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Sculptures Whitaker Studio

Posted: Sat Mar 21, 2015 4:10 am
by Yiqin
I will use this thread for all my future work, Whitaker Studio, related projects. I have three to put up for helpful criticism today and hope to be adding more in the future.

All the art work represented is Copyright Lyman Whitaker Sculptor.

I do pretty much all of the 3d sculpture models and model commissioned displays as a side job at the studio. that is what these models are for. At present most models/sculpture displays are presented to clients in sketchup's scanline output I hope to start providing indigo still renders, and short video clips rendered through indigo to clients.

I tend to have a couple problems with texturing especially the more organic parts (I use Sketchup but am starting to learn 3ds Max - If I manage to switch I will be maintaining models for both programs)

And would love some ideas on how to make my patina and copper textures more believable.
I've been eyeing Substance Painter for texture mapping and application but the output wouldn't be sketchup friendly and may not work right with indigo either. If anyone has had success let me know.

Re: Sculptures Whitaker Studio

Posted: Sat Mar 21, 2015 4:45 am
by Oscar J
Can't help you much with your texturing/material issues, though I really think the presentation of the sculptures would be a lot better if you used slick, high resolution backplates and composited your sculptures into them using the shadow catcher feature (more info on that can be found under Support -> Tutorials). Hope to see more soon!

Re: Sculptures Whitaker Studio

Posted: Sat Mar 21, 2015 5:15 am
by Yiqin
Thanks for the input Oscar,

I have a half decent mirrorless camera but I'm not ready to try shooting my own environment maps so I'm just using a few legally obtained freebies (most of which didn't come with backplates). I'm still new to photoshop and only recently realized i should be matching output field of view to the project photo's field of view.

I don't think the indigo team has come up with a way to setup shadow catching through skindigo but it looks like the instructions for doing so from within indigo are simple enough.

Re: Sculptures Whitaker Studio

Posted: Sat Mar 21, 2015 5:35 am
by Oscar J
A simple way to make the sculptures stand out more from the background as well as masking the low resolution of the environment maps, could be lowering the F-stop value so that you get a small depth of field - rendering the sculpture sharp and the background blurry.

Re: Sculptures Whitaker Studio

Posted: Sat Mar 21, 2015 5:58 am
by Yiqin
I did try for a little bokeh effect and its a little more apparent on the full size renders (I resized the images in photoshop before posting), but it sounds like I should take it a lot further when using environ maps.

That said do depth of field phone apps for cameras work for indigo? being based on a physical camera model i would think that they would but I've never tried it. Maybe it's time for me to use the advanced camera plugin in sketchup (I'm also new to real world photography using a sony a6000).

Thanks again Oscar

Merry Christmas

Posted: Sat Dec 23, 2017 6:22 am
by Yiqin
Liking the new website! Thought it was finally a good time to post a few more projects...
These two are my own work and do not represent Whitaker Studio. Following posts are all studio projects some of which are in "proposal limbo" and some of which have been commissioned and installed already. I welcome constructive criticism on all my work.

I primarily fabricate, assemble and solder sculptures. Our visualization and proposal planning projects probably take up 5-10% of my time at work so my progress in skills and abilities is a little on the slow side. All work is primarily done in Sketchup Pro, though I have done some work in 3ds Max.

Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays (whichever floats your boat)!

Arboretum Concepts

Posted: Sat Dec 23, 2017 6:34 am
by Yiqin
These are all concepts that were directed by the Artist Lyman Whitaker, for temporary display at Morris Arboretum.
All are composites. photos I get to work with vary widely in quality and usability anyone have any ideas for how to best encourage a client to provide better site photos?

Concepts for a city on and near the Fox River IL

Posted: Sat Dec 23, 2017 6:41 am
by Yiqin
These are a mix of a composite and an attempt a modelling context. Two concepts, the concept in the composite was the city's final choice, it has been installed.

Various Commercial Concepts

Posted: Sat Dec 23, 2017 7:24 am
by Yiqin
These are various concept requests from commercial entities. Most of these have been delivered and installed.

Public Projects

Posted: Sat Dec 23, 2017 7:39 am
by Yiqin
About half of these are in proposal limbo. See picture notes for which displays were composed by the artist, Lyman Whitaker.

As a side note all Wind Sculpture designs depicted are property of Whitaker Studio.

Most recent concept

Posted: Sat Dec 23, 2017 7:49 am
by Yiqin
Here is my most recent work render opportunity. Unfortunately the rendered concept will not ever be installed. This is a concept composed by the Artist Lyman Whitaker for an arboretum, a simpler and more symmetrical composition was pick for the actual exhibition.

I do think this may be one of my best renders yet. Also this model help me test & showcase the limits of my new studio laptop (i7-7920HQ+P5000 :) )

Plants are all Xfrog plants, and all placed by hand (didn't think I had the time to correctly setup the scatter tools for this one). The plant repetition is a bit obvious but I don't think I could have pushed the system much further with additional model variation.

The only think I probably should have tried was DST material for plant leaves I was afraid the UV mapping would go crazy on me so I didn't.

Re: Sculptures Whitaker Studio

Posted: Tue Dec 26, 2017 11:45 am
by Oscar J
An impressive collection of renders! In general I feel like the night/evening shots work better because the statues get much more attention, and the renders suffer less from the variation in backplate quality. I'd try going for these kinds of shot more - because of the detailed, ornamented nature of your design, they don't stand out well from backgrounds similar in brightness and structure (such as vegetation).

Another concept of yours that I felt worked, is where you have a stylized 3d background representations with realistic looking statues.

Regarding your full CGI environments, they look a tad oversaturated and divergent in terms of tone. I can recommend the free software Nik Color Efex to add some filmic effects and blend the colours together better.

Keep it up! :)

Sculptures Whitaker Studio

Posted: Wed Dec 27, 2017 11:21 am
by Yiqin
Oscar, thanks for the suggestion. I had heard of Nik collection, and will give them a try. Sculpture lighting simulation was the primary reason I first started using Indigo, the studio agrees lighting adds a lot to the sculptures. We always offer lighting as a recommended option to any commercial or public entity, but it's up to the client, when they are interested then I get to render with lighting.

I will work more on the saturation (I swear my monitors are all calibrated), and have just downloaded the Nik collection, as a heads up looks like Google passed it off to DXO but it can, for the moment, still be obtained for free from https://nikcollection.dxo.com/

Thanks

Sculptures Whitaker Studio

Posted: Sun Jan 07, 2018 4:05 am
by Yiqin
If any readers are wondering the WIP part of my work is simply trying to refine/correct/improve rendering techniques and workflow, I generally don't get time to revisit renders for a single project before I need to deliver visuals and spacing layouts.

Here is the latest, Per Oscars suggestions I applied a color effects filter from Nik collection to my most recent project (a dialed back/tweaked sunshine filter after manually desaturating the stainless (looking too blue/wrong shade for sky in photo)

Another thing about the Nik collection it looks like it may not work with most recent CC versions of photoshop (I hate subscriptions so I'm hanging with CS6)

Re: Sculptures Whitaker Studio

Posted: Sun Jan 07, 2018 5:44 am
by Juju
Yiqin wrote:
Sun Jan 07, 2018 4:05 am
I hate subscriptions so I'm hanging with CS6
Check out Affinity Photo and Affinity Designer, it isn't expensive, perpetual licence, works with PS files and plugins.

Thank me later...