Up for review

Hi everyone,

I'd really like some advice from fellow sketchUppers.

here is the deal:

Once in while I'm teaching graphic seminars in our office to narrow down the way images come out of the office.

The idea is to develop a standardized technique that would help to achieve somewhat predictable "feel" for presentations.

Here is a possible approach to SD graphics. A vague fresh not settled image is the philosophy for a typical SD presentation.

Recipe: put B&W rendering in Photoshop over the color one, pull out a really rough eraser - have fun.

Please tell me what you think about

the approach and the image.

The best thing bout it is that with 10 Mb (huge and slow) model it takes just 30 min from the moment you think "Enough modeling, start to export 2D" till the finished piece sliedes out of the printer.

here are few more samples of the "office standard"

and more

BLOCK_A_3.jpg xx

a signature adds peronal touch, almost "hand made" feel.

later today is a critical presentation, hopfully this will do the trick

Dennis

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BLOCK_A_2.jpg xx

Andy - the big thing is not to use soft eraser.

by erasing a hole in the b&w copy we emulate water color painting. So imagine that you are really painting on paper rather then erasing.

It is important to leave lots of imperfections. Fortunately it is easy to do - just do a fast and slopy job erasing w/ big rough eraser.

the next level is to use less then 100% opacity for eraser. this way it will appear as if you put several layers of watercolor - gives rich textures to otherwise blick surfaces. And as you noticed, rendering has to have lots of "fru-fru" to sustain this style.

the fade out - is just using a weaker eraser and graying out the black lines on B&W layer.

Glenn - I'm not axactly familiar w/ paintshop, in photoshop - all it takes is bringing in b&w picture over colored and erasing portions of b&w to let color show through.

Richard - idealy I'd plot it bid on a rough textured paper, make 'em think it is a bit more personal then just cold CGI.

What ideas you got?

Hi Dennis

First try with this technique. I need to practice but I like the simplicity of it. Will repost when had some time to play..

Scaifee

Waterreduce.jpg xx

Anyone tried this technique blending a third, rendered image with the technique mentioned above (or perhaps just 2, B&W and rendered images)?

I had been wondering about combining SU B&W extended edges ouput with Artlantis-rendered views, but haven't yet had time to test it out. This might also involve creating a line-art translation or an EPS of the unshaded B&W image (to get only the black lines, without the white background) overlayed on the rendered picture...

I'll post something when I get a chance!

Riku

Scaifee,

I like your building.

I see the "eraser" technique as double veniet.

The first veniet circules the entire picture and the second circules the color.

interriors? sure - a veniet could be aplied universaly right?

Riku, interesting idea. However in the case of photo-real rendering, I'd use soft eraser rather then brush, or use a pure graphic element like a rectangle (or a series of rectangle gradualy clearing to 100% color) to outline the color from the line.

Scott,

Francisco,

I'll summarise the technique, however I'll have to wait untill I'll finish with my deadline.

in the mean while here is the perfected technique:

a bit lighter colors and layered eraser marks

Tell me what you think.

Dennis

hm,

interesting. I guess there are some crucial newanses that make alot of difference.

one thing I know for sure is that the guys in the office picked it up really fast watching me. and as i mentioned befoe some are better then i am.

anyway, here is the most recient development - notice the speeding boxter trailing w/ wet paint.

also notice the foreground trees being emphasized - they were rendered separat in low rez (thicker lines) and overlayed on top of the drawing.

I'll be traveling to our headquarters soon, to teach a seminat to the rest of our branches on the technique. So I will be summarising ond organising the "eraser"

oh, one crucial detail that I just thought - render in hi rez! I had to rev up to 4000x2500 to get the linework to be thin enough.

It also helps to have a hi level of detail.

neighbor_web.jpg xx

no need to pay money.

Just help me edit the manual: what to expand and where I drag for too long, what parts are not clear. I'd also love to so some one try it out and post the result.

here we go:

Alright, here is what I believe is the best way to do it:

SD presentation drawings should contain 2 groups of layers:

1. SketchUP generated.

2. Support layers.

There are 3 SketchUP layers.

A. Color texture and shadows.

B. Line art only

C. Line art with shadows

The big concept is to put Black & White drawing over the color and then artistically erase just enough of the top B&W layer, so that essential parts of the drawing are accented with color.

