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Don't forget about Paint.Net! It has several "artistic" filters you can apply with a couple of settings for each. It has filters for both ink and drawing. And Paint.Net has the bnus of being free.
to this
This was just a quick test. However it is clear that the method 6r is using is delivering some truly stunning results. Those are really nice looking! That Comic Life program is only $30. I can actually afford that! I've been looking for something like this. I'm too poor for Photoshop, I've been using GIMP. But the action scripts I have found only work in Shop. You've got me so hyper excited right now!
That's a great effect; what is the plugin called?
It is not a plug in. It is an effect included in Paint.Net. It is free like GIMP, but it requires the .Net framework to run, which is a (free) Microsoft product. Paint.Net also has oil painting and ink filters, which are decent as well. Its not a bad little pic editor overall.
That's always interesting to know what a software can do, especially if it is free. Very nice example here ! Better than in Photoshop in this case.
Thanks to the trial version of Comic Life 3 you already can discover the software that is great... and not only for this outline effect. So you will be able to make a lot of tests by yourself (because I will not explain all my tricks from Daz to Comic Life to Inkscape !). So you are "free" to find YOUR render even if you have to try and try again as I did it. Maybe your objective is totally different from mine or you will find a great render but totally different from your first objective. They are so many filters and possibilities in Comic Life with a lot of parameters to adjust in the inspector (colors, numbers, %,...). (Hmmm... I don't earn any money here !!! I'm just a happy user of this software and not the creator !).
I have found "MY" best render now... after hours of tests... working on almost all the pictures/models (<- That's very important in your tests to try a lot of very different pictures). They are some subtile differences with my other renders but they are very important (for me) !
Now I can work on my projects...
Here to come back to the Sexy Girl 4...
6R
Great results, thanks for sharing 6r! I love Comic Life, it's very underrated IMO - but I've never heard of Inkscape. Looks like another nice tool for my graphic arsenal.
Cheers, been a long time since I used Paint. It never occured to me to check it out for that; I've been using Paintshop Pro 7 (yes it's old) as it had the look I was after.
Its funny because until I tried this, I hadn't used it in ages myself. I had been trying to remember this little app I used a number of years ago on some family pictures, long before I ever heard of Daz or Poser. Then suddenly it hit me that it was Paint.Net. I had totally forgot about it.
The pencil sketch from Paint.Net might be even easier than trying to do it Comic Life. I'm not having much luck figuring CL out right now. Though I can see it is a pretty cool program for anyone looking at making comic style stuff. I've gone backwards and used my edited pic in CL and then applied the sketch filters of CL.
What does that mean? How do you copy and paste from Daz without saving? I've never heard of this. (Granted I'm pretty new.)
Also, I am finding Inkscape madly confusing. It makes GIMP look simple, and people complain about GIMP's interface all the time. Inkscape has a very unfriendly interface. It certainly has lots of features, but yikes, man, it can be frustrating. I've been at this basically all day long, sinking several hours into this, just trying to figure out Inkscape, and then trying all these filters.
So far, trying to decrypt 6r's method hasn't gotten me very far. I managed to get something, but nothing close. The "Trace Bitmap", which is located under the "Path" menu option (which sounds totally logical...not,) is what you need to start with. Under the black and white option, you'll find the Edge Detection. Select that, and make sure you have the Live Preview box checked so you see what is happening! But generally, keeping the edge detection low or at 0 seemed to be best. None of the other options are needed, they are completely different effects on their own! That confused me for a bit.
What this does is create a vector copy of your image, and if you know anything about vectors, they are produced mathematically instead of by the pixel. That is why vector maps look sharp even when you zoom in super close to them, because they scale dynamically by math, they never pixelate. This helps add that very smooth effect to whatever outline you create. But remember saving the final result in jpg or png will not save the vector. While you have your project inside Inkscape, once you have the edge detection done and you have that vector map, you can zoom in to your heart's content and it will NEVER pixelate. Go ahead, try it! This is also why you can create any size image you want from these vector maps. You can go nuts. I think my 2 Inkscape pics saved at over 6,000 pixels in height. My source was just 5,000 tall. Sweet.
Next, I am not sure what 6R is doing. There's like 100 freakin' filters in Inkscape, and I am not joking! But it looks like R6 might be using one of the "Shadow and Glows" filters. I'm not really sure, though. There are several filters here, and the only one that has any adjustable parameters is "Drop Shadow." You can select the drop down menu under "Shadow Type" and pick "Inner Shadow." From there you can change the offsets on the X or Y axis, which will place the shadows on one side and on either the top or bottom. (As you can see, menus upon menus here.)
Here are a couple of test pics I did. One I used my "B and W" pic from Paint.Net's filter, and ran Comic Life's sketch filter. The 2nd is my original full color render with Inkscapes Trace Bitmap Edge Detection alone, and the 3rd is the same pic with the drop shadow added. They still don't look close though. Maybe it is the source image, I was trying to stay consistant so I could judge the results.
* To copy(/paste) directly from Daz without saving the picture, simply use the Render Editor ! (I use Daz Studio 3... Is the editor always in version 4 ?)
