Cyberdemon and a RabbitDaily Photogrammetry Challenge, Week One
Posted on 3 April, 2020Question: How does one keep their idle hands busy during a countrywide shutdown, in a way that won’t make god cry?
Answer: Do a shit ton of photogrammetry.
That’s right, I’ve given myself the daily challenge of reconstructing any random crap I find around the house, using photogrammetry.
Given how much random crap Anna owns, I could technically do at least five hundred reconstructions per day. That’s not a passive aggressive dig at her hording skills, it’s just a fact. Like when she politely points out the mountains of literal crap in the cats’ litter trays which are sort of, technically, absolutely my responsibility to sort. And yet, sorted they evidently are not.
Why engage in this challenge? Because I’m paying £30 for a Reality Capture subcription and want to get my money’s worth. Also, because it’s good practice for something my job sort of entails. Also, because I’m worried playing too much Doom: Eternal might be affecting my mood. I can’t look at the cats without wanting to Blood Punch them. That’s got nothing to do with Doom: Eternal by the way, just a general mood share.
Also also, because we’re under quarantine and if I don’t keep myself busy with distractions like this, there’s a risk I might end up doing something useful around the house instead. Like cleaning the litter trays.
I’m going to do a reconstruction every day of April. Each Friday I’ll share an update on my website with images, info and possibly downloads for each of the subjects I’ve reconstructed that week.
Introducing, the Doom 2016 Cyberdemon and a wooden rabbit thingy. True Doom fans will know the connection.
Story continues below...
The Cyberdemon Pop! toy, reconstructed with Reality Capture and rendered in Unreal Engine 4
Cyberdemon Pop! Toy
April 1st 2020
Upon re-reading a number of my recent journal entries, I’ve come to realise something – I can be incredibly boring.
So instead of reciting every single detail and consideration involved, I’m going to keep these technical summaries a little more quickfire.
Any images or video I put together will sit right at the top of the page. So if you just want to see cool stuff, you need not endure my waffling.
If you do have questions or observations, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.
What worked: Overall shape/silhouette (good coverage), back and chest details (good closeup coverage), texture (generally good lighting and post-processing).
What didn’t: Hands (needed more coverage), eyes and teeth (too shiny?), feet (should’ve put on flat surface to remove base), normal map (to noisey, didn’t need to include), underside such as chin and hands (needed more coverage), low poly export (should’ve smooth normals – lazy), some edges (needed more closeup coverage).
- Photocount – 363 (361 accepted)
- Photo positions/angles – 5
- Photo time – 25 minutes
- Post processing – White balance, shadow/highlight removal, sharpening and resize through Photoshop batch process
- Total reconstruction time – 1 hour
- High detail polycount – 10.2m tris
- Optimised polycount – 100k tris
- Exported mesh size – 9.80mb
Rabbity McFabbit Face
Wooden rabbit thing
April 2nd 2020
I bought this rabbit ornament thingy last year. Not entirely sure why, but I trod on it yesterday and my mind was taken off the pain by the realisation that I could reconstruct it.
Truth be told, I rushed this one. Didn’t really worry about the lighting and was having trouble with the remote shutter. Although it came out okay, it would only have taken a bit more patience to make considerably better. On the flip side (literally), I managed to avoid repeating the Cyberdemon mistake and remembered to shoot the underside of the model this time.
What worked: Overall shape/silhouette (good coverage), entire model included (photographed underside of subject), texture (despite poor lighting).
What didn’t: Wasted photographs (rushed and remote stopped working, so far more came out blurry than would be ideal), feet (didn’t focus photographs well enough).
- Photocount – 343 (298 accepted)
- Photo positions/angles – 7
- Photo time – 35 minutes
- Post processing – Shadow/highlight removal, sharpening and resize through Photoshop batch process
- Total reconstruction time – 2.5 Hours (back and forth optimising normals)
- High detail polycount – 23.4m tris
- Optimised polycount – 50k tris
- Exported mesh size -4.81mb
Thanks!
That’s week one down and there’s plenty of stuff I’m thinking of trying next week.
I’ll probably invest a bit more time into getting the lighting and camera focus spot on. That’s always been the key to better reconstructions, I’ve just let impatience get the better of me. As it often does.
We’ve got a bird bath thing outside which I’d be interested to try, my rocking chair looks like an interesting challenge too.
Or maybe I’ll put these uncleaned cat litter trays to good use?
Now that’s a crap idea.
Ugh.
Cheers!