Enising Inc's Photo+CG Montage "Behind the Scene"

v_wrangler wrote:

nomeradona wrote:pwede pala ang ganito sa max... kala ko yugn Sketchup hanep dito. tagal na pala sa max ang ganito. thanks for putting it up roy. i guess i need to do the same thing in SU, paki silip nalang kung may recommendation ka especially paano i match yung ambience ng enviroment sa scene. meron kasi akong ginawang tutorial way way back and this is how to actually baked the actual picture background mismo sa scene. hope i could have more time to explain it later and indeed its a quickie yet parang ganito madaling maconvince yung viewer na kasama yung actual picture sa whole scene.

I was planning to write a more indepth explanation of matching the lighting later, but since you asked, I will try to sum that up briefly for the meantime.

Camera mapping:

We bake (Per Pixel Camera Map in maxspeak) the background photos to the simple enclosures (walls, floor, etc) so that we will have GI emitters that would simulate the general ambience of the scene. The purpose of the camera mapped walls or enclosures is actually two-fold:

1. As GI emitter
2. As raytrace reflectors for 3d objects that should have reflections. I would really insist on putting reflective objects like vases, glass, etc because those objects, once they reflect the floors and wall and other elements in the background, they will serve as some sort of a tier - they create the illusion that the virtual objects in the scenes are actually part of the whole scenario. This is the same reason in vfx why we put reflective objects in the scene even though they aren't necessary. It's like magic - you trick the viewers into seeing and then believing that what they are seeing is real or part of the open space's reality.

So I repeat, the purpose of the camera mapped walls is to make them shoot GI and as an automatic environment map.

An added bonus of camera mapping is that since they stick to your meshes, you can also render them from another animated camera for quick 3d pans, or 3d zooms as long as the BG map's density permits. So you can make this single BG image act like they are 3D.

Now for light matching,

the first step is to place your lights in the same position as in the background picture. So if you have a ceiling light there, put a planar light or object light in its place, Now if you have openings like windows, you can make them hollow so that the direct light (sun) can get in. You can also put planar vraylights in there as skylight portals so they can pump in the GI from the environment. You can also put in the windows, camera mapped planes that are either strongly self-lluminated (high RGB values in the output rollot) or VrayLight Mapped. The added bonus of the latter is that they will also appear in the reflections like in real life.

The next step before you populate them with 3d objects is to test the lighting and shadows with a sphere or any simple object. I usually start them with a white material (some prefer grey - but greys doesn't burn out easily with strong lights and it defeats my purpose).

With the simple object in place, I try to find objects in the BG photo that I could assume as white-colored in real life. This could be walls, or paint, airconditioning units or any other element in the photo. Make test renders and try to mimic the same white balance in the dummy object by carefully adjusting the intensity of all light sources including the GI without touching the dummy object's white material. Do the same thing for shadows, adjust positions of lights or sizes so that they produce the same shadow angle and intensity.

Once you have done this and has acquired an acceptable white balance similar to the photograph, this is the time to put any object you wish.

Kahit ano pa ang ilagay mo dyan o anupaman angle - you will get a good overall match.

Di ko pala kayang i-brief! I just realized that it might be a little diffucult to understand without any illustrations, I'll try to cook up some illustrations soon.

Yung iba pang details at yong paraan ko sa pag mano-mano perspective match ay sa susunod na lang po.

I look forward to your tests in SU! Goodluck.