Artistic Without the Temperament!

Towards Photo Surrealism

Piranesi is a three-dimensional paint program, which enables architects, artists and designers to easily produce high quality stylised artwork from 3D models allowing them to interactively create a more expressive form of artistic rendering.

The initial 3d model is produced as normal by your existing CAD and/or visualisation system. Using a Piranesi plug-in for MAX/VIZ or the supplied Vedute viewer a simple rendering is produced from the required view. No materials have to be added to the model, it can just be rendered as is, although if materials have been applied in MAX/VIZ they will go through to Piranesi. Any lights added to the scene will be useful later on as their effects are also carried through, even after paint and textures are applied to the rendering.

The resulting rendering is produced in a special format, which begins the process in Piranesi. Although this is essentially a 2d image, each pixel contains z-buffer information, defining its position in 3d space, as well as channel information derived from the CAD layers or material mappings. This extra information is the really clever part and allows Piranesi to perform its magic.

Unlike conventional 2d paint programs, Piranesi paint tools enable you to paint colours, tints and textures (a brick pattern say) straight onto selected parts of the image, such as walls and window frames, without over-painting other objects. Not only that but it can also lock onto flat planes and apply textures in true perspective! To do this in a standard paint program would require complex masks to be set-up; a tricky and time consuming process. Using the comprehensive built in library and/or your own patterns, a near photo-realistic view can be built up very quickly by hand.

There is also a useful fog tool, which allows fog to be calculated based on depth information. As well as realistic fog effects it can be used to create special effects with colours and textures, such as highlights on buildings.

At this stage of the process cutouts can be placed in the view. Much of the work produced by users may involve the use of cutouts and is usually done in a 2d paint program after the final rendering has been produced. Again, this task is fairly arduous in such packages, not only because masks have to be set up to accommodate foreground objects but also, as the correct perspective is very difficult to achieve. In Piranesi you simply set the physical size you want the cutout to be and as you move it around in the scene it changes size according to its distance from the eye point and can even be aligned directly onto objects. Another neat trick is that the cutouts can be flipped over at any angle and darkened to create perfect shadows. The library contains a great set of cutouts already created, including people, animals, vegetation and general street paraphernalia but if you have access to a digital camera then the sky's the limit.

Yes, but is it art?

If you think it's good so far nothing can prepare you for the next stage, as this is where the fun really starts. Using Piranesi's intelligent painting tools you can create an image in an expressive way, adding emphasis to certain areas and reducing it in others. You can develop your image as a soft watercolour, an etching or even mix 'n' match. Each effect you create can be stored as a style and used to recreate the same look and feel with other models. These effect tools can be applied either interactively as different types of brushes or simply flood filled onto the scene. Different types of etching effects can be achieved and either left as is, tinted or coloured in using various restore brushes. For example, using a line-etching tool with a subtle colour restore gives a result very similar to the old Rupert Bear book illustrations.

Many tools can be combined with textures and grains, which gives some very pleasing embossed effects. These also come in handy for backgrounds and can create the look of a canvas or heavy textured paper.

Another excellent effect is to blank over the scene with a white or tinted canvas and use an edge brush tool to airbrush in the edges from the scene behind. This gives a hand pencilled effect which can then be selectively watercoloured using a stencilled colour restore brush, which washes in the colour from the original scene. It's easier than painting by numbers and the results can be quite dramatic. Many of the paintings used in housing brochures can be reproduced this way. For a more impressionistic look there is a simulated brush stroke tool which can be set up according to the desired style and then automatically splattered onto the canvas. You need to practice with this one to get it right but with a little persevering you can even get a reasonable attempt at a "Van Gough" type of style; at least at a first glance anyway. There is so much scope for adjusting these tools and combining their effects that the potential for the creative user is almost limitless. Out of the box the pre-set styles let you get straight on with the job but it would certainly take a long time to explore all of the options available.

Preparing the canvas

Concerns that a colour inkjet printer may produce colours that are too vibrant to really get the right look and feel to the finished artwort, may be put to rest as prints out of an Epson Stylus Pro XL give a very convincing watercolour effect. For the ultimate textured finish you can even use a special canvas cloth in many of the Epson range of printers!