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Dissections : Kiwi Fruit - Pattern or texture

1:40 PM, Tuesday April 21st 2020

I understand the texture analysis exercise required cast shadows to try to capture texture.

I have moved on to the dissections exercise now. For this I don't think the cast shadow rule is required. Is this right?

For example.

If I cut a kiwi fruit in half the surface texture is smooth. From watching the accompanying youtube video it seems more like the pattern that is being used and not the texture.

Is this correct? Does this make sense?

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4:33 PM, Tuesday April 21st 2020
edited at 4:35 PM, Apr 21st 2020

It's not such a "cast shadow rule" as much as it is the fact that you're not just outlining things and drawing patterns. You're drawing shadow shapes, as that is what implies the presence of little forms along the surface of the object. If there were no little forms, then you wouldn't be drawing a texture, and therefore it would not be suitable for the exercise.

What you see in a kiwi is indeed made up of little forms - the seeds, the variation in the flesh, all of this is 3D information that casts little shadows on its surroundings. It is not a pattern.

That said, the dissection video was made long before this whole focus on cast-shadows was introduced, simply because of how Drawabox is an evolving set of lessons that I refine and develop. As I critique students' work, and find myself explaining certain things over and over, they eventually get integrated into the lesson material. Introducing the texture analyses as part of Lesson 2 last year was something that resulted in a HUGE addition of data, so to speak, on which to base my own determinations. Over the course of the year, this refined my understanding of how it should be approached, which is why the texture analysis section was largely overhauled a couple months ago.

There are plenty of videos and material that need to be changed - not overhauled, but adjusted to reflect these changes, but because I can't churn out videos continually, we have to apply principles covered in the newer material into the things that are a little older. At least, for now.

edited at 4:35 PM, Apr 21st 2020
5:26 PM, Tuesday April 21st 2020

I do understand what you are saying and appreciate you responding. I am sure you have aswered the same questions many times. I can probably achieve the required result. I just struggle with whether what is being seen are changes of colour demarcation (ie pattern ) or shadows due to changes in form (ie texture ).

Say for example you have a piece of nice italian patterned marble polished to the nanometre for a completely smooth surface. Would this be unsuitable or unrenderable in this exercise?

For me the kiwi fruit is similar to this. Are the seeds really being defined by shadows, is the line demarcing the centre white from the green really a shadow or a good old contour line.

Am I over-analysing? Probably, it often happens.

6:32 PM, Tuesday April 21st 2020

Think of it in terms of touch rather than sight. You're telling the viewer what they'll feel when they run their fingertips lightly across the surface. With a kiwi, you would feel the seeds, and you'd feel the slight unevenness of its flesh. With marble, you might feel a more notable gash or crack in its surface, but you would not feel the veins characteristic of this kind of material. So your texture would focus on the slight changes in the height of the surface - even at such a small scale, depending on how close you're looking at it.

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