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Tips on outlines?

Oso3DOso3D Posts: 15,046
edited June 2015 in The Commons

With the ink style I've been doing as a post-processing thing, one problem I've run into is that while the processing is decent at making shades or clamping down colors, a lot of the edges between characters or whatnot don't have good lines.

Sometimes this looks fine, but sometimes the colors blur a bit.


Approaches that can help:
Scripted 3Delight Outline. This is nice, except the Normal output (which is the most useful) ignores transparency, which fails on a lot of images.
3Delight Cartoon (and, optionally, toon shaders, or just setting everything white/ambient white). This can be pretty good, although line thickness is a bit random.

I've also thought about coloring each object differently so I can use the edges in post process, but it's been... finicky.


There are, of course, a number of commercial products; pwToon, Camera Magic: ToonyCam Pro, Mephistopheles Noir, and a few others... but I'd prefer not to spend more money (or spend money on a package when I really just want one narrow function).


Any tips, or anything I'm missing?

For example, consider: http://willbear.deviantart.com/art/Ogre-and-warriorink-536717334

I think it came out nicely, but the ogre's forehead and hands look a little indistinct -- a solid outline would help a lot.

I was able to use Outline to get : http://willbear.deviantart.com/art/Ogre-and-Warrior-Color2-536941141 , but, as mentioned, it starts faltering if I have transmapped stuff.

Post edited by Oso3D on

Comments

  • Oso3DOso3D Posts: 15,046
    edited December 1969

    I'll bump this once... ?

  • DaWaterRatDaWaterRat Posts: 2,885
    edited December 1969

    When I do outlines, I actually do them in GIMP. I haven't worked much with it otherwise.

    They're not very heavy lines, to be sure, but I'll do an edge detect, desaturate, invert, and then I apply it as either a burn or a darken layer.

    TheNathanParable did a geometry shell outline shader freebie to go with his Manga Style shaders. I'm not sure where the forum thread is, though.

  • Oso3DOso3D Posts: 15,046
    edited December 1969

    Thanks for the GIMP reminder... I had mostly been using Paint.net, which has more limited filters.

    Edge Detect in GIMP does seem to do most of what I was hoping for, thanks!

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