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Need Advice from Artists/Modelers

apecoraro
apecoraro
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apecoraro polycounter lvl 17
My company is looking to hire an artist to help create an exact replica of a certain area of a particular city. The source data for this task will be digital photographs taken by a person walking through the area and satellite imagery.

So I was wondering if anyone had any experience with doing this kind of work and what tools would you recommend for doing it.

We are looking at using this photogrammetry software called PhotoModeler by EOS Systems. Does anyone have any experience with this software?

I have also read about more powerful photogrammetry solutions like Imetric's ICAM. Does anyone know anything about or have any experience with ICAM or perhaps some other photogrammetry software?

I am not an artist so I don't really feel qualified to judge any of these software packages, so what I am looking for is your expert opinions to help me out.

Thanks for the help.

Alex Pecoraro
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  • Eric Chadwick
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    Eric Chadwick admin
    I haven't personally used any photogrammetry software, and I'm sure it has come a long way since I've taken a look at them.

    But I would question first of all how the city region is to be used. If for a typical shooter or racing game, a city region could be fairly realistic looking but for gameplay "fun factor" reasons you wouldn't necessarily want an exact meter-for-meter replica. Distances would be shorter, elevations cheated a bit, etc.

    Also there's the issue of game memory constraints, which means the artist would most likely have to duplicate a limited set of unique buildings a bunch of times to "fill out" the region.

    If for a flight sim, different issues come into play, etc.

    I would judge software partly on how well it generates game-usable models. I would think photo-g software usually is used for architectural viz, which doesn't have the performance constraints of the gaming market.

    A couple things to think about. Where else are you posting this query? There are some other artist-frequented forums that might help, depending if the city is for a game. Most of the artists here are game artists, like myself.
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  • pior
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    pior grand marshal polycounter
    Hi

    We've been using photomodeler for an assignement at school last year. We had to model an arch replica in it...

    The tool is quite powerful in terms of image matching aso. It's important to have all the pics taken with the same camera tho, or with different cameras but in that case pictures need to be clearly named so that you can assign different camera profiles to them.

    As for model and texture creation I found out it's better to use it in conjunction with a standard 3D app like Max. Photomodeler can output a good 3D model proportionwise but the parrallels/perpendiculars can be a tad wonky and need straightening up.

    Also if I remember correctly Photomodeler creates multiple UVs and texture maps for one model (If you are using 4 photo references, it might create 4 different textures for one single object).

    Hence I made my own UVs and created a single texture map in photoshop.

    However I guess you can also temporarily use Photomodeler's UVs, make a copy of the model, create clean UVs for it, and then bake the textures from one to the other. I did not do it on my photomodeler exercise yet tried the technique on a model recently and it worked wonders.

    I'll try to find my photomodeler results and post them here soon.

    On a side note. A friend of mine used it to make a 3D copy of his dad's... head smile.gif He never did any complex organic 3D before but told me it worked out nice! Cheap alternative to 3D scans indeed.

    [edit]

    The photomodeler interface:
    01_pm_interface.jpg

    3D stage in PM:
    02_pm_3d.jpg

    Output:
    03_pm_output.jpg

    Straightened model+new UVs in Max:
    04_pm_maxrealtime.jpg

    Lit render:
    05_pm_maxrender.jpg

    Hope that helps!
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  • apecoraro
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    apecoraro polycounter lvl 17
    I suppose I should have been more detailed about the project. This is for a military simulation so getting an exact "meter-for-meter" replica is important in order to provide the most realistic simulation and obviously due to the nature of the simulation "fun" is not a factor. Also, memory is not a factor because the simulation does not have to run on the garden variety PC. We can pack in tons of RAM to handle hundreds of unique buildings.

    As far as what other forums am I posting to - none. Can you suggest any for me?

    Thanks.

    Alex Pecoraro
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  • apecoraro
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    apecoraro polycounter lvl 17
    Thanks Eric, that info is very helpful.

    Alex
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  • Eric Chadwick
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    Eric Chadwick admin
    I think you meant to thank pior there. Cool pics btw.

    This forum is one of the best on the web for game artists, IMHO. But here are a few others that might be helpful for you...

    CGTalk.
    http://forums.cgsociety.org/forumdisplay.php?f=25

    CGChat.
    http://www.cgchat.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?s=47f5bc040ab13108f20a89e22390351c&forumid=58

    Spiraloid.
    http://cube.phlatt.net/forums/spiraloid/viewboard.php?BoardID=2


    I'm sure there are others, maybe someone else will chime in...
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