COMPOSITION
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Christopher Butler – Understanding the Eye-Mind Connection – Vision is a mental process
Read more: Christopher Butler – Understanding the Eye-Mind Connection – Vision is a mental processhttps://www.chrbutler.com/understanding-the-eye-mind-connection
The intricate relationship between the eyes and the brain, often termed the eye-mind connection, reveals that vision is predominantly a cognitive process. This understanding has profound implications for fields such as design, where capturing and maintaining attention is paramount. This essay delves into the nuances of visual perception, the brain’s role in interpreting visual data, and how this knowledge can be applied to effective design strategies.
This cognitive aspect of vision is evident in phenomena such as optical illusions, where the brain interprets visual information in a way that contradicts physical reality. These illusions underscore that what we “see” is not merely a direct recording of the external world but a constructed experience shaped by cognitive processes.
Understanding the cognitive nature of vision is crucial for effective design. Designers must consider how the brain processes visual information to create compelling and engaging visuals. This involves several key principles:
- Attention and Engagement
- Visual Hierarchy
- Cognitive Load Management
- Context and Meaning
DESIGN
COLOR
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Image rendering bit depth
The terms 8-bit, 16-bit, 16-bit float, and 32-bit refer to different data formats used to store and represent image information, as bits per pixel.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_depth
In color technology, color depth also known as bit depth, is either the number of bits used to indicate the color of a single pixel, OR the number of bits used for each color component of a single pixel.
When referring to a pixel, the concept can be defined as bits per pixel (bpp).
When referring to a color component, the concept can be defined as bits per component, bits per channel, bits per color (all three abbreviated bpc), and also bits per pixel component, bits per color channel or bits per sample (bps). Modern standards tend to use bits per component, but historical lower-depth systems used bits per pixel more often.
Color depth is only one aspect of color representation, expressing the precision with which the amount of each primary can be expressed; the other aspect is how broad a range of colors can be expressed (the gamut). The definition of both color precision and gamut is accomplished with a color encoding specification which assigns a digital code value to a location in a color space.
Here’s a simple explanation of each.
8-bit images (i.e. 24 bits per pixel for a color image) are considered Low Dynamic Range.
They can store around 5 stops of light and each pixel carry a value from 0 (black) to 255 (white).
As a comparison, DSLR cameras can capture ~12-15 stops of light and they use RAW files to store the information.16-bit: This format is commonly referred to as “half-precision.” It uses 16 bits of data to represent color values for each pixel. With 16 bits, you can have 65,536 discrete levels of color, allowing for relatively high precision and smooth gradients. However, it has a limited dynamic range, meaning it cannot accurately represent extremely bright or dark values. It is commonly used for regular images and textures.
16-bit float: This format is an extension of the 16-bit format but uses floating-point numbers instead of fixed integers. Floating-point numbers allow for more precise calculations and a larger dynamic range. In this case, the 16 bits are used to store both the color value and the exponent, which controls the range of values that can be represented. The 16-bit float format provides better accuracy and a wider dynamic range than regular 16-bit, making it useful for high-dynamic-range imaging (HDRI) and computations that require more precision.
32-bit: (i.e. 96 bits per pixel for a color image) are considered High Dynamic Range. This format, also known as “full-precision” or “float,” uses 32 bits to represent color values and offers the highest precision and dynamic range among the three options. With 32 bits, you have a significantly larger number of discrete levels, allowing for extremely accurate color representation, smooth gradients, and a wide range of brightness values. It is commonly used for professional rendering, visual effects, and scientific applications where maximum precision is required.
Bits and HDR coverage
High Dynamic Range (HDR) images are designed to capture a wide range of luminance values, from the darkest shadows to the brightest highlights, in order to reproduce a scene with more accuracy and detail. The bit depth of an image refers to the number of bits used to represent each pixel’s color information. When comparing 32-bit float and 16-bit float HDR images, the drop in accuracy primarily relates to the precision of the color information.
A 32-bit float HDR image offers a higher level of precision compared to a 16-bit float HDR image. In a 32-bit float format, each color channel (red, green, and blue) is represented by 32 bits, allowing for a larger range of values to be stored. This increased precision enables the image to retain more details and subtleties in color and luminance.
