csaa's NPR Annex
csaa
Posts: 812
Here's a collection of images showcasing what I've learned rendering Daz scenes with a non-photorealistic (NPR) aesthetic. As of this writing, my peferred tools are Daz Studio, Blender and Clip Studio Paint.
Comments are welcome. This isn't a shared thread, however; I appreciate it if you discuss or share your work/images on any of the common NPR threads, such as More Non-photorealistic Renders (NPR III), and flag me there if you need my attention. Everyone benefits from a personal space, and I appreciate how the Daz Forums accomodates this to some degree.
To start off, I'll be pulling images I've shared at More Non-photorealistic Renders (NPR III). Here's one of my favorite work.
Cheers!
Sgt. Inez | Daz Assets | Blender Eevee render | Clip Studio Paint post-edit
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Comments
Sgts. Cleo and Inez: Where Empathy Grows | Daz assets | Blender render | Clip Studio Paint post-edit
You've managed that difficult task all NPR artists struggle with: Nailing a consistant look.
Sgts. Andrea & Inez: Honesty and Skepticism | Daz assets | Blender render | Clip Studio Paint post-edit
A simple homage to Herge, whose comics filled countless carefree hours of childhood days long gone. A bit non-sensical for a cover, but it calls to mind a lot of good memories.
Cheers!
Sgt. Cleo: Polychromatic Masks of Mystery | Daz assets | Blender render | Clip Studio Paint post-edit
I've been looking for an alternative to the straight DAZ look, but everything I try seems to drop details and expressions are lost. You seem to have overcome that. Would love to know how you do it! :D
David R,
There are a number of techniques a few of us have tried. I always recommend anyone starting out with non-photorealistic rendering to give Sketchy Too Edge and Art Shaders a serious look. It's pretty good. Here's a sample from way back of the two charactes I usually render, Sgts. Andrea and Inez. This is where I started.
In the Daz Gallery, XxGreyxX is another person I know who was using Sketchy, along with Visual Style Shaders to render NPR assets in Daz.
Nowadays I use Blender as the renderer. Blender has a couple of NPR shaders, free and commercial. I use the one from Lightning Boy Studio and work out any kinks postedit with Clip Studio Paint. Should all this not be your cup of tea, I refer you to others who've posted at the Non-Photorealist Renders thread. You can reach out to them about the techniques they've used. The interesting ones who go beyond Daz have used Octane, even generative AI in their workflow. Who would have known!
Regardless of the tools, there's the matter of aesthetic, which is a personal choice. As NPR is suitable for Asian style anime and manga, two art styles I tremendously enjoy since childhood, I've relied on these for inspiration. Essentially it comes down to surrounding oneself with sources of inspiration, and spending time trying reverse engineer the intent and the techniques that went into the production. To that end, reading and watching interviews online (the Japanese artists are very generous in explaining their thought process) provides valuable insight.
I'm a software fellow by trade. If someone without formal art training like me can do this ... anyone can too.
Cheers!
Yeah, Sketchy can be a tough beast to tame, but once you've bent it to your will, you can do a lot of different looks with it! I won't post any here, as not to hijack Csaa's thread, but if you put in the work, its versitile.
Below is a simple turntable animation video (YouTube).
Sgts. Andrea, Cleo & Inez: Remorse Vignette | Daz assets | Blender render | Clip Studio Paint post-edit
A recent one. My take on the Tech Soldier: Special Forces suit with the MRI Room as the backdrop.
Cheers!
Sgt. Inez: Kit Out 005 | Daz assets | Blender render | Clip Studio Paint post-edit
Wow! I'm really loving your style! Fantastic!
Thanks for the kind feedback.
I got the chance recently to look into UV mapping in Blender. With the simple approach, I was able to create some decals for upper body armor. Here are initial renders. I adjusted the gamma correction of the Eevee render to give the dark tones a more aggressive attitude.