* If you use Comic Life filters you don't (necessary) need to use filters in Inkscape... Simply use "Trace bitmap" ! (For this picture above I didn't use any filter in Inkscape !)
6R
Its only simple if you know how to do it. I have never seen that before, so its new to me. There are so many little things in this program that many people never know about or learn, even long time users still find stuff they didn't know. And I'm not a long time user. I was happy to discover how to save a spot render like a regular render when somebody floated a thread up about it. And I saw several people who have been here for years comment they never knew that was possible.
Keep in mind I have never used either CL nor Inkscape until 2 days ago. But in the first post that I quoted you, you said you only used Inkscape in those particular pictures. So I was trying that.
I'd like to see your original pics before turning them into this drawing style. That would help a lot. If you are using Daz 3, that at least tells me you are not using Iray to render your initial image. I'm going to guess your colors are simple and well pronounced to help the process. The picture I used probably had too many color variations to work easily.
Oooops ! Sorry ! Because of my bad english I don't have used the right word with "simply" !?! I don't know... Should I write : "JUST use the Render Editor" ???
6R
Several pictures/models :
With a dark look :
light or dark :
Thanks to the Random tool from 3D Universe : One character but a lot of shapes !
To finish with the Sexy Girl 4 :
6R
OK ! Time to disappear...
6R
Tooooo cute!
Thanks...
I just have discovered that the more the texture (on the picture/render) is complex on a Daz model the more the final render in Comic Life -> Inkscape is interesting : You can see it here with the "Major Cache" model !
6R
By mixing my old "2D cartoon render" and an "Outline render" (see pictures at the bottom) I have made these 2 Sexy Girls 4 (at the top) : the first one with full black outlines at 100% and the second one with semi-transparent black outlines at 50%. In the last case the strokes seem to have the same tone as the colors.
The result is very interesting but it's a bit more work with 2 different renders in Daz Studio... then Comic Life for 1 render... then Inkscape to make the outlines sharper and to mix both ! I need a few minutes but how much time if I had to draw all of this !?!
6R
OK ! I have improved my work on this above : Now I can use the same Daz file for both renders. So it's faster and it's perfect for the pose given to the model before rendering...
The only problem : I can't use normal Textures and normal Hair because of my 2D Cartoon effect using colors only.
Then I have found a better way in Comic Life and Inkscape for the outlines. Here are some results on various models (100% or 50% black outline opacity) :
6R
Can Inkscape handle outlining?
As for paint.net and Photoshop, I've experimented with both quite a lot but I find that a purely post filter approach to outlining often doesn't work ideally -- the filter just falters unless the objects/figures have reliably distinct contrast from clothing/background.
If you mean "detect and show the outlines" I think NO !?! It's why I use Comic Life... But Inkscape make these outlines sharper.
I have tried to make pictures like in Comics with "flat" colors (no lights and shadows) but black outlines :
6R
In the last Daz newsletter it seems there is now the possibility to render nice outlines. Great !
Following my needs I can add more or less black (Comics look) as you can see on these 3 pictures :
6R
These are Poser Tuts
Double Post Deleted
Very interesting... Thanks for sharing.
2 other pictures ! For the second one I have used Comic Life twice : for the outlines then to add speedlines and balloon like in a Comics case.
6R
These look fantastic (at least to my untrained eye)! Were you able to create these by rendering the initial image in 3DL then passing it to Comic Life to create the outlines? I've not used CL before. Did you have to create your own custom filters? I have a series of projects that this approach would be perfect for, but I'm guessing your workflow is more complicated than just running a filter on a Daz render...
As you can see above and below you have a lot of ways to render the first picture (for the colors) in Daz Studio... using Daz included shaders or other ones.
The whole trick is the right way to render the second picture (the same file) in Daz Studio... for the outlines to come using Comic Life filters (+ Inkscape).
It isn't complicated because I change some parameters within a few seconds... It's just to know how (my secret) !?!
Here are some other pictures (looking like old Comics) because I'm working again and again to find interesting renders : As you can see here, it's a mix of 2 pictures (the "flat" colored one and the outline one !)
6R
Here is another kind of great filter in Comic Life (looking like in old newspaper) : Here I only use 1 render from Daz because there is no color !!! (And I don't use Inkscape at all here !!!)
6R
6R
I respect and appreciate that you do not want to divulge your process, but can you confirm if I understand the basic process? it seems that you create two renders with the same scene in Daz, the first to get the flat colors and the second to create a more posterized look that you bring into Comic Life which enables you to generate the black line art. Is that essentially how you create these? Of course, the trick is to get all of the various layers working well as you have. :-)
Very cool thread.
These are outstanding.... Many thanks for sharing....
Thanks, guys !
@pds : I couldn't explain it better than you... with my bad english. Thanks a lot !
Of course, you could use 2 different Daz scenes but one scene is better for the (same) Pose, the (same) Position, and the (same) Camera View for both pictures... working "together" in Inkscape !
For the colored picture you can use any render (not "flat" colors only !) working well with future outlines...
6R