Mixed Realities

One year of the same thumbnail is enough :wink: At least there is some new stuff going on.

— Original post —

Hello together,

with this image I start a new series of renders. The idea behind this project is to take photographs and to combine them with suitable rendered stuff. Ideally this kind of augmented reality should create a dialogue between the elements in the photo and the rendered enrichments. I hope that this project will lead to a set of compelling images of visual interest.

Here is the first one.


If it talks to you in one or the other way, I did something right :slight_smile:

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Did another one. Was plenty of fun to do :slight_smile:


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Here is a short explanation of how I did the last two renders. Both were done with the help of the awesome addon called BLAM and this next tutorial gave me a kickstart. Many thanks for the addon and the tutorial:

For the first scene I modeled one of the objects in Blender to match the graffiti on the pillar. Then I used multires at a level of 5 subdivisions to sculpt the folds. Texturing was done in 3DCoat and I used the new Principled BSDF in 2.79 for the shading. To save some memory the objects have been duplicated as instances. Nevertheless I had to switch from my 4GB GPU back to CPU to render the scene. The camera settings in Blender have been adjusted to the camera settings of the real photo. To simulate the depth of field I placed a cube into the scene, which is the focus object for the camera. Although it isn’t visible in the render it helped me to set the focus of Blender’s camera to where the focus in the photo was. The focal length of Blender’s camera was set to 1.8. The real photo was projected onto a cove plane through the BLAM addon. The trick here is, that BLAM uses the camera view to project the photo. When viewed outside camera view the photo is heavily distorted, but seen through the camera the perspective is correct. The use of a plane as cove meant that no shadow catcher was necessary, because the backdrop plane catches the shadows. A little post processing was done in Gimp, mainly to add some more blurring to the foreground and the sides.


I used the same process for the second render. The toy boat was modeled in Blender and textured in 3DCoat. Again I used the new principled BSDF shader. To blend the boat better into the photo I sculpted some tiny waves on a second flat plane. Water drops have been placed by hand onto the boat. To have some motion blur I used two keyframes (frame 0 and frame 30) between which the boat turns around at about 120 degree. Then I rendered at frame 28 of 30 frames. Post processing was done in Darktable (I rendered to openEXR to have more dynamic range to play with) and Gimp.


Both backdrop photos were done by me and both scenes were lit by an HDRI, which I shot quite some time ago at nearly the same location and under nearly the same lighting conditions. The second screen contains also a sun lamp to give more contrasty light. Setting the sun’s size to 1 m gave the best results in terms of aligning the lighting with the photo. For both scenes I used filmic and medium high contrast.

I find it fascinating how many artistic opportunities this approach has to offer. Alone stuffing the first set with these objects would have been truly expensive in real life. Thanks Blender! :slight_smile:

Nice to see you back minoribus with a interest to fit your somewhat limited Blender time now. And, the possibilities do seem endless and indeed fascinating. And, you seem off to a good start. A comment on your observation if I might.

I find it fascinating how many artistic opportunities this approach has to offer. Alone stuffing the first set with these objects would have been truly expensive in real life. Thanks Blender! :slight_smile:

When pursuing photography I had three White Lightening strobes with stands and accessories. And, space seemed to be a constant problem when setting up. So when I discovered blender I immediately thought you have half a million in lighting and a commercial loft for space here. So with that thought in mind I can’t wait to see where this leads with you now in 2.79. Love the two so far especially the boat and as always the how this was done dialog is appreciated.

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Hi minoribus, heard about this thread from a little bird. :wink:

What a wonderful idea, you do seem to come up with ideas though. Is there a reason that you have decided to do something like this?

The elements that you have placed in the two scenes look really natural.

Subscribed and looking forward to more.

Regards

Shaun

Thanks for visiting Ghost and Speed!

Indeed! And you can have all sorts of crazy light shapes with mesh lights. Some things that are even not produced in reality.

