Non-photorealistic Renders (NPR)

Oso3D

Having trouble replicating the exact style I had above on other scenes (which seems par for the course with filter stuff), but I got a result I'm happy with here:

I ended up using PWToon to get the precise starting image I wanted, because the one issue I still run into NPR with Iray is 'even lighting.' 3DL ambient works much easier for this kind of look. (I MIGHT try Iray Sketchy again and blow out the lights, since the sketch effect isn't directly light-based)

Also used LineRender9000, again, to add some crucial fiddly lining.

 

Oso3D

Someone pointed out the lighting looked weird and sure enough the fershuggin headlamp was on.

Here's the even betterer result without stupid headlamp.

 

Headwax

timmins.william said:

Someone pointed out the lighting looked weird and sure enough the fershuggin headlamp was on.

Here's the even betterer result without stupid headlamp.

great result on this one , it would be interesting to drop the contrats for the distant lines - does Studio render out a depth pass? someties you can use it with a "screen parameter'  as a layer in post to make distant objects less contrasty

 

Headwax

Tobor said:

head wax said:

Thank you Tobor. I took your advice on the line weights - thanks for that c and c!

You're welcome. For this type of illustration, outlines tend to be the most obvious "tell" that an image was processed by a filter. While comics and similar styles make use of outlines, paintings almost never do. Of course it all depends on your goals. If your goal was to render and process a 3D image and make it look like a hand-drawn illustration, you've succeeded. I think your second example particularly is one of the best examples of this I've seen anywhere.

Thanks Tobor! I'm a traditional painter (acrylics) who paints in a semi fauvist style - with the belief that a good artist sees 'less' than the general public ( as opposed to the common belief that artists  see more) . In my digital work - illustrations - I feel that there should be a narrative (ie they illustrate a story) and so they need to be easier to read as far as the story elements are concerned - so the goal was indeed for it to look like a hand drawn illustration - thank you for the compliment.

 

Headwax

algovincian  wrote 

 

Fantastic image, head wax. It's got a strong children's book illustration vibe to it, which is great. Here comes Peter Cottontail, hoopin' down the bunny trail . . .

- Greg

ETA: In my case, the analysis passes, while not "out of the box", were rendered with a single click in Studio via script.

Thanks Greg! I;ve been watching this thread for a while and admiring you work from afar. It's part of the reason I started with Studio - though I still don't have a workflow and have no clue in scripting !

 

Headwax

Artini said:

How did you get into Toon render mode in Carrara - I could not find it.

Never mind - found it - it is under "Scene" "Filters"

 

 

Hi Artini, when the window comes up tick update and  full render and drag the window so it's really large and you will be able to see what you are doing!

 

3Diva

Muscleman said:

algovincian said:

Here's the output (6 of the styles) for an old scene run through the current algos (one of a batch of 12 scenes rendered overnight): 

This scene is a good, challenging test to judge separation. I still love me some Noodles!

- Greg

Really love all these images!!! How do you do that? That' work on 3DL or Iray? Btw, great, great, work!

They are AMAZING aren't they!? I LOVE them! :D He has is own shaders/algorithm that creates those insanely cool images. :D It's a work of many years and a lot of frustration. They really are the best, most realistic NPR renders I've seen.

Muscleman

divamakeup said:

Muscleman said:

algovincian said:

Here's the output (6 of the styles) for an old scene run through the current algos (one of a batch of 12 scenes rendered overnight): 

This scene is a good, challenging test to judge separation. I still love me some Noodles!

- Greg

Really love all these images!!! How do you do that? That' work on 3DL or Iray? Btw, great, great, work!

They are AMAZING aren't they!? I LOVE them! :D He has is own shaders/algorithm that creates those insanely cool images. :D It's a work of many years and a lot of frustration. They really are the best, most realistic NPR renders I've seen.

Yes! That's really AWESOME! Never see that in any PRO Products! ..and I buy a lot uh!  I think he must think to make one for Iray too and simply sell ! :)

firewarden

timmins.william said:

Someone pointed out the lighting looked weird and sure enough the fershuggin headlamp was on.

Here's the even betterer result without stupid headlamp.

