After all that thinking of brainstorming what to do next n all that, I have started something already. Not sure if Im gonna think of it as a 'proper' piece just yet. For a start its smaller than the dragon picture, by almost half, and one thing I definitely told myself was that I would at least double the working size for my next project. So I might just think of it as practice, something for the sketchbook. Its similar to something Ive tried a couple of times before, albeit kind of halfheartedly, and something out of inspiration by a guy called Gutalin, whos posting lots of cool Geiger-esque images on ZBrush Central forum. He has a great way of creating architectural pieces with alphas in ZBrush, after having started from pretty rudimentary primitives in his 3d software. This is not really anything like his stuff, but just the idea of doing more architectural stuff was another thing I was interested in after the 'landscapey-ness' of the dragon picture.

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where is the dragon? LOL...........dave

No Dave. No dragons. (allelujah!!) No Ive started seeing some improvements in that picture already, but Im definitely gonna let it go way into the background for a while...


...Was almost gonna use that image as a billboard advertisement on one of the skyscrapers in this, but that would have been impulsive and foolish


Ive been painting over this, and I believe I could take it further, but Im gonna listen to my instinct about the lack of scale and boring composition....

But I do kinda like the style.

... So...Im back to thinking how to include it as some part of a larger picture, ala dragon island. or perhaps I should take this as just prep work and build a fresh base in Maya. My imagination has become a bit stunted I feel. Ive been looking at concept art.org for some inspiration, which has helped a little. Just dont really know how to go about achieving the kind of scale im after.... hmmm...

Im getting annoyed by the pixel aspect ratio setting in photoshop squashing my renders when I import them, having to turn it off, and also how this image actually changed pixel dimensions from my render settings in Maya when I opened it in Photoshop. I think maybe I need to learn what device aspect ratios and pixel aspect ratios are and how the settings can differ between programs before I get to stuck in... Can anyone who knows anything in this area shed some light?

But heres an update.

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that happens to you too? you render an image, show it in photoshop and it gets all squashed in unless you untick the stupid pixel aspect ratio correction thingy

yeah i never understood how that worked... and why it only does it sometimes and not every time or never at all.

try saving out the render as a different file format, might help


pixel aspect ratio is to do with how high and wide the pixels are
dunno what device aspect ratio but i'd assume it's related to hardware in the same manner

some things have square pixel aspect ratios like computer monitors, while other things are more oblong, like standard def TVs
it's retarded and i don't understand it properly or why it exists like that to begin with :p (or i might have been told but i just forgot)
google is your friend... sometimes

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that's a "Ch" pronounced as a "K"

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yeah, all the time.

its become a part of my routine. render, save as jpeg. open in photoshop, uncheck pixel aspect yada yada...annoying. and you get that dialogue pop up ...' pixel yada yada is for preview purposes only' or something.

it makes it hard when i want to combine renders. which i know ( hammer.horror) is a crazy way to be going about things, but mental ray crashes on me when i try to render out big images, say 8000 by 5000. im just experimenting really.

ha!

well, I thought this has something to do with anamorphic widescreen. It happens to me also, but i've never had a proper answer for it... I thought it was to do with the film back. beats me.

clicking square pixel in PS fixes it.

Chirone: oh right. Yeah,ill see if I can get any concrete info on google. Hammer: I actually clicked on that this morning. See what happens is, when I open a render in photoshop,i then uncheck pixel aspect ratio and the image sizes up to normal.but if I then marquee select that image,copy and paste it into a new file,it comes out as the squashed version, without giving me the option to uncheck it.so I have to free transform visually to what I think looks correct. I dont know if theres a setting in preferences that can bypass the process.its jst one more little hurdle you know...

Pixel aspect ratio specifies the ratio of width to height of one pixel in an image. Frame aspect ratio describes the ratio of width to height in the frame dimensions of an image. For example, D1 NTSC has a pixel aspect ratio of 0.9 (or 0.9 width by 1.0 height). It also has a frame aspect ratio of 4:3 (or 4.0 width by 3.0 height). Some video formats output the same frame aspect ratio but use a different pixel aspect ratio. (SEE FIGURE 1 attachment)For example, some NTSC digitizers produce a 4:3 frame aspect ratio, with square pixels (1.0 pixel aspect ratio), and a resolution of 640 x 480. D1 NTSC produces the same 4:3 frame aspect ratio but uses rectangular pixels (0.9 pixel aspect ratio) and a resolution of 720 x 486. D1 pixels, which are always rectangular, are vertically oriented in systems producing NTSC video and horizontally oriented in systems producing PAL video.If you display rectangular pixels on a square-pixel monitor without alteration, images and appear distorted; for example, circles distort into ovals. However, when displayed on a broadcast monitor, the images are correct.

apparently pixel aspect ratio concerns video.

it seems the two options mentioned above are the best fixes,

the only other possibly useful bit of info i found was that you can set the pixel aspect ratio in the advanced section when creating a new photoshop file

Here, its explained for you, it even tells you what pixel aspects (not device) just width and height

https://help.adobe.com/en_US/AfterEff...dea-7f3aa.html

if you leave the Device settings alone and just put in the width and height (uncheck Maintain width height ratio button) you should be okay.

Im trying to find out a file size (not pixel) so you can type in the setting without getting distortion, Ryan Church or Dylan Cole have a size for matte painting which is like a standard to fit a wide frame. I did write it down ages ago but cant find it, I will get back to you

Jay

Essentially any wide setting will get distortion as its the final projection where its sorted out. Hence the images being nice once you sort the aspect in PS

Having just spoken to a friend here at work who was on Terminator 4, he was saying the plates were at 2048 x 1152 but after the reformat for output (with your black bars top and bottom) the ratio is actually 2048 x 1152.

Pixel size at the end of the day for output is entirely up to you yo can double it and treble it etc as long as it renders

hope this helps

Jay

Thanks jay. Ok, the 2000 by 1100 (approx) sounds a good working size. Ive well over done it then in that case.i guess I have to weigh up whether I want to tackle more common matte painting dimensions,or get a nice a3 or a2 printout.. I can always resize my final base image once done.better to scale down than up isnt it.

P.s. Ta for the heads up on dylan cole and ryan church. Jst checked dylans website.great stuff.

If you are going to print at the end of the day, Its work considering downsizing the image size but upping the res to 300dpi, which is standard print res

Jay

got my base image done. Wasnt quite as far as I wanted to take it, but again, impatience gets the better of me. Just went for a single render rather than a montage of several. Im a bit disappointed about that actually, as I was looking forward to zooming right in close and really working that detail, but fingers crossed I dont think its coming on too bad, so I'll plug away with this for a few days I think...

This is about 2200 x 1100, 300 dpi, pixel aspect yada yada(my new official word for it) of 1 (I think!)

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Looks great! I really like the tonal range (is that the right term?). How much of this is 3D, zbrush? and how much is photoshop?

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-stwert

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