HDRI

In order to be able to calculate a HDRI (german link) you need three images. One is the original with ordinary exposure. The other two are gained by adjusting your camera in a manner so that the following pictures, taken preferably in a sequence, are over- and/or underexposed. The camera should be in a fixed position. A tripod should do the job.

With my camera I just need to set the drive mode to continuous shooting and in the menu I need to adjust AEB (Auto Exposure Bracketing (german link) ) in a range between: –2…-10…+1…+2.

NB: To get the best results you want to manually adjust the ISO to 100.

When you are taking your pictures do not forget to study the subject thoroughly and try to remember everything that may be relevant when it comes to tone mapping your HDRI. With the Národní divadlo in Prague as subject you might be lucky and you can find more information and pictures on the wikimedia commons in the Category:Národní divadlo (Prague) by night or in Category:Národní divadlo. With this information you can estimate what effect the lightning conditions, the weather, etc. have or had on your resulting picture.

Pictures from RAW

Discovering that some colours, in this case especially the red, tend to be too saturated in pictures taken at night or taken in the dark I turned down the saturation of colours by 5 to 10 %. With the current subject I noticed that if I do not change the saturation artefacts will appear later on when I calculate the HDRI.

Also I use the software of Canon called „Digital Photo Professional“ (version 3.4.0.0) to change white balance and the image type.

Generally it is a good idea to save the RAW images when making pictures. It leaves you a lot of possibilities to change the camera settings of the taken image afterwards at the comfort of your home with the larger screen of your home computer.

The only disadvantages are the space the RAW takes on your memory card and lack of standardisation of this format. The first problem can easily be tackled by buying cards with more memory or just by acquiring more cards. The latter is more problematic because it forces you to to use proprietary software made by the camera manufacturer (which could be good; but that in turn mostly forces you to use a certain operating system for which the software has been written).

Calculating the HDRI

To calculate the HDRI I use a programme called Qtpfsgui (version 1.9.3). It is open source and available for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux.

Basically you select the three images and click yourself through the dialogues. To be honest when creating the HDRI I have not have had the nerve to fiddle about trying to change the defaults. The programme also says at one stage that you should not really change the default unless you are sure that the other settings are better. So I suppose you get the best results not changing a thing.

Tone mapping

This is done after we calculated the HDRI and saved it. The HDRI looks quite strange but that is why we need the tone mapping. I use operator reinhard02 in order to get a very realistic looking image but with a bit of warmth the artificial lightning produces as in this case. I try not to overdo it so that the building still looks like the building and not like a house in the red light district.

The tone mapping sounds rather simple but you have to get a feeling for what you are doing first. Best thing is to take one or two different test subjecst and try different settings. It is possible to compare several different settings in a small preview with Qtpfsgui.

Since the HDRI allows us to change the mapping quite freely you can play around with the different operators.

Draw with Me

It’s about a girl and a boy separated by an unbreakable glass.

Story and Animation: Mike Inel (mikeinel.deviantart.com)
Music and Sound: Daniel James (HybridTwo: hybridtwo.com)
Inspiration: A friend before

Since the original was using a copyrighted music, Mike Inel commissioned Daniel James (from HybridTwo) a track for this.

In this newer version, Mike Inel decided to add/improve a few things. They’re not so noticeable, but Mike Inel feels much more content with them.
There are those that are left unedited, but Mike Inel feels like it’s best to leave it that way.

Original:

Download Video: mikeinel.deviantart.com
Download Music: mediafire.com

Author’s Note:
Thank you everyone for giving the original ‚Draw with Me‘ a million views!
I’m sorry i’m not able to reply to all of the messages, because there are so much of them and I am pretty busy with work and other needs.

Update:
Everyone is permitted to reupload the video (perhaps edited to however your kick desires) anywhere, as long as you won’t claim you own/made it, and credits both to me and Daniel James (if his music is still in use) are present…

Pelíšky

Pelíšky (English: Cosy Dens) is a 1999 Czech film directed by Jan Hřebejk. It is loosely based on the novel Hovno Hoří (Czech: „Flaming Feces“) by Petr Šabach.

Pelíšky is a bittersweet coming-of-age story set in the months leading up to the ill-fated 1968 Prague Spring. Teenager Michal Šebek (Michael Beran) develops a crush on his neighbor, Jindřiška Krausová (Kristýna Nováková). Michal’s family is headed by a stubborn army officer who believes that the latest East German Tupperware will sufficiently shame those American imperialists, while Jindřiška’s father is an ardent foe of the Communists saved from prison only because he is a war hero. Much to the parents‘ dismay, the younger generation couldn’t care less for politics. Instead, Michal sports a Beatles mop-top and runs a local film group specialising in Hollywood and pre-war French films, while Jindřiška starts hanging out with a mysterious hipster.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLX7PpVgAYQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INWnCFEndkI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DW_CDpxh89U
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgu0nkFOdJA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ede84E7roh0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0NyQycTdF7o
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RwaZy48rrdk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfqFD7-oPSI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0UyLk8hM78
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFxI0Pzvm2g
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45TK59OxYew
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BbnhOOegbY4

Cubemap to Angularmap – niabot

Niabot found it hard to create Angular Maps for the backgrounds in Blender. So he wrote a little programme in Java that can convert Environmentmaps (also called Cubemaps) to an Angular Map.

Bild verstößt gegen die GFDL

Eine Illustration des Begriffs Hentai.

bild.de hat mal wieder nicht die Hausaufgaben gemacht, denn offensichtlich ist die eine Bild-Datei auf den Commons [[File:Hadako-tan.png]].

Mein lieber Freund aus dem IRC auf freenode [[Niabot]] hat freundlicherweise das Bild für mich mal als „making of“ im *.gif Format gemacht. Auch dieses Bild steht unter der CC-BY alternativ unter der GFDL und Niabot ist der Urheber. Es soll zeigen wie viel Kreativität und Arbeit in so einem Bild steckt.

Ich bin absolut begeistert von der Herstellung wie auch von dem Resultat. Ein echt geniales Bild.

Niabot Zitat:

Wobei der schwierigste Schritt immer die Figuren am Anfang sind, also die Konturen. Der Rest ist dann fast nur noch Fleißarbeit.

Ist ja bei Animationen/Animes auch nicht anders. Ein paar wenige Leute zeichnen die Figuren in den wesentlichen Posen. Ein paar nicht ganz so erfahrene zeichnen die Zwischenschritte dazu und der Rest sitzt vorm Rechner und füllt die Flächen. Was der Knochenjob ist.

Update: Bild.de hat die CC-BY von [[Niabot]] nachgetragen.