ArmA II Photography I: Questions. Comments & Discussion

[STALKERGB 6]

@someguywho which British infantry addOn is that?

They are made by Cougar (aka RavenDK IIRC might be wrong there),

Linky to page

[Moerderhoschi 107]

where he get THIS custom faces of the first guy at the mg or on the second pic the guy in the right?

plz can anybody tell me, thx.

[ck-claw 1]

Not 100% but prob Here?

[Moerderhoschi 107]

thank you for your fast answer, i will take a look if the customface are in there.

[DaveP 66]

@DaveP I enjoy your ingame pics mate. If only we could get Arma2 looking like that.

And don't worry, I barely take Arma screen anymore so won't be doing a copy cat again ;)

Don't worry, haha, I'm fine with anyone doing anything with the knowledge I give, it's all out there to be found either way :) anyway, you took some sweet ass shots

I can imagine using the ingame colour correction tools it would be relatively possible. The sticking point would be no Depth of Field

[Zipper5 74]

People seem to love your style, DaveP. :p

Keep it up!

[someguywho 12]

They are made by Cougar (aka RavenDK IIRC might be wrong there),

Linky to page

Hole in one ;)

[Daniel 0]

where he get THIS custom faces of the first guy at the mg or on the second pic the guy in the right?

plz can anybody tell me, thx.

Those are custom faces only available to members of Task Force 86. :cool:

Sorry to disappoint CK. :p

[DaveP 66]

People seem to love your style, DaveP. :p

Keep it up!

As long as there's people to play with in our group (always looking for more, of course :rolleyes:) and great missions coming out (since I co create them I'm pretty sure that box is ticked too.. :p) I'll take cool screenies. The next big operation we have coming up is a real doozy. If anyone ever wants a bigger sized copy most of them go up to around 1600-1900 px wide

And, of course I wouldn't be too averse to any mission, addon or map makers in need of screenshots sending me along a PM!

Edited August 12, 2010 by DaveP

[wiggum2 31]

@ DaveP

As i first saw your screenshots i thought "you have to ask this guy what colorcorrection he uses"...but then i read that it is photoshopped... :p ;)

[Feint 137]

Feint, what are you using to edit the shots?

Lightroom 3 by Adobe. Great program.

Nice pics Feint, they feel very real.

Thanks!

Feint, great shots!

Thanks a lot! I admire your islands very much!

Short answer: 2 and a half years of photography and media technology course ;)

Long answer:

-> As far as post processing goes in Photoshop I have a general template that I work with consisting of the following:

-Three levels adjustment layers of various shades of dark that I then use with masks to make certain areas of texture and shadow appear darker

-A solid black layer which I make into a vignette using a mask and gradient tool

-A colour balance layer I apply to the whole image that pushes cyan-ey green in the shadows and orange in the highlights

-Another colour balance layer that I apply just to the areas of sky in the image (using a layer mask) that pushes cyan-ey blue more

-A channel mixer adjustment layer set to monochrome with a lowish opacity that I use to get a bleach bypass look

-An exposure adjustment layer that slightly lowers the exposure and contrast of the image

-A tinted colour fill over the top to give a slight yellow-ey brown look to the dark areas

For shots with depth of field, depth maps were manually made using layer masks and gradient tool, and then the Lens Blur filter was used

On top of this I photoshop out game UI elements.

In game I use medium-high ish graphics settings (I am still playing the operation, despite the occasional photo moments)

When taking photos I take the same compositional thought and eye into account as I do when taking real photos

As to the situations, that's just down to a fun group and good mission making, all the events that you see here happened in one night's game and were played out, no staging, and I wasn't even there for the end.

DaveP, I don't know if you've considered using Lightroom 3. I'm a photographer by trade too and have found a lot of these adjustments can be done very very quickly and non-destructively on non-raw imagery with very good results. And the changes can be saved as presets. LR3 isn't able to do some content changes like adding blur (DOF effects) very easily, but there are some masking and clarity changes that can be made with it. And with the spot remover tool, you can clone or heal over "some" smaller game elements if the background isn't too complex. But all of the color and contrast adjustments you mentioned are possible within LR3. In fact, bleach bypass and other cross processing effects are presets that come with LR3, and the cool thing is that they can be mixed and matched to combine effects.

