"illustrated renderings" - strange evolution

[kunstraum.tv]

during the last months i see more and more "renderings" who look like paintings, sketches, water color, etc. mostly done with "piranesi" or other "post production" tools. for me it´s a very strange process. a computer rendering has it´s own style. why simulate another ? when i want a drawing of a building i do it by show of hands. why using a computer to do it ? i think it´s a litte bit twisted. doing a photorealistic image is okay when there isn´t a building right now. there are no cameras with a "fill-the-hole-with-a-building" chip inside on the market right now . for that reason to "simulate a photo" makes sense. for me it feels vey strange to see this "artful" renderings who look like as they were painted. what do you think ?

 

excuse my english

[crapitecture]

I think there are a couple of threads of thought or reasons for this. Very simplified; one, many can't draw very well by hand and two, no time advantage to hand drawing (no drawback either).

 

I think there are a fair amount of people out there in the cg world that can't draw a lick. I'm not inclined to think that being able to draw is a prerequisite to being an artist. Many can envision a work of art in their mind but the translation is lost going through the hand. Even for people that can draw, I can attest that it is often difficult to draw what I envision in my mind. For many the computer is a tool to rationalize the process of turning that vision into something tangible.

 

As far as I'm concerned there is little time difference betweeen hand and computer renderings. If you were to leave out the setup and clean up processes of doing things by hand, it might turn out quicker. But for me, it comes down to purely pragmatic concerns, I don't have the space to do hand renderings, and I don't like cleaning up. My computer is my swiss army art tool, it allows me do do just about everything.

 

I do think that you have a legitimate philosophical question. What is it the proper form of computer art? I think we can look at the history of photography and the cinema for some clues to answer the question. Both were technical , scientific tools for art, that early in thier history were used (particularly motion pictures) to replicate older traditional forms, but later developed into a form that took advantages of the unique qualities of the tools.

 

If we look at the computer in general, it really is a generic tool. One of its unique qualities is its ability to simulate things, be they the complexities of economies, turbulence of air over a wing, a typewriter, an accountants log, or the behavior of light and the paintbrush. The uniqueness of the computer I think lies in this ability to merge and control the various ways of simulation that the computer allows. Somewhere along these lines I think the answer to the question will be found for me.

 

Sorry for the long post...

[Ricardo Eloy]

Interesting topic...

You have a point, BUT:

We have to see computer as tools. And these tools allow us to create whatever we want, from photorealistc images to NPRs. Looking at the computer as if it was meant to creat PRs only is to deny the very essence of art itself: freedom. Freedom of language, freedom of techniques. The fact that I'm using a computer doesn't make me less artist than a guy who still uses actual brushes and paint.

The secret here is to explore all the possibilities created by the computer generated imagery world. I remember that years ago, when I was an arch student, the teacher only accepted hand made drawings. If you showed up with a CAD perspective, they would speak for hours about "how the computers are a barrier to creativity" or "how you can never achieve the same results you get manually with CAD"...So, what did we do back then? made all the perspectives in CAD and redraw them by hand, just to show the teachers. They never realized we were doing that (or did?). Does it make my design worse? I don't think so.

We all choose our tools using our own sensibity. If you chose CG, don't go thinking that this choice will haunt you forever, make you do just one kind of work. This would be a step backwards.

After all, we are all evolving. And so is art.

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Rick

[kunstraum.tv]

i don´t mean that doing an image with a computer isn´t artistic. in contrast !! the computer is a tool with which you can express your visions. you can develop artful images or can produce technical proper pictures for the everyday work. that´s all okay and necessary. i do it myself. pictures for the clients and images for me where i try to reach for something new. i´m looking for new ways to do it WITH the computer. it´s like a modern pen, but with far more possibilities. but instead of trying to use and develop this posibilities, this "piranesi" pictures going backwards. you wouldn´t try to use a pen for a water colour picture. so why do it with a computer ? don´t get me wrong. i don´t want to blame this pictures in general. when a client want this then it´s okay. maybe this is a little too "philosophichal" view... it was just a question going around in my head

 

shame, i must work on my english, in german it sounds better

[ingo]

>> you wouldn´t try to use a pen for a water colour picture. so why do it with a computer ?

 

Freedom of creativity. You can't do this in "reality", but you can combine all these techniques in the computer. You're right when you think that remaking a watercolor picture on the computer is boring, its much more interesting to add the things you can do on the computer, like real reflections on a sketchy rendering.

 

>>shame, i must work on my english, in german it sounds better

 

Well, you can use a translation engine, thats at least a lot more fun for us

[Ricardo Eloy]

Originally posted by kunstraum.tv:

...but instead of trying to use and develop this posibilities, this "piranesi" pictures going backwards. you wouldn´t try to use a pen for a water colour picture. so why do it with a computer ?

Well, the answer to this would be "because you can". As you said, there are so many possibilities, why hold back? We all do what we have/like to do, so if you can do it with a computer, even better! As we can see here in the foruns, some wonderful NPR images can be done without touching a brush. That's part of the art.

