The Artlantis Attitude:
Getting the Attitude and Using It
The screen companion for Artlantis
productivity and artistry
Dwight Atkinson, MAIBC
Canada’s Funniest Architect
Beginner No More Publishing
2009
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• TECHNICAL .................................................................................................................... 2
Start - up Information … 4
Using This Screen Companion with Artlantis … 5
A List of Things In This Book … 7-9
• INTRODUCTION AND PONTIFICATION ............................................................... 10
Reminder of the Twelve Memorable Features … 10
Ideas About Design Communication … 13
Excellence … 15
Experiment … 16
Expedience … 17
Artlantis Workflow is Circulinear … 18
Bukimi No Tani: Crossing the Uncanny Valley … 19
Color Issues … 21
Composition … 24
Storytelling … 24
* The Quick Fix: Illustration Process Summary ............................ 27
The Quick Fix: Image Editing Summary … 37
• TOOLS AND NAVIGATION ......................................................................................... 38
Scene Navigation … 38
Inspector Panel … 38
Perspective Camera View … 39
3D Preview and 2D View Windows … 40
Clipping Box … 41
Depth of Field …42
Alignment Tool … 43
Seat-Of-the-Pants Perspective Alignment … 46
Updating the Artlantis File Using References and Mergings … 47
Parallel Views … 48
.aof Format … 49
Objects … 49
Make Objects …49
Make Light Fixtures … 49
Postcards … 50
Catalog Management … 50
Managing Image Sequences [Animation] … 51
Rant … 51
Sequence Inspector, Path Control Introduction … 56
TimeLine … 57
The FlyBy Animation … 58
The Descending Arc … 59
The Corkscrew Animation … 60
Animation Speed Notes … 61
Sequence Standards and Format … 62
Object Animation and Assembly Simulation … 63
VR Object … 66
VR Scene Panorama … 67
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• LIGHT: CELESTIAL AND OTHERWISE ................................................................... 68
Light Introduction … 68
Heliodon Dialog Panel Commentary … 71
Heliodon Interior Tinting … 72
Light, Lamp, Luminere … 73
Lighting a Simple Room … 75
Neon … 80
Neon Glass … 84
Neon Glass — An Entire Building … 85
Ambient Glow … 88
Glowing Signage … 89
Fire … 90
Backlit Signage … 91
Our Nocturnal Missions … 93
Pre-Dawn Quiet … 95
A Simple Entry Court … 97
Harvest Moon Smoke Break … 99
• SURFACES ....................................................................................................................101
Shaders, Surfaces, Materials, Texture Maps … 101
Complex Shader … 105
Custom Images … 109
Fabricating a Seamless Image … 110
Mapping Orientation Control … 111
Normals and Bumping … 112
Reflection Limit … 113
Smoothness Slider …114
Basic Shader Inspector Panel … 115
Expert Shader Panel
Mirror
Irridescence
Other Fancy Stuff … 116
Fresnel Water … 118
Making A Good Water Surface … 121
Ripples … 123
Fresnel Glazing … 125
Options to Fresnel Glazing … 127
Useful Fresnel Glazing Shader Settings …128
Building A Good Glazing Surface … 129
Perforations … 130
Image Mapping or Detail Modeling? …132
Editing an Artlantis Object Map …133
Automobiles …134
Decalcomania: Racing Flames … 136
Candlelight Detail … 142
Buying the Lads a Round: Pilsner, Ale or Lager … 144
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• IMAGE EDITING AND POST-PROCESSING ........................................................148
Image Editing … 148
Image Editor “Actions” Achieve Distinctive Character … 150
Composition and Light Adjustments … 151
Artlantis Post Processing … 152
• COMPREHENSIVE INTERIOR TRICKS ............................................................... 154
Looking Down Into A Suite of Rooms … 154
Interior Lighting without Using the Heliodon … 155
An Art Gallery Experiment … 162
A Stage Set Experiment … 169
In the White Room … 175
Clean White Glow: A Simple Image Editing Method … 177
• COMPREHENSIVE EXTERIOR TRICKS .............................................................. 178
Producing and Beholding “The Whiteness” … 178
Racofsky House: Uncovering the Mystery … 182
American Indian Museum: Can Artlantis Match Reality? … 186
Matching a Rendering with Its Context Photography … 190
Background image preparation … 191
Foreground image preparation … 192
Matching Heliodon to context … 193
Prepare neighborhood context … 194
Merge glazing solutions … 196
Interior light emergency … 197
Image editing remediation … 198
Building a Busy Street Scene Using Context Photography … 200
Step-by-Step Evolution of a Sign Board
in both Artlantis and an Image Editor … 201
Heliodon … 202
Entourage … 208
Floating Light Props … 210
Image Editing … 211
Post-Processing and Effects … 214
• CONCLUSION .............................................................................................................218
Thank You to My Contributors … 219
• GLOSSARY ..................................................................................................................220
• BIBLIOGRAPHY ........................................................................................................225
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Buying the Lads a Round:
Pilsner, Ale or Lager.