It is easy to line up the layers in Photoshop if they are rendered with the same resolution from the same position with the same camera lens.

So here is the break down by layers w/ tips & tricks that I have developed over the last few days:

A. The “Color Textures & shadow” layer represents watercolor component of the sketch. The first step is (File / Export / 2D Graphic /Export type - Jpg) that would have NO Edges. Use blue color for background and white for gradient ground (see properties/color). This background color combination will later allow to easily select the sky in Photoshop to be replaced with watercolor wash.

Set pixel dimensions to be 3000 pixels wide (the height dimension will come up automatically). Open the Image in Photoshop then duplicate the background layer and erase the original background. Now, use the Magic Wand Tool to select the sky. Once the sky is selected – delete it. Later this will allow us to put a watercolor wash image of fluffy clouds under the building layer.

As we all know it is really difficult to keep watercolor edges perfectly straight. The next step will make your heart bleed; you got to distort the precious image that took you so much effort to create. In Photoshop, go Filter/ Distort/ Ripple (medium 50% waves). Now, you got slight imperfections similar to watercolor paintings.

B. The “Line art” layer pretends to be a pencil work over the loose watercolor. In SketchUP Set Face Display to Hidden Line, for Edge Style choose Jitter and Extensions (about 3 to 5 pixels), switch background color to white. Set shadows to “OFF”. It is also a good idea to set the edges to loose the contrast with distance from the camera. Now you are ready to render. It will take just a second. File / Export / 2D Graphic /Export type - Jpg. Make sure that pixel dimensions in the Options Menu are the same as for previous drawing.

Open the drawing in Photoshop, go to Select, choose ALL and copy the selection in to the clipboard. Switch to the previous drawing and paste our Line Art. Both drawings should line up perfectly. Right now you have a Black & White image covering everything else. However, All we need is just the line work to lay over the color. To do this, go to Layer fly-out, find Blending Options roll down menu and instead of Normal select Multiply. Now your drawing looks like a normal SketchUP image with colors bleeding into each other under the hard line work.

C. The “Line Art & Shadows” is the top layer that we will be erasing holes in. That is where most of the “magic” is happening.

Prepare SketchUP for export in the same way you did for the “Line Art”, only this time turn on the shadows. Again, Make sure you are using exactly the same view and same resolution for you JPG file.

Open, Copy and Paste the image into the Photoshop file that you were working with. What you should see is your brand new B&W shadow drawing covering everything that you’ve done. That’s where the real art begins: get a rough big brash eraser of your choice and set it’s opacity to 50%. Start erasing the top layer. Do it really fast, leaving many imperfections. Erase only those areas that absolutely essential to the presentation. The more white drawing you leave the better the final image is going to look. Go over the top layer second time with the “50% eraser” that should give the effect a layering brush strokes. Keep your strokes very loose, giving every color field a several passes with the eraser. Keep the edges of the drawing very light and clear it up a bit more at the focal point of the presentation. The way you move your eraser makes a big difference. The image will look more like watercolor if the eraser is moved in a similar way as a real brush. For example, where there are 2 different color fields bordering each other, a brush would finish one field, before moving into another.

Now the only thing left to do is to insert a background sky, vignette the edges and put a signature.

There two more Support layers, witch are

A. water color sky wash and

B. White vignette layer.

A. Water color sky wash is easy to do - it is a vivid cloud photo with Dry Brush

effect (in Photoshop go: effects/artistic/dry brush). Vignette the edges w/ soft

eraser and use the roughest effect settings. Insert the image under your color layer

and stretch to an appropriate size.

B. White Vignette layer is a place to artistically state the edge of the drawing. The entire

purpose of the method is to evoke a fleeting sensation of a loose sketch. Since

sketches never fill 100% of the drawing field, there has to be a meaningful end

to the composition.

Create a new Layer in Photoshop and, make a big fat white frame for your drawing, make it creep-in on your drawing significantly. Then get a dig rough brush shaped eraser

and clear out only those coved parts of the drawing that are absolutely essential

to the drawing - the trick is to cover up as much of the drawing as you can

possibly afford. Breaking away from a “square cut” rectangular composition is one

of the purposes of the WV layer. After clearing the essential parts of the

drawing - make sure there is no straight white edges left.

