[Radthorne]

Wait, wait! I can make a fire backdrop like that! And I have a loincloth texture around here somewhere...

Ok, the masses have spoken (well, a few of you have spoken anyway) and the cons seem to have it. However, before tossing in the towel on the idea, I think I want to experiment some more, as I have seen some pretty photo-realistic results using this software. Done properly, I think it can still compete on an even basis with "art" art and not look computer game like.

Here are four examples from the DAZ website, all of which are done with the same program (along with composition in things like Photoshop, etc.); but these are all computer generated figures (done by people with lots more talent than me):
Autumn Flirts with Winter
by: Martin Murphy
http://www.sff.net/people/radthorne/1531M Martin Murphy.jpg
episode 14 scene 20: crush
by: James Lee
http://www.sff.net/people/radthorne/1493M James Lee.jpg
Skyscape Dance
by: Laurie S
http://www.sff.net/people/radthorne/1537M Laurie S.jpg
The Time
by: Mec4D Cath
http://www.sff.net/people/radthorne/1522M Mec4D.jpg

So if I keep working at this, and get half the talent this folks have at doing it, I might be able to come up with something usable.

[Radthorne]

And just for good measure...

Here's my same two people, just a lot closer up, to show the textures that are actually there. I particularly like the detail on the guy's hands - the veins and whatnot. Other than posing them, I only added a couple of fill lights to the scene. So this picture took about 10 minutes, most of it just working on the poses. Given a lot of hours, one can really sink your teeth into this and come up with good stuff, I think.

http://www.sff.net/people/radthorne/Funny Test.gif

[lego]

Kevin,

First of all, I like your Asian temple. Nice peaceful mood.

Now, about the ninjas, hmm...

I'm a 3D animator not a texture/lighting specialist, but I know enough about computer graphics to see why your current figures look strange. Not because of the stiff poses, those are fixable if you would photograph yourself in the same poses and use the pictures as references for tweaking. No, the main problem is the lighting of your figures. Human skin is one of the hardest materials to reproduce in 3d art since we are familiar with skin on an instinct level. If the mixture of base colors, highlights, and shadows appears just a nuance wrong, the rendered figures look like plastic dolls.

I haven't used DAZ but if it's similar to Poser and Bryce, then the built-in lighting functions won't suffice to create a believable illusion of human skin--no matter how good the textures and no matter how experienced the artist. From the four DAZ promo-pictures, only the last one has an acceptable lighting, and I suspect that's because it's black-and-white. In b&w renderings there are only brightness changes to worry about, not color hue changes too.

Sooo, either you delve deep into 3d graphics, then prepare yourself to learn programs like Maya or XSI (they are expensive for a reason), make yourself familiar with area lights, radiosity and translucency, and read "Lighting and Rendering" by Jeremy Birn. The book is a little dated but still the best introduction for this topic. Also, study Rembrandt and Rubens until you understand how the old masters managed to copy human skin in paint. Their tricks work for 3d renderings as well.

Or, if you don't have the time to do all that and spend a few months practicing on top, then I would suggest you shy away from using any 3d humans on your book cover. They really look awful if not done right. I apologize for having such a harsh opinion about this, but for once I'm sure my opinion is true ;)

[Gary Wassner]

He certainly sounds like he knows what he's talking about. Kind of what I was trying to say in my earlier post, but not quite as convincingly.

What happened to painting and drawing anyway? Is everything computer generated today?

[Radthorne]

Kevin,

First of all, I like your Asian temple. Nice peaceful mood.
...
Or, if you don't have the time to do all that and spend a few months practicing on top, then I would suggest you shy away from using any 3d humans on your book cover. They really look awful if not done right. I apologize for having such a harsh opinion about this, but for once I'm sure my opinion is true ;)
Thanks, lego. And yes, you are absolutely correct in your comments about skin textures and lighting. I know that it takes many hours to fully develop a decent image (I spent lots of time on my current cover images, in contrast to these quick people tests, which really have nothing more than some basic lights tossed on 'em). Even harder than the skin is getting believeable looking hair (one reason my guy doesn't have any!) I suspect that if I were to end up using people, it would have to be in a more stylized manner, such Laurie S did with her Skyscape Dance image above (in which she is copying almost exactly the style of painter Michael Parkes).

And yes, DAZ is pretty much just like Poser; it was developed by the folks who produce the Vicky and Mike figures that I've used in my scene, so that they would not be stuck producing products for another product that they had no control over. I believe there may have been some license fee issues involved as well (to have access to new features in recent versions of Poser, or some such thing). DAZ Studio is still in beta, but is pretty well developed even so.

