Tutorial: Generating quick game geometry from simple photographs!

[Grfx]

amazing tutorial, would you mind explaining how you scaned the face, that would be realy nice. thnx

[Piggyson]

@mix_mash: The process can be done with any normal cameras. I didn't use any special settings I just took a camera and started walking in a circle taking pictures. As long as the camera produces EXIF data it will work.

A minimum of 2 pictures are required to generate the 3d effect (same process that was used in the old viewmasters back in the day, and the current 3D craze with TV's.) You just need to take enough pictures for the program to stitch together the subject you want to capture (if you have a camera that does panoramic mode that would help in making sure you don't miss any areas.)

@Grfx: The stump took longer to capture then the face. The face was captured in the shade so that the lighting was even. Then I just rotated around the subject exactly like the stump and took 11 pictures (tests I have done are never exact in the amount of pictures. For a head it's turned out to be 11-12 photos, it all depends on how many steps I take around the subject.)

After it is captured you should get a mesh that is decent (first raw model in the image) and a excellent diffuse texture. Applying the diffuse as a bump will help increase the quality of the raw model (I have been quickly dumping the diffuse to photoshop equalizing the channels then seperating the blue channel to use as a bump.) The rest of the process was just quick Zbrush sorcery using masking, retopology, projections, and simple sculpting. Creating a tutorial to cover the head process I use is on my list of to do's.

Another quick example of a head 12 pictures with a Canon 7D were used. (just the raw data from photofly)




-Joseph

[killfrog58]

wow this is awesome! very useful thanks!

[joebount]

Really cool indeed !
Have you tried puiting the subject on a rotating plateform ? I have the feeling that would not really work with this kind of thechnic, am I wrong ?

[Sebcesoir]

Thats really great, its the a plan to make a stand alone version or its imposible due to calcualtion?
Standalone would be great

[Maya4fun]

Agree with Sebastien.

Emmanuel.

[InDoe]

Joseph: thx a lot man, awsome technique, ty ty ty

I tried that, rotating plateform doesn't work , photo scene editor calculate the snaps in the same origin, so it comes out as a flat mesh

[Sparky3d]

I have tried this multiple times in the last 24hrs and I cant get it do work,

I have tried several different head references, and its just coming out flat and there is absolutely nothing wrong with the images

[Piggyson]

@Joebount: Yeah I too was hoping to be be able to just setup one camera and spin a subject while taking pictures. In all the tests I have tried the camera ends up picking something that is a constant in the scene and renders all the camera positions right on top of each other. Now you can manually set all the registration points across the images for the alignments but it's a big pain. Also in testing the lazy susan effect I have found that even if I get the cameras to come in correctly the final ldiffuse texture has a lot of lighting banding in it. I have yet to find a way to get the lighting to be completely constant and totally even around a rotating model. So far the best and quickest results I have had are from myself rotating around a subject who is standing in the shade.

@Sebcesoir, @Maya4fun: No clue if they are planning to release a standalone or not. The program is going to be free using the cloud system till December then who knows what Autodesk will do then heh.

Another program to try that is standalone is Agisoft Photoscan (http://www.agisoft.ru/products/photoscan/) The program works pretty well and gives a better quality mesh but the diffuse texture it spits out is lacking. The Photoscan also takes about 10x as long to process a scene then the Autodesk one does (The dedicated servers on the autodesk cloud are extremely fast, however after the whole dropbox security fiasco no telling how safe your images/scans really are when dealing with a cloud server in a production pipeline.)

@Sparky3d: If you can upload your images somewhere i'd be happy to take a look at them and see if I can find a solution. In testing I have only came across flat geometry once and it was a result of over lighting the subject and high specular reflections across the nose (might be something else to look for in your images?)

[mix_mash]

@mix_mash: The process can be done with any normal cameras. I didn't use any special settings I just took a camera and started walking in a circle taking pictures. As long as the camera produces EXIF data it will work.

A minimum of 2 pictures are required to generate the 3d effect (same process that was used in the old viewmasters back in the day, and the current 3D craze with TV's.) You just need to take enough pictures for the program to stitch together the subject you want to capture (if you have a camera that does panoramic mode that would help in making sure you don't miss any areas.)

Sorry, I hope you didn't think I was taking a pot shot or anything. It's just that when you make a tutorial it's important that you cover all the angles otherwise the viewer can either feel lost or that they are missing information.

But, to reiterate, they are great tutorials.

Cheers,
Paul
(mix_mash)

[GX@W]

Just a random idea, would this works with macro shots of insects?
Superb tutorial btw.

[cw06]

Great discovery.thank you.

[sculptor.zb]

Wow!! great. Please make a full tutorial.. Thanks!!

[Nancyan]

Sorry if this is slightly off-topic here.

@mix_mash. I believe its I who owe YOU an apology. I read your original post in haste and in the wrong frame of mind. After the fact I have notice you also have provided some very useful and free tutorials.

<- me

I was defending the OP when no defense was warrented.

Thank you, also for your contributions that have helped us novices so much.

[mix_mash]

Sorry if this is slightly off-topic here.

@mix_mash. I believe its I who owe YOU an apology. I read your original post in haste and in the wrong frame of mind. After the fact I have notice you also have provided some very useful and free tutorials.

Don't worry about it. I can sometimes come off as brusque or arrogant with my comments.

I also misread other peoples' stuff sometimes, too, so don't worry yourself. No offense taken.

Cheers,
Paul
(mix_mash)