RPC - Should it really look like this?

[Eric]

Hello all! I'm about to purchase various plugins for VIZ4, but before I do, I wanted to get some input on the way my RPC content (from the demo) is coming in and rendering. The RPC palms and people seem really washed out, and the palms seem almost transparent. Also, the shadows suck for the palms when the sun is high in the sky. Any suggestions? Or can anyone tell me what I'm doing wrong?

 

Thanks,

Eric

 

[superdave]

I hate using RPC's because of all the problems with the damn shadows try doing the rpcs soaly in photoshop. There is a plugin for photoshop to be able us the Rpcs and gives you more control. Suggestion for stills only not animations. Or simply try to lower the angle of the sunlight.

[Brian Cassil]

There is a technique for doing shadows with RPC's that you can find at this link: shadow tutorial

It is not fool proof and there are certain scenarios where this method can not be used but for 95% of you're rpc content it will work (that goes for animations as well as still images).

[Christopher Nichols]

To answer some of your other questions, the content that you get is higher res and looks good for most shots until you get real close in a high res. For DV res, they look good, even close.

 

I really like the animated people for animtions. It adds a lot of realism to your scenes in a real easy way. The 2.5D people are really cool, and the walking people are cool too for background stuff (but don't get close to them, they look like robots). It's like free (well 500 bucks for the library) cheap character animation.

 

Don't know much about the cars... they are supposed to be pretty cool.

 

These days, I already have 3D cars that look good. Computer power is fast and cheap. I can easily add cars with less impact on my scene. The is especially true if you have a robust rendering engine (like Vray, Brazil, etc...), and you render the cars on a seperate pass. But the RPC cars are rigged with some cool controls that is harder to set up on regular 3D cars.

[superdave]

Again I say photoshop, does no one else use this plugin that I speak of? Its faster than spending all the time setting up the bitmaps, shadows, and rendering them just to have to twick them in Photoshop anyway. Time is Money Right?

[nisus]

Hi superdave,

 

I'm not using the photoshop-plugin nor any RPCcontent as I don't like photogrammetry. If you really want to save a lot of time, try piranesi to add those RPC's! I tested the tool, it's amazing: your flat image had depth, changes size with correct depth etc.

 

rgds

 

nisus

[Ricardo Eloy]

I don't know...I used to be a RPC enthusiast, but I've been having a lot of trouble with them...I use VRay to calculate radiosity, and everytime I put some RPC's in the scene, Max will just crash. Not a warning message, just disappears. I just couldn't find the reason why this is happening, so I decided to use the good-ol'alpha channel to insert trees, people, whatever. I know it's not like you can rotate them or anything, but it's doing the trick so far....

[]

Rick

[Ernest Burden III]

Originally posted by nisus:

I'm not using the photoshop-plugin nor any RPCcontent as I don't like photogrammetry.

I haven't tried it yet, though a friend beta-tested the cars and I saw some test animation they did, which was very nice.

 

I was thinking of downloading the Photoshop plugin if they have a sample of content so I can give it a try. The concept is great.

 

What I wondered about is whether you can define your own content for RPC? I would love to do that. Are the underlying textures in a format that can be edited in Photoshop?

 

BTW, thanks for finding that link, nisus

[Jeff Mottle]

Hey Ernest,

 

Yes you can. There is a free plugin available in the downlaods section of www.RPCnet.com. You just need to shoot all of the angles you want and cut them out. The plugin creates the RPC file. ArchVision is also moving forward to allow users to create their own content.

 

http://www.archvision.com/DisplayFlash.cfm?DisplayFlash=rpc_flash_31.cfm

 

http://www.cgarchitect.com/news/article062.asp

 

I'm not sure when we can expect those tools to arrive though.

 

What I wondered about is whether you can define your own content for RPC? I would love to do that. Are the underlying textures in a format that can be edited in Photoshop?

 

[ October 10, 2002, 08:59 PM: Message edited by: Jeff Mottle ]

[STRAT]

i still am an RPC fan and use them whenever i use viz. your contrast problem is a very easy thing to fix -

 

lock the ambiant and diffuse colours and turn them to pure black, then illuminate the figure by turning right down (or up) the self illumination spinner.

[Ernest Burden III]

Originally posted by Jeff Mottle:

You just need to shoot all of the angles you want and cut them out. The plugin creates the RPC file. ArchVision is also moving forward to allow users to create their own content.

If I can shoot my own and the PS plug-in creates a file, isn't that creating my own content? The last part of your answer suggests that capability is yet to come.

 

The other part of what I would want to be able to do is open THEIR content and modify it.

[mbr]

The beauty of the RPC product is that the trees, people, and cars can be viewed from 360 degrees. So you can place people looking at each other, walking away, etc. Even though some of the pieces aren't perfect, there is nothing to compare it to.

The advantage to incorporating it into the rendering is that all the reflections, the shadows, and the scale are all there. I will sometimes put a few people in the rendering, then do the rest in Photoshop (it can take a while to render a huge amount of people/trees, even though they are really just 2 polygons). Once you own the libraries, you can use both. Oh, and the fountains are really sweet in animations!

[sergio rocha]

who ever gets rpc color problems can check the "scripts" forum for a rgb rpc controler.

thanx to quizz.