FS photosmithy and requests

[Filthy Slider]

Hi everyone.
As some of you may know from my recent posts, I've become quite obsessed with the hobby of combining the tools of FaceGen and Photoshop into creating fictional players and seeing what I can do to make them as lifelike as I am able.

I've become so occupied with this hobby that I haven't even opened my ootp6 game or its related programs in almost a week now.

Well, just as many of you have enjoyed sharing your dynasties at the dynasties thread, I find myself wanting to share my creations too.
And, it occurred to me to do the following (as long as it turns out to be ok with the board moderators that I do a thread like this):
I'll use this thread to post what I've been working on.
If you happen to be someone who stops in here, sees something I've done and thinks: "I would like a fictional player or two of my league done to that level of realism" or "I would like a few of my historical players to have a change of uniform in the style that these photos are done"...then, and I can't promise anything in advance...but, if you let me know: either here in the thread or in pm, I can try to apply this current obsession with these image editting tools toward something that someone out there might enjoy having for their league.

As it is now, I haven't developed a bunch of templates, so I am currently focusing on low volume high detail type of projects.

Also, I'm only one person with limited time resources so...like I said, I can't promise anything in advance...but, I would enjoy seeing what I could do based on requests.

And, that seems to me that this would make this thread be a symbiosis of me displaying my 'fictional player "art" (if you could call it that)' and of people getting to request stuff. And, it would keep me from thinking up excuses for reasons to post new player photos in other threads thus filling them up unnecessarily.

In a way, this idea for this thread does seem a little bit crazy to me...but so does the idea of spending hours and hours working on a photo in such a way as to try to fool my eyes into thinking that he was and or is an existing person. And, I'll try to keep uploads to a relatively small amount and just replace ones that have been there for a couple of days with new results and thereby just cycle the displayed pics through maybe like 5-6 photo spots keeping those there that demonstrate a new technique or something of that sort.

Oh yeah, also...a third use for this forum is for the sharing of 'tricks of the 'trade'" of turning fictional photos into lifelike images...
For example, just this evening I figured out how to make a more realistic looking neck on a player than FaceGen provides (it involves a texture neck layer copy/pasted over from a real MLB player then adjusting a few properties of that layer so that the texture and lighting effects of the new neck is what comes through and still leaves untouched a skin tone that is consistent with the fictional player's face)...that method--my first excursion into using it--is used in the photo below...its only a slight effect this time but with practice and further experience it should be able to make for more of an effect.

Another technique I'm experimenting with is to use those shadows in the background to create a 3-D effect..

[Oh yeah, also, I started off with a two-tone background: an off-white and a strip of offer-white above that...then, when I did adjust levels, adust color, adjust brightness it somehow seemed to help that process in a way I hadn't experienced before....what that means, why it works, i don't know...i discovered it by accident]

So, taking a deep breath, here goes: exhibit #1:

[Filthy Slider]

and then, just one more for tonight:

beofore the bars were in the background...

[Eugene Church]

Excellent work on the faces. They look real and not cartoonish.

Great work. You really are skilled and talented. I hope you eventually put together a facepack of several thousand like this one. It would be great for the community. I would certainly use it for my fictional leagues.

Your hard work and devotion is appreciated.

[FastLane]

Filthy, both of those pictures are very excellent. They're amazingly life-like and not too far off from being able to pass for the real thing. Amazing again, considering that we're not talking a high-level CGI program like the ones used in Hollyweird.

I wish I had the time, energy, and program to jump in there and learn it because its really interesting. Keep on working and experimenting. I'll be happy to offer you all the perspective I can and praise that you need...

Peace.

[dbacks]

Awesome stuff, FS. Those look very realistic.

[Filthy Slider]

Thanks guys!

Live long and win the pennant

[Filthy Slider]

(message under re-construction)

[Filthy Slider]

Originally Posted by Eugene Church

...I hope you eventually put together a facepack of several thousand like this one...

I would very much like to put together a large facepack to make available...

I got started with the current photos I'm working on because I wanted very convincing fictional players for my someday-to-start 16 team solo fictional ootp6 league...and, as I mentioned, I became fascinated with all the little details that could be adjusted with Photoshop and also have become rather obsessive-compulsive about finding just the 'right' look for those photos.

Currently, with every face I work on there is still a lot I am learning about both Photoshop and FaceGen. (like how to make Spock's cap look almost like it was filmed on the same sort of equiptment and in similar lighting to how he was filmed in the scene LOL) So, its still a rather slow process. And, from where I am now with it, it seems almost impossilbe to me that I would be able to generate even 1000 within the next year...but, in this project I've been repeatedly surprised with what I've found to be possible (when, in another thread I had put out the question of getting a player in 3/4 view to turn his eyes to 'face the camera' I really thought I was posing a question that would not find an easy solution; I thought that I was being greedy with what I hoped the software could do LOL...
http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/boar...&postcount=260

And, recently, I realized that Photoshop (like Irfanview) has edit-process automating capabilities. I haven't yet attempted to learn anything about how to use it, but I now know where to find an explanation of how to use it in the help file within the program. And, I most likely will start to learn more about those automation processes sometime soon. For now, however, I seem to be focused on things like learning about lighting, shadow, depth/dimensionality, slowly collecting a variety of caps/jersies/neck-textures/etc that I can eventually use as templates (and, as it is, I tend to use the same template in differing ways depending on what I decide to do with the photo).