Maybe what you're suggesting is that we should separate the languages one from another. I think it's useless. We should embrace the new and take the best from it. Then, we'll be able to create (maybe) a whole new language using the best of these 2 worlds.

BTW, Ingo, you're mean! :ebiggrin:

[]

Rick

[kunstraum.tv]

nice to see that everyone got his own method to deal with these diffrent styles. and thats very good, i think

[Sawyer]

Another thing I have run across is often clients want it. I have talked to clients who want renderings think that everything that "looks like a computer did it" is too clean and souless. If I can show them a quick photoshop post-production npr sketch I have one more tool to blow his mind.

 

 

And personaly I do npr stuff often just because I like it. I think it is fun. Some of it looks really really good.

 

 

Another point pro npr: your client wants to see a rendered room but doesn't have colors picked. A water color can show a yellow wall. Simple yellow. Computers show a shade of yellow - there are thousands. If you show the client a cg rendering they very well might be distracted by a color that is not ready to be shown as absolutly as the computer will make it seem. But if you make it soft and sketchy the color is not as concrete and only becomes an aid in the vizualisation process.

[jucaro]

...Computers show a shade of yellow - there are thousands. If you show the client a cg rendering they very well might be distracted by a color that is not ready to be shown as absolutly as the computer will make it seem. But if you make it soft and sketchy the color is not as concrete and only becomes an aid in the vizualisation process. [/QB]

This kind of statement defeats the purpose of the existence of 3D Visualizations systems. If the CG Artist can simulate well the kind of material being represented in a Photorealistic rendering, then there really is no way that the client will be mislead or distracted (in your case by the color yellow). All that the client will see is the result of choosing such material/color, and in such easily make a decision whether to change or retain the material/color. Making the color "soft and sketchy" will only make the client second guess the actual look of the real thing being represented.

[Ricardo Eloy]

Well, I think that Sawyer's point is that when we show something very close to reality in a very early stage of the design process, the client might as well get picky, i.e. starts to worry about things that are not really the point of that specific image. I've been in situations like that countless times. My clients often worry more about the color shades or "the weird vase you put in the corner as an example" than with the proposed idea. The point is: we can represent reality in a way they've never seen before. Is that appropriate for all situations? Maybe we should be more selective when it comes to how we are presenting the images. Maybe a nice way would be to show NPR studies at the beginning of the design process and only after it's defined get into a more realistic language (just a thought). Like "Is this what you want? Does this facade look ok? Alright, now we'll start the real renderings, showing options of colors and shadow studies, PR compositions, etc". What do you guys think?

[]

Rick

[Sawyer]

Thanks Rick that is exactly to the point of what I meant to say (this is the only forum I belong to and I am not too good at communicating through it. Many of you non-english speakers have me topped when it comes to consise communication). It's all just a tool.

[Wolf]

The style that has influenced me most from when i began doing 3d architecture, was from the traditional drawings before the computer.

They have a very warm and fuzzy feeling, that i have yet to attain using software, there are some amazing artists out there, that can make the scene come alive, and that is something i find very hard to do, and have rarely seen.

When Monet started drawing in his Impressionism style, the art world was aghast, they were used to this rigid clean drawing technique, and Monet drew with big fat paint strokes, that only slightly resembled the picture, but stand back, fuzz your eyes a little, and the scene almost jumps out at you and starts animating, the wind blows through the trees, the grasses sway gently, the dresses on the women were fluttering.

This is what is so hard to do with CG.

I have experimented a little with npr, but havnt found a way to get that same feeling that the impressionists can realise.

Another fascinating thing about npr, is that you can animate through the scene, something the traditional artist would never be able to do.

 

here are some pics i found floating around that show some traditional works, that are just so much warmer than any cg ive seen.

[Sawyer]

Awsome & inspirational stuff Wolf. Thanks for sharing.

[Ernest Burden III]

here are some pics i found floating around that show some traditional works, that are just so much warmer than any cg ive seen.

Please make the effort to attribute pictures. It is very disrespectful to not list the artist's name, even when its just a simple post.

 

The first two are views of Stanford University by my mentor Brian Burr.

 

The house with the circular drive is by one of the best watercolorist working in the rendering field, Elizabeth Day, of Texas, USA

 

I don't recognise the other two.

[Wolf]

your right Ernest

i only know of the bottom one...Monet

the rest came out of my 4 gig reference folder

that ive been collecting for 10 years now,

and havnt kept track of who did what.

Tell us more about Brian Burr?

[Christian Miranda]

I second Ernest Burden´s words about credits.

 

Btw, Mr. Brian Burr produces the best exterior architectural renderings that I have seen so far and, I´m on this field for 9 years. His work is simply perfect on all the aspects.

 

Just my 2 cents.

[Ernest Burden III]

Tell us more about Brian Burr?

Read my CGA interview

[DelfoZ]

and what u think about DOZAL DOZAL PAGE

 

i have 3 images from Dozal ( their first works ). the images have arround 23 years old and look amazing .. he make arround 25 images for my father.. where r the rest of the images ?? i dont know..