Yet Another People Topic.... ;)

[David Arbogast]

It is my feeling that 3d asset companies such as Dosch are completely out of touch with the needs of architectural visualization regarding people (3d or 2d), but I'm interested to read about your own assessments.

 

For architectural renderings, I feel that people (either 2d or 3d) should not be attention-grabbers. In other words their poses and clothing should be subdued, simple and mostly conservative. But, it seems that arch-viz asset providers, like this one: http://www.viz-people.com/, put people in wacky action poses and weird fashions.

 

[i will give credit to ArchVision, though...they at least do a pretty well providing people that are in more subdued fashions and poses.]

 

Your thoughts?

Edited April 5, 2011 by David Arbogast

[Crazy Homeless Guy]

I am usually disappointed with the blandness and lack of creativity in the clothing of the people in purchased collections. I prefer 'street' fashion, and finding people that fit into that genre in purchased collections is difficult to say the least.

 

For a definition of what street style would look like, just flip through the photos on the site below. Ignore the runway ones though. But that is just me. Those are the types of people I prefer to have in my image, because that is what intrigues me.

http://thesartorialist.blogspot.com/

 

At the end of the day it is about the taste and style you prefer, but the only way you are probably going to get exactly what you want is to go out and take the photos yourself. I am taking more of my own people photos because I want the people to look a certain way.

 

As for Viz People, ....I don't find their clothing to be a problem, if anything I would prefer it to be more tailored and eclectic. If I was going to pick on their collection my comment would be that the people looked posed, which I would say is a common problem when it comes to green screen people.

Edited April 6, 2011 by Crazy Homeless Guy

[Brodie Geers]

One thing I'm surprised you don't see are motion blurred people. You see them all over architecture magazines photos. It's easy enough to fake it but I suspect the quality would be better if it were done for real. I assume that sort of thing would be possible with a green screen.

 

-Brodie

[John Dollus]

having motion blur during a greenscreen shoot is usually a bad idea. so much better to add it in afterward on a clean plate

[epictor.com]

motion blur makes the cutout process much harder - and to be honest, it is just as easy to add it as a post effect (actually for shooting purposes, it is harder to get all images without any motion or depth of field blur).

 

we probably would never match the desired effect in our shoot.

though adding the effect in Photoshop takes only few clicks and gives you complete control of the outcome.

in addition you wouldn't be able to have all this freedom an already blurred images.

 

the same actually applies to field of depth.

 

in any case, it all comes down to your personal favor of clothes, poses, faces and co.

 

glad you got some different material to choose from

 

 

cheers,

 

felix

[Andy Hickes]

People in renderings usually serve 2 purposes. One- to show the scale of the space and 2 to show the use of the space. Attention grabbers are as popular with me in visualizations as they are in real life. Maybe people in renderings are blurred as an attempt to

neutralize them so they do not demand individual attention. Blurred people or "ghosted" people may achieve that but I think

are a distraction in themselves as nothing else is blurred or ghosted in the image. Transparent people bother me more than the moving blurrs. People on the street looking at renderings have all seen enough tv and movies think "the 6th sense" when confronted with transparent people. I think it is best to make people fit in using h/s

or levels to decrease contrast.

 

Of course the most distracting are those that are in the forground, staring out-waving- at you and smiling-often in a bright red miniskirt.

Making people behave in renderings takes thought. Unfortunately, often people are the last thing added before the rendering is due and it's easy to make mistakes.

I would attach some funny examples I have used in teaching but I can't figure out how to attach images to these replys?

[epictor.com]

i'd love to see those examples - perhaps you could post some urls?

 

from my point of view people are used to demonstrate the scale and give the scene some sort of charm or 'flair'.

 

in any case, placing people is an art by itself .)

 

cheers,

 

felix

[M V]

I wonder why noone has capitalized on this? Decent, well-thought out people, categorized in various 'styles' and scenes. One thing I have a hard time finding is people of specific racial and economic backgrounds. Sometimes you want people for a rendering project in the inner-city. Good luck finding that on Dosch! On the other end, good luck finding a group of high-end weathly variety. I have only had a little luck through Archvision with this. Unfortunately, their collection is a bit dated (they've been around since the 90s)on some categories and the people are lower-res and the light toning is wierd. Also, I dont like the licensing system. I just want to buy people as I need them - one by one. So simple, but its not out there. Sounds like a business venture if someone wants to leave rendering professionally.

[Andy Hickes]

Here are some mild examples. I hesitate to give "bad" examples of anonymous internet work becasue we all have done a rendering sometime that could be used as q "bad" example of something.

Also we know people are often the last thing thrown into a rendering before the deadline by exhausted, overworked renderers.

[notamondayfan]

I think when people are added to CG images, you can start to tell the difference between who are good technically (ie can accurately model the scene, give good materials, and good lighting), and those who are good artistically.

