Non-photorealistic Renders (NPR)

Oso3D

What I like about Sketchy vs. many other similar products is that it creates nicely varied lines, rather than machine-perfect outlines. I mean, sometimes you WANT completely clean straight lines, but... often not.

 

mmitchell_houston

I needed a quick illustration for a detective story that someone else wrote, so I whipped this out. I'm not going to lie, I don't love it. It's not bad, and it is perfectly fine for the two quick evenings I spent on it (one night to set it up and create the various renders, the next night to put them into Manga Studio 5 and composit them). So, it's okay and suits its purpose, but it's nothing I'm thrilled with. Sometimes a Journeyman-level job is all you've got time and resources for.

This was done using my tried-and-true technique of rendering in Poser 11 with the Live Comic Book Preview, and then compositing the layers with different opacity settings in Manga Studio 5.

posecast

mmitchell_houston said:

So, it's okay and suits its purpose, but it's nothing I'm thrilled with. Sometimes a Journeyman-level job is all you've got time and resources for.

I think i would totally buy an rpg rule book that was illustrated like this! It is great.

mmitchell_houston

posecast said:

mmitchell_houston said:

So, it's okay and suits its purpose, but it's nothing I'm thrilled with. Sometimes a Journeyman-level job is all you've got time and resources for.

I think i would totally buy an rpg rule book that was illustrated like this! It is great.

Thank you! I used the Sketch Designer to add another layer of detail to it. What do you think of this? I like it a little better, but it does have to be a little larger or the sketching doesn't show up well.

Sammagi

 

 

I actually find impressive mmitchell_houston. The added more on the second version :)

 

mmitchell_houston said:

posecast said:

mmitchell_houston said:

So, it's okay and suits its purpose, but it's nothing I'm thrilled with. Sometimes a Journeyman-level job is all you've got time and resources for.

I think i would totally buy an rpg rule book that was illustrated like this! It is great.

Thank you! I used the Sketch Designer to add another layer of detail to it. What do you think of this? I like it a little better, but it does have to be a little larger or the sketching doesn't show up well.

 

Sammagi

Here are two characters of my upcoming Graphic novel

firewarden

Does anyone know if http://www.daz3d.com/epic-skydomes-cloud-haven-hdri can work with Linerender9000 and/or Sketchy?

mmitchell_houston

firewarden said:

Does anyone know if http://www.daz3d.com/epic-skydomes-cloud-haven-hdri can work with Linerender9000 and/or Sketchy?

Because Linerender9000 is a scripted camera, and not a shader, it should work with the skydome. 

mmitchell_houston

I finally took the plunge and invested in Akvis Sketch as a post-processing tool to create images that look like they were hand drawn. I have a project coming up and I think this would be a good look for it. I paid for the commercial license, which runs $154 -- but I was able to get %15 off by posting links to the software on my blog and then requesting a coupon code. The software publisher responded overnight, and I got the software for $130.90. BTW: The non-commercial license is less expensive, so you can buy it and then upgrade later. It won't save you any money (the upgrade will cost the same as the full commercial license, but you do get the benefit of trying the software out before you pay for the commercial license). And, of course, there is a 10-day trial so you can test drive it before you buy (and make sure it runs on your hardware).

 

These are my first "serious" tests with the software. As usual, it's a composite of multiple passes. I created multiple layers of the image in Photoshop and then masked out the different parts I wanted to work on. You see, I wanted a darker pass on the dress, lighter on the face (I also turned off cross-hatching on the face) and a different pass on the hands and gun. The background is also on a separate layer -- I just splashed some colors around and then ran Akvis Sketch on it. I wanted bigger strokes, so I actually scaled up the background about 200% so I could get nice, big strokes on it. I also added some touch-ups along the edges and some extra lines (her elbow bend and chin, for example) to give it more definition. All in all, not bad for something I'm just playing with at this moment. I think this could be a useful tool in my production atwork and I'm looking forward to working with it more.

