CGI Workshop

This workshop had to count as two and was split over two days, as obviously CGI is a very broad and complex topic, and there is no way one can realistically have a one day workshop in it.

We had someone come in especially to teach us, who was Florian who worked at Saddington Baynes. He did CG lighting for them, working in advertising predominantly with car companies.
We had some pre made CG models to work with, but we had to texture and light them ourselves, so we mainly learnt how to set up a scene through photography, and then place a 3D model in that space, and light it artificially.

We had to go to a location, take an image we called our "backplate", and this would act as our backdrop. We had to take careful measures, thinking of the most ideal camera angle for fitting in an additional object. We then needed a marker of similar size to our 3D object in the image, for instance we used a tripod in place of our 3D rabbit we would insert.
We had to measure the distance of our 3D object to our camera, the height of the 3D object, and we also had to measure nearby things such as floor tiles in order to gain reference measurements.

Our test backplate.

Using a fish eye lens, we then had to take HDR photographs, on a special tripod where we could rotate  exactly 90 degrees, for each HDR, in order to stitch together a HDR panoramic. This had to be taken in the exact spot our 3D model would go, the idea to this is to create a "light bubble" with HDR readings in order to light our 3D object accurately.

We chose our 3D model

Then using our own image we took as a 'backplate' we placed the 3D model in the image, matching up where we took our 'light bubble' panoramic and placed the model accordingly.

Using our 'light bubble' of information, we then lit our 3D model accurately and began choosing colour and texture.

With some extra adjustments to size and shadow we where then ready to render our final image.

And voila!

This was a very useful and insightful workshop, as where I do not wish to purse 3D model CGI as such, I am very interested in learning more about photo montage and image manipulation, where all of the same methods of measurements and lighting still apply, so this workshop should translate more skills towards my practice in photographic manipulation.