Do you remember this project?
I remixed it, to check and challenge myself how my craft has evolved and changed since 2022.
My taste and style have slightly changed. My PC has changed. And also, the whole industry has changed since the LLM/AI revolution.
Are we the last generation of 3D artists? I don’t think so. Keep the good work!
„Proposal for Office Park Complex on 3rd May Avenue Street, next to the Błonia Park in Cracow – one of the largest city center meadows in Europe.
Design explores the Polish interwar modernism art movement, in connection with the natural shapes of the neighboring nature.”
Amazing Visuals. Composition, lighting, compositing, colour grading, everything looks top-notch. Even your “before” images inspired me! Would love to see a timelapse of how these images were crafted. Can you please talk more about how you approach a specific lighting scenario and the post-production involved?
Thank you!
I wish, I could create some timelapses, but for that I would need something like a video capture card or just another gpu, just for recording.
Cycles isn’t very forgiving for vram usage, so there’s nothing left tbh (texture cache is messing with foliage shaders, so I’m waiting for improved version in the future).
All lighting scenarios are coming from the inspirations. I have a ton of references from another artists, photographers or cinematographers. Firstly, I find the good lighting reference, then I try to adjust the frame, composition and the mood to that reference image.
From technical perspective, the lighting is quite simple - some sky shader with multiple scattering model selected and sometimes I rely on the sun from the sky shader, or I use just a separated sky and separated sun.
The lighting doesn’t have to be the most physical accurate thing, but it has to look good.
When it comes to the postpro, my workflow is quite straightforward - render to 32bit exr, composite and color grading in the blender’s compositor on this 32bit file and then I export almost he final version of the file in 16bit PNG to photoshop and there I adjust some specific regions to my needs. I rely mostly on Photoshop’s Camera Raw plugin for image refining.
I’m not afraid to use some mattepainting or photobashing for some details on the foreground objects. The trunks, for example, when they’re close to the camera and the texture isn’t interesting enough, I just overpaint it with some matching photos. It works, when for the stills, but for motions or animations, it’s not that easy
Thanks a lot for the detailed answer! Cycles definitely isn’t very vram friendly right now, fingers crossed for 5.3. It’s pretty sick how those results were achieved using simple lighting setups like the ones you mentioned. I’ll try the 32-bit exr workflow soon. I’ve seen some great work come out of mattepainting and photobashing, what’s your take on using ai inpainting for the same? (How do we tread the fine line between convenience and utility vs creative control and skilful expression?)
I prefer working with just good quality and highres photos, when it comes to mattepainting. I still favour full 3d scenes, but I’m not so masochistic to spend like two days on the perfect trunk or the perfect grass. I can just make this better with a photo. The time is a value too, and we have to take account of this. Sure, I’d love to fine-tune everything to be perfect, but this is the thing I had to leave behind with a therapy.
My philosophy is clear: if the final effect looks good, and time is running, then use any tool you need.
But we have to stay focused and be honest what is “a good effect” and what looks “good”, because that’s what some artists are missing. For example, when I see all those animated still images with ai where everything feels and looks like a fever dream, I’m not sure we have the same eyes
If you’ll need some inpainting and you’ll do it a good photo and it looks good, then it’s good. If you would do this ai and it looks good, then it’s good.
Today’s ai questions are more about morality, social, political and environment impact - I’m not deaf to that and I know it’s a hot potato.
I’ve added some new images. I came back from vacations, I saw somewhere this big, rabbit dude and I felt the need, for some new perspectives. Check the rest out in the edited post!