I worked in color and then converted to gray scale so we could see what it would look like in both formats. What do you guys think? Which is your favorite?

 

firewarden

mmitchell_houston said:

firewarden said:

Does anyone know if http://www.daz3d.com/epic-skydomes-cloud-haven-hdri can work with Linerender9000 and/or Sketchy?

Because Linerender9000 is a scripted camer, and not a shader, it should work with the skydome. 

Thanks!

posecast

mmitchell_houston said:

I worked in color and then converted to gray scale so we could see what it would look like in both formats. What do you guys think? Which is your favorite?

I prefer the color though both are great. I own this software as well. It really is great for what it does. It still drives me crazy though, and the reason I started doing a lot of image to sketch conversion with ios apps.

mmitchell_houston

posecast said:

mmitchell_houston said:

I worked in color and then converted to gray scale so we could see what it would look like in both formats. What do you guys think? Which is your favorite?

I prefer the color though both are great. I own this software as well. It really is great for what it does. It still drives me crazy though, and the reason I started doing a lot of image to sketch conversion with ios apps.

Thanks. It was pretty good for a first "serious" attempt at getting something I could publish. I also prefer the color image, but I'll need it to look good in both color & b&w. If I can get a look I like, I will be using this style for a series of Western illustrations for a role playing game. The PDF of the book will be in color, and there may be a limited-edition color hardcover, but most of the print books will be in b&w. So I will need illustrations that work in both.

I'm going to revisit this illustration over the weekend. I need to adjust the pose a little (I don't like her hand just hanging there) and simplify the ruffle/lace on her dress, and lighten the cuffs. I will also probably tweak the lighting to something more dramatic.

wsterdan

timmins.william said:

I got an art gig (yay!) for upcoming RPG Galactic Dragons (wuxia + wild west + D&D in Spaaaace)

He wants a certain Chinese painting style, so I've been refining it. Some of the images use Linerender9k + PWToon, the others use Sketchy for Iray.

http://willbear.deviantart.com/gallery/62333720/GG

Congrats Will, and well-deserved. I absolutely love the look you've achieved, very well-done. In some of them, it's almost impossible to tell they started with 3D models.

-- Walt Sterdan 

Oso3D

Thank you, I appreciate that, Walt. ;)

 

mmitchell_houston

algovincian said:

Been away from DS for a while, but decided to download Truform's Spiderman and see how it rendered after reading the new Iray Sketchy thread:

http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/146041/sketchy-toon-and-art-style-shaders-for-iray-commercial/p1

- Greg

I've been meaning to comment on this for a while now. This is a very striking image with a great texture. The post and lighting are good, too. I'm not sure it looks entirely NPR, but that's probably just me. This is very stylized and it's just FREAKING COOL!

mmitchell_houston

timmins.william said:

I got an art gig (yay!) for upcoming RPG Galactic Dragons (wuxia + wild west + D&D in Spaaaace)

He wants a certain Chinese painting style, so I've been refining it. Some of the images use Linerender9k + PWToon, the others use Sketchy for Iray.

http://willbear.deviantart.com/gallery/62333720/GG

Again, one of the things I love about Linerender9k is that I can totally just set everything up in Iray and do a few linepasses anyway, in 3DL.

WILL! You da man! That is great news! What a cool idea for the art style. This is definitely different and it will stand out amidst all the other books I've seen (and as a game publisher, I've seen a lot).  I'm leaving a few comments over at DA on specific images, but in general I'm really impressed (as always) by what I see there. Please keep us posted (and if you respond to any of my comments through DA, you might want to PM me if I don't respond back in a while; I don't visit that site often).

algovincian

mmitchell_houston said:

algovincian said:

Been away from DS for a while, but decided to download Truform's Spiderman and see how it rendered after reading the new Iray Sketchy thread:

http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/146041/sketchy-toon-and-art-style-shaders-for-iray-commercial/p1

- Greg

I've been meaning to comment on this for a while now. This is a very striking image with a great texture. The post and lighting are good, too. I'm not sure it looks entirely NPR, but that's probably just me. This is very stylized and it's just FREAKING COOL!