Its quite easy to take someone else's drawings and create a nice image, but ask a non-artistically minded person to contribute (in our case to add people) to the image composition, then they are soon unstuck.

 

As for stock sites and such, it's my feeling that more people avoid them rather than search them, in order to make their own images unique.

 

Regarding selling images taken of the public, has anyone a definitive answer on the legalities of doing so? Basically is it perfectly legal to photo people without their knowledge, cut them out, and sell them?

 

Deano

[Andy Hickes]

I too have wondered about the legality of using photos of others without permission. For that reason I make transformations of the facial features. It takes very little to make a face unrecognizable.

[FlytE]

The addition of bad people is the best way to ruin a really good render. Selection of the right kind of person matters alot, as does the sun angle thats hitting them, their style and fashion, which way they are looking and a host of other things. But none of these matter if you don't have the motivation to storyboard, select and adjust the people to a high standard.... and rightly or wrongly I am of the opinion that poor people is either motivation burnout or laziness, neither of which is going to keep you ahead of the game.

 

The people you put into your image should be given just as much attention, if not more, than anything else that has gone into your render. They should tell a story by interacting with each other and with the space. They should loosely be the kind of people that would be generally be occupying that space in real life and the colour of their clothes should be sympathetic to the tone of the render so as not to draw too much attention to themselves. They should have a vibe about them and relevant lighting. You aren't going to find all that handed to you on a platter in a people bundle.

 

So to cut a long story short, yes there are some good ones and some bad ones, but its up the the artist to take responsibility for his/her render and spend some time on making the people look good.

[Iain Denby]

I've never used stock photos of peeps. They're too posed and look dreadful in architectural images. They attract far too much attention, especially when integrated badly, which they very often are. I also dislike the ghosted people approach. That too atracts attention....and it's also typical of an 'architect fancying himself as an artist' approach.

 

One other mistake many 'artists' make when photographing people to use in their images, is being too close to their subject. They'll then place that image into the distance within their image, and the perspective is all wrong.

 

I agree with Andy Hickes and Andy Pennington, that the process of adding people takes skill, and good eye and considerable thought.

Edited May 19, 2011 by Dibbers

[Crazy Homeless Guy]

One other mistake many 'artists' make when photographing people to use in their images, is being too close to their subject. They'll then place that image into the distance within their image, and the perspective is all wrong.

 

I have run into the opposite of this problem. I shoot people with a 80-200 lens so that I can get them in a natural state when they are not reacting to me, and it doesn't cause awkward conversations on the street. It makes for some great people shots.

 

But the problem comes when I try to place one of the people who were shot with the lens around 200mm don't have enough perspective to be placed into the foreground comfortable.

 

Attached is a crop of where I have tried to fit someone to close to the camera, that was shot with a telephoto lens.

[Brodie Geers]

I think I've had both problems but never really thought about the reason behind it. The giveaway seems to be the feet.

 

-Brodie

[Crazy Homeless Guy]

I think I've had both problems but never really thought about the reason behind it. The giveaway seems to be the feet.

 

-Brodie

 

Yep. At the feet she looks to have the depth of a cardboard cutout.

Edited May 19, 2011 by Crazy Homeless Guy

[ezb]

I think that eventually the solution is going to be wardrobe customizable HD 3D people that are rigged for customizable positioning. In order to get the “true” environmental lighting. How else could it be done? Placing images of photographed people in scenes is painstakingly difficult. Especially when taking light source direction into account. Those of you who can pull it off, are truly masters of a new trade.

[epictor.com]

Thanks Andy for the examples.

They definitely show what should be avoided ...

 

From our point of view people are (as mentioned) to bring scale as well as bring some life into the scenes. Specially when it comes to outdoor scenes people will make the look much less computer generated.

 

Obviously the images used to populate the scene should be of a decent quality. That is technical and content wise. The combination of those two is the reason why it is not the easiest task to generate good cutout people.

 

Though having good people to place is only part of the picture, it takes a some amount of training or skill to place them well in images.

The most basic fact to take into consideration probably is to not place people with hard direct lighting into shadow areas or inside of buildings (and vice versa with soft global illuminated people).

We actually tagged all of our images accordingly to make the selection process much faster (having to judge only from the cutout image weather it is indoor or outdoor actually is sometimes not the easiest task).

 

Of course we would love to get any feedback how to improve our images further - please be welcome to contact me about anything..

 

 

Last 2 parts:

 

Legally: every country has it own rules, but basically you may not use anyone for a non personal project (who might be recognized) without his agreement . this however does not apply to people of public interest (like actors, politicians..), as long as you do not use them in a denouncing way.

 

Tutorials: do you guys feel like some tutorials on how to place people in scenes would be helpful? We're thinking of producing some, though haven't seen a big demand yet.

 

Cheers,

 

Felix