Photogrammetry

[Anonymous No.576671]

How many of you have used photogrammetry in your workflow? Got any tips?

I've tried it just today for the first time. Used Redmi Note 4 (which actually doesn't have a really good camera) and created pic related with Remake. It actually looks better than expected, but it is blurry.

I've been planning to buy some DSLR for a while, but now I'm interested what is a good entry level one with which I can make decent stuff with photogrammetry as well. I want to get some Canon (also interested in video, so that's why), would maybe a 700D be good enough?

Anyway, feel free to talk about photogrammetry in general. I don't know how to feel about it, though. I'm a bit worried that too many things in 3D will get automated. Yeah, with photogrammetry you can't make stuff which don't exist, but still. You could say that modelling and sculpting organic stuff like rocks and trees is a waste of time anyway, but doesn't that ruin the craft?

[Anonymous No.576680]

>>576671
what's the cost of money needed to create decent texture ?

[Anonymous No.576723]

>>576680
>what's the cost of money
HELLO I TOO AM FROM FOREIGNIA
TODAY I DANCED THE DANCE OF ST. PENIS IN THE VILLAGE SQUARE WHILE THE SCHOOLCHILDREN CLAPPED THEIR SHOES TOGETHER AND MANY GOATS WERE KISSED

[Anonymous No.576921]

Can somebody explain how are you supposed to use 50% of a tree you get with photogrammetry? How did guys from Dice get full trees in their Star Wars game? Is there a way to model the upper half of a tree by yourself and blend them well together, or do you have to somehow capture the whole tree? But then, what is the point of assets like these?

https://megascans.se/assets/qkduW

I can only see it being used in a single image where it is cropped by the other assets or an image borders, but it seems to be useless for anything else, I can't just put it in the game like that.

[Anonymous No.576923]

>>576921
you simply retopo over the parts you want, it would only bake these

[Anonymous No.576925]

Ex-pro photographer here. Used Canon for the majority and then switched to Sony. DO NOT use Canon if you want to do video. Since the 5D mkII Canon are so fucking far behind literally everyone when it comes to consumer digital video, and they refuse to adapt to the shifting industry. You're better off going for literally any other brand. For pure video a GH3 or GH4, or for photo and video literally any Sony mirrorless. A6300 stands out. It's worth spending a couple hundred more on one of these compared to the 700D, trust me on this.

[Anonymous No.576951]

>free to talk about photogrammetry
It often doesn't work. The results are awful, huge and meaningless, it's expensive and nobody cares.

[Anonymous No.576956]

>>576951
Bull fucking shit. Explain.

[Anonymous No.576971]

I've done it for site survey and archeology in the past - it's still far from entry level. The software is easy enough to pick up but there's photo-taking techniques and quirks you won't learn without exclusive education/documentation. The best software is optimized for a pre-digital photogrammetry pipeline, which is almost arcane knowledge at this point. :(

[Anonymous No.576978]

>>576971
Could you explain a bit more? What is so hard about it that there are no available learning resources?

[Anonymous No.576980]

>>576956
it will take a while until we get a program that scans a model, cleans it up and retopo it.
basically i think that you still waste a hell alot of time to make a model production ready, but its defiantly coming

[Anonymous No.577063]

>>576980
That's somewhat true. But on the other hand, Dice said they saved a lot of time (7+ days per asset) with photogrammetry for SW: Battlefront (with some automation even more), and the results are pretty much amazing, to be honest. Guys from Vanishing of Ethan Carter also used photogrammetry for a lot of their models, and not just nature, but architecture, and it also looks great. Then you have stuff like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXouFfqSfxg&t=1s

and the guy who made it said he is working on a realtime environment using this technique and I can't wait to see the result. I don't think it's possible to get that level of detail by hand, at least not in a reasonable amount of time.

[Anonymous No.577089]

>>576951
This is simply untrue. Activision, Sony, Dice/EA all have depts dedicated to photogrammetry.

[Anonymous No.577094]

>>576671
Where's the other half of that tree?

[Anonymous No.578368]

Right now I see modeling and texturing advancing much quicker than photogrammetry. It will obviously be viable someday, of course, but it might actually just find itself relegated to some libraries where AI picks bits and pieces of the scans to build smart materials for you. It will be that late/were advancing that fast, IMO, its a very clunky technology by its very nature.

