[Jason Manley]

http://icewind.dbtavern.com/gameinfo/interviews/jasonmanley_001004.shtml

Hi all,

I thought I'd post a link to show you all what my area concepts look like. This area is a barbarian encampment in a mountain pass made up of the barbarian leaders from 5 tribes within Icewind Dale.

You will notice the heavy use of paper textures and chalk tool to help speed the painting process for suggestion of not only area content but area lighting and what kinds of texture maps will be needed. I did this in about 2 days.
Our master area builder Aaron Brown fully built out the entire area and lit it as well as did all the textures. You can see his final when you adventure in the game.

We do very little pure black and white or linear concepts here at Black Isle. It is the concept artists job to give the areas and the world its look and feel. This cannot be accomplished with marker drawings and or pencil sketches. If the concept artist works with the designers to get the content, feel, lighting, and placement of the area it is much easier to get a unified project.

My one piece of advice for you all using painter...use the paper texutes. That is my criticism of most of the artists that I see using digital medias..it looks like it was done in photoshop or painter and can often look way too airbrushy and lack surface texture. I learned about surface texture from looking at Degas. He gets a lot of different surface qualities in his paint. Doing this adds another level of feel as well as a piece of life to the pic.

Jason

[opticillusion]

First of all...the encampment is very, very nice! It has a definate mood, and a good feel as well as being highly detailed and rich with nifty things to look at.

Basically, it's just awesome
secondly....thank you for explaining about your job as a concept artist, cause that field is quite an interest to me. And I'll keep in mind what you said about the paper textures. I really enjoy your work, and look forward to seeing more

[Anthony]

Looks good-glad you provided the full size version. What's the tool that sort of eats away the paint almost like acid? That's pretty good for texturizing. I can't count the number of times I've said something looks good, but, well, a tad Photoshop-ish. :] I'm gonna try to get a couple renders off to you this coming week to get some feedback.

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-Anthony
Carpe Carpem

[Joachim]

wow, that's very nice. Great consept. . Nice to see some backgrounds too in that painterly style of yours


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Joachim's Place

[pierre]

Maybe it is only I who think like this, but why on earth do you want a digital painting software that simulate natural media. Ofcourse I understand that there are oh so many advantages to have the natural media in a digital realm, However it is a long way until you can have the natural media algorithms work so good in a software that you could take them for being real, which is what I think people strive for when they want to simulate that effect.

I have never been that much of a fan of painter, don't think it is even in the same league as photoshop. In one aspect, photoshop actually surpass painter many times over when it comes to simulating natural media, the way of working out a painting, the layering functions. apart from the opaque option, simulating glazes and "painting in layers" (such as in oil or acrylic painting) is superb with photoshops layers, that without the media degradation.

I wonder if anyone has tried out Discreet Logic's PAINT*, it is a superb painting software! you should try it if you haven't. I still prefer photoshop though.

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http://www.crosswinds.net/~pierrehannah

[sfr]

pierre, I understand your criticism of Painter, but I don't think it's completely fair. The thing about Painter that many people don't seem to realize is that although it's advertised as a "natural media simulator" of sorts, you don't necessarily have to use it with that mindset.

The essential thing about Painter is really its powerful brush engine. The preset brushes are made to act something like real world tools, but as you say, that can be very frustrating because they're still different from real tools in many ways. So, it can be quite useful to learn how the Painter brush engine works, because then you can make your own brushes and understand what they do and why, instead of being stuck with confusing "sort of like pastel chalks but not at all" type of tools.

This is not a problem in Photoshop as the brush engine is so simple - you can make captured dabs ("custom brushes" PS calls them) and set a couple of stylus expressions (size, opacity, color), and that's pretty much it.

So, choosing between the two for painting is really a question of taste - do you want as many brush parameters as possible, or as few as possible? My opinion is that both are excellent pieces of software that complement each other very nicely.

Saffron / Sunflower

[Jason Manley]

Blasphemy!

: )

Hahaha...

First off, I will say that I use both programs. I almost exclusively use painter now that it has those layer options that you covet so much...it has opacity tools and it has all the options that I need to make my images.

Painter does a FAR more accurate rgb to cmyk conversion than photoshop. This is a big plus since my work gets printed monthly. Photoshop turns all the darks to mud when I print with that. If I save as a cmyk tiff in painter and then adjust the saturation down about 5 percent I will have very close to the color of my original rgb image. This allows me to see my work printed as I painted it and not all brown like photoshop does the conversion.

