Non-photorealistic Renders (NPR)
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It's just PWToon, with a lot of tweaking settings.
And, yeah, I should probably have tweaked bump a little more to add more lines to the backdrop or less to the wood or... something. A more blank environment and detailed figure makes sense, but the way I did it was a little haphazard.
It was, however, mostly a speed test... I asked some friends 'hey, give me something to render' and I think I had the whole thing done in an hour.
Hey David! Glad you came over here to join us! And guys: go over to his site and see what he's doing. His anime-style work should be of great interest to all of us working with NPR.
You know, I would actually love to do more NPR with Daz Studio, but I'm finding that Poser seems to have more tools that I can use for that. I hope that future editions of DS offer something like the cool Comic Book Preview that I'm using in Poser 11.
Thank you very much! This is actually going to be printed in a small-press comic fanzine, so the halftone is needed to get it to print correctly. But, even if it weren't, I think I'd still use it here -- it really just adds that "certain something" to make this rock the old-school look I'm shooting for.
For those of you following this thread long enough to remember my lineart and toolset I've been working on for quite some time, I am finally ready for beta testing. Check my beta testing thread for details.
Animations fair game? Given how fast I've found I can render BW lineart style, been encouraged to try a bit of animation. Two... not terribly good animations, but hey, fun to play with. And wow, trying to keep the feet in the right place... yeah, think I'll generally stick with stills.
Awesome job on both :D
Here's a random couple of images from my testing today:
Awesome, Will - gotta love the power of Genesis! Reminds me of the morphing run cycle I created last spring. In case you (or anybody else), hasn't seen them yet and is looking for more animations, there's a large set of BVH files available here (this was where I got the base for creating the run cycle):
https://sites.google.com/a/cgspeed.com/cgspeed/motion-capture/daz-friendly-release
Please keep the animation coming!
- Greg
Looking fantastic, djigneo! Gotta love that tree from Stonemason's Enchanted Forest - it's great for testing trans maps. I know you're goal is to do this all in-house (DAZ), but have you considered running some sort of de-jagger on the final output? I remember back in the day, trueSpace (uhoh . . . I'm dating myself!) had a plugin interface that would allow you to install & run .8bf filters (Photoshop) as global post-processing filters after the render was complete. An plugin interface like this in DAZ would be awesome (hint hint - if you wanted to tackle it). I know I would buy it. You could write your own .8bf file to handle jaggies (and *tons* of other things), too.
I took the liberty of running my own home-cooked de-jagger on your image. Looks worthwhile to me:
- Greg
I agree. We'll see how burned out I get throughout the process of finalizing the current product. There's a big difference between getting it working for me and putting on sufficient polish that it's ready for everyone.
Though I'm very open to the idea of making other NPR tools. I think the idea of post-render scripts is a very strong one. One thing that I think is a consideration for this sort of thing is that I think if it relies on some sort of external toolset (outside of DAZ), that is a complication that will turn quite a few prospective customers off. Even if it's free you have to figure out the licensing for distribution, etc.
One such idea I was trying to figure out for quite some time was getting vector output as a result of the line art. Then you could stroke the vectors as you see fit, and it would scale well and your pen / brush options could give you a unique look, including a more controllable variance on the lines. It's my understanding that modern manga uses vectors and this sort of technique.
In some of my personal (DAZ) scripts I've automated the usage of the free utility ImageMagick with great results. One of my scripts to support NPR is a script that will change all selected materials to the shader I use, setting parameters appropropriately where it can. I use ImageMagick to determine the average color of the image map and assign a solid color based on that output, and it gives me a very reasonable starting point from which I can tweak the colors further.
The way it worked in trueSpace was the global post-processing filters (.8bf) were loaded via a plugin and the settings saved as part of the trueSpace scene file. The actual processing was done right in trueSpace as part of the rendering! trueSpace executed the code contained in the .8bf file, just the same way that many 2D image editing applications support the use of Photoshop plugins. It was really slick, and opened up a whole new world.
- Greg
I took a brief look and technically it might not be that hard. I'll take a look at some point.
I'm learning more and more how to use PWToon to create this look... mainly in knowing how to tweak Bump levels and line widths to get the looks I want, and how to control lighting.
Short form:
This looks best with Diffuse Maximum set to 0% (so there is no shading at all), specular shut off, and a single 100% lightsource (distant, ideally). Ambient can be used to create a three tone image (which is what I used here) so that details show up in the shadow. If you do that and still want the crisp look, make sure to set occlusion to 0% (although it's worth experimenting with to see if you want that look)
This looks fantastic, Will! The details are really coming through nicely. I'm wondering if applying what you've learned would help with your hunting drake image?
- Greg
@timmins.william yeah, that looks great!
