Final Post:

 Tiling:

    Tiling felt great. While I understood that photography had its place as part of Matte painting and references for illustrations, I never really grasped how important it was to the AAA look until I actually saw the normal-mapped texture pop up in Unity, this is one of a few projects that were kind of a mental breakthrough for me. 

    For shooting, I went out on an overcast day and decreased my shot-timer/increased my aperture to make the image as dark as possible. I took a few brighter pictures when the sun came out just because I didn't quite understand the assignment at that point and figured brighter = more detail = better, but I ultimately preferred the look of the darker texture when both were lit in the renderer, proving the video correct. 

I used the crop -> duplicate -> offset top layer -> clipping mask top layer -> blend, erase, and spot heal method to create tiling textures, removing distinctive elements like rocks and twigs on the edges of the texture while only doing enough to remove the seams in the middle of the image, doing my best to preserve as many unique details as possible while getting rid of elements that would break the texture or throw off the normal map. 



Hyperrealism:

    Well, I'm not proud of this one. I had a really interesting concept that I failed to execute in an engaging way; I wanted to essentially recreate the Cottingley Faeries, a hoax/fake cryptid sighting that relied on detailed paper cutouts and manual photo-editing to create the illusion of faeries. Other points of interest were found footage horror films and blurry cryptid photos like the Loch Ness Monster and the infamous Bigfoot footage. 

I took pictures of a black cutout, took lighting from the scene to create faux eyes and clothing folds, and then did my best to match the lighting of my room at night with the lighting of the creek at day. This didn't go well; I should've taken the picture much earlier to avoid having to use florescent lighting; the extremely harsh, yellow, lighting was extremely difficult to match with the creek. Furthermore, a pure black cutout was simply uncreative and caused a lot of problems down the line; there was nothing to the cutouts aside from the cutouts themselves and the gross textures caused by the harsh, direct, lighting. 

Ideally, I would've used white chalk or paper to create actual detail and convincing silhouettes, or just do a traditional drawing on the cutout and go from there. I should've photographed the cutout in lighting close to the lighting of the creek, and I should've created multiple cutouts or even used portraits to create variation in the scene. 

Portrait:

    I asked my work chat if anyone would like portraits taken of them, and Zach accepted, knowing he wouldn't have to take any pictures for his parents for at least a year once I was done. We went around University Village, taking pictures of him, and we even let the local friendly stray star in one of them. I allowed Zach to take pictures in areas he wanted, while also finding areas that offered good indirect lighting and flattering shadows on his face. I was worried that I was taking much darker pictures than I should've been for a while, so I deliberately shot lighter than what I felt comfortable with. 

Someone in the discussion forum mentioned that my picture ended up overexposed, so, I should've trusted my gut! 

When editing, I cropped a lot of the photograph to get a professional looking headshot, and focused on removing blemishes, stubble, and discoloration, preserving his skin tone and trying to preserve the natural shadows.