 

Thanks - it is a great texture that did provide a lot for the algos to chew on. The credit goes to Trustyles (not Truform, I screwed up in my initial post, sorry - doh!) for making the great texture/mask though, not me. Some of you may recognize the pose that I borrowed from an image in my other thread:

Perfect after a few hand/feet tweaks. This is what I love about DAZ . . .

- Greg

Mustakettu85

timmins.william said:

I got an art gig (yay!) for upcoming RPG Galactic Dragons (wuxia + wild west + D&D in Spaaaace)

Congratulations, Will!

// didn't notice that post on time, only now that others started to congratulate you LOL //

Oso3D

Thank you, Mustakettu!

 

adacey

algovincian said:

Had nothing to do with the new Sketchy product, Linerender9000, or Iray - sorry if my post lead you to believe that. In that thread, Spidey made an appearance and it made me want to take a quick stab at it myself.

As far as how it was created goes, I have shared quite a bit about the process in this thread, and one other thread I styarted here in the forums:

http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/68493/algovincian-non-photorealistic-rendering-npr

I've tried to post as much information in these threads as possible. I suggest reading through the threads in their entirety, and hopefully this will answer some of your questions.

I know it's complicated and there's a lot to go through, and I've been asked this question quite often, so I took the time to single out a few posts I've made that have more information for those interested:

http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/811806/#Comment_811806

http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/980556/#Comment_980556

http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/981107/#Comment_981107

http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/980363/#Comment_980363

http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/982867/#Comment_982867

Hope this helps, and I hope you to see you post some of your own NPR!

- Greg

Thanks, Greg. Just so that I'm clear on your workflow, you're scripting up several different renders with different 3Delight options/modes (not sure what the right term would be), similar to how LineRender 9K works. Not saying you're doing it in the same way, but it's the closest parallel I can think of. Then you're taking the resulting images and doing some kind of scripted merging of the various images to get various different styles? Out of curiosity (mainly because I've played with some automated image stuff before), what are you using to automate that piece?

algovincian

I wrote numerous new 3DL shaders, as well as scripts that look at the initial materials applied to objects in the scene, and uses the info to set parameters on the new 3DL shaders. I refer to these as analysis passes.

These render output from the analysis passes is then passed to the illustration algorithms. This part is much more than the merging/blending/filtering of layers - it's more like additional rendering. The analysis passes help the algorithms understand what color objects are, where the edges of the objects are, how much light is hitting them, how far away they are from the camera, etc. 

This process is all controlled by VB script, which handles file I/O and the running of additional scripts and applications (including proprietary software that I wrote, as well as existing tools like Photoshop for example). It's really a massive systems integration project.

Hope this helps.

- Greg

mmitchell_houston

algovincian said:

I wrote numerous new 3DL shaders, as well as scripts that look at the initial materials applied to objects in the scene, and uses the info to set parameters on the new 3DL shaders. I refer to these as analysis passes.

These render output from the analysis passes is then passed to the illustration algorithms. This part is much more than the merging/blending/filtering of layers - it's more like additional rendering. The analysis passes help the algorithms understand what color objects are, where the edges of the objects are, how much light is hitting them, how far away they are from the camera, etc. 

This process is all controlled by VB script, which handles file I/O and the running of additional scripts and applications (including proprietary software that I wrote, as well as existing tools like Photoshop for example). It's really a massive systems integration project.

Hope this helps.

- Greg

Still hoping someday you figure out how to distribute it as a service, either via the web or an client app that runs locally and connects to your host. :-)

 

dreamfarmer

Adjusting NPR looks for a thing.

Knittingmommy

dreamfarmer said:

Adjusting NPR looks for a thing.