Cheers!
Sgt. Andrea: XNJ Section 06 Police Livery | Daz assets | Blender render | Clip Studio Paint post-edit
That is a marked improvement!
Thank you!
Those where the result of simple PNG alphas. I layered them over the key light and shadows in the shader. Nothing complicated. It seems unwrapping the UV in Blender for the Sci-Fi Police Outfit GF8 is fairly straightforward. Other Daz assets I have in mind require more complex techniques. Apart from that, it's just good choice of colors and lighting -- complementary choices that enhance the vibrance of the scene.
The only downside of upgrading to decals is that as the mesh deforms following a pose, the decal symbols and text also warp. This only reinforces the impression that the "armor" is closer to cloth than it is to any hard surface. A lot of the cyberpunk refernce images suggest torso protections that's rigid, something projectiles or a determined bite from the Big Bald Wolf wouldn't get past. On the other hand, one could argue that in the fictional high tech future, material advances make uber flexible armore feasible. I couldn't imagine the mother of anime cyberpunk, Maj. Motoko Kusanagi, making her killer moves without this degree of freedom!
Cheers!
Great style. I'm enjoying all the renders, color palettes and POVs!
@csaa :
Those look great, and it is good to see you dipping your toes further into the creation processes to help your work -- Soon, you will join us, and go full circle with creating your own content from scratch instead of relying on other creators to create what you need for your work.
Regarding your soft armor; Go for it -- I have several characters that utilize this tech since a Quarter-Century ago when I first saw this tech being developed on a science education program. It's called non-Newtonian fluid, and you can learn about it if you want by Googling such phrases as "viscous liquid to hard solid via impact material circa late 1990 to 2010" and "impact liquid that becomes a hard solid when struck".
The second phrasing led me to this site:
https://www.sciencealert.com/liquid-armour-is-now-a-thing-and-it-stops-bullets-better-than-kevlar
I don't remember the name of the lab that was demonstrating the impact liquid, but I do remember that they only had a small amount of it, it looked like thick black oil (or more like the viscous 'tech' liquid near the end of the movie "Lucy" with Scarlet Johanson), and said it was extremely expensive to create so future applications would depend on lengthy cost-cutting -- They were only using hammers for the impact demonstrations, and not ballistics, though, at the time.
I look forward to your next set of images -- Keep up the great work!
DaremoK3,
Yeah, I remember seeing a video on FB about non-Newtonian physics. It had a lab assistant whacking a sample with all sorts of implements. Good thing the lab had a strappling grad student like him to demo the research!
Thanks for the article that you shared. 2015 ... wow! I wonder how far they've come to turn sci-fi into reality. Since all I need is some kernel of truth, I can run with this. It passes the plausibility and I can live with liquid armor of some sort, at least in my imagination.
Thanks too for the kind words of encouragement. I don't think I've gotten to three years yet doing stuff with Daz and Blender. It's been quite the journey; there's still a long road ahead. While I'm just warming up to the possibility that I'll someday make assets that others will use, for now I'm just happy finding solutions to the challenges I've run into. We'll see where that takes me to.
Cheers!
SapphireBlue,
Thank you for dropping by! The task of finding things to improve never ends.
I look forward to your next video-song that you share in the Daz forum.
Cheers!
I am doing an entire feature film in NPR/Anime style with Daz figures along with AI environments.
Sgt. Inez: Lightness of Being | Daz assets | Blender render | Clip Studio Paint post-edit
Sgts. Andrea, Cleo & Inez: Parting Ways | Daz assets | Blender render | Clip Studio Paint post-edit
I had the chance to revisit a scene I made nearly a year ago. I was curious to see how the changes I've put in since then measure up. Same camera and lighting; slight changes in each pose. If anything, I hope my color sense has gotten better. There's still a lot of room to improve, as I'm sure I have lots of great things to learn.
Thanks for stopping by.
Cheers!
That is a