Poser and different forms of Digital Art

My apologies for the hiatus on Energy and Waterjetting for another week, but as the sidebar notes I do, on occasion, write about Digital Art. This is a hobby that is taking on a life of its own.

This Spring four pieces made it into an Art Exhibit (or is the right word Show?) on Digital Imaging and resulted in an invitation to submit a dozen images for a Fall Exhibit on Digital Art that will soon open at the Missouri University of Science and Technology’s Castleman Hall. That is the background to this piece, which discusses the work produced for the show and, to a limited extent, why those images were chosen.

The campus is not that familiar with Digital Art, despite being at the leading edge of many technical fields, somehow art has fallen a bit behind, and so one of the objectives was to display some of the variety of the art that can be produced using software, which in this case was largely Poser, with a little help from Photoshop and Alien Skin. I should hasten to clarify that I am much the junior exhibitor, Paula Sanders, a local resident, is way more experienced and talented, and has the major part of the show. Much of my expertise over the last year has come through taking and then trying to repeat the very useful Webinars on the technology from 3DArtlive, after starting out not that long ago with "Poser for Dummies".

To make life more interesting, of the needed twelve there were seven pieces that were available (with family and friends from whom they could be borrowed back) and that meant that, starting Sunday morning (Aug 17) and with a deadline of 4 pm Friday (August 22nd) five more pieces were needed, covering a bit of the waterfront on what Digital Art could do. Nine of the pieces were to be sized at 8.5 x 11 inches, and three would be 12.5 x 18.5 inches.

The first image that was printed on my “professional quality” printer could be borrowed back. Based on Alexsander Kokular’s “Drawing Room in the Artist’s Home,” it was an interesting challenge, since one had also to produce all the smaller paintings in the picture. So “Artist’s Drawing Room” became the first.

Figure 1. "The Artist's Drawing Room.

Along the way it became clear that the paintings on the wall had to be moved around, and since this is done on a 3-D modeling program they had to come off the wall first. Showing this helps with the concept of this being a partial reality, so an image taken during the move was included (it is now owned by the show’s curator, and named after her.)

Figure 2. Luce’s Dilemma.

Over the past three years I spent a fair bit of time researching what America’s inhabitants pre-1491 looked like. Paula has pointed out that most pictures were made up or colored by folk with no knowledge, but it is amusing to try, particularly since Blackthorn has produced physiognomies of the men and women of the different tribes. George Catlin has produced some paintings that are as close as one may get to some of the tribal customs, and his work provided a start.

Two of the images previously created were still available, and the first was one of a woman of the Commanche, and so in went Carrier Crow. The series was trying to put the tribal members into hair, paint, clothing and settings of the time, but getting the skin texture accurate , which is sometimes hard to get right for Native Americans, just seemed to work this time.

Figure 3. Carrier Crow

When it came to creating an image of a male member of the Commanche, the original render that was created wasn’t that striking, but in playing around with the variations that can be achieved to an original piece of digital art by using Alien Skin’s Snap Art, the way the image changed when selected as an oil painting made it a favorite, and so "Horse Talker" was included.

Figure 4. Horse Talker.

This was framed without glass, in a frame that thus suggested that the work was an oil, it should be interesting to see the comments.

Being able to change the format of an image is one of the great advantages of doing Digital Art, and there was another example of this available on loan-back, again using Snap Art, with the inspiration coming from a painting on the wall of a Pizza restaurant in Silicon Valley.

Figure 5. Dancing Chez Marcel.

This did not end up the way expected, mainly because working with large sets of buildings was a bit of a challenge until it was realized that, after getting the couple in the right poses, that if the male were then parented to the female then they could be moved around together (to get them against the blank wall) a lot more easily than by adjusting them as individuals in the scene.

A friend plays the flute, and after going through back issues of Spectrum seeking inspiration, there were two illustrations that led to the piece, that again could be borrowed back for the show.

Figure 6. If Music be the Food.

The next choice had been created for a talk on Digital Art for the local Rotary Club, and small 3 x 5 inch versions were given out at the talk. Folk seemed to like it, so printing this at 12.5 inch x 18.5 inch seemed only fitting for it to be the first large piece for the show. (And although it was an electric lamp, rather than a candle, I have been in this sort of situation once).