A good trick that I use is to go around with 50% opacity eraser once and then

go second time with 100% opacity eraser, leaving some of the field to be just 50% erased.

This way you get a layering effect, as if you when with several layrs of

watercolor over the drawing.

Thank you Dennis for such a well compiled tutorial - easy to follow.

One question do you set your light colour to grey in SU and what shadow settings do you use light / dark.

Here is a template of your current suggestion I think, thought it might save us all doing it.

Is this right? Might save a bit of time for all!

If so for others it will just be the case for others to open this file and drop their model in, turn off the axis, set the shadow and camera locations and export each page as a JPG 3000 pix wide. Done!

Then the mastery at hand with photoshop will then start.

Quick Photoshop tip:

Select all images and right click - open with Photoshop. In PS if you hit 'V' this will start the move tool and you can just move the image straight from one window to the next this will copy the image across and create a new layer in doing so. Dragging this copy to its correct location it shoul pretty much snap in place when close.

The layers can then be organised by dragging up or down in the layers manager menu.

Cheers mate, Richard

The Dennis Technique.skp

Further to Richard's post - Hold the shift key down when you use the move tool, then drag the images in Pshop onto whichever one is your backgroun - the layers will be automatically registered in the right position.

Hi everyone, It is the best thing to see the world change.

It will be really gratifying to walk thru a city and see a billboard for a building rendered this way!

It is so great to see the "method" actually work!.

Every image posted that uses it - actually looks great - just like it supposed to.

Thank you everyone for posts:

marked001, Andrew and Andy - renderings are just remarkable.

Richard,

Cool tip!!! Thanks allot.

One thing I noticed: the sky selection.

When we use GRADIENT sky, Photoshop may not select it all at once. Use a solid color for the sky, then it is a sure-fire selection.

Here is a small amendment to the "method":

For colored layer: use solid blue color background NO sky and white gradient ground. This will give a solid sky - easy to replace.

Other than that - the new posts are 100% on target!

P.S.

Andy, I just an idea: if there are large fields of white on the building (ala Richard Meyers) than it may be interesting to use gray or sepia for paper color.

Wow!! I don't visit the gallery much these days, looks like I need to change that, there are great things happening here.

I really love your images Dennis, I think that in your quest for a reproducable 'style' you're onto a winning formula with this because different people's work can sit happily together in the same presentation. I really like the way you've used 'jitter', yours is probably the best use of it I've seen, it can easily overwhelm.

I have to say that your excellent tutorial probably makes it look too easy. Anyone can follow your instructions and lick-an'-stick a few layers in photoshop, but not everyone will emerge with such great-looking images because there's so much judgement involved in the actual erasing. How much is enough? How much is too much? If it doesn't look quite right, what will make it look right? These are judgement calls and not everyone can make them with your obvious skill.

You touch on it when you mention things like 'focal point'. Focal point? How many people even consider that when knocking out a few pics of a scheme? Not many.

If I may be critical, I feel there's just one little thing letting the images down. It's no surprise that it is the one thing you didn't have full control over (because they're ready-made), and that is the trees. I think they look a bit like crumpled paper bags and they just aren't up to the job of featuring in your wonderful pictures.

I think that with your abundant graphic skill you could knock out some really good sketchy trees and issue them to everyone in your organization (so that all your presentations have the same 'flavor' of trees. And ban anyone from using the paper-bag trees. ;o)

Grant

Just to comment on your tutorial, if I may add a few things I've learned using this technique:

1. When you are exporting your images from SU, consider the possibility that you might have to export a few more later (ie: after you think you're finished). I've had it happen that the client loves the images but wants a few small changes: "move the car a bit, lose the tree, change those gables to hips, shift the window".

Those things would take a just few minutes of modelling in SU, exporting and pasting the affected areas into your 'doctored' pictures *IF* you can export at exactly the same image dimensions. If you've changed your camera position or your working window size since you exported last time, you're screwed, it's quicker to start again.

In other words, in an effort to keep my drawing window constant, I run SU full-screen and I don't mess with my toolbars.