On the other hand, a 16-bit float HDR image utilizes 16 bits per color channel, resulting in a reduced range of values that can be represented. This lower precision leads to a loss of fine details and color nuances, especially in highly contrasted areas of the image where there are significant differences in luminance.
The drop in accuracy between 32-bit and 16-bit float HDR images becomes more noticeable as the exposure range of the scene increases. Exposure range refers to the span between the darkest and brightest areas of an image. In scenes with a limited exposure range, where the luminance differences are relatively small, the loss of accuracy may not be as prominent or perceptible. These images usually are around 8-10 exposure levels.
However, in scenes with a wide exposure range, such as a landscape with deep shadows and bright highlights, the reduced precision of a 16-bit float HDR image can result in visible artifacts like color banding, posterization, and loss of detail in both shadows and highlights. The image may exhibit abrupt transitions between tones or colors, which can appear unnatural and less realistic.
To provide a rough estimate, it is often observed that exposure values beyond approximately ±6 to ±8 stops from the middle gray (18% reflectance) may be more prone to accuracy issues in a 16-bit float format. This range may vary depending on the specific implementation and encoding scheme used.
To summarize, the drop in accuracy between 32-bit and 16-bit float HDR images is mainly related to the reduced precision of color information. This decrease in precision becomes more apparent in scenes with a wide exposure range, affecting the representation of fine details and leading to visible artifacts in the image.
In practice, this means that exposure values beyond a certain range will experience a loss of accuracy and detail when stored in a 16-bit float format. The exact range at which this loss occurs depends on the encoding scheme and the specific implementation. However, in general, extremely bright or extremely dark values that fall outside the representable range may be subject to quantization errors, resulting in loss of detail, banding, or other artifacts.
HDRs used for lighting purposes are usually slightly convolved to improve on sampling speed and removing specular artefacts. To that extent, 16 bit float HDRIs tend to me most used in CG cycles.
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Yasuharu YOSHIZAWA – Comparison of sRGB vs ACREScg in Nuke
Answering the question that is often asked, “Do I need to use ACEScg to display an sRGB monitor in the end?” (Demonstration shown at an in-house seminar)
Comparison of scanlineRender output with extreme color lights on color charts with sRGB/ACREScg in color – OCIO -working space in NukeDownload the Nuke script:
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Thomas Mansencal – Colour Science for Python
Read more: Thomas Mansencal – Colour Science for Pythonhttps://thomasmansencal.substack.com/p/colour-science-for-python
https://www.colour-science.org/
Colour is an open-source Python package providing a comprehensive number of algorithms and datasets for colour science. It is freely available under the BSD-3-Clause terms.
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3D Lighting Tutorial by Amaan Kram
Read more: 3D Lighting Tutorial by Amaan Kramhttp://www.amaanakram.com/lightingT/part1.htm
The goals of lighting in 3D computer graphics are more or less the same as those of real world lighting.
Lighting serves a basic function of bringing out, or pushing back the shapes of objects visible from the camera’s view.
It gives a two-dimensional image on the monitor an illusion of the third dimension-depth.But it does not just stop there. It gives an image its personality, its character. A scene lit in different ways can give a feeling of happiness, of sorrow, of fear etc., and it can do so in dramatic or subtle ways. Along with personality and character, lighting fills a scene with emotion that is directly transmitted to the viewer.
Trying to simulate a real environment in an artificial one can be a daunting task. But even if you make your 3D rendering look absolutely photo-realistic, it doesn’t guarantee that the image carries enough emotion to elicit a “wow” from the people viewing it.
Making 3D renderings photo-realistic can be hard. Putting deep emotions in them can be even harder. However, if you plan out your lighting strategy for the mood and emotion that you want your rendering to express, you make the process easier for yourself.
Each light source can be broken down in to 4 distinct components and analyzed accordingly.
· Intensity
· Direction
· Color
· SizeThe overall thrust of this writing is to produce photo-realistic images by applying good lighting techniques.