Figure 7. By the Guttering Light.

These were available pieces that could be used toward the target twelve needed for the exhibit. And that in turn, brought me to last Sunday morning and the need to create 5 pieces in six days. Two ideas came to mind to illustrate the capabilities of Digital Art and the first was to expand on the tribal theme and to have six different tribal heads, showing their different hair, physiognomy and paint. (Note that all of the people in the images started out either as the same original male, Michael 4 , or the female equivalent, Victoria 4, and were then morphed to give the final versions.)

Unfortunately, after creating this image, a mishap with the mat size sent to fit the larger frame meant that it could not be printed on paper that would match the hole size. So.o.o , as a hasty fix (at 2 pm on Friday) the background was turned into a leather texture and Photoshop engaged to transfer the images to the master page, and then they were merged and the paper edge torn (physically) to suggest home-made stock.

The heads were first shaped and aged, using the Blackthorn males on Mike, and then moved into Blacksmith3D for projection painting. Working with a tablet made this a lot easier, and the bear tattoo on the Algonquian warrior is from a record of the time.

Figure 8. Hair and Paint.

Another friend is interested in Ballet, and so, starting from an intent for a piece that might be in the style of Degas led, through learning how to make and move curtains with the Fun with Flat Things tutorials, and failure to find a good model of a theater, to making first a curtain, then a drawn curtain, and then the first of the “Ballet Maine” series. This became the second new creation of the week.

Figure 9. Ballet Maine Suite 1.

The member of the Corps de Ballet holding the curtain is supposed to look envious, but it is too dark to show her expression, though Gamma Correction helped to lighten her up a bit.

Which brought up some thought for including historical mischief as part of the show. Sitting in church a couple of weeks ago during the sermon, a chorister was seen to be nodding off. Put with the Pope’s recent comment on the high life of some in the church led to the start of the third piece.

But the only Cathedral interior of any use, from either a vendor or in the library of material that had been collected over a decade, was the Cathedral Construction Kit which DAZ sold many years ago and the textures no longer rendered well. To get around a somewhat garish render, the fix was to use Photoshop to convert the image into a half-tone piece, and overlay this over the initial render, so that by erasing the overlay over the Cardinal and the Hospitaller, only they would appear in color. This drew attention to them, in an otherwise very busy scene.

Figure 10. Plus ça Change

The fourth piece was inspired by a picture of a mermaid smoking in one of the Spectrum volumes (Leuyen Pham’s Shino). It raised the question as to why a mermaid might smoke? And when? The answer came that when the Vikings arrived around 928 C.E. mermaids could be smoking, and that in turn raised the question as to which was the “Filthy Savage.” (Native American opinion of early European arrivals were that they were indeed filthy, wearing clothes for days, not bathing enough, etc)

Figure 11. Filthy Savage.

The image has a number of faults, which could be hidden by post work and a change in format through Alien Skin, but chose not to because of the puff of smoke from the cigar. With more post work, for which there was no time it could have been a lot less amateurish.

The final work was to show the ability of Poser to age folk, and since in an earlier life my group had carved the Millennium Arch for Edwina Sandys I skipped over there on Thursday night, took the shot, and then used Lucy Zepp by jamminwolf to give the basics. The T-shirt had to be textured for the logo of the Center where the Millennium Arch was cut by high-pressure water, and where I spent my career, and ta-da at 4 pm on Friday it was printed, framed and turned in – phew!

The age of the senior version was reduced from the original version, since too many wrinkles and age spots looked out of place and character. With more time the pose of the central character, which looks forced, would have been changed, but there was no time.

Figure 12. The Transition Years.

From September 5th, the complete set should be on view in the lobby of Castleman Hall, in Rolla.

A step forward with Poser

Although I bought one of the earliest versions of Poser, then produced by Fractal Design, back in the early 1990’s I have not done much with the program until recently. It is now in at least it’s tenth version and along the way has become much more sophisticated.

