Fus Ro Dah

lorigon27 · Sep 10, 2013

So ive been curious how the bigtime film makers are able to place people in huge environments.
i want to photograph myself in full garb in front of a dragon shrine (skyrim).
obviously i cant carve out a huge 20 foot high stone shrine. word of power skyrim - Bing Images

so how do they get the effect and make it look so real?--another example is in lord of the rings when they are approaching the two humongouse dwark statues on each side of the river

green screen maybe--heck idk it would be awsome to be able to shoot something like this though
thanks in advance

412 Burgh · Sep 10, 2013

I know one of the members uses a 3D software program where he recreates the scene and places his talent into the picture. He has done one with the talent in a subway with the windows breaking out, I believe. Very cool stuff, something I would love to get into!

raventepes · Sep 10, 2013

I'll be honest. It's do-able, but it's going to be pretty labour intensive. First thing to consider is going to be the background. It's going to have to be created digitally, weather by means of drawing it out in a program, or if you can find a granite cliff, it could be pretty easily manipulated to give the illusion of a word wall, but the words themselves will have to be added digitally and lighted properly. From there, all it really will take is compositing your photo and blending it into the background to make it believable.

lorigon27 · Sep 11, 2013

any idea what program that would be?

weepete · Sep 11, 2013

One of the lads on here posted a pretty cool composite of some construction workers next to a huge rhino in a gullivers travels sort of way. I'd pm him and ask as it was a pretty cool image.

raventepes · Sep 12, 2013

I've always used Photoshop and Paint Shop Pro, though Adobe Illustrator should be able to get you there too.

Reverendus · Sep 13, 2013

lorigon27 said:
any idea what program that would be?

That's really going to depend on several factors.

1) Do you want to create the background in a 2D application or a 3D application?

2) How much time and effort do you want to spend on learning how to do it and actually doing it?

3) How much money do you want to spend on the software?

As to the first question, if you want to create the background in a 2D application, Photoshop is a great choice for paid applications. If you don't already have it and don't want to spend the money on it, GIMP is a good free alternative. If you are going to do this, I would highly recommend getting a wacom tablet as drawing with a mouse is a down right pain in the rear.

For 3D, there are several choices as well. Maya and 3DS Max are two of the ones used most and are unfortunately very expensive. If you are not planning on getting into 3D art and animation I would highly recommend avoiding these two (though if you want to get into it, they are definitely worth the money). There are also quite a few free apps out there as well. One of the best and most versatile is Blender. The learning curve for Blender is about as high as the ones for the 2 apps I already listed. Google Sketchup is also pretty popular, but I haven't used it so I can't say one way or the other about it. There is another app called Daz3D which you can get for free and is pretty easy to learn how to use. The thing about Daz is unless you are using some of the other apps I mentioned previously, you're going to have to download other content to use in it. There is some free content available out there, but most of the good stuff is going to cost you some money to get. Most of it is pretty reasonable though. There are several others out there as well

Another thing about using a 3d application, you will still want something like Photoshop or GIMP to overlay your subject into the background you created. And one thing that is very important for making it look realistic is making sure the lighting on your subject matches up to the virtual lighting in the background scene.