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Sensitivity of human eye
http://www.wikilectures.eu/index.php/Spectral_sensitivity_of_the_human_eye
http://www.normankoren.com/Human_spectral_sensitivity_small.jpg
Spectral sensitivity of eye is influenced by light intensity. And the light intensity determines the level of activity of cones cell and rod cell. This is the main characteristic of human vision. Sensitivity to individual colors, in other words, wavelengths of the light spectrum, is explained by the RGB (red-green-blue) theory. This theory assumed that there are three kinds of cones. It’s selectively sensitive to red (700-630 nm), green (560-500 nm), and blue (490-450 nm) light. And their mutual interaction allow to perceive all colors of the spectrum.
http://weeklysciencequiz.blogspot.com/2013/01/violet-skies-are-for-birds.html
Sensitivity of human eye Sensitivity of human eyes to light increase with the decrease in light intensity. In day-light condition, the cones cell is responding to this condition. And the eye is most sensitive at 555 nm. In darkness condition, the rod cell is responding to this condition. And the eye is most sensitive at 507 nm.
As light intensity decreases, cone function changes more effective way. And when decrease the light intensity, it prompt to accumulation of rhodopsin. Furthermore, in activates rods, it allow to respond to stimuli of light in much lower intensity.
The three curves in the figure above shows the normalized response of an average human eye to various amounts of ambient light. The shift in sensitivity occurs because two types of photoreceptors called cones and rods are responsible for the eye’s response to light. The curve on the right shows the eye’s response under normal lighting conditions and this is called the photopic response. The cones respond to light under these conditions.
As mentioned previously, cones are composed of three different photo pigments that enable color perception. This curve peaks at 555 nanometers, which means that under normal lighting conditions, the eye is most sensitive to a yellowish-green color. When the light levels drop to near total darkness, the response of the eye changes significantly as shown by the scotopic response curve on the left. At this level of light, the rods are most active and the human eye is more sensitive to the light present, and less sensitive to the range of color. Rods are highly sensitive to light but are comprised of a single photo pigment, which accounts for the loss in ability to discriminate color. At this very low light level, sensitivity to blue, violet, and ultraviolet is increased, but sensitivity to yellow and red is reduced. The heavier curve in the middle represents the eye’s response at the ambient light level found in a typical inspection booth. This curve peaks at 550 nanometers, which means the eye is most sensitive to yellowish-green color at this light level. Fluorescent penetrant inspection materials are designed to fluoresce at around 550 nanometers to produce optimal sensitivity under dim lighting conditions.
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Pattern generators
Read more: Pattern generatorshttp://qrohlf.com/trianglify-generator/
https://halftonepro.com/app/polygons#
https://mattdesl.svbtle.com/generative-art-with-nodejs-and-canvas
https://www.patterncooler.com/
http://permadi.com/java/spaint/spaint.html
https://dribbble.com/shots/1847313-Kaleidoscope-Generator-PSD
http://eskimoblood.github.io/gerstnerizer/
http://www.stripegenerator.com/
http://btmills.github.io/geopattern/geopattern.html
http://fractalarchitect.net/FA4-Random-Generator.html
https://sciencevsmagic.net/fractal/#0605,0000,3,2,0,1,2
https://sites.google.com/site/mandelbulber/home
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Capturing the world in HDR for real time projects – Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare
Read more: Capturing the world in HDR for real time projects – Call of Duty: Advanced WarfareReal-World Measurements for Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare
www.activision.com/cdn/research/Real_World_Measurements_for_Call_of_Duty_Advanced_Warfare.pdf
Local version
Real_World_Measurements_for_Call_of_Duty_Advanced_Warfare.pdf
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About green screens
Read more: About green screenshackaday.com/2015/02/07/how-green-screen-worked-before-computers/
www.newtek.com/blog/tips/best-green-screen-materials/
www.chromawall.com/blog//chroma-key-green
Chroma Key Green, the color of green screens is also known as Chroma Green and is valued at approximately 354C in the Pantone color matching system (PMS).
Chroma Green can be broken down in many different ways. Here is green screen green as other values useful for both physical and digital production:
Green Screen as RGB Color Value: 0, 177, 64
Green Screen as CMYK Color Value: 81, 0, 92, 0
Green Screen as Hex Color Value: #00b140
Green Screen as Websafe Color Value: #009933Chroma Key Green is reasonably close to an 18% gray reflectance.