It is all Golden.
Illustrating a cool glass of beer
is a challenge because of condensa-
tion and detail. The image relies on
bump mapping for condensation and
accurate lighting to photographically
model the shape. Our expectation is
also distorted by beer ads pho-
tographed in studios where this
precious nectar glows with luminous
golden light, like a grail.
The definitive image is elusive: the
appearance of cold beer in the glass
varies. As condensation forms, the
clear glass surface clouds. Droplets
accumulate and merge to refract light
brightly. As the droplets begin to run
down the surface, it clears to reveal
the beauteous amber inside. By then
you’ve touched it and ruined the
effect. Order another beer and study
how the glass changes while you fin-
ish this one.
Limitations: Artlantis lacks
displacement mapping that would A Favorite: How I remember a dry August day
in a Saskatoon, Saskatchewan beer hall. The
reveal actual droplet depth; we can droplets do not get large before cascading down
only render reflections and droplet the glass, the tiniest rivulets. Too bad I will pick it
up before it gets warm.
patterns. Photos of condensation are
freely available for use in bump map- • The Model: The beer glass requires
ping, but it is not clear how successful sensuous curves and plenty of irregu-
they are representing large droplets. larities for plausibility. We’ll want to
The objective is to reach the limit of see distortion and refraction in the
what lighting and pattern can do to glass. I modeled this glass revolving
emulate condensation. To study the a complex profile in Archicad, but the
challenge, the set-up is: trick in any application is to make a
Light direction and environment affect reflections. Varied size and graduated transparency of the
condensation bump map, different refraction indexes of both glass and beer — back light, front light,
top light; frost, fog, glisten. An illustrator needs to think like a photographer to be fair to beer.
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Model the Beer
small detailed thing very large, initially, Glass Parts:
say, ten times normal, scaling it down Includes 3D
inner elements.
later. Some applications can’t increase Separate
their tolerance to create tight small elements for the
beer, the glass,
curves like this beer glass demands, the outer foam
but will accurately represent a scaled- and about 1
down version. The beer head foam has mm in from the
outer foam, the
two layers — the outer layer will be inner foam ele-
transparent and the inner layer will ment. Mom says
use a coaster!
not — This trick brings a diaphanous
quality to foam.
• The Set and Cyclorama: A tabletop and
a cyclorama backdrop [more mysterious
than a flat panel]. A 500x750 pixel image of
a British pub was applied to the cycloramic
background as a single material image. This
simplifies composing the shot because the
background can be easily pulled exactly
into place once the beer glass is framed. In
this case, I hid an unconvincing lamp in the
photo behind the beer glass.
• Lighting Approach: Each setup needs
angle, intensity and height tweaking. Ar-
ranging lights can be tedious because it is
like a photo studio and there is no incidental
light like in an architectural image. General
light comments:
– all are yellow tinted and added one-at-a-
time to express specific glass features, espe-
cially to reflect from condensation bumps.