That's very nice!  Is that for your visual novel?  I like the style you have going there.

david_macrae

mmitchell_houston said:

algovincian said:

I wrote numerous new 3DL shaders, as well as scripts that look at the initial materials applied to objects in the scene, and uses the info to set parameters on the new 3DL shaders. I refer to these as analysis passes.

These render output from the analysis passes is then passed to the illustration algorithms. This part is much more than the merging/blending/filtering of layers - it's more like additional rendering. The analysis passes help the algorithms understand what color objects are, where the edges of the objects are, how much light is hitting them, how far away they are from the camera, etc. 

This process is all controlled by VB script, which handles file I/O and the running of additional scripts and applications (including proprietary software that I wrote, as well as existing tools like Photoshop for example). It's really a massive systems integration project.

Hope this helps.

- Greg

Still hoping someday you figure out how to distribute it as a service, either via the web or an client app that runs locally and connects to your host. :-)

Me too!!

I also just found out that Polygon Pictures which has a couple well known 3d anime on Netflix uses a their own render engine build on 3Delight

http://www.ppi.co.jp/news_release/ppipr20170310_maneki/

http://maneki.sh

 

dreamfarmer

Knittingmommy said:

dreamfarmer said:

Adjusting NPR looks for a thing.

 

That's very nice!  Is that for your visual novel?  I like the style you have going there.

It is and you have no idea how nice that is to hear!

FaxMisher

Here's something I've been working on for awhile - but I decided to try and go for a NPR render this time. ( I rendered it in 3DL and than did postwork in Photoshop )

mmitchell_houston

david_macrae said:

mmitchell_houston said:

algovincian said:

I wrote numerous new 3DL shaders, as well as scripts that look at the initial materials applied to objects in the scene, and uses the info to set parameters on the new 3DL shaders. I refer to these as analysis passes.

These render output from the analysis passes is then passed to the illustration algorithms. This part is much more than the merging/blending/filtering of layers - it's more like additional rendering. The analysis passes help the algorithms understand what color objects are, where the edges of the objects are, how much light is hitting them, how far away they are from the camera, etc. 

This process is all controlled by VB script, which handles file I/O and the running of additional scripts and applications (including proprietary software that I wrote, as well as existing tools like Photoshop for example). It's really a massive systems integration project.

Hope this helps.

- Greg

Still hoping someday you figure out how to distribute it as a service, either via the web or an client app that runs locally and connects to your host. :-)

Me too!!

I also just found out that Polygon Pictures which has a couple well known 3d anime on Netflix uses a their own render engine build on 3Delight

http://www.ppi.co.jp/news_release/ppipr20170310_maneki/

http://maneki.sh

 

David: That is SO COOL. Thanks for sharing that info with us.

mmitchell_houston

FaxMisher said:

Here's something I've been working on for awhile - but I decided to try and go for a NPR render this time. ( I rendered it in 3DL and than did postwork in Photoshop )

I like the image itself (and the expression is GREAT). Not sure I'm a big fan of the grainy dots, though. Of course, that could just be my preference, and no reflection on the work itself. 

algovincian

mmitchell_houston said:

algovincian said:

I wrote numerous new 3DL shaders, as well as scripts that look at the initial materials applied to objects in the scene, and uses the info to set parameters on the new 3DL shaders. I refer to these as analysis passes.

These render output from the analysis passes is then passed to the illustration algorithms. This part is much more than the merging/blending/filtering of layers - it's more like additional rendering. The analysis passes help the algorithms understand what color objects are, where the edges of the objects are, how much light is hitting them, how far away they are from the camera, etc. 

This process is all controlled by VB script, which handles file I/O and the running of additional scripts and applications (including proprietary software that I wrote, as well as existing tools like Photoshop for example). It's really a massive systems integration project.

Hope this helps.

- Greg

Still hoping someday you figure out how to distribute it as a service, either via the web or an client app that runs locally and connects to your host. :-)

Who knows what the future may hold!

- Greg