Illuminate your green screen with an uniform source with less than 2/3 EV variation.
The level of brightness at any given f-stop should be equivalent to a 90% white card under the same lighting. -
Colormaxxing – What if I told you that rgb(255, 0, 0) is not actually the reddest red you can have in your browser?
https://karuna.dev/colormaxxing
https://webkit.org/blog-files/color-gamut/comparison.html
https://oklch.com/#70,0.1,197,100
LIGHTING
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About green screens
Read more: About green screenshackaday.com/2015/02/07/how-green-screen-worked-before-computers/
www.newtek.com/blog/tips/best-green-screen-materials/
www.chromawall.com/blog//chroma-key-green
Chroma Key Green, the color of green screens is also known as Chroma Green and is valued at approximately 354C in the Pantone color matching system (PMS).
Chroma Green can be broken down in many different ways. Here is green screen green as other values useful for both physical and digital production:
Green Screen as RGB Color Value: 0, 177, 64
Green Screen as CMYK Color Value: 81, 0, 92, 0
Green Screen as Hex Color Value: #00b140
Green Screen as Websafe Color Value: #009933Chroma Key Green is reasonably close to an 18% gray reflectance.
Illuminate your green screen with an uniform source with less than 2/3 EV variation.
The level of brightness at any given f-stop should be equivalent to a 90% white card under the same lighting. -
Photography basics: Color Temperature and White Balance
Read more: Photography basics: Color Temperature and White BalanceColor Temperature of a light source describes the spectrum of light which is radiated from a theoretical “blackbody” (an ideal physical body that absorbs all radiation and incident light – neither reflecting it nor allowing it to pass through) with a given surface temperature.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_temperature
Or. Most simply it is a method of describing the color characteristics of light through a numerical value that corresponds to the color emitted by a light source, measured in degrees of Kelvin (K) on a scale from 1,000 to 10,000.
More accurately. The color temperature of a light source is the temperature of an ideal backbody that radiates light of comparable hue to that of the light source.
As such, the color temperature of a light source is a numerical measurement of its color appearance. It is based on the principle that any object will emit light if it is heated to a high enough temperature, and that the color of that light will shift in a predictable manner as the temperature is increased. The system is based on the color changes of a theoretical “blackbody radiator” as it is heated from a cold black to a white hot state.
So, why do we measure the hue of the light as a “temperature”? This was started in the late 1800s, when the British physicist William Kelvin heated a block of carbon. It glowed in the heat, producing a range of different colors at different temperatures. The black cube first produced a dim red light, increasing to a brighter yellow as the temperature went up, and eventually produced a bright blue-white glow at the highest temperatures. In his honor, Color Temperatures are measured in degrees Kelvin, which are a variation on Centigrade degrees. Instead of starting at the temperature water freezes, the Kelvin scale starts at “absolute zero,” which is -273 Centigrade.
More about black bodies here: https://www.pixelsham.com/2013/03/14/black-body-color
Details in the post
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Outpost VFX lighting tips
Read more: Outpost VFX lighting tipswww.outpost-vfx.com/en/news/18-pro-tips-and-tricks-for-lighting
Get as much information regarding your plate lighting as possible
- Always use a reference
- Replicate what is happening in real life
- Invest into a solid HDRI
- Start Simple
- Observe real world lighting, photography and cinematography
- Don’t neglect the theory
- Learn the difference between realism and photo-realism.
- Keep your scenes organised
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StudioBinder.com – Photography basics: What is Dynamic Range in Photography
Read more: StudioBinder.com – Photography basics: What is Dynamic Range in Photographyhttps://www.studiobinder.com/blog/what-is-dynamic-range-photography/
https://www.hdrsoft.com/resources/dri.html#bit-depth
The dynamic range is a ratio between the maximum and minimum values of a physical measurement. Its definition depends on what the dynamic range refers to.
For a scene: Dynamic range is the ratio between the brightest and darkest parts of the scene.
For a camera: Dynamic range is the ratio of saturation to noise. More specifically, the ratio of the intensity that just saturates the camera to the intensity that just lifts the camera response one standard deviation above camera noise.
For a display: Dynamic range is the ratio between the maximum and minimum intensities emitted from the screen.
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