. I especially like the way you've modelled the missing pieces at the top - but maybe it should be a more irregular shaped hole? A detailed image from Luis, with ground and plants intricately made from chunks of real Lego, coloured and rearranged. It's the distance blur that makes it work especially well: there's a real sense of three-dimensionality here. A classical view from Lorenzo1977, with the dinosaur inserted into a Lego mosaic on the wall of a rather grand building. Shame you couldn't find a higher resolution view of the building, though, as this isn't as sharp as the mosaic itself. Lions v Dinosaurs? Now there's a novel idea for an entertainment! Two animated dinosaurs from James - and an interesting approach, using bevels to make them more three-dimensional. I like the movement of the legs and head - but do give them some shadows to stop them floating! A good discovery by Artwel - virtual Lego! All you need now is to put the dinosaur in there. The trees in the foreground in the second entry work well, but having discovered the virtual Lego I'm surprised you didn't use this instead. I'm having trouble with the fact that the texture on the mountains is smaller than that on the sky behind it. All makes sense in the animated version - a great idea, brought to life with wit and charm. It would be good to animate the rolling dinosaur independently, then bring that into the space scene at the end as a composition so it could move its head and legs as it spins. A mosaic background from Garfield72, and it very nearly works: the tree i good, mainly because the texture on the trunk us at a different angle to the background. Perhaps if the floor receded in perspective? I like the use of virtual Lego in the second entry - a shame the software doesn't cast shadows, though. Excellent work from Jota120, who has inserted the dinosaur into a real Lego background - a very neatly integrated scene. All that's needed is a bit more of a trail of destruction behind him. "A very rushed job," says joeysala - but there's a great sense of perspective here, with the texture rolling over the hills into the distance. OK, it's not quite Lego texture, but it's a very close match! The real Lego trees help it a lot, and that sunburst is a great addition. Good work! |
Posted on 16/03/12 09:48:11 AM |
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Nick Curtain
Model Master Posts: 1768 Reply  |
Re: Challenge 393: House the Legosaur
Thanks Steve This was very rushed I'm afraid - just no time last weekend. I think it took me about 20 minutes from start to finish and that included making a displacement map, which didn't work. I think the patchwork filter was used? , but I like Bruce's approach and wish I'd thought of that. Nick |
Posted on 16/03/12 11:02:20 AM |
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Jota120
Ingenious Inventor Posts: 2615 Reply  |
Re: Challenge 393: House the Legosaur
Thanks again Steve. Agree with your suggestion. Trevor |
Posted on 16/03/12 1:58:18 PM |
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Artwel
Satire Supremo Posts: 607 Reply  |
Re: Challenge 393: House the Legosaur
Thanks Steve, actually the legosaur in the last scene does have moving limbs, but unfortunately I made the movements too subtle so its not very clear, but then it was about 4am by then ha!  Also i would have like to hmake the ground shake and add some sounds fx but no time  _________________ “Art Is Never Finished, Only Abandoned.” |
Posted on 16/03/12 3:05:48 PM |
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Frank
Eager Beaver Posts: 1770 Reply  |
Re: Challenge 393: House the Legosaur
Thanks Steve - glad you like my approach --- when I read we couldn't use blocks that threw me as being relatively new to PS I am not aware of all the filters, patterns etc, etc, and their capabilities . Still slowly working my way thru "How To Cheat " book. I too wasn't happy with the end result but let it go at that after trying many avenues. Tried to stay within the parameters of the challenge. Agree the empty spots would look better irregular. Frank |
Posted on 16/03/12 8:57:01 PM |
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BigVern
Q Quipper Posts: 674 Reply  |
Re: Challenge 393: House the Legosaur
Thanks for the nice review Steve. I did try creating grey scale texture maps with different iterations of contrasting lighter grey and even white dots from which to convert to Photoshop 3D layers but each time I just created various spiky surfaces rather than protruding round dots. I have included an example below of the most contrasty one which was white dots against a black base (source layer on the left) and the resultant 3D layer (on the right with yellow background to help view it) with the z-value reduced to try and minimise the spikiness! ... and that is still very spiky; other combinations of grey were even more spiky. 
To animate the 3D scene I imported the 3D model from Photoshop as a composition ensuring that Photoshop Live 3D was ticked. I then opened that composition and turned off the camera that was automatically created for it. I then experimented with creating my own camera and manually creating key frames with differing x,y,z values but this produced a poor result. I then built Maltaannon's simple camera rig following this tutorial http://maltaannon.com/articles/after-effects/simple-camera-rig/ and this was better but still did not give me the freedom of camera movement and precision I was seeking. I then remembered a tutorial I had seen many months ago from Video Copilot regarding their Sure Target 2 After effects plugin http://www.videocopilot.net/tutorials/sure_target_2/ and having watched it again realised it was just what I needed. Better still the plugin was a free download. To create the camera moves I created a solid layer and then applied the SureTarget effect which created a 3d controller null and SureTarget camera. I then created placeholder text target layers in various locations and rotations in 3D space around the model and then through the effect interface told SureTarget which targets to aim for and in which order and whether to dolly in or out. I am not explaining it terribly well so would recommend watching the tutorial video by Andrew Kramer who explains it very well indeed. Once I had tweaked the positions and timing of the camera moves I imported the composition into Premiere added fade in/out, music and sound effects and rendered out to Quicktime. I think this week's challenge has spurred me to learn or get better at the most number and widest range of techniques from creating 3D objects in Photoshop, bump mapping, texture mapping, repousse refinement, Photoshop/After Effects/Premiere integration and different 3D camera control options. I even dabbled in expressions a bit and also started creating some static particles as dust motes but didn't pursue this as the whole exercise was getting much too complicated. One clear thing I learnt along the way though was that Premiere rendered to video substantially quicker than After Effects. I think I am hooked! Cheers Vern |
Posted on 17/03/12 01:24:56 AM |
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joeysala
Perfect Palmist Posts: 604 Reply  |
Re: Challenge 393: House the Legosaur
Well shoot - I'm almost embarrassed to admit I can't take credit for the landscape; I googled it. But, I did see it's potential! Joey _________________ "Art is a blade of grass ... and in a moment I will eat it." |
Posted on 18/03/12 00:48:54 AM |
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brewell
Pixel Pentagrammarian Posts: 752 Reply  |
Re: Challenge 393: House the Legosaur
It's a painted background like they have in museum dioramas (not a solution I'm particularly proud of). _________________ The journey of a thousand hours begins with a single layer. |
Posted on 18/03/12 2:19:01 PM |
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Eva Roth
Luminous Liberator Posts: 269 Reply  |
Re: Challenge 393: House the Legosaur
Thanks a lot for your comments Steve! I had to make the background a nasty artificial colour as I wanted to maintain a bit of the awareness that it's all cheap plastic bits. I had noticed that while working in the lego 3D programme I tried to make things look as real as possible, but actually there's photoshop for that. However, maybe the lime green was a bit over the top... |
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