– limited shadow casting: fewer shadows
cast mean an easier solution. Lighting Solution: Lights added one at
a time to model the glass, producing an
– all lights minimal: from power 5–10. inner golden glow and glistening foam,
An Artlantis plan.
Sequence: Lights were placed in this order:
#2: Key Light: From above right. Casts a
shadow. Principally defines the white foam
head.
#5: Modeling Light: Mid-height and to the
left: this one creates the diffuse glare that
models condensation effectively. Casts a
shadow.
#6: Beer Booster: Directly behind and firing
upward into the golden liquid, it makes a
golden flash at the base of the liquid and
shines up to light the underside of the head.
#1+4: Side Flasher: from the left rear firing
to camera. A subtle effect that adds round-
ness to the glass. #4 eliminates the shadow
from #2 Key Light.
#3: Rim Flasher: shines from high behind
the glass, down and forward to delineate
the glass rim and leading foam edge. See the
image adjacent where the spotlight hits the
front rim and spills to the floor under the
viewpoint.
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Surfaces: Each material in the as-
sembly modeled individually is more
accurate than an image map on the
surface, mainly through showing
different refraction indexes for each
material.
• Beer Glass: Slight gray transparency
is more realistic than perfect clarity.
Fresnel Transition is irrelevant as
long as the glass stays clear from all
directions. A standard glass refraction
properly represents the heavy glass
base-with-bubble.
• Condensation: As we use it for bumps
only, the overlaid texture is almost
invisible, but Artlantis still makes a
strong bump map from the data. I
manipulated the original dark image
into a light colored, bubbly image,
but Artlantis still reads the bump
mapping information as if it was dark
and contrasting. Note that I did not
use maximum bump value [2.49] nor
did I make the overlay completely
transparent [249/255]. This degree of
transparency induces a hazy milkiness
that suggests fog or ice.
The condensation image is critical to
plausibility — better art means better
droplets and rivulets. Since cold beer is
so varied, I couldn’t decide on the best
approach, so I studied several alterna-
tives. With the tools available, the most
convincing approaches were:
- small droplets: Overall small droplets
with the beginnings of rivulets.
- touched: condensation on only part
of the glass surface, as if it had already
been touched.
Top Right: The flaw of using a
photo of condensation as a bump
map. Because the rendering engine
bumps edges and not faces, it can’t
see the droplet – the highlight of the
droplet has two edges. The droplets
‘deflate.’ Such an image needs to stay
small in size to disguise this problem.
• Various Elements to the Right:
The glass material, fresnel glass, the
texture overlay.
• Texture Overlay: The condensation
droplets are represented by the tall,
strip mapped small to disguise flaws.
It fades out to either end— see main
illustration. Note that the overlay is
very transparent yet bumping is still
strong [on the examples].
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• Beer: A golden clarity. Perhaps
next time, I’ll try to add bubbles. I
attempted several high refraction
settings, but a 1.45 refraction index
works best.
• Beer Head Foam: This part
started with a photo of foam cloned
seamless in the image editor. When
mapped to the foam block model,
it lacked frothiness. I solved this by
transferring the opaque foam to an
underlying element, and re-mapped
the outer surface with a mainly
transparent foam image.
-Outer foam: A Basic Shader, totally
transparent, with an overlaid foam
image, half transparent. Full
strength bump. Half ambient glow.
- Inner foam: A basic shader totally
opaque with an opaque overlaid L: A View Inside: With
foam image. The overlaid image the glass rendered
invisible: This is what a
glows ambient to seem bright and too-high refraction index
reactive beneath the partly trans- setting looks like: much
denser than water. Light
parent outer layer. Full strength doesn’t bend like that in
bump. mere beer. Also notice the
foam. Fluffy!!
Conclusion: A work in progress
requiring a specifically made con-
R: The foam
densation mask to satisfy a close-up image, made
examination. seamless.
Down: The
Opaque
Inner Foam
material.
R+ Down: The
Translucent Outer
Foam material
Right: A detail of the glass and foam layers,
assembled: The outer layer is transparent and
ephemeral while the underlayer is opaque. The two
foamy layers interact, producing a fluffy goodness.
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