Okay Lighting Experts Bring It ON!!!

Well since I can't be very public about my one and only on going palaeo-art project, I figure instead to engage my very nice and helpful expert readership on how to improve my 3D lighting, as it has been a constant critique of the last while.

Here is my current methodology. I'm taking an object (in this case an unposed Dinosaur) setting it up in a preset lighting rig, and moving the lights around to see what happens. I'm currently playing with a "three-point theory" setup, but am open for other setup suggestions. I will be modifying multiple variables and aspects of my three-points as I can to see what happens.

Here is an animation to help visualize what I'm doing. The floating cones are proxies for the lights themselves (you can't directly see the lights in a final rendering). As they rotate you'll notice I've included the new angle on the right for reference.

After cranking out this first test version I realized that my lights aren't very well individualized. In future batches of these I'll be colour coding them and sizing them so they tell us more about what I've done.

For the time being red is my "Key Light", blue the "Fill Light", and yellow the "Backlight". For colouration the key light is a cooler colour (blue), fill is a warm, and backlight is a low grey. All these lights angled at 45 degrees to the ground from the sky, and are opposed to each other's alignment by 120 degrees. They all are "distant" lights, which is to say they apply light universally throughout the whole 3D scene (as opposed to a spot light or blub that function much like the real life lights that share those names).

Variables I'm planning on testing include strength and colour of ambient lighting, colouration of the three colour sets (which I've obviously started on), and angle from the sky.

Any suggestions on other test variable, light techniques, or things I've missed altogether?

I'm out of the race

So just like that I will no longer be participating in Scott Person's request for cartoons as seen over on ART Evolved.

I have been approached by another palaeo-project, however they are offering to pay me for the use of my Hadrosaur model...

This offer has opened up a whole can of worms for me in regards to using my models. That alone their use for free art (thankfully I hadn't committed to the piece that alone signed off on its use in Scott's talk). Suddenly I find myself an instant convert on the free vs. paid issue.

So while I have that advantage of pre-creating my models, I have also found that I have to guard the rights of their use once they are made if I want to realistically sell their use. So from here on in I will not be lightly doing any free art. For the record this will likely only be reconstructions for descriptions.

Interesting times 2011 has been shaping up into palaeo-art wise (at least on ART Evolved). Do pop over and comment on the ART Evolved post your opinion on the free vs. paid debate.

The Race Begins...

Scott Person's has sent out a call for artwork for a talk he is doing. As it requires only Dinosaurs I've already built I figured I would try to help out.

This is what I ended up with after 2 or so hours of playing around. Not a terrible start, but it needs work. From a story telling aspect I'll probably have the Hadrosaur in a more half taken off pose. This was just a good starting position I stumbled on playing with the rig in this first pass.

To all the "Craig do something about your lighting!" crew, I anticipate your appreciated advice in advance. I haven't touched the lighting beyond placing my usual single distant light source. I do plan on seriously tackling the lighting issue once I'm back in Hobart.

The work time on this piece might seem low (comparatively) to what one might expect, but that has been what is appealing about working on this for Scott. It is not really taking up too much of my time (and I do have a Turtle to do for the end of the month too!). I have all the elements for this series already created in my machine, so throwing them together isn't really all the much trouble.

There has been some interesting discussion so far among the ART Evolved admins about creating work for free, of which I shall not ramble here (expect a post or ten about it on AE soon). During it I realized I'm in a unique situation as a 3D artist. My start up investment into a creation is rather high, 30-100 hours these days for a single Dinosaur's model, textures, rigging, and extra bits like feathers or spines etc. these days (this time cost being way up from the lowly 5-10 it used to be in the early Traumador days...), Once I've made this creative investment, unlike a traditional medium artist, I can use my work unlimited amounts fairly time efficiently.

Had Scott been asking for Dinosaurs I didn't already have built, I won't be going near this project (at a time cost well above 50 hours... when it might not get used). As it happily coincided with materials I already have pre-made it isn't too much of an expenditure to throw something together for my shot at some free publicity (though I have another project in the works to do with this conference... but you'll have to wait to hear about that). I'm interested to see if and how many other people take a shot at this project, and what they feel a good time trade off is for free publicity (free in ever sense)...

Shrubbing it off...

So trying to improve my mood (on my art... otherwise I'm mostly okay [though would like to know whether I got the teaching job I'm banking on for the fall... so okay my art stress is tied to other stuff come to think of it])...

The Palaeo-Environment trucks along.
Based on my interviews with two (Albertan) Palaeo-botany experts and my reading, Dinosaur Park and Horseshoe Canyon eras Alberta would have been dominated by flowering shrubs (contray to the "flowering plants were still rare" you read in all the popular literature). So shrubs I've started to create.

Trying to figure out how to add some flowers to the leave compliment is currently kicking my head in, but I'll conquer it soon I'm sure.

Palaeo Environment Project resumed...

Today has been a productive day, despite only getting an hour in on 3D stuff.

I got to meet up with Matt Van Rooijen of Optimistic Painter for a lunch in downtown Hobart. He is an incredibly nice guy, and we talked about all things art and palaeo. Making this even more appreciated was the fact that poor Matt has a very full plate at work. So cheers Matt!