[Radthorne]

He certainly sounds like he knows what he's talking about. Kind of what I was trying to say in my earlier post, but not quite as convincingly.

What happened to painting and drawing anyway? Is everything computer generated today?
He's the KatG of graphics! And certainly he is quite right in his comments, as you were too.

Traditional art is alive and well, never fear. There will always be a place (and a need) for both traditional art and artisans. I have no art training whatsoever, but the computer tools allow me to express myself a bit without the need to learn the mechanics of holding a paint brush. The main advantage of using 3D, for me the untrained one, is that it gets past the problem of translating a 3D idea onto a 2D surface. Real artists spend a great deal of time thinking about perspective and how to get things to look right as they draw out their images; with 3D, that is much less of an issue. These things are actual 3D objects that I can move, and move myself around, placing them in realistic proportion to one another (or not, when needing to make a forced perspective). It provides a great deal of freedom in experimentation of what looks good, what doesn't, etc.

[KatG]

You can do fine with figures and I think the ones you've shown here are great, but the covers you chose are perfect and interesting. Windstorm may be making their rep from covers alone. Certainly, this kind of artwork and styling is going to appeal to booksellers.

I don't think that an association with the gaming industry is necessarily problematic, and as Kevin showed, the style of art can vary considerably. Fantasy illustrators have long taken their work onto the computer and have made an industry out of creating screen savers, so it seems to me a natural marriage.

So when I get published, even if it's a big house, I'm coming to you two for the covers. There's ways to sweettalk them into it. :)

[Radthorne]

:D

I'd be more than happy to do cover art for you, KatG. And the good thing is, I'm probably real cheap! ;)

I have to say that my current covers have garnered a lot of attention, so it does seem to be a reasonably successful style to follow. Certainly when it comes to using human figures I will be the first to admit it if what I eventually come up with is not successful enough to use on a cover (to me, it would have to really knock my socks off to risk going too far from the existing style that has worked). But seeing the potential of the program and the quality of what people can achieve with it, I think that with some work at it I might be able to make it all come together. Photo-realism is not the goal (although clearly some artists have managed to come close to that with this tool), but coming up with something striking that will capture people's interest is.

But going back to my original question (and not just the issue of computer art, with people or otherwise), I would still be curious for everyone's thoughts on the use of people on cover art, in whatever form (photographs, painting, computer, or whatever). Do you find that the imagery of the people, their clothes, etc. influences you unduly in your perceptions of what the words say? Does it lessen the impact of the author's descriptions? Have there been situations where what you read didn't match what the cover figures looked like? Or where the images didn't do justice to what you read? (Or vice-versa!)

[KatG]

People and art are traditional for sf/f stories, not for most other types of fiction. I enjoy pictures of people on the covers and sf/f art, but don't require it. The people on the cover may influence my image of the characters, but then I'm also used to finding that the description of the character doesn't mesh with the picture on the cover. That doesn't bother me, I just rethink my image of the character based on the author's words, not the cover. For instance, I just finished a 1987 mystery novel, "Bimbos of the Death Sun" which deals with a murder at a sf/f convention. The main character is a professor author who is described as very young looking, with darkish brown hair, and is often mistaken for a grad student. The image of the professor on the cover was of a middle-aged man with wrinkles on his forehead, holding a pipe, and with light brown hair. Not quite a match. :) Ironically, the professor in the story had written a hard sf novel, which the publisher had titled "Bimbos of the Death Sun" and given a lurid cover with half-clad women. Ah those art departments, they run amok.

[alison]

Catching up here late, as usual. I am so impressed Kevin that you do your own covers. (I assumed you had an illustrator!) I looked up what you did on your website, and was even tempted myself... but you know, I not only have no talent, I have absolutely NO visual imagination.

As there are three editions of The Gift, I've had the chance to see what three different designers make of the same text, and for me it's been probably the most interesting thing about the book. People come up with stuff that I just couldn't even think of. You couldn't get three more different looking covers. Two are graphic - the UK and US editions - and one is a photographic montage, which to my mind doesn't work so well (no porn stars tho, phew!). The US one (which I posted on the other thread) actually portrays a character, it's a painting done in almost a photorealist manner, so it still has that graphic quality - kind of like Renaissance art, I think. Anyway, I don't mean to yabber on about me, but am getting to the point - given I like all the covers, for various different reasons, I think I like the covers _without_ human figures best (all very British, that kind of very graphic, slightly abstract design). And the reason why is because it lets the reader's imagination run free. That's why I think your covers work. So my advice is, leave the figures out of it...