Entourage

[jinmustaddon]

I know I'm not the first person to raise this issue, but I'd like to get a discussion started about how we represent genders and ethnicity/nationality in arch viz. This may seem like a heady topic, but I think we have a responsibility to be mindful of this. It speaks to our own biases in how we think about culture and architecture, and influences our audience's perception of both.

 

Many would probably tell me that this is a minor detail, but I definitely notice when I see a beautiful rendering populated only one type of people. I was recently asked to switch out some of my entourage in a rendering because the only woman in the image was wearing "stripper heels". Our client, being a woman, might not take kindly to the representation (it also looked like a man in the rendering was checking her out... XD). They were totally right, but it shouldn't have taken having a female client to raise the issue.

 

In my opinion, this has mostly to do with the availability of high quality entourage that represents people fairly. This seems to be particularly so with free entourage.

 

 

Do you agree/disagree that entourage packs usually represent people unfairly?

Have you encountered similar issues in your work?

Do you or your company take any particular stance on the topic?

Do you think it matters at all?

Do you have any recommendations for good entourage?

 

 

All of the above is purely my opinion/experience. So, please discuss! I'm eager to hear what your opinions and experiences are.

 

Cheers,

 

Jinmu

[Scott Schroeder]

The fair representation of people is subjective, which makes it impossible to set clear standards. Free entourage is to be avoided for the most part as 95% of it is trash. Hence, that's why it is free.

 

The biggest issue I have with almost all of the entourage packs that are out there is that while they may have diversity, they use the same 4 models in the same clothes for every shot. So sure, you just purchased 200 cutouts, but you can only use 5-8 of them in one scene. This is further compounded by using the same models across different collections.

 

Yes, we hit this issue quite a bit and it does matter depending on the project. We had a rec center that bordered on a rough neighborhood with the ritzy part of the neighborhood and if we showed only one type of person, the wrong message could be shown. This particular issue was enhanced by the fact that there were several murders in the rough area and if those kids had a place to go, they wouldn't get caught up in the violence. However, the client ended up going too far into the specific mix of people to where it was impossible to pull it off given the time and budget constraints.

 

The best entourage are the ones you do yourself. When you start getting into the specifics of people placement, you have to really think about getting your own camera and green screen setup. You don't have to go all out either, you'd be amazed what you can pull off with a blue/green bed sheet and a decent camera.

[jinmustaddon]

That's a pretty dicey situation. Do you feel like you were satisfied with how it ended up?

 

I've been thinking a lot about trying to just set something up in the office take photos myself. It's almost impossible to find the exactly right person in the right lighting and angle. Most of the time I end up just doing blurred people which is a lot less convincing.

 

Do you have any experience using 3D entourage? I imagine you would fall into the same pitfalls of diversity, quantity, and quality, but at least angle and lighting are covered.

 

In my experience, placing entourage often gets short shrift in the planning process. It can be hard to justify to a client/boss the number of hours it takes just to pick people to put in the renderings.

[Francisco Penaloza]

Hopefully I am wrong but I think this is more an issue here in USA than outside. While working in my country of origin, Chile, most of the 'cut out' people were European looking, and I never received any complains about it. They didn't look Chilean for sure, but I never use anybody that was too while or any African American or Africans, Asias per say, because there are not many in Chile.

 

Later on Moving here to USA, I received always comments about it, I worked for Different religions communities they where all concern of the 'type' of people I would be placing on those images.

 

Now Living in California, working mostly for education and health care, there is a constant reminder that our demographic is very diverse and it should show that.

 

Needless to say,80% of the cutout you can buy are produces outside of USA, so still is really hard to get what I need.

 

Where I work we do photography of finished project too and usually I am cutting out those models to be used in our renderings, this give me a large pool of what we need but still is not a perfect solution, Lighting, camera angle not always match our need.

 

3D people are great to use on 3D scenes for logical reasons but again, most of the content creators are outside USA, so honestly from all the 3D people I have about 1% really look like some one who live here in California, the rest it is a stretch, so I barely use them.

 

For animations I usually use ghosted style people, which is very frustrating, but I don't have a choice really.

[jinmustaddon]

Interesting. On one hand, it's nice to know that this is important to artists, companies, and clients, but on the other, it doesn't seem like companies that provide entourage are making an effort to fill the demand. Once again, it's starting to sound like photographing your own people is the way to go. I wonder if people who are doing their own photography are willing to share (sell) their entourage?

[Francisco Penaloza]

Interesting. On one hand, it's nice to know that this is important to artists, companies, and clients, but on the other, it doesn't seem like companies that provide entourage are making an effort to fill the demand. Once again, it's starting to sound like photographing your own people is the way to go. I wonder if people who are doing their own photography are willing to share (sell) their entourage?

 

That would be good, not sure if my company would agree with that, our clients and photographers are very picky regarding what they photograph. but it is worth a shot.

 

Time ago I tried to photograph the models at the same time they where used during the photo shoot of the buildings, my intention was to sell those photos too, but upper levels didn't like the idea, besides they consider my time would be better doing Arch Viz and not photographing content that I would need to do Arch Viz.... yep bureaucracy....

 

 

I also tried to setup a 3D Scanning company, could not find investors, my idea was good, I think it could easily grow, but ... well it didn't..

Talking with some content creator outside USA, it seem like always having cheap labor it really help to those type business to work without much investment.

[tangram3ds]

We have found that VIZUTIL (www.vizutil.com) has great entourage. The diversity is good, there is an even number of males and females, and there in natural poses with stylish, conservative clothing. Take a look at their collections.

[M V]

It's getting better than it was 10 years ago. I even see that AXYZ has a good amount of variety in ethnicity these days. For a while it was super hot whities and middle eastern folks wearing thawbs and abayas. Follow the dollars I guess. It's always been an issue but entourage always seems to be that thing that turns into a hot issue no matter who you put in there. The client wants diversity, the marketing team wants super models, the architect wants silhouettes set at 50% transparent, etc.

[Ernest Burden III]

For figures, often my best entourage (a term my father claims to have coined for this industry) comes from photos I have taken of people walking around NY that I hand clip. The best situation is a bright but overcast day. Hand clipping is a pain, but then it's not always a one-click affair to remove a blue/green screen, either. The issues that come up are getting an un-occluded full figure (head to toe) and people wearing sunglasses.

 

Nothing gathers the critical focus of clients better than figures.

[Ernest Burden III]

For lots of background figures, you can render out many turntable views of 3D figures, including an alpha mask. That is easier in many circumstances than placing them in 3D, though that is better if there is a lot of interaction with objects (trees in front of them, or other structures). That produces a library of drop-ins.