I use painter rather than traditional media because of the fact that painter is at least twice as fast as using traditional medias which have long drying times. I spent 6 years painting from life and working with all traditional medias and much of that time was spent waiting for my paint to dry. If I wanted to get my large painting into the computer I either had to have 4x5 slides shot and drumscanned or scan and piece them together in photoshop. This takes time.

Photoshop has no watercolor tool. This is a great tool for doing glazes. Painter has a much larger brush selection and this makes it easy for a painter to control the media in ways that he or she is comfortable...i.e. no fuzzy airbrush marks where you dont want them. And...no airbrush marks everywhere...I like brushstroke variety...I like real art and that is present in the paintings of rembrandt and sargent etc...

I can tell when an artist relies on photoshop too much and I personally dont find that too appealing. though....there are exceptions and Craig Mullins is numero uno on that list. His stuff rocks. But he has amazing compositional skills and knows how to make his stuff look like art. This shows. It is ovious when I look at stuff of his that he really knows how to make art and not just make photoshop art.

For painting digitally in a traditional sense(not painting over photos for matte painting reasons or for lack of drawing skills) painter is by far the superior program. If you want to composite photos and let the computer do your color adjusting rather than painting it yourself than photoshop is the program for you.

I was a traditional artist and never thought I would use the computer to make art. It was not until I discovered Painter that I enjoyed making images digitally.

I think that my post regarding the concept artist suggesting texture as well as lighting, form, content, and mood should be enough information why an artist would want to simulate real medias. It is a control issue and that is all. Painter allows for it and photoshop doesnt (unless you trace over photos)

: )


Jason

[Jason Manley]

anthony...that tool that eats away at the media is actually the chalk tools and rock paper textures I made myself...the pavement texture that comes with the program will work.

jason

[Danny]

Jason,

I hope you realize that there's a lot more to PhotoShop RGB-->CMYK conversion than simply hitting a button. There's actually a heck of a lot of presets that'll determine your outcome. I'm by no means an expert on the subject, but PS supports all the features you'll need (unless you do cmyk conversions for a living) to get your prints to look right. Especially on a properly calibrated system. You could try using some of those colour-profiling programs like Horses', or Monaco's. Plugs straight into PS and allows you to profile your images to match the onscreen equivalent no matter what paper/ink combo. is used..
My guess when you say PS turns your conversion stuff to mud, is that you've simply got dodgy CMYK settings.
And yes, I prefer PS above Painter.. It's all about what one feels most comfy with.. ofcos..



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[email protected]

Trust in Trance

[Jason Manley]

hmmm...

tried all that...many times...been doing this for a while now and print stuff daily. The only time I ever see my work reproduced well is when I do the conversion in Painter.

I agree about the comfy with the media thing...though I am proficient with both programs. If you prefer photoshop because you are not fluent with painter than that does not mean that photoshop is the superior painting program. That just means you could use some more time with painter.

Photoshop is a great program for what it is. There is no disputing its ability to adjust and manipulate photography and images. Painter does not do those kinds of things as well....but it does have better brushes and a wider selection of media as well. In terms of pure painting painter is the more subtle and responsive program.

: )


Jason

[coconutmonkey]

Jason, I think that what you're saying is kinda off base. I dont think you can say Photoshop is strictly for photo manipulation and for digital art you should use painter and only painter. I think photoshop is a very versitile program and that it can and should be used for whatever an artist wants to use it for. I dont think really anyone can say that a program should be used for 1 purpose and ONLY that one purpose. An artist should use whatever tool they feel comfortable with. And saying we shouldnt use photoshop because it doesnt look like traditional art, well who says we should TRY to make it look like traditional art? Its all just a matter of taste style and feel.

well thats my 2 c maybe it made sense or not ^_^

[This message has been edited by coconutmonkey (edited October 15, 2000).]

[Anthony]

I don't think Jason was saying you shouldn't ever do digital art in Photoshop. He was merely stating something that's true: Painter has a much broader selection of tools to create art, in the traditional sense, than Photoshop. Obviously Craig shows that you can create incredible art in Photoshop; but I'm sure that if spoogey were to chime in here, he'd be the first to say that his own interest in Painter lies in its diverse toolset. At least I think he would.

Jason- I was actually thinking of the Bleach eraser, but it doesn't seem to have the same effect I remember from Painter5 in Painter6. Maybe I'll have to mess with it.

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-Anthony
Carpe Carpem