 

That's awesome!

firewarden

divamakeup said:

Muscleman said:

algovincian said:

Here's the output (6 of the styles) for an old scene run through the current algos (one of a batch of 12 scenes rendered overnight): 

This scene is a good, challenging test to judge separation. I still love me some Noodles!

- Greg

Really love all these images!!! How do you do that? That' work on 3DL or Iray? Btw, great, great, work!

They are AMAZING aren't they!? I LOVE them! :D He has is own shaders/algorithm that creates those insanely cool images. :D It's a work of many years and a lot of frustration. They really are the best, most realistic NPR renders I've seen.

Many of us have attested we would gladly purchase... Too bad it's not a sellable system/product due to complexity. Or maybe he can make it simpler some day.

Oso3D

Another few experiments with the crosshatch thing.

 

Oso3D

For the curious, I've been primarily using FilterForge's Crosshatch Drawing, which is amazing. Among other things, if you switch off all the crosshatching, it does an AMAZING job at outlining objects properly, with a line that's not weirdly perfect like you often get from filters.

Combining that with LIneRender9000 (at least sometimes, the Tavern didn't really need it)

 

Headwax

timmins.william said:

For the curious, I've been primarily using FilterForge's Crosshatch Drawing, which is amazing. Among other things, if you switch off all the crosshatching, it does an AMAZING job at outlining objects properly, with a line that's not weirdly perfect like you often get from filters.

Combining that with LIneRender9000 (at least sometimes, the Tavern didn't really need it)

thanks for that I'll check it out.

Oso3D

And again with the Tavern. The thing is, for a good woodcut style, you really don't want too much fiddly details to appear, or it looks... weird.

In this case, I removed all the Bump that was making such delightful but unwanted extra touches, and I think it hits the mark better.

 

Oso3D

And my favorite so far. The original version I did of this was one of my favorite renders, because I just find it... cute.

But now? It looks like a page from a children's book. Love it.

 

Headwax

Nice work Mr Timmins! Very storybook feel.

Here's my attempt to do something in  the style of a husband and wife team named "Duginart". You can see their work here http://duginart.com/gallery.html.

This is my first genesis render :) 

Artini

head wax said:

Artini said:

How did you get into Toon render mode in Carrara - I could not find it.

Never mind - found it - it is under "Scene" "Filters"

 

 

Hi Artini, when the window comes up tick update and  full render and drag the window so it's really large and you will be able to see what you are doing!

 

Thanks for the tips. I have just rendered Darkwarld with it.

Oso3D

I went with a slightly different style in this case, using Photoshop's Dark Strokes as underlying look, then LineRender9000's lines on top.

 

 

Knittingmommy

Looks nice, Will.   Combining the two work well.

@Artini  Darkwald looks great with that style.  Also, reminds me that I picked that up awhile ago and still haven't done anything with it.  

Oso3D

Here's another with the main style. I found that I didn't even need to use any of the extra lines, it's just straight out Crosshatch Drawing @FilterForge, which is rapidly becoming my favorite thing.

http://willbear.deviantart.com/art/Flowing-Hair-Crosshatch-672104076

(Mild nudity, so just the link)

 

algovincian

Muscleman said:

divamakeup said:

Muscleman said:

algovincian said:

Here's the output (6 of the styles) for an old scene run through the current algos (one of a batch of 12 scenes rendered overnight): 

This scene is a good, challenging test to judge separation. I still love me some Noodles!

- Greg

Really love all these images!!! How do you do that? That' work on 3DL or Iray? Btw, great, great, work!

They are AMAZING aren't they!? I LOVE them! :D He has is own shaders/algorithm that creates those insanely cool images. :D It's a work of many years and a lot of frustration. They really are the best, most realistic NPR renders I've seen.

Yes! That's really AWESOME! Never see that in any PRO Products! ..and I buy a lot uh!  I think he must think to make one for Iray too and simply sell ! :)

I enjoy Iray (and the hardware acceleration), but there is a lot of HDR processing involved throughout the entire process which really accentuates the graininess of Iray's output. This, along with the fact that the depth canvases (again, used extensively) that Iray produces do not take into account any transparency whatsoever pretty much put the kibosh on the idea . . . doh!

