The Indiana Jones movies are definitely a favorite, with its endless suspense,
action and mystery. It really has the power to make us feel like anything is
possible if you're rugged ready or brave enough
to go get it. It's for the adventurer that's in us that wants to dig through
the mundane and discover a world of adventure, and it's clear when they made
it they didn't leave all the discovery to Indy, and that there were a few
treasures hidden in there just for us. This series is about making some fan art
of that lost hieroglyph.
Hi guys, this is Cosador, Johnathan here, and welcome to the
first of a series that I'll be doing about my favorite Easter egg from
Indiana Jones Raiders of the Lost Ark, and even though this movie is great, the
reference material to make this one was hard to work with, and this is not
uncommon because most images that I find are not always ideal
and it can be a real task to transcribe off-perspective images manually. This is
how I deal with Reference Material Perspective Correction.
It would be great if we could find all of our reference material just from movies, but often it's
out of focus and the item doesn't get enough screen time, that's when we have
to use other sources. If you're unable to go to an exhibition or Expo to take
pictures or even acquire detailed plans, Google is a great place to start.
Now, the image that I have is unfortunately not from the set but from the great movie
ride that's hardly closed in 2017. It is comparable,
however it's not perfect, but it's the best example that is available and it
will have to be good enough. The search for reference material can be annoying,
sometimes we're lucky and the images are exactly what we need and sometimes the
images that we find have been photographed or filmed from a strange
angle which can make it hard to proportionately calculate exactly how
things are placed. The simplest method is to utilize an image editing program. I'm
going to test two different programs, Pixlr which is free and online and
Photoshop which is not free but very powerful. Let's start with Pixlr.
With the firefox web-browser, I type pixlr.com into the address bar,
I scroll down the page and I launch Pixlr editor.
I run Adobe Flash and allow with the browser. I open an existing file from the
computer. I might have re-scaled the image, but it
seems to be scaled quite good for the stone tablet. I resize the workspace and
image to a size where I can see things better. From the menu bar, I select "Edit"
and from the drop-down menu, I select "Free Distort". Now, I have a blue bounding
box with circular control points in the corners. I drag out the control points
until the corners of the stone tablet meet up with the corners of the image.
I must go around a couple of times because the "Free Distort" action distorts the
corners that I have previously lined up.
The image does have some warp, but it's satisfactory for detail. I click outside
the blue bounding box and apply the "Free Distort". Then, from the menu bar,
I select "Adjustment" and from the drop down menu, I select "Hue & Saturation".
I bring the "Saturation" down to "-100" and click "Ok", and again, from the menu bar,
I select "Adjustment" and from the drop down menu, I select "Levels". I move the
pointers so that they're on either side of the input levels to get more
exaggerated black and white details, and I click "Ok". From the menu bar, I select
"File" and from the drop down menu, I select "Save".
I bring the quality up and I click "Ok". if this part doesn't work, consider using
Firefox, it seems to be more compatible. I name the file I click "Save" and it's done.
Now, let's look at Photoshop. With the file already open, I zoom right in. From the
menu bar, I select "Edit" and from the drop down menu, I select "Perspective Warp".
I drag the bounding box out approximately and I take my time to line up the
control points accurately with the corners of the stone tablet. On the
perspective warp menu, I select "Warp" and then I select the "#" symbol which
straightens vertically and horizontally,
and then I select the checkmark to apply. From the menu bar, I select "Layer" and
from the drop-down menu, I select "New Adjustment Layer" then "Hue & Saturation",
select "Ok", I bring the "Saturation" down to "-100". Then, from the menu bar,
I select "Layer" and from the drop down menu, I select "New Adjustment Layer" ,
then "Levels", select "Ok", and same as in Pixlr, I bring out the black and white. Then, I
select the "Rectangular Marquee Tool" I make a selection of the stone tablet.
From the menu bar, I select "Image" and from the drop down menu, I select "Crop".
Then from the menu bar, I select "File" and from the drop down menu, I select "Save As"
and name the file and click "Save", click "Ok" and I'm done!
Out of these, Pixlr is not ideal because that heavily relies on the distort
action and if I wanted something to be more accurate, I would need to go with an
industry standard editing program like Photoshop.
However, this is a basic function for both programs. Pixlr requires manual perspective
scaling while Photoshop is automatic, but for correcting reference material either
will be good enough. This image will have to be further transcribed into more
detail to be of use, but you'll have to watch the next one in the series for that.
If you liked the video guys please like and subscribe. If you have any
questions, drop a comment, and remember guys
Break It Til You Make It!
and I'll see you next time.