Figure 1. My earliest Poser Manual cover

With a new Pro and Epson R3000 printer it had become time that I stepped up to the intent of using the program to create some work that would provide enjoyment in creation, and later review. But even having kept up with program purchases, I had to learn how to use the program almost from scratch, since I had largely done technical modeling (using Strata) until now. So there was a lot to learn, before I was able to produce my first Giclee* - “The Artist’s Drawing Room.” Here are some of the things I learned along the way.

Figure 2. The Artist’s Drawing Room


Note: A Clarification has been added at the end of the piece.
I began with “Poser for Dummies”, which got me back into the sense of the program, and I followed this with Sveva’s “Poser for Beginners” and these together started me into simple modeling of scenes and figures. But it wasn’t until I had sat through the excellent Poser Expo’s that Paul Bussey hosted at 3D Art live, and the Reality 3 Webinar by Paolo that I began to get enthusiastic.

One of the more influential talks was by Mary Williams in the second Expo, talking about “the Power of Drama in Story Telling” (as you will see). And the first step was based on one of the comments that came out of the many talks I listened to (and perhaps this was also from Mary, or from Arki’s Backstage Tour of Poser) i.e. to decide what I wanted to do. The suggestion was to begin by building an “Inspiration Collection” of illustrations. Going through back issues of Spectrum bookmarking and copying into a folder the illustrations that qualified. And slowly I realized what my focus was, as only perhaps seven or eight illustrations qualified from the hundreds contained in each annual. Broadening the scope to other artists, while I like Brom and Frank Frazetta’s work, I don’t fancy doing it, but there were a couple of paintings in a book on Polish Painting. In particular it would be challenging to try a version of Alexander Kokular's "Drawing-Room in the Artist's Home, 1830.

Figure 2. Drawing-Room in the Artist’s Home, by Alexander Kokular, 1830.

Just after looking at the original version I came across Rural Chateau on DAZ, and that could easily be modified to give the walls. But now I had to put something on them.

There was a good frame for the pictures in Rural Chateau II although it was for a mirror in the original. These are the steps used to make a picture:
a) Open the jpg file (using the texture file) in Photoshop and find the size of the picture needed to fill the frame (by cropping to the mirror). In this case the image size is 2100 by 1000 pixels (at 72 dpi).
b) Undo that change, and insert a new layer over the background of the mirror. Color that layer yellow (to make the frame look like gold).
b)Select an image for the painting (half were from scanned images the other half were from own earlier renders for testing ideas) and note the relative ratio of the width and height.
c) Open the image in Photoshop and size it to 2100 by 1000 pixels (this requires turning off the Constrain Proportions box).
d) Copy the image and paste it into the mirror image on a new layer. Move it so that it sits exactly over where the reflective glass lies. Save the image.
e) Flatten the image and save it as a texture to the file in a separate render library where I keep my models and images. Here I made a mistake. The titles used for the saved pictures were named by date of origin and title. For example 2013 Officer. But over half of the images were made by me in the last two years so the files all began with 2012 or 2013, Reality really doesn’t like that, as I later found out, as it confuses references back, and I had to go back and rename the pictures after mounting them.
f) Import the mirror into the scene in Poser.
g) In the Material Room change the Image Map reference in the frame Diffuse Color node to the texture just created and saved.
h) In the glass section of the mirror delete all the nodes. Change the diffuse color to white, set the diffuse value at 1 and connect a node to the Diffuse Color that leads through New Node > 2D textures > Image Map.
i) Click on Image Source and Browse to the file containing the cropped and sized image (2013 Officer), and click on the file.
j) Go back to the Pose tab, now use the y-scale to readjust the ratio of the width and height to roughly that of the original picture.
j) Use the x, y and z scroll wheels to move the image to the right place on the wall. Scale the overall painting to the required size. Add a slight tilt to the painting to show it is “hanging” and parallel to the wall. Save this as a new object in your render library. (This is important) And again don’t as I did give it the title such as 2013 officer.

