HELP!!!Creating 3D Space from a Photo Reference...

Fraya713

so i would like to create a scene using this image...



i was wondering if any of you could help me out because i am having some trouble with it. I'm trying to replicate the scene using 3d studio max, if any of you have watched tim jones gnomon workshop video, Environment Creation for Production, this is basically what i am trying to do.

There are a lot of organic elements that are giving me trouble finding basically the horizon line a long with out minor perspective issues. I'm not sure if i'm completely retarded or if this is just a hard photo to judge perspective on. any help and/or tips would be much appreciated!

Asherr

well there's a man sitting right there in the middle of the shot for reference.

let's assume he's a little short, mostly for ease of measument, at 5ft tall standing. from there i would estimate the footbridge he's sitting on at 2.5ft wide and 10ft long with about 5ft between the foremost bridge and the next. i would also make each of the bridges the same size. from there it appears the buildings are about 15ft tall. and all that is just eyeballing it and using a pencil for a couple rough measurements.

ideally i would take the image into Photoshop and use my estimates and map/sketch out apparent sizes. even then once i started building the scene i would probably change some things as the scene grew and the relative sizes and distances became a bit more apparent.

Fraya713

so you think i should just eye ball it and see what looks best? what i'm trying now is making a camera in 3d max and facing it towards the picture. i targeted the camera to the very center of the picture, assuming the picture wasnt cropped i just cut the picture in half vertically and horizontally, which i think should give me the exact location of where the person taking the camera was positioned.

thanks a lot for those measurements, it really helps

Vailias

only if the camera isn't tilted, which it is. The water in that photo doesn't look to be flowing quickly down a slope, like it would have to be if the camera was level, and the horizon line was in the middle of the screen. (notice all the little bridges going "up" the picture?)

Eyeballing is important, but like Asherr points out, you have a great scale ref right in the middle of the photo. Heck, since you have max make a biped and pose the thing in the same position as the guy and use that as your starting point for camera positioning, then build in other views

Edit: The camera position IS of course in the middle of the image, but it doesn't mean that it is level with the ground plane... thats what I was trying to say earlier. It appears that the camera position is about as high off one of those bridges as the silver bell like thing is on the left side of the image.

Mark Dygert

If this was my assignment I would bring this image in as the environment map or on a single plane, then place a camera in roughly the same spot and build the 3D to fit the scene mostly from that view. So instead of eyeballing it and hoping it works I would place my edges to match the scene pixel for pixel, the 3D aspect tends to work itself out when you match the 2D.

Xenobond

You've got three people in that picture as well as a number of identical lanterns. You can use this to help get some of the space laid out.

thnom

I think this would be an awesome mini-comp for polycount..

Re-create a scene from a photograph using whatever polycount you want. I bet there would some ultra-low res stuff and some high.

Fraya713

hey thanks for your help guys, i think the reason its a bit hard is because i'm not sure if the buildings were built and slanted over time, or maybe the camera man/woman was standing on one of those slanted bridges. what i've done so far is found the middle of the picture and threw that on a plain as a texture, then targeted my camera in max to that spot. there are still some issues with the perspective for some reason, but i think it will work itself out. It kinda through me off because the bridges seem to be a lot farther apart frome each other in max than it looks in the picture.
abd you're right, this would be a cool mini comp for polycount, i'd be interested to see what people come up with along with their methods.

here's some work in progress, nothing cool or anything, just boxing in things for placement.