2. Avoid very 'mechanical' textures like rooftiles, bricks, tiles etc. when you're using this technique. It just doesn't look right when you have this loose, sketchy 'watercolor' image and you take a stroke with a big, chunky eraser and it uncovers a precise patch of Letraset-perfect bricks. You wouldn't draw perfect bricks in a loose sketch, so why 'erase' them in?

Better to turn off textures and export flat colours.

3. If your colour-image layer is flat colours (ie: not textures and not gradients) then the magic wand selector thing in photoshop can be very useful.

On the colour layer you can select, say, green grass, then erase on the white layer and it'll only expose grass, it won't go 'outside the lines'.

On the one hand this may seem a bit too precise for such a loose technique, but on the other it makes it more real in that it stops those long strokes which miraculously pass across different colour zones. Those are always a dead giveaway, if you were using real colours you would most definitely work one zone at a time, as Dennis points out.

The masking also makes it super-quick - you can scribble as fast as you like and stay inside the lines.

---------

I used this technique quite a bit, though simplified a bit, I only use 2 layers. It's so fast I was able to use it to do a mock-up of a watercolour on my laptop in a client meeting a few months back. The client had decided on a point of view and I had saved a page. We were discussing where to fade the detail out when he had to take a phonecall. I had my stylus with me so I thought "what the heck". I exported 2 images, zipped around with the eraser, and when he returned I was able to say, "How about this?". (see attached)

WOW, i didn't expect the old masters to visit my post.

I deffinately agree, that a prereqisite for the technique is to have some artistic abilities. We just got to assume that whoever is the designer peforming the technique had to have the abilities to get into the position.

I thought about the textures and I agree w/ Grant.

however, I used the textures a few times and got away w/image looking alright.

see my post from 06-27-05 16:16.

Some times rippled textures look like they were painted.

Image, may still look alright even if it doesn't look exactly like watercolor.

I do apreciate the coment about the "focal point".

I'll make sure to expand on it in the manual. -thanks alot

and trees - Grant, I still use yor hybrid tree, made in 2.0 - it is the best tree ever!

Paul, is there any way you can post anything a la Enest Burden underwash?

Dennis,

An example of applying adjustment layers with your technique -- I made two adjustment layers over the background color rendering. First was a color balance layer with top slider skewed towards red, bottom towards yellow (center untouched) yielding a "warm tone". Second was just the opposite - top slider towards cyan, buttom towards blue yielding a "cool tone". Layer masks appear as all white - to erase the layer effect paint with black - just used a big circular soft edge brush to leave warm focus in middle portion, did the same with cool layer to leave effect only at periphery. The little layer vignette shows the masking.

The intended effect (at least my intent) was to be subtle. It's quick and dirty, but sort of the effect that Burden and Schaller get in their water colors (no comparison intended of course).

Paul

Very interesting,

the effect is deffinately sudle.

I was wandering if you can grossly exgadurate the effect so it is easy to see how it works.

I was also wandering if you can post an image without the effect so we can compare before and after.

Dennis

Before and after (and very greatly exaggerated with no refinement at all). Layer effects also useful for curves, levels, contrast, brightness, etc. for focusing attention and giving depth.

Sorry everyone I was out of the forum for too long.

Superb images. It was very interesting to see Robert's image before the manual and after.

I want to discuss editing of the TDT images.

Seems like every time we change a model (one more story here, another material there, different landscapind etc..) we got to do the erasing work over and over, because the new image doesn't quite fit the old erasing marks.

Imagine if you cold just swap the base layers and be done in 2 minutes instead of erasing it again.

In fact it is farely easy to achieve.

Here is what I was doing for the last 2 month:

Render updated model from the same point with the same settings. Bring the images to the PhotoShop under the coresponding layers of the original photoshop file.

Once that is done, select the old layer with the eraser holes and the go to layers/ load transparancy/ load (your current )layer transparency. that will make a selection for all the holes that you erased before. All you got to do now is select the new b&W layer and click delete. It will erase exactly the same holes. After that is sholdn't be difficult to erase a bit more to get the new features in color.

However you need less of the layer to be erased - berote you click delete - edit yu selection by clicking the lowest button on the photoshop toolbar - now selected and unselected areas are distinguished by pink transparancy - pick up a rough prush and fix the holes that you don't want anymore.

let me know guys how it works for you

Dennis

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