It's subtle but a definite improvement! I find that the "jaggies" as you say are one of the dead give-aways that an image isn't traditionally done but rather a computer generated "traditional" look. Being able to get rid of those would go a long way in helping to "fool the eye" into thinking an image has been hand drawn. I think most of your NPRs are HUGE leaps forward in that reguard and most are very traditional looking, which I love! :D
Yeah. Kettu recently made some suggestions that could help clean up the line output a bit more, which I'm investigating as well.
So many ideas, so little time...
The idea of a post render photoshop filter plugin script is very much growing on me. I guess I know what I'll be up to next once I get through this beta. =)
Cool, I look forward to seeing what you come up with! :D
"So many ideas, so little time..." Isn't that the truth!? lol
I had a lot of fun with this one. I used several filters in the Nik Collection and a couple built-in Photoshop filters as well as some hand drawn bits. I kind of like how it came out. I almost wish I had a good printer so I could print it out and put it on my wall - I think it has a little bit of a "classical art" feel to it.
Here's the original:
This came out lovely. I'd love to know your process, or even a mini tutorial would be awesome.
As far as a good printer, it's not so much the printer as the paper. I sell prints of my artwork with a regular ink jet. All you need is a good brand of watercolor paper that fits the printer. If you'd like a link to what I buy, send me a PM .:D
AW
I'm very impressed with the water color effect. You did a great job with it, and it most certainly has a water color look to it.
Thanks, I'm glad you like it! :D I enjoyed working on it!
Sure, I can do a quick tutorial. I can't really recall all the EXACT steps I took but I remember most of it. You'll need Photoshop CS6 or later and Nik Collection. Be warned, it sounds like it's a long process but it doesn't take all that long once you get the steps down:
1. Use Viveza 2 - put "structure" to 100% and "contrast" to -21% (negative 21%)
2. Use Color Efex Pro - use the setting "Film Efex: Nostalgic"
3. Then Control+J to make a copy of the new Nostalgic layer (or just right+click and pick "duplicate layer")
4. Use Filter >> Oil Paint (I think this is only in Photoshop CS6 or later) and use the follwing settings:
Now those settings are for an image that is 1000 pixels by 1250 pixels - you'll likely want to adjust those settings if you're working with a smaller or larger image. For lager images you'll probably want to use a higher "Stylization" number, for smaller images you'll want a smaller number.
5. Now drop the opacity of the new Oil Paint layer to 60%
6. Then hit Control+Shift+Alt+E - all at once. This basically creates a new layer that looks like all the other layers combined. And then set this new layer to "Screen".
7. Go into Color Efex Pro again and pick "Film Efex: Nostalgic" again
8. Go to Filter >> Oil Paint one more time and use the same settings as last time
9. Drop the new Oil Paint layer's opacity to around 50%
10. Use Color Efex Pro one last time, this time using "Bleach Bypass"
11. Set that new Bleach Bypass layer to "Overlay" and the opacity of that layer to around 35%
12. Create a new blank layer on top and with a large, very soft brush, with low opacity paint white around the edges to give it a little bit of a hazy or dreamy effect.
13. Use Viveza again - put "structure" to 50%
14. You can then add any hand painted touches you like or any color adjustments you like but for the most part it should now be Done
I hope that was helpful. Please share the image if you use my technique - I'd love to see what you come up with if you use it! :D
Ah thank you! That's sweet of you to say! :) I did enjoy working on the image and am pretty happy with how it turned out. :D
Thank you for the offer, that's kind of you. :) Unfortunately I don't have a printer.
Here are a couple more. I don't want to hijack the thread too much, so I won't post any more after this for a while. lol :D
The original:
Original:
Those boots were made for walkin, just like this thread was made for hijackin - please post away! BTW, these look great, Diva. Thanks for taking the time to share the renders, as well as info about the tools and processes used!
- Greg
Thanks, Greg! I hope my tutorial is useful to others. :)
Great images, DivaMakeup =) Thanks for the mini-tutorial, I bookmarked it. Will try adapting it to GIMP.
PS I use Windows builds of GIMP 2.9 beta from Partha.com, and they come with seamless support for NIK Collection now. So for those who avoid Adobe like I do, it's probably the best option.
Oh, great news. GIMP is what I mostly use. I'll have to look into the beta and go download the NIK Collection.
I downloaded the beta of GIMP 2.9 for Windows and took a look at the NIK Collection. Very nice filters. I thought I'd post a couple of images. Of all the filters I've tried so far, I like the first image the best. The second image was done with GIMP's Cartoon filter. It looks like they may have made some changes because the same image done with the old filter in 2.8 doesn't look the same. I still have a ton of filters to play with that I haven't tried yet. I think both of these counts as NPR images. I'm still trying to figure out where the lines gets drawn between real and NPR.
I have more realistic images with the filters I tried posted in my Laboratory thread.