Benczúr Gyula (1844-1920).
The painting depicts the recapture of the Buda Palace in 1686 from Ottoman army. It took a month for Mr. Farkas to model all 32 figures, plus another five weeks to digitally paint and prepare the masks and layers. With the smoke and music, the moving-camera parallax, and the focus pulls, the scene jumps right off the canvas.
Hmm. I assume this was created diorama style, using cutouts from the original painting. Then little additions to the cut-outs/tiers were photoshopped in where the info wasn't in the original painting.
ReplyDeleteThen these tiers were set into a 3d space, lit ambiently so the lighting on the original painting wouldn't be affected, and then the camera moves and lens effects were automated. I don't see that any of these elements were actually sculpted and painted in 3d. Am I wrong?
This was in the UK news recently, along with a link that showed some of the process. You are essentially correct Kev - pieces that weren't visible were recreated with a Photoshop clone tool, and all the elements set into 3D space. It took a lot of time and processing power to create it, but they weren't all sculpted in 3D, individually from scratch.
ReplyDeleteThat is wonderful. I love how modern tech enhances it and the painterly details are still foremost.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if this was somewhat the technique used to "animate" Piranesi's subterranean nightmares.
I'm not sure I see the point, it doesn't add anything to the painting, isn't it a bit like colouring black and white photos?
ReplyDeletewhy not make a new painting instead? or a cgi short?
I think this type of 3D reconstruction can be very valuable in order to break down the artist's use of perspective, staging, etc. But I think mostly this type of reconstruction is done as a personal technical challenge, as it was in this case.
ReplyDeleteBy the way each figure was indeed sculpted, posed, and positioned in 3D, they are not cutouts (or billboards as we call them in the 3D world), check out: https://www.behance.net/gallery/Buda-repossession/15531221 for details.
I do not like that he initially used the painting as a texture across the entire scene... he later went back and repainted most figures though.
Here is how it was done:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.behance.net/gallery/Buda-repossession/15531221
Okay, it's impressive that they were sculpted in 3D. I had been under the impression that they were merely cut-outs (albeit intricate ones).
ReplyDeletePersonally I'm still not overly fond of this type of thing - or rather, I should say, of how it's talked about. As a personal exercise it's very well done, but this has been all over my facebook page with comments like "Amazing!!" and "Mind blowing!!" etc. I was sorely tempted to argue - the painting is amazing. The 3D gimmick is kind of neat I guess.
But like I say, I have a bit more respect now that I know it's modeled. I wonder why he didn't try to show that off more, with more unusual camera angles and such?
This is really awesome and I am waiting for interactive application with this 3d environment to study it on your own. As well with this 3d painting made 4 years ago by Polish company Platige Image http://www.platige.com/pl/page/79-Jan_Matejko_Battle_Of_Grunwald_3
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