Non-photorealistic Renders (NPR)

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  • 3Diva3Diva Posts: 11,527

    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.

     

    Oh nice! I really like the first one. It looks almost like a charcoal drawing. :D

  • KnittingmommyKnittingmommy Posts: 8,191

    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.

     

    Oh nice! I really like the first one. It looks almost like a charcoal drawing. :D

    Doesn't it though? I think that's why I like it so much.  I used to do charcoal sketches, but mine were never quite that good.  :)

  • nonesuch00nonesuch00 Posts: 18,131

    I could draw like that once. It took a few years of drawing comic books as a child before I got that good. I can't any more. There may be such a thing as natural talents but I'm no one of them.

    I tried a couple of toon shader presets in DAZ Studio today and they were far too realistic. What I was really wanting was a water color sketch so I'll do as in this thread and render to iRay and use the Nik filters and see what I get.

  • djigneodjigneo Posts: 283
    edited August 2016

    I started working on some examples of different styles using my toolset. This is something (a possible promo image) I came up with recently, trying to use freebie DAZ assets so I could make a tutorial later.

    Edit: Attaching the file seemed to not work because I had an '&' in the filename. =P

    alchemy promo_b w example.png
    1300 x 1000 - 1M
    Post edited by djigneo on
  • 3Diva3Diva Posts: 11,527
    djigneo said:

    I started working on some examples of different styles using my toolset. This is something (a possible promo image) I came up with recently, trying to use freebie DAZ assets so I could make a tutorial later.

    Edit: Attaching isn't working right now, so check this link for now.

    That looks nice! That toolset looks like it's coming along quite well! 

  • Oso3DOso3D Posts: 15,011

    I was really planning on doing a bunch of realistic Iray supers renders, but I keep ending up enjoying B&W lineart style more.

    Latest:

     

    Calcine BW.png
    1080 x 1080 - 612K
  • 3Diva3Diva Posts: 11,527

    I was really planning on doing a bunch of realistic Iray supers renders, but I keep ending up enjoying B&W lineart style more.

    Latest:

     

    Oh nice! That looks good! I can see that being colored and published in a comic. Very cool. :)

  • Oso3DOso3D Posts: 15,011

    Do you think it'd look better with color?

     

  • 3Diva3Diva Posts: 11,527

    Do you think it'd look better with color?

     

    Well I'm a comic book colorist, so I tend to think most things look better in color. lol I'm biased though. :P

  • Oso3DOso3D Posts: 15,011

    Heh. Well, doesn't hurt to try. Meanwhile, here's another render from same concept of a team of black superheroes (Code Blue).

     

    Tensor Tam BW.png
    1748 x 1080 - 363K
  • pdspds Posts: 593

    Heh. Well, doesn't hurt to try. Meanwhile, here's another render from same concept of a team of black superheroes (Code Blue).

     

    This looks fantastic, Will! Was it rendered using pwtoon? 

  • Oso3DOso3D Posts: 15,011
    edited August 2016

    Thank you! Yes, it was. Getting a flat B&W (or color) way is not hard: set all colors to white, turn on lines, set diffuse upper threshold to 0% (eliminating shading beyond B&W), and then be sure to use no-shadow lighting. I find a single distant or spot light works nicely. I sometimes use AoA Ambient light (usually with AO off unless I want a little shading) to go from hard B&W to 3-4 tone gray.

    I've experimented with a lot of different stuff, and while it has certain limitations (namely the whole 'seeing objects edge on looks completely black' issue), it does a great job in most of the ways I care about.

    Diva, here's another version of Calcine, this time with color (and a little bit of AO to add shading). What do you think, as an expert?

     

    Calcine C.png
    1080 x 1080 - 1M
    Post edited by Oso3D on
  • ToborTobor Posts: 2,300

    I was really planning on doing a bunch of realistic Iray supers renders, but I keep ending up enjoying B&W lineart style more.

    Will, You're getting really good at this! Nice work. Keep it up.

  • 3Diva3Diva Posts: 11,527
    edited August 2016

    Thank you! Yes, it was. Getting a flat B&W (or color) way is not hard: set all colors to white, turn on lines, set diffuse upper threshold to 0% (eliminating shading beyond B&W), and then be sure to use no-shadow lighting. I find a single distant or spot light works nicely. I sometimes use AoA Ambient light (usually with AO off unless I want a little shading) to go from hard B&W to 3-4 tone gray.

    I've experimented with a lot of different stuff, and while it has certain limitations (namely the whole 'seeing objects edge on looks completely black' issue), it does a great job in most of the ways I care about.

    Diva, here's another version of Calcine, this time with color (and a little bit of AO to add shading). What do you think, as an expert?

     

    That looks great, Wil! I'd love to see it pushed a little farther though, with slightly more dimension. Perhaps something like this: 

    Forgive my quick and messy coloring, I didn't have much time to spend on it. I just brought it into PS for a couple minutes and did a really quick paint over to show you what I mean (I hope you're not offended). :)

    Post edited by 3Diva on
  • Oso3DOso3D Posts: 15,011

    Not at all. ;)

    It's just funny, since I've been fighting 3D to get it to look 2d. May have overshot the mark. ;)

    Here's one of Tensor Tam. I may redo Calcine to see if I can get more of that effect.

    (I'm trying to do it with minimal postwork, but that's always an option)

     

    Tensor Tam C1.png
    1748 x 1080 - 1018K
  • djigneodjigneo Posts: 283

    Yeah, Will. I'm digging this latest style of yours. Very clean, and I think it's a look that definitely works!

