Played around with Blender compositing

Download the blend file:

UPDATE: Spent some time to refine this a little bit. I’m still not too satisfied with the results, but hopefully support from Cycles for this stuff will be better soon and things should be easier. For everyone interested just the short idea behind this:

You create a ground plane and recreate any objects in the photo that should interact (have a shadow) with the 3D content. In the example below it is the floor and the lemon. Then I created two render layers, one for the main subject, and one for the scene objects. The first is just your usual combined render while the second is a “shadow only” layer. These two are rendered and then the magic happens in the compositor where image, shadow layer and main layer are assembled into the final image.

Some minor adjustments

And this is to show how the 3D parts are set up:

Wire frame blend

Frankfurt by night HDR wallpaper

You can see the other results in my Flickr stream.

• flower
• two speedlites
• white styrofoam plates

Place the styrofoam plates in a L-shape and point the speedlites at them. The flower is positioned in the middle of this setup with the camera on the same height as the blossom pointing towards the styrofoam plates. Now adjust the speedlites’ strengths as you see fit (I used 1/16 and 1/8). See this setup shot:

Setup for bright flower macro

And the result:

Resulting bright flower macro

The picture in question for me this time was something erotic. A woman’s legs in nice stockings, stretched to the sky and crossed. Together with the vintage style processing this gives a really nice image. You can check it out here.

To recreate this, there’s of course need for some beatiful legs, which fortunately were available I set up a white background and two speedlights which where pointed at two large white styrofoam boards to give a diffuse lighting. These lights were located left and right of the camera at a 45° angle to the model, straight forward and simple. I experimented a bit with the power of the speedlights and at the end the one on the right was set to 1/2 while the other was at 1/8. This way I had a little bit more light coming from the right. First result is this one:

Recreating vintage style photography

Post processing involved masking out the legs and replacing the background with a solid color. On this image I then added a texture to the background with very high opacity to just give a slight pattern. Some adjustments to the levels and a bit of vignetting complete the treatment in PSE. I then took it to Nik ColorEfex 3 and applied the Old Photo filter to give the final result.

The second image was a different take on the subject with a different pose. This was to get more attention to the nice shoes

Recreating vintage style photography

Post processing was rather similar to the first image, except no texture to the background. I also had to do some sharpening on this one and added a more pronounced vignette. Then again, ColorEfex for the final look.

Left: UV filter attached, right: no UV filter attached

Full resolution images can be seen here and here.

UPDATE: Used some Google-Fu to see if there are other people wondering about the same thing. Some interesting results came up. The overall statement seems to be: UV filter is theoretically affecting the image quality, but in 99% of the cases this is not noticeable. In very extreme light conditions the effects can be visible though.

Now for some finer points:

• http://www.cameralabs.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=14617 - seems to indicate that aperture plays a role for sharpness with the filter, will have to test that
• http://www.petapixel.com/2011/06/16/experimenting-with-stacks-of-uv-filters/ - using a big stack of filters obviously affects image quality a lot!
• http://www.lenstip.com/113.1-article-UV_filters_test_Introduction.html - very detailed UV filter test, the first I found so far with some illustrative images of the mystic “flares” everyone seems to be getting all the time, supporting the overall statement above

Here are the first results I got from my lightbox. Not great, but ok I think. I need another flash light…

Summary

What is it all about? Obviously character modeling. More specifically the DVD focuses on polygonal quad-based modeling using the latest Blender version. There are a lot of different ways one can go about character modeling, for example using a sculpting program like ZBrush or Scultpris and then at some point switching to a modeling application. This not the approach presented here, rather the other popular way is characterized, which is starting from reference images inside the modeler and then using polygonal modeling techniques like extruding and subdividing to form the mesh. While this approach is less intuitive it generates really nice geometry which is very suitable for animation later on. The DVD covers the complete workflow from adjusting and setting up the reference images to finishing up the model with intricate detail. Not covered are rigging, animation, texturing and rendering.

Target audience

As with all tutorials, this one is also directed at a rather specific audience. If you are completely new to Blender you will have a hard time following the steps and what is done. As clearly stated on the website, this training DVD is directed at users that are already proficient with modeling in Blender and are interested in the specific techniques and pitfalls of character creation using polygonal quad-based modeling. To recreate what is done, you’ll need some understanding of human anatomy as well, as this is an integral part of laying out the geometry of the mesh for correct deformation when animated. Personally, I would consider myself the perfect target audience, since I do have experience modeling with Blender and already have tried to create characters myself. Which is also why I was so interested in this and my hopes didn’t get disappointed!

Content and structure

The DVD is structured like a professional character artist might tackle the task of creating a 3D model of a character that can later be used for animation. It starts by showing how to prepare the reference images for usage in Blender, which includes alignment and post processing for the specifics of the modeling context. In the next step the scene setup in Blender is shown, which is mainly importing the reference images as background images into Blender and aligning them properly. The modeling itself starts with the eyes, the head and ears. In the beginning the various modeling techniques like extruding or subdividing with edge loops are eplained in more detail and later on are only mentioned when things get really tricky. After the head is done, body, arms and boots are added. Difficult parts like the hands are done in seperate chapters to give them the space and time they deserve. Later chapters conclude with hair, clothing and other detail work.

Review

For me this DVD was really exciting. I had a general idea of the techniques and the approach for character modeling but had never seen the whole workflow presented by an expert. So this was my opportunity of looking over the shoulder of an artist at work. A lot of things I already knew and had incoroporated into my own modeling, but there also a lot of things – especially little details – that were true revelations for me. Modeling the hair or the clothing were things I wouldn’t have known how to do efficiently. Having watched those tutorials I feel a lot more confident and have sort of a “golden path” that I can follow and deviate from where necessary. It’s always good to have a solid guideline when exploring complex tasks like character modeling. The DVD offers exactly that. You don’t get training exercises or lessons in character design, you just get to see how you could do the modeling.

The narration is very calm and Angela has a really nice voice. It’s a pleasure to listen to!

On the negative side there is not much to mention. A few times the timelapse part can give you motion sickness I guess if you’re sensitive The DVD I got contained an error when used on Windows that prevented the intended usage out of the browser. But a fix is posted on the website and I could even get a new DVD free of charge.

So, if you’re a proficient Blender user, but rather new to character modeling, you should definitely check this one out. On the plus side you also support Blender development by buying the DVD from the official store!

Finally, the teaser from youtube for those still undecided: