Escher in CGI

Janus58

Valued Senior Member
I've been a long time fan of M.C. Escher's art, and ever since I got into playing around with CGI modeling, I made various attempts in reproducing some of his work. This has met with varying degrees of success. The one obstacle I struggled with was creating good looking human figures. Just recently, I came across a software package (DAZ studio) that was made for just this purpose. With it and a modeling program called Hexagon, I was finally able to cross that hurdle. (though not without having to negotiate a few new ones.)
Anyway, here's what I've been able to do so far.

relativity2.png
Relativity
This is the first Escher work I ever tried to recreate, but like I said, I wasn't happy with the people in my first verision.

ascend_descend.png
Ascending and Descending
Another redo of an earlier attempt.

anotherworld3.png
Another world
From here on are all the first time I've tackled these particular works. I took some liberties with this one. original had bird-like creatures with human faces, but DAZ already had the model for the dragon, so I substituted. The cratered surface is from a NASA photo.

belvedere.jpg
Belvedere This created the greatest challenge. For the sight-lines to be proper in the final render you had to adjust the position and focal length of the "camera". This was done in DAZ studio. However, the building had to be modeled in Hexagon, which did not have a option for changing the focal length of the view. This meant the sight-lines when modeling were off from the sight-lines for the finished image, which created all sorts of headaches.
drawinghands2.png
Drawing Hands
Though strictly, it might be better titled "Modeling Hands" as it shows a transition from a wire-frame model to a full render. This was not done as a straight render, but through a process which required a number of steps. DAZ studio and Hexagon created the various wire frame through final render versions. Moray and Pov-Ray were used to create the blending from one model to anther effect, and then everything was put together with Paint Shop Pro for the final product.
 
I've been a long time fan of M.C. Escher's art, and ever since I got into playing around with CGI modeling, I made various attempts in reproducing some of his work. This has met with varying degrees of success. The one obstacle I struggled with was creating good looking human figures. Just recently, I came across a software package (DAZ studio) that was made for just this purpose. With it and a modeling program called Hexagon, I was finally able to cross that hurdle. (though not without having to negotiate a few new ones.)
Anyway, here's what I've been able to do so far.

View attachment 1768
Relativity
This is the first Escher work I ever tried to recreate, but like I said, I wasn't happy with the people in my first verision.

View attachment 1769
Ascending and Descending
Another redo of an earlier attempt.

View attachment 1772
Another world
From here on are all the first time I've tackled these particular works. I took some liberties with this one. original had bird-like creatures with human faces, but DAZ already had the model for the dragon, so I substituted. The cratered surface is from a NASA photo.

View attachment 1770
Belvedere This created the greatest challenge. For the sight-lines to be proper in the final render you had to adjust the position and focal length of the "camera". This was done in DAZ studio. However, the building had to be modeled in Hexagon, which did not have a option for changing the focal length of the view. This meant the sight-lines when modeling were off from the sight-lines for the finished image, which created all sorts of headaches.
View attachment 1771
Drawing Hands
Though strictly, it might be better titled "Modeling Hands" as it shows a transition from a wire-frame model to a full render. This was not done as a straight render, but through a process which required a number of steps. DAZ studio and Hexagon created the various wire frame through final render versions. Moray and Pov-Ray were used to create the blending from one model to anther effect, and then everything was put together with Paint Shop Pro for the final product.
These are very good.

But I'm disappointed you did away with the birds with human faces. I always found them curiously creepy but benign at the same time.
 
Thank you very much!

Didn't Escher have a name for these fabulous creatures?

Apparently, it is a "simurgh", which is a mythical creature of Iranian origin. Escher's father-in-law gave him a metal statue of one as a wedding gift as it symbolized fertility, which is likely what inspired him to use them in this work.
 
Ads for Youtube.
I've been thinking of programming something that assists in creating the complex tesselations that Escher was known for. For instance, you could move points around on one side of a square, and it would repeat over the whole grid. Eventually, by repeating this on every side, it would draw interlocking animals.
 
Escher's Tilings and Impossible Geometry inspired me to pursue those and similar topics when I was at U. Fun stuff.
 
Back
Top