The September Free For All

[gare]

This forum's been a tad vacant for a while...hmm, either summer's the cause, or my challemges haven't been inspiring enough.

Here's for September: integrating the synthetic with the real. Create something, or someone, in a modeling or a drawing app. Then use PS to integrate it with a photo. Use Vue, Poser...I don't care, but the finished image should be plausible.

Here's my example: the milking stool is a photo, but the cow's fake (I'm kidding).

Go to it!

Gare

[Nikkie]

OK someone has to go first.... 8}

Nikkie

[lasa]

Here's mine..
Lasa

[Welles]

OK What's the fake? The dog? Yeah, well that tool ;)

[gare]

Welles!

The sky's from Vue, no? [shhh] Love the reflections!

Folks, Welles' got the idea, although I really like lasa and nikkie's work!

I forgot to say that you don't have to use my cow pic, nice as it is 8}

Here's another example: "The Empire Backs Up".

My Best,

Gare

[Welles]

Welles!

The sky's from Vue, no? [shhh] Love the reflections!

Yep! It's just one of the stock preset skies from Vue with the remade water. The original photo is one of the old stock images which used to ship with Photoshop, maybe still does. The dog was a stock model shipped with ModelShop, Digital Element's plugin to bring 3D models directly into PS.

I'm afraid I just used stock effects this month as I've had a major computer setback...My main monitor has apparently given up the ghost and a new one hasn't arrived. My old LaCie Blue ll, while a good monitor in it's day is just too hard on the eyes. I've been spoiled by large LCDs.

Here's another example: "The Empire Backs Up".

:} :} :}

[gare]

Welles, what's your setup? Can you take just about any monitor? Agreed; my old Iilyama monitor sucks compared to my lcd.

I forgot; Obi-Wan taught Luke, right? And a good student gets their reward... ;)

-g-

[Welles]

Gare,

I can use any monitor as I put an ATI 9800 Pro in my main computer about six or eight months ago. My main monitor for the last 5 years has been an Apple Cinema Display 22" which just up and quit a couple of days ago. I've replaced the backlights once and have a considerable familiarity with the innards so I opened it up to see if there might be any observable issue...nope. I've checked the power train as well as I can with a simple multimeter and it seems OK so I have a tech support inquiry into an LCD repair place to see if replacing the inverter will possibly solve the issue. (I could do that myself.)

In the meantime, I did some serious price comparison shopping and ordered a Dell UltraSharp 2005FPW 20.1-inch Wide Aspect Flat Panel LCD. Shipped and tax was about $600, a real deal. There is a proverbial silver lining as I've had an interest to compare the Dell against my rather extensive experience with Apple displays. If it looks good, I think I'll try and fix the old ACD and maybe find someone who could use it cheap and get a Dell 24". In any event, I'll have my monitor issue covered for the time being when the Dell arrives next Tuesday. Eventually it will become my PC monitor.

Thanks for asking...I've wanted to complain (whine) publicly!

[nitrobutler]

Here goes mine.
The model is Mariah Carey and the chair is my first attempt with the Mesh tool in Illustrator.

[gare]

Nitro--

Hats off to you!? 8))I believe you'll surely take 1st prize this month (NOT to discourage other submissions!).
I've not tried the Mesh feature in Illustrator, but I'm game now.

By way of example, pardon me for fussing with your post, I'd like to offer a pointer or two for grafting photos into other scenes, real or modeled/illustrated:

? The camera angles need to match. NitroButler's submission had no background for reference, so this is okay. I added scenery to the picture to first contextualize it (distracting the viewer a tad), and then to add depth. I feathered a rectangular selection, then Gaussian blurred it to de-emphasize the background and to force a little depth. I used Carrera to build the living room (clouds were added in PS with Digital Elements' Aurora 2 plug-in); it's a good idea to model and render different settings at different angles w/ different lighting for future needs.

? The lighting needs to match. Maria was just a tinch paler than the chair illustration, so I selected her (the Path tools in PS are essential to learn; anyone want me to post a tutorial?), and then ran some Levels. I did the same with the background.

? The shadows need to match. Maria's chair had a slight drop shadow, but needed a cast (perspective) shadow. I saved Maria+chair w/ transparency as a png, imported it to Xara, then simply added the cast shadow with the shadow tool, which is wonderful because it blurs the shadow progressively as perspective diminishes...but the same could be done with a little more work, manually, in PS.

? I also defringed my selection on Maria+chair, then used the Blur tool to further the integration of the foreground and background.

But the bottom line is that Nitro built a plausible image, daring to use an illustration software as opposed to a modeler/render.

I salute your talent and effort!

My Best,

Gare