By the way, I love your screenshots. Very cool shots and very cool editing.

@ DaveP

As i first saw your screenshots i thought "you have to ask this guy what colorcorrection he uses"...but then i read that it is photoshopped... :p ;)

Personally I use LR3 or Photoshop to edit all of my screenies because of the gamma differences. In-game, the image looks more vibrant than the screenshots to. I don't know if it's a colorspace issue or just a gamma issue, but if I don't edit my shots, I lose a lot of the contrast and color vibrance. But like I said above, I'm a photographer and I consider PS or LR adjustments simply the post-production process of photography.

Edited August 15, 2010 by Feint

[DaveP 66]

Lightroom 3 by Adobe. Great program.

Thanks!

Thanks a lot! I admire your islands very much!

DaveP, I don't know if you've considered using Lightroom 3. I'm a photographer by trade too and have found a lot of these adjustments can be done very very quickly and non-destructively on non-raw imagery with very good results. And the changes can be saved as presets. LR3 isn't able to do some content changes like adding blur (DOF effects) very easily, but there are some masking and clarity changes that can be made with it. And with the spot remover tool, you can clone or heal over "some" smaller game elements if the background isn't too complex. But all of the color and contrast adjustments you mentioned are possible within LR3. In fact, bleach bypass and other cross processing effects are presets that come with LR3, and the cool thing is that they can be mixed and matched to combine effects.

By the way, I love your screenshots. Very cool shots and very cool editing.

Personally I use LR3 or Photoshop to edit all of my screenies because of the gamma differences. In-game, the image looks more vibrant than the screenshots to. I don't know if it's a colorspace issue or just a gamma issue, but if I don't edit my shots, I lose a lot of the contrast and color vibrance. But like I said above, I'm a photographer and I consider PS or LR adjustments simply the post-production process of photography.

I've been a hobby photographer on and off for the last three years (recently taken over by director of photography work and 3D animation and motion graphics), and while I've given Light room a look, I'm not really enough of a 'commited' photographer to consider it worth my time to learn a new program, especially given I've been using Photoshop for around a decade now and know most of its foibles and limitations.

Post production is part and parcel of the photographic proccess nowadays, for better or for worse, so I just applied the same knowlege and knowhow that I might to a photo assignment or Visual Effects composite to ingame screenshots

[Stagler 39]

where he get THIS custom faces of the first guy at the mg or on the second pic the guy in the right?

plz can anybody tell me, thx.

Yay im famous.

[Requiem007 10]

Several years ago, an elite squad of warriors infiltrated deep into the mountains of Takistan to hunt down and eliminate a known terrorist leader "Osama". Their mission became the stuff of legend. Their fate became unknown. Their egos became bloated.

They were known as: the rebl men.

Animalmother, I'm guessing this is a coop mission you're working on? If so, awesome! It looks and sounds very fun and exciting, and I'll be looking forward to playing it in the future.

[AnimalMother92 10]

Animalmother, I'm guessing this is a coop mission you're working on? If so, awesome! It looks and sounds very fun and exciting, and I'll be looking forward to playing it in the future.

Indeed it is. There's some footage in the video thread as well. :)

[CameronMcDonald 146]

lol the rebl men is/am/are overated kthx

[AnimalMother92 10]

lol the rebl men is/am/are overated kthx

pff jealous :icon_rolleyes:

only rebl men get the 40mm 203 launch in their gear selection.

[Binkowski 26]

Cameron needs to be a rebl.

[AnimalMother92 10]

Yeah Cam, all the cool kids are doing it.

[STALKERGB 6]

are rebl men tougher than chuck norris? :)

Nice pic GERTF141!

[R0adki11 3949]

are rebl men tougher than chuck norris? :)

Nice pic GERTF141!

Chuck Norris was the first rebl man

[lone.wolf 80]

gertf141: nice picture, what units is it..??

[GERTF141 10]

unit is one of the artic units of the squad internal unit pack, same goes for the weapon

[enad 11]

Gerft, that guy and gun are awesome!!

You gotta make some public addons for us common folk.

[sabre 244]

Just a quick question GERTF141, how does the ice pick on the back of his belt go when running and crouching? do you get it going into the model or ground at all? or did you find a way for that to not be an issue?