As for my plant, here it is with nice new base. You'll also notice the nice new littered forest floor texture too.

So get over my gigs falling through funk I've decided to go all out on the Palaeo-Environment project once more...

New Life Springing Forth

Just tackling random models under the common topic of Cretaceous Alberta seems to be lifting my artistic depression. I have a fairly solid book premise in mind, and rather than worry about getting gigs from the outside I'm thinking about taking charge of my own palaeo-art destiny!

This new project was trying to build a plant on my own without the assist of the Carrara's inbuilt plant generator. The results while promising, do indicate I'll need to approach most plants with a mixed approach. Using the generator to do some of the more tedious base work, and then my own modelling to notch it up.

Looking at the long shot I am pleased. However the leaves texturing is lost...

As in this close up (hopefully you can click to enlargen the images) you can see how much work I put into that shader...

Onward and upwards.

Posing for Recovery

Rigged and posed the Styracosaurus. Hadn't recieved Albertonychus' feedback on the toe claws (get on that shortly my friend :P), but otherwise I'm actually feeling pretty good about this.

Redirecting Efforts

Spent this afternoon trying to get over my art related funk by plowing through a project.

I ended up settling on the half finished Styracosaurus.

Thoughts or feedback?

Creative Depression

I've suddenly hit a brick wall on my artistic endeavours this week. Not so much in the output, but more the outlet.

The plan had been for 2011 to be my break-out year into the world of legitimate palaeo-art. I had networked hard, and lined up a good half dozen gigs. It looked like I was going to pull off this feat, which had even just last year looked impossible. Who cared if none of the projects were paying ones, that's why I have a day job. The point was all the countless hours of tinkering and producing would amount to official recognition (and publication). From there I might have been able to make this into paying hobby.

Then over the last two months I have seen those active 6 projects evaporate to a single uncancelled reconstruction. Admittedly one of them I understand, it is the biggest find in Alberta of the new century, hands down. Once this was realized by higher powers it was insisted that money be spent on a pro palaeo-artist. I get that. It still sucks, but that one I can get. I'm not worth the gamble with either the money or that particular press release.

However on four of my other for free gigs, I've been told not to bother as the scientists involved have all been deciding due to "not like 3D reconstructions versus traditional methods"... Despite the fact I was doing this for free, and as far as I can tell they have no replacement artist. They are deciding to have no accompanying image of their new critters, should anyone in the press of blogging world choose to report it, rather than accept a free reconstruction these people could use.

It feels like a kick in between the legs frankly. The take home message I'm getting here is that my stuff is carp. No ands ifs or buts. I suck. Why the BEEP am I even trying...

Mind you there is the last remaining gig. Which is actually a big deal. Once it comes up I'm sure it'll cheer me up. Sadly my client is busy for the remainder of the summer doing field work, so I can't proceed any further till the fall.

This leaves me with nothing to do in a sense. While I can just randomly create things, I find I work best with not only a product in mind, but a use for said product when I'm done. Before this would have been something like Traumador or the ART Evolved gallery, but on this particular day those aren't feeling grand enough (I've been there done that).

Traumador's adventures while fun to do once, have become too much work on both the photography end (none of my human "characters" want to pose for photos after 5 years) and the CG end (the constant increase in quality I strive for has outpaced the quantity Traum required). I was and still am hoping to redefine and relaunch Traumador as a more educational site. For this I was hoping to dabble with Adobe Flash.

Which has just been adding insult to injury. My attempts to animate this simplified version of my new Gorgosaurus have been meeting with nothing but complete disaster!

Up until now I was rather proud of being self taught in all my artistic efforts. However with the rejection of my CG pieces and Flash completely repelling my attempts at using it, have left me feeling perhaps I'm just not very good at anything.

I hope to bounce back. In an effort to figure out all the different ways I could render a 3D image in Carrara for possible use in Flash I took my Gorgo through several filters.

The out comes leave me with some intriguing possibilities for future projects.

I especially like this painting simulating one...

I couldn't even animate this basic pencil outline simulate...

The only thing all this motivates me to do, is think about a book...

Anyways I don't think this is a permanent depression. Just a momentary one, that time should heal. Just thought I'd see if anyone else has encountered this overwhelming feeling of uselessness, and if they know a way to defeat it quickly.

I'm going bird watching now to try and get my mind off things for a bit.

I'm starting to hate Adobe Flash!

After reading and playing with the lessons in my Adobe Flash book, I am discovering the program is completely inflexible and impractical for anything I want to try outside of the controlled elements of these tutorials.

Seriously? Is it this platform actually this useless that I can't use imported graphics from other programs?

Admittedly my other programs are not Adobe ones as I can't afford Creative Suite, but I'm using their formats. Still nothing.

My other major frustration is that between the documentation of my book and the Help files there are serious gaps in how to do things.

Does anyone know where and how one accesses the "HUD"?!? It is the key to "optimizing" an imported Bitmap, and I can't find the HUD nor successfully optimize any graphics...

Grrrrrrr