- Greg

FirePro9

TheNathanParable said:

Unfortunately Daz Studio doesn't have any multipass function out of the box, at least not that I know of. Any multipass renders have to be set up manually.

Depending on the type of multipass render, this can be either a simple or very tedious process.

Like, for most normal 3Delight renders, some basic light-based multipass renders would suffice, simply switching on/off each light and rendering them out seperately (e.g Ambient Light, Diffuse Light, Rim Light, that kind of thing).

However, for more complex renders, especially NPR renders, you're probably gonna want things like depth passes, normal passes, masks, etc...those are significantly more tedious to do, as they typically require either the use of special cameras and/or shaders which you'll have to manually apply for each pass (unless you're good with scripting, in which case you can probably automate the process somewhat).

Just discovered Dreamlight's Light Dome Pro-R product also does multipass rendering that you export to Photoshop where you can adjust one of many layers for light, shadow, depth, fog, background, etc.

firewarden

Artini said:

head wax said:

Artini said:

How did you get into Toon render mode in Carrara - I could not find it.

Never mind - found it - it is under "Scene" "Filters"

 

 

Hi Artini, when the window comes up tick update and  full render and drag the window so it's really large and you will be able to see what you are doing!

 

Thanks for the tips. I have just rendered Darkwarld with it.

Wow! Very nice.

Artini

Thanks, Knittingmommy and firewarden.

Frankly speaking, that was also one of my first renders with the set, too, and I like how it came out.

It looks like, I need to spend more time in Carrara rendering with Toon and NPR settings.

 

Wonderland

head wax said:

Aanother Carrara render. This image has extensive postwork, but the good thing  about Carrara is that, straight out of the box, Carrara will give you a lot of different passes to play with. Plus it has an inbuilt toon renderer you can also combine with these passes in post.Plus it has an NPR renderer which really does need a bit more love from its users - ie exploration.

It also has a hair tool which gives reasonable NPR fur. You can also render this out as a different pass.

The passes I have used in this are diffuse, colour, coverage, shadow, beauty, index , primitive volume (for isolating hair) plus some others. The coverage layer gives object lines, but allows isolation of image elements for your post work, (as does the object pass - which gives more choice in masking for postwork) You can treat each pass eg shadow pass differently in post work and once combined in layers you have much more leeway than just trying to work with the beauty pass.

I've upped the saturation to get more of that old fashioned kid's book feel - I hope that works? The Character is Housemouse dressed up in some banged together clothes. Carrara is around 45 bucks at the moment (?) for pc members.

edit - forgot to erase the transmap outline of his whiskers ;)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SaveLove these! Definitely perfect for children's book illustrations!

Wonderland

So after this render took ONE FULL DAY and a few hours to finish for some reason, (on a CPU only Windows laptop), it was still grainy and I ended up just painting over the whole thing by hand in Photoshop. Then I did a comic-booky looking version...  I love the retro-sci-fi mod look of the sixties and was going for that...

I really like postwork better than rendering. Postwork is relaxing with my Wacom tablet, setting up everything and lighting in Daz Studio is still stressful and frustrating for me. I may go back to Poser for a while, but now I have TONS of IRay and DS only products... I think if I had a computer that could render with a GPU it would be a lot less frustrating, and looking into NVIDIA external boxes for my Mac if anyone has info on affordable boxes. So far what I've found is way too expensive...

Oso3D

Oh, depth canvas doesn't take into account transparency? hmm.

Maybe I should revisit my distance shader.

 

algovincian

timmins.william said:

Oh, depth canvas doesn't take into account transparency? hmm.

Maybe I should revisit my distance shader.

It's been a long time since I looked into it, but my understanding is that it is solely geometry based, and doesn't take into account any cutout/refraction maps.

- Greg

Oso3D

I had briefly worked on some height and distance based shaders, but gave up because height shaders are easily replicated with a simple Iray Decal projection, and, at the time, I assumed distance canvas would do the job better.

But hey, maybe I will work on WTP4.

 

Oso3D

What do people think?

I'm thinking halftone approach has a cleaner look for a more scifi/futuristic variation, while the crosshatch suits a more fantasy/historic/storybook style.