I don't think scans won't ever compete with generative CGI work of fictional places, even if Google Earth or w/e photometrically scans every public space and every notable site of natural beauty on Earth. Slice-of-life shit might become more popular in games and animation, but no advancement is ever enough, people always reach further. So people will demand destructible environments and whatnot, meanwhile programs will be so advanced you'll be able to procedurally shit out the amazon forest by just setting up nodes, punching in some values, tweaking them and playing around with the seed. Maybe trying to persuade a narrow AI to do some of it for you by it fallowing your verbal instruction.

>>577089

>Sony, EA etc. do something commercially
>this disproves that its inefficient

pfff-hahahah...

[Anonymous No.578370]

>>578368

*I don't think scans will ever

[Anonymous No.578425]

Pic related

https://www.artstation.com/mohsenblur

[Anonymous No.578438]

Are mirrorless cameras good for photogrammetry? I was thinking about buying either Canon 200D, or some mirrorless like XT20, or maybe A6000.

From what does photogrammetry benefit the most? What do you think is the best option up to $900?

[Anonymous No.578451]

>>578438
Yes, Sony are great. Photogrammetry benefits the most from high fidelity. A combination of resolution, high quality image sensor, and high quality lens is how you get this. An A6000 + a good prime lens would be great, the A6300 even better if you can push it.

[Anonymous No.578454]

photogrammetry would be great for Archviz models.
We need a huge amount of generic filler assets that just need to look realistic. No point in modeling those if we could just scan them and get a gameready output..

[Anonymous No.578456]

>>578368
watch and learn kid http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1023272/Photogrammetry-and-Star-Wars-Battlefront

[Anonymous No.578458]

Where's the other half of that tree?

[Anonymous No.578462]

>>578438
I'm
>>578425

I use a Sony nex6

[Anonymous No.578464]

Where's the other half of that tree?

[Anonymous No.578468]

Bertrant Benoit has come up with a pretty cheap (although somewhat time consuming) way of making high quality assets using photogrammetry: http://bertrand-benoit.com/blog/the-poor-mans-guide-to-photogrammetry/

The only real drawback is that you're limited to objects that will fit your setup.

[Anonymous No.578469]

What am I supposed to do with half a tree?

[Anonymous No.578741]

>>578468
Link seems dead

[Anonymous No.578742]

>>578469
Shove the entire half tree up your ass

[Anonymous No.578780]

>>576978
It's not that it's too hard to share. It COULD become public knowledge (similar to 3d modeling processes) but the people who created the photogrammetry process - whose livelihoods depend on the marketability of that process - do not want to devalue it. It's an knowledge gap which keeps novices away from professionals. Good photogrammetry/survey is a lucrative creative market and most people here would be smart enough to pick it up with the right tools and documentation.

[Anonymous No.578801]

>>578780
Whatever you say but where is the the other half of that tree?

[Anonymous No.578919]

How much does photogrammetry benefit from a full-frame sensor? As a complete amateur (and a beginner in 3D), I really don't need it, but the thing is that I'm thinking about buying a Fuji, and they don't have an upgrade path to FF as Sony does, so I don't know if I'll have a problem in the future.

[Anonymous No.578936]

>>578919
Clean low light images are all that matter. You want to minimize noise, but depending on what and when you photograph, you might not have the best amount of light. That and auto focus accuracy and speed are what matters. Also always shoot raw for photogrammetry.

[Anonymous No.579004]

Seriously though, I've seen people generating a half of the tree with photogrammetry programs, like in the OP, but how do they use them in games and still scenes? What about the other half?

[Anonymous No.579005]

>>579004
Exactly. I've been asking for days where's the other half of that tree.

[Anonymous No.579437]

>>579005
You can source geometry and paint with it just like the clone stamp tool in photoshop. You simply model the rest and extend the geometry to create the missing part. Then you model some branches, use a particle system to generate leaves and bada bing bada boom you've got a stew going.

Or perhaps they just sculpt the rest by hand, not like it has to be that detailed given that it's further away.

[Anonymous No.581324]

>tfw literally no rocks anywhere around me
I didn't know this will be so hard. I don't want to sculpt that shit, it's hard as fuck.

Now I have a camera and nothing to shoot. I could only take pics of some tree trunks, but I still don't know how to use a half of the tree with SpeedTree, so they are useless.

I guess I can at least make some textures.

[Anonymous No.581463]

>>579004
They retopo the model and stitch together textures from the photos. With a not-half-assed setup you can get full, 360 degree scans.