Yes, because I can do that in iterations and with relatively short time for each one. I’m still on a tight budget spare time wise. Other reason was that it allows me to combine two passions, Blender and photography and furthermore I have the hope that it will be a bit on the artistic side. In that sense I like the first one best so far, because the interplay between the scene and the objects is stronger. Although, the second one isn’t bad either, imho.

The new filmic color management was a great help to add some more realism. And the new principled BSDF shader worked like a charm for the materials so far.


This is a block out and sketch for the next item. I call it “The easy way”.

The block out and sketch are mainly to check composition and scale. I think it will work that way with the leading lines and the depth of field. Camera was set to 28mm, focus is on the basketball hoop.

This time I’ll do it the other way round. Hopefully I’ll have the occasion to shoot the backplate according to the camera settings and angle of the render as well as the environment in the gym this weekend.

Always fun to work on those materials.


Current progress. Lighting, texturing, post processing.


Hi minoribus

Not sure if you will agree and maybe it’s just me, but the image seems to have too many focal points.

Also not sure if what I tried is better or worse. :o


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Regards

Shaun

Thanks, man, I see what you mean and turned the lights and the reflections down a bit. No post processing this time. I must say that I like the version with more contrast better. It’s a bit dull now. Other changes were a slight change in the pose and a more modern hair style for the boy. I also changed the position of the backplate slightly.

Talking about the focal points the scene has two “heroes” in regards to story telling. It’s not about the boy alone, the basketball hoop plays a role too. Therefore I placed an extra light in front of it to make it pop out more.


And finally the final render :slight_smile:



Obviously or hopefully not so obviously, the garden gnome is rendered into the scene. While I had to do the previous render with the escalator, this latest one is more on the lines of this project, because the augmentation does not conquer the whole scene in the way the escalator did it. After all the idea is to let the augmentation and the photograph play nicely together.

I painted the gnome’s textures with Substance Painter. This was my first test and I like the result and the flexibility this painting app gives. The lighting is done with some mesh lights to match the lighting in the photo. And to catch some of the lighting mood of the original location I did a very quick and dirty 360 degree panorama (shot handheld for example and not on a tripod). But I knew before that there won’t be sharp reflections in the scene and so it was sufficient to shed some green and yellow light onto the scene. Post production was done again with Gimp and Darktable.

Edit:
I made a minor change, because my wife said the water is too clear and she is right. Unless you have a very short shutter speed, it wouldn’t appear that frozen. I rendered it again with motion blur.


I thought some color would be nice and so I made a variation of it, which I call “Super Garden Gnome”. I think this makes it pop more.


This is a closeup of the gnome and the fluid sim. For texturing I used Substance Painter again and post processing was done in Gimp and Darktable.

I just stumbled upon this thread, and enjoying catching up on your progress. Just curious…was the base that the gnome is standing on modeled and textured or was it part of the original photo?

Either way, it’s great to see your interest in photography converging with your 3d talents!

Thanks Harleynut, long time no talk. I hope you are doing well!

The base is part of the photo. I used b/w alpha masks in post processing to bring the upper edge of the base back to front. Without that the grnome’s feet would be in front of the base.

Hi minoribus

I actually had the same question as Harley did, not being being sure if the base was modelled or not so…for me this means that you are doing an excellent job on these works.

Regards

Shaun

I just stopped here on Blender Artists for the first time in a while, and came across this thread. It’s good to see some familiar faces!

I like these composites you’ve been doing, minoribus. The integration of the CG and backplates is well done. I think my favorite so far is the gnome- the lighting, composition and funny subject is nice! The low camera angle also gives him a “heroic” perspective, which is especially fitting for the Super Gnome version.

I hope to see more of these from you!

Thank you, gentlemen! I’m glad you like it. I too like the latest one the most. It is - as the first one - more in line with the aim of the project.

Hi folks, it’s been a while :slight_smile: Live and so on … you know … :wink:

Nevertheless I decided to do another one and for that I need an astronaut’s suit. Not the easiest thing to do after such a long break. But you have to start somewhere, So here is the pressure bubble of an apollo suit. I yet have to refine the little vent at the right side.