A Question regarding the Space Marine Painters

[Brother Argos]

Over the 18 months since the last Space Marine Painter was released I have had a chance to overhaul the shading and painting engine significantly. I couldn't get any new artwork for wargear or new painters done as we had a lack of artistic resource, so I focused on the what I could do.

Well the good news is that some of the effort has paid off to some degree ...

It is important to note that the two colour schemes were identical, you can see how much the old engine washes out the image. As well as the better colour representation there is improved shading / detail quality.

The downsides however are noticeable, firstly there is an increase in processing time of approximately 20% as the shading is more complex. Roughly the old painter engine can produce a sister of battle painted image in approximately 0.25 of a second (1/4 second) while new engine takes 0.29 of a second. This may not sound significant, however with over 10,000 painter images "Finished" per week (approx over 200,000 intermediate images required) any decrease in speed is important. However I am inclined to think the improvement worth the cost. What do you think ?

Secondly and possibly more worryingly, this will mean that all NEW images will look different from ALL old images as the colour rendering will be MUCH closer to your choice now. For years we have been compensating for the FAST but inaccurate colour rendering of the old engine, normally by using more vibrant colour choices which then dull down to meet our needs. Obviously as we will now get much more accurate colours rendered, this will mean all previous images may well be garish or in the case of darker colours lacking visible shading. Basically if you generated a painter image previously, you would need to regenerate it to get back the look you wanted.

Most likely this will cause a break between the old painter and new painter with the eventual depreciation of the old painter engine. Is this going to be a problem for you ? ... would you be prepared to regenerate your painter images to deal with it ?

Overall I am of the opinion the improvement is worth the extra issues it brings ... but tell me what you think?

[insomniacpyro]

I think it's definitely worth the extra rendering time, since a lot of the time I spent playing with it originally was getting the colors I wanted dark enough. You guys are all doing an awesome job at making color schemes so much easier to think of and visualize, keept it up! :tu:

[Chaptermaster Graymantle]

I would say the new painter is definitely worth it.

This may also give the B&C a chance to wipe all the old images that people don't want to keep.

Set up a thread that goes over a few months (up to half a year maybe?) in Amicus and the DIY forum, where people can opt to keep their images. Then cross reference this list to articles in the Librarium that uses the Painter images. Once this is done the B&C can delete the "unwanted" images and start over, saving a lot of server space.

This would also give people who actively use their images, a chance to remake their scheme in the new painter.

 

The reason I think this would work is that I believe a lot of people simply try the painter, then forget about their image and maybe just create another at a later time rather than remembering their original image in any way.

Naturally this doesn't mean everyone does this, but it has undoubtedly happened many times and Im sure it would do the server good to get some space freed up.

It would also force people over to the new painter format so the old painter eventually can be discontinued.

[Capt. Lysander]

Yes, I would say the extra rendering time is definetely worth it as well. Good job, B&C team! ;). It allows for a far more rich and vibrant colour when produced, allowing a more dynamic picture when used.

[Philip S]

In overall terms I think it is a great improvement, though the white cloth seems a little over shaded.

 

Could this be corrected with a little tweak of the artwork?

 

Perhaps the shading could be modified for lighter colours?

 

Not a deal breaker, and I think the new render has a lot more punch ;)

 

... edit: would hard armours benefit from a white 'highlight' layer over the colour?

 

Philip

[AngryJohnny]

I am all for waiting a little bit longer to get a more vibrant & more detailed image of my color scheme. I think it would be completely worth it. The 2nd image looks 100 times better than the first.

 

I don't think this would be a problem at all for the community. I know personally I wouldn't mind redoing my color schemes with the new painter to get richer color & better shading. I say go for it!

[Race Bannon]

+1 ;)

[Brother Argos]

@Philip ... The original shading would need to be altered to make the best of lighter colours, the engine cannot determine and dynamically alter the shading on the fly.

 

@ Everyone ... I am pleased you like it ;)

[sword brethren]

looks great, is it for all painters or just certain ones?

 

great job ;)

[Brother Argos]

For none of them yet ... its just technology ...

 

If it proves reliable and the general opinion from this post is positive .. I will start retrofitting it to the existing painters and using it for new ones.

[sword brethren]

i see, well it has my backing, its great ;)

[Hubernator]

Heh looks much more improved Argos. I'm more than willing to redo some of mine, gives me a chance to see what they look like again in the new engine :D

[Clearn]

Im all for it.

[Brother Cambrius]

As a rather infamous user of the SMP, I can proudly say "Onwards to Improvement!" :)

 

Cambrius

[Heru]

I think it's wise to post what colour was used for the red in the first place:

With the original red in comparison it looks like on the original painter it's washed out, while the new painter example seems over shaded and over saturated. Thus the washed out image seems closer to the original red than the new painter image. :D

Personally I'd like the ability to still do old shading, but as an option in wargear (like the already existing less shading option), but then all the painters would need wargear pages at least just to add that option... ;)

Edit: Also what is real black going to look like under that new shading?

[Guest Mordray]

I like it.

 

Looks a hell of a lot more vibrant then the old one...

 

I actually like the shading as it shows the details better then the duller version did.

 

If possible I'd suggest an option to reduce shading... since that appears to be the only real complaint...

 

Over all excellent work.

[Brother Argos]

<grins> .. Heru, Heru, Heru ...

How much Analysis did you prepare before your statement about colour similarity ;)

Firstly lets get all scientific about this, as obviously only testing rather than opinion can truly show us which image is closer to the colour we seek. Luckily during my programming of the new engine I instituted a number of ways to test colour similarity!

Lets head to Photoshop for some analysis, the primary tool of choice here will be the colour selection tool. It is a simple way to select a colour and can have a fuzziness variable set to widen the selection (i.e. get colours close to the one we wish to select). Now the red of choice here is #d42626 quite a nice vibrant red, in photoshop we select the colour by setting it directly in the colour picker (rather like the painters own colour selection routine) and then use the Select->Color Range option from the menu, we are then presented with a dialog box showing the image we are working with and a fuzziness slider. To make things fair we widen the selection by increasing the fuzziness to 80, as long as we keep this set at 80 we will have exactly the same colour range (#d42626 + 80 fuzz) to select with on both images.

The first immediate clue that something is wrong with Heru's assertion is that we can see the amount selected with the new engine image (shown in white on a black background) is significant, while we can see barely a shimmering of dark grey on the old engine image. Obviously we can see given this test that there is a far greater amount of "Similar" colours in the new engine than the old one, which proves that Heru's statement is fundamentally flawed: -

Thus the washed out image seems closer to the original red than the new painter image. :)

However we are still using visual means of testing at this point ... not nice hard crunchy mathematical data!

The histogram function in Photoshop has a nice "Extended feature" we are now going to visit, one of the things it tells us is how many pixels of data are within a selected area. Obviously by looking at the pixel content in each "Selected" area we can see how many pixels are close to the core #D42626 colour we seek to show. The New Engine produces a healthy 8516 pixels when analysed, however we run into a problem when analysing the older engine. The lack of selected pixels in the older engine image (classed by photoshop as having more than 50% relevance) means that there is actually NO selection visible to measure. So we end up with 8516 similar pixels in the new engine and sadly none in the old image, by this time I realised it was not worth continuing testing as the results would constantly show a lack of similarity for the old engine.

However one final thing came to light while working on all of this ... the areas where the colour were closest on the new engine image were in what we normally would call the High-Lighted areas, this is appropriate as we know the darker shaded areas would definitely alter the colour in real life. However if you look at the older engine image colour selection we see the colours closest to #D42626 are actually in the shaded zones of the figure, which surely has to be incorrect as we already know them to be darker areas.

Overall at an analysis level I am afraid Herus comment just doesn't stack up either visually, mathematically or logically when we evaluate the locations for the colour similarities.

I doubt the old shading will continue beyond a period of depreciation of approximately a year or eighteen months, this should give most people a chance to move their images to the new format.

With regard to Wargear lighter shading options, they already exist for the marine, therefore I suspect they will continue to do so when we move to the new engine.

Finally my favourite point was about Shading "Real Black" .. the old engine has always made this interesting by basically having the shading turning the black into a "light grey". This was the opposite to the way we understand black to work, normally we would expect black to stay black if we shaded it it can hardly get darker can it!

Well for the first time the painter will replicate how we paint our models, we will have to select dark greys instead of black, so that our shading (washes in real life) will show on them but still maintain the illusion of being black. This is far closer to our real understanding of shading black than the previous method where the painter arbitrarily chose the shade of grey and we "got" what it supplied. Now we can choose dark greys with a hint of purple or blue or brown ... which will shade correctly to pitch black in the shadows as we would expect.