Stepping through this process a total of 24 pictures were hung on the walls. It was going to be dark, and in the original you can barely make out the subjects. Adding a chair (from The Old West Saloon, believe it or not) meant changing the seat cover color in the Material Room to blue from a material file from Renderosity. The only statue that seemed at all appropriate in my collection was an angel so it was scaled and positioned, on a table, and it was time for a quick render. (The pictures leaning on the floor were from the second wall, and this was rendered in Firefly).

Figure 3. Early render of the room, showing the paintings as originally arranged. Those on the floor were from the second wall. (Firefly Render)

But this is where Mary Williams’ comments niggled in the back of my mind. This arrangement told no story. And I couldn’t find one in the original painting – so what to do, and then I realized. If the Merchant picture (top of column 2) was moved to the second wall it might fit better, and if it was replaced by the lady artist (on the floor) this might be her gallery room. But the nun didn’t seem to fit, but if I moved that . . .

And what were the kids to be doing? How about if the second room contained a piano (so that when the pictures were shown there would be background music) and the Nun picture were on an easel, having just been finished. If the younger child were also of African background, then she might be fascinated by the painting, and come over to touch it. The artist is reading through books looking for inspiration for her next work, over by the window. The elder child, who had been looking at the piano, realizes that her charge has wandered off and is about to knock the painting on the floor, so the elder child – too late – starts to dash to stop her. And that is the story to be told.

The easel came from Lost Moments (changing the picture as above to Abeje the Nun), and it was time to create the seated artist.

Given the already complex scene (this should have been done earlier) it seemed better to create the pose and clothing as a separate model and import them as such into the scene. Rhona looked somewhat like the artist but the clothing (a Genesis period dress) would not load as needed, and so a shirt was conformed and an underskirt dynamically molded to the figure as she sat on a chair, using standard dynamic clothing procedures. When the assembly was then exported to the render library the skirt did not follow the rest of the model – oops! Long story short, the model with skirt and shirt was exported as a Wave Object, and then Imported into the Drawing room scene.

The younger child was relatively easy since there are appropriate clothes for the K4 children but the older child (perhaps 10) needed a different model – Lucy Zepp was the right age, but the Sensibility dress would not shrink after conforming, so it was just scaled, and the poke through arms made invisible. Time for a quick render.

Figure 4. First Reality render of the scene under Sun light and using Reality 3)

What happened to the pictures? Some are in the wrong place, and some (columns 6 and 7) are missing. This was where the lesson about naming objects that Reality can’t isolate came in, and the different paintings were re-named (in the Properties tab) to remove the numbers at the beginning of the name, and then in the Materials window of Reality the right image maps were inserted where appropriate. The seat covers were changed in Reality to blue wool, but I had to move the little table by the artist to support the statue, since the night table didn’t show up at all. The artist clothes were also changed in Reality, though I could not get the black silk that I wanted.

A couple more renders and tweaks, but the drapes can’t be seen, and windows look out on something – a tree didn’t work:

Figure 5. Almost done

A photo from a niece of her house (in Canada) seemed as though it might work, so it was added as an image map on a scaled Primitive Hi-Res Square from 2014 Props, and set behind the windows.

The drapes were changed to yellow silk in Reality,and showed up. Reality also allowed a light within the statue to lift the color (and change the material).

The elder child is hidden too much by the shadow, and was moved further into the back room, and the floor material changed, (again in Reality). And so, there it was, coming out of the printer, my first Giclee – so I signed it.

Figure 8. The Artist’s Drawing Room, as printed.

I should mention that, if the period of the piece is around 1830 (the reason for the military gent in the top left) there has been a bit of debate about the subject in one of the paintings, but then that was the whole point of the story. (The location was originally Poland, the chateau is from France, the house from Canada, and the weather USA).

*Not quite sure what to call these works, but decided that for now, if it is original and printed on Art Media then it is a Giclee, rather than a painting or a photo.

Clarification: The reason that it is important to save each picture into the library after it has been scaled and positioned became really clear when the problem with poor referencing came up. I just deleted the original painting and re-inserted the saved one. It appeared in the right position at the right size, and all that was needed was to rename it so that there was no confusion as to which painting was which (i.e. it became Officer 1812). Since about 7 of the paintings were missing or wrongly referenced this speeded up the correction process considerably.