So, if, over time of working with these programs I can develop a method for larger-scale face production (without compromising the quality) I will definitely be using those methods to put together a large face pack and will make it available.

[chredwdew]

Looking good. Looks like you are going to be taking this process to another level.
It is very addicting. Once I started I didn't pay attention to the actual game for about 3 months.
If you want to do some automated processes for photoshop, you might try and drop Deft a line I know he has done a ferw of these.

[Eugene Church]

I have 2 fictional leagues now in year 13 and I have gone through about 3000 photos...finally decided to turn off the minors to conserve the photos I have and only use them for players who make the majors.

I combined the great Killebrew and LivnLegend photopacks, but soon found I out I will also have to use TigerFan's historicals eventually.

Your fictionals look so real, that I wouldn't mind using them, too.

[Cuss]

These are AWESOME!! The only thing I see is that the background stands out (in the first couple of pictures) since it's not as super-realistic as the player in the front. Keep up the great work!

[Filthy Slider]

Still experimenting with new styles (at the expense of--for just this picture--leaving out a couple of things which I won't mention in case no one notices..LOL)...

[Filthy Slider]

Here's the same photo without the border. (I started experimenting with a border because of how the ootp6 player picture window places the team logo over the bottom right corner of the photo....and, then I started wondering if it might add an effect of dimensionality...or, at least a throw-back to the days when I would purchase a pack of trading cards as a kid--stick of gum and all)

And, yes, this photo thing does get verrry addictive...I should have stopped for lunch about 3 hours ago LOL.

And, thanks for the advice about contacting Deft about automatic processes.

[Filthy Slider]

better shadow effect? (shadows are still gonna need a bit of work, at larger image sizes they seem to trace the contours too rigidly making it look less realistic)

[Filthy Slider]

And then there's some players that I've had trouble getting to come out as nicely:

(mixed shading: right side of neck in shadow but left side of face in shadow..LOL)

[Filthy Slider]

edit: bad joke attempt removed by self because I couldn't find a way to make it funny

[Filthy Slider]

Originally Posted by Filthy Slider

And then there's some players that I've had trouble getting to come out as nicely:

(mixed shading: right side of neck in shadow but left side of face in shadow..LOL)

I think this is better (at least I got the correct side of the neck into shadow LOL) I actually even discovered that a shadow can be removed through strategicly blending in a well-chosen gradient...and then put on the other side through the same sort of gradient process (I did that part with the cap)

i could have edited out that fuzzy shadow behind the bill of the cap on the right side but was too lazy...
I like making a variety of ages for these fictional players...always good to toss an image of a seasoned veteran into the mix

[Filthy Slider]

Originally Posted by Eugene Church

You really are skilled and talented.

LOL...I'm not...Adobe Photoshop is!!! I'm already amazed with what it can do and I think I've only scratched the surface of it. That tool, combined with FG just makes for some pretty high powered (user-friendly) tools to use.
The rest is just a combination of experimenting with those tools and having an obsessive-compulsiveness about having lifelike images.

I guess that what I am trying to say is that any appearance of skill and or talent was probably photoshopped in and does not actually exist.
For example, I've seen some of the logos being made in this forum and I'm always very humbled at what people are able to put together over there.
If I were to try to do a logo for myself I wouldn't know where to begin. Of course, then again, I wouldn't sleep until I figured out how to do it (and I'm not sure that is actually an overall good thing) LOL

But I do appreciate the compliments nonetheless Its just that the more I find in Photoshop that I can do the more I want to credit it as a truly amazing tool for editing images.

[Filthy Slider]

One final pic post of the day (mostly posting because he's probably one of my top two favorites so far...not so much because of the total appearance but because of how much I learned in creating him...and, I also did his hair from scratch and was relatively happy with how it turned out)...

which leads me to:

Hair tip of the day:
A player's eyebrows make a good color pallate for selecting colors
to use for the lines to make in the initial stages of Bobble's method (other than the possible use of black--which, in this photo, I did use some black as well as a few different samplings of color (with the eyedropper tool) from variously lighter and darker regions of his eyebrows...of course, that was all done when the image was something like 500x700 pixels, so the palate was much richer at that point)

Oh yeah, I also named this player with a temporary name. No real reason other than that he looked like he needed a name and Robert Dawson is the name that popped into my mind...so, here he is: the Big R.D. himself...

I used Bobble's method for hair in this photo and would have been lost without Bobble's great walk-thru on how to do hair. It can be found at:
hmm...I can't seem to remember where it is at..I'll try to find it and put a link to it in here tomorrow.

edit: looking at how he posts, I would say that he looks less realistic than the others...partially because I had not done much with the face before screen capturing it to bring out a living look to him...also, I ended up flattening the image without remembering to do a shadow for his cap and that probably makes it look a bit more fake too

[Eugene Church]

Looks real to me...great work.

Now get busy...stop playing around...and make me 5000 of them.

Thank you in advance.

Much appreciated.