[LardO'Blood]

Hallelujah! (Sp)

Thanks so much! I always spend the majority of painting time getting the colors right. The new improvement is so worth it

Just one question: Its not already updated is it?

[Brother Argos]

At the moment the change to the engine is proposed ... depending on whether people prefer the new shading / colouring technique we will implement it or not. My preliminary evaluation amongst the moderators was very positive, the same here ... so it is looking likely.

As a small taster here is a painter under development using both the new and old engines ... you can see the improvement in clarity and shading ... the old image again looks washed out and lacking detail even though the data was the same for both.

This painter obviously is still in the early stages of development ... but I am hoping sometime in the next couple of weeks for release.

[Heru]

<grins> .. Heru, Heru, Heru ...

 

How much Analysis did you prepare before your statement about colour similarity :)

I just looked at the images, then looked at where the red was on the colour selector and noted the fact that it wasn't pure red (ie not grayish / pinkish). Then I looked at which image protrayed a more greyish / pinkish red. Overall neither seemed as a whole to be the same red but the old one seemed more grayish / pinkish, and the new one seemed more deep pure red. I was also looking at it from a perspective as to how difficult it may be to get the new one to do a colour you are wanting without it becoming too deep.

 

I do however like the look of the new shading system as it looks quite a deal more vibrant and sharp (and overall nicer than the old one).

 

 

Finally my favourite point was about Shading "Real Black" .. the old engine has always made this interesting by basically having the shading turning the black into a "light grey". This was the opposite to the way we understand black to work, normally we would expect black to stay black if we shaded it it can hardly get darker can it!

 

Well for the first time the painter will replicate how we paint our models, we will have to select dark greys instead of black, so that our shading (washes in real life) will show on them but still maintain the illusion of being black. This is far closer to our real understanding of shading black than the previous method where the painter arbitrarily chose the shade of grey and we "got" what it supplied. Now we can choose dark greys with a hint of purple or blue or brown ... which will shade correctly to pitch black in the shadows as we would expect.

Point? I didn't try to make a point, I was curious as to how real black would look on the new system because I use black allot (which is why it was a question not a point).

 

Quit being a jerk damn it.

[Brother Argos]

<laughs>

 

Now now ...

 

To be honest I was hoping for someone to challenge the colours in the new painter engine. Initially I had done quite a lot of testing so that the new engine produced closer results for those using the painter to establish colour schemes for their painting. I wanted to get results on screen as close as I could to on the model, what I found is that its incredibly difficult to do so for a whole host of reasons such as Emittive light (screens) vs reflected light (models), human male eyesight issues (my own included) ... etc etc.

 

This is however after testing about as close as I can come and still paint an image in under half a second, anything more complex and the speed dies. However the shading models used on the old painters all were designed to make the best of the old engine ... and consequently aren't the best they could be for the new engine either. Certainly with light colour areas we need to soften the shading somehow, that alone could be almost impossible to do on the fly. Basically we have a chance to redo the shading techniques on the painters which in combination with the new engine could improve things still more ... I hope.

 

Anyway Heru ... sorry you were first above the parapet ... I had a loaded gun aimed and waiting!

[WelshMullet]

zomg! Tyranid painter! RUN AWAY!

So will true black just show as if it were a flat, matte colour?

 

edit: also, on the colour picker, any chance of being able to switch between the default, and a list of GW and other manufactures colours? (kinda like in paint, where you have the squares, or the colour picker.) Please?

[Heru]

Anyway Heru ... sorry you were first above the parapet ... I had a loaded gun aimed and waiting!

Well you owe me a new bionic arm to replace the one you mangled!

[Aqui]

Brother Argos - I liked the old painter very much, as I can't use Gimp etc for toffee B) The improvements to the new one are great, so (in the tradition of the site) +1 :lol:

 

As for your request for opinions regarding it, I only have one question: You mention that the new painter takes longer to process the information. Is this to a detriment to the site? (I have little knowledge about how exactly a site works as in upload/download speed, bandwidth usage etc) If if it does affect the site negatively, ultimately that would be a decision you would have to make. I personally can wait a few seconds for better looking Marines et al :tu:

[Pinky Narfanet]

The new intensity looks great to me and I'd be happy to lose a fraction of a second for it.

 

And not to derail or take away from Argos' work (which has been spectacular from what I've seen), but for those interested there is a very nice bug painter out there.