  • Oso3DOso3D Posts: 15,011

    Better, or worse?

     

    Calcine CS.png
    1080 x 1080 - 1M
  • WillowRavenWillowRaven Posts: 3,787

    I was really planning on doing a bunch of realistic Iray supers renders, but I keep ending up enjoying B&W lineart style more.

    Latest:

    I love the clean lines.

  • WillowRavenWillowRaven Posts: 3,787

    Heh. Well, doesn't hurt to try. Meanwhile, here's another render from same concept of a team of black superheroes (Code Blue).

    The hair looks so real in this one ...

  • WillowRavenWillowRaven Posts: 3,787

    Thank you! Yes, it was. Getting a flat B&W (or color) way is not hard: set all colors to white, turn on lines, set diffuse upper threshold to 0% (eliminating shading beyond B&W), and then be sure to use no-shadow lighting. I find a single distant or spot light works nicely. I sometimes use AoA Ambient light (usually with AO off unless I want a little shading) to go from hard B&W to 3-4 tone gray.

    I've experimented with a lot of different stuff, and while it has certain limitations (namely the whole 'seeing objects edge on looks completely black' issue), it does a great job in most of the ways I care about.

    Diva, here's another version of Calcine, this time with color (and a little bit of AO to add shading). What do you think, as an expert?

    This style would also work great for children's books, especially for older picture books (transitional or middle grade). But I'm not really following your steps. Would it be too much for a more specific set of instructions?

    Better, or worse?

    This latest version looks even better.

  • Oso3DOso3D Posts: 15,011

    Ok, with PWToon there is 'diffuse upper threshold.' Thresholds basically control how shaded things look. With the two thresholds the same, the shading is binary -- Diffuse color/Shadow color. If the thresholds are different, there is gradiation between the two.

    For my strict B&W stuff, I keep both thresholds at 0 and rely on bump/displacement to add fiddly details.

    Also, ambient light has an Ambient Occlusion value, which, again, creates an impression of shading. For 3-4 tone images (black, gray, white) I rely on no AO, just an even lighting so that all shadows are gray and the black comes from outlines.

    With the last image, I used some threshold (75%) and AO to create some shading.

    I want to avoid the issue of ending up with shading looking like 'cheap 90s CGI art.'

    One approach I might want to try is to make a 'shading' render image of everything EXCEPT color and outlines, and run it through some sort of 'make it look penciled.' Mmm. I'd rather not, but... it would avoid overly generated-looking shading.

     

  • 3Diva3Diva Posts: 11,527

    Better, or worse?

     

    Better I think, but how we're more back toward a 3D look. lol It's a difficult dance - getting 3D to look 2D. I think the best option right now until the programs are "smarter" when it comes to creating 2D looks, is to do the "lines" from 3D but then hand color the image. That's just IMO of course. :)

  • Oso3DOso3D Posts: 15,011

    Another member of Code Blue, going with the semishaded style.

     

    Louie G CS.png
    1080 x 1080 - 478K
  • 3Diva3Diva Posts: 11,527

    Another member of Code Blue, going with the semishaded style.

     

    Is the color on a seperate layer from the lines? If so, perhaps you could hit the color layer with a very subtle blur. This would get rid of some of the harder/sharper shading and might help it look a little more like a hand colored look perhaps? :)

  • DollyGirlDollyGirl Posts: 2,656

    This is such a fun thread that I thought I would try my hand at doing this. So my approach was to post work. I started with an iray image. Actually I rendered out the background and foreground seperately. Then using Filter Forge filters I tried to approximate water coloring. I did the post work in PaintShop Pro X6. Making layers of the different filter results from Filter Forge. It was a combination of cartoon filters, watercolor filters and art medium. Then using gaussian blur, drop shadow and a cloud brush to soften edges and remove some of the pixelating that occured during the filter use portion of the project. Not as amazing as some of the others images in this thread. I had fun though!

  • DollyGirlDollyGirl Posts: 2,656
    edited August 2016

    And just for fun too these two images are about Hildy Johnson and use Eustace Scrubbs' half tone shaders.

    Post edited by Chohole on
  • KnittingmommyKnittingmommy Posts: 8,191
    edited August 2016

    Those look very nice.  I love the last two.  They remind me of old advertisments that were done in that style. I haven't them but haven't managed to play with them much.  My results haven't been near that good yet.

    Post edited by Knittingmommy on
  • WillowRavenWillowRaven Posts: 3,787
    DollyGirl said:

    This is such a fun thread that I thought I would try my hand at doing this. So my approach was to post work. I started with an iray image. Actually I rendered out the background and foreground seperately. Then using Filter Forge filters I tried to approximate water coloring. I did the post work in PaintShop Pro X6. Making layers of the different filter results from Filter Forge. It was a combination of cartoon filters, watercolor filters and art medium. Then using gaussian blur, drop shadow and a cloud brush to soften edges and remove some of the pixelating that occured during the filter use portion of the project. Not as amazing as some of the others images in this thread. I had fun though!

    Filter Forge is a wonderful tool. I use it a lot myself. Great job, btw.

  • DollyGirlDollyGirl Posts: 2,656

    Thank you both for your kind comments.

  • RuphussRuphuss Posts: 2,631

    hey DollyGirl

    nice stuff

    seems like a lot of us 3d artisans have an old  longing changing back to 2d pictures of our childhood

    2 statements i often read here:

    wow looks like a real photo

    or

    wow looks like painted

    very seldom

    wow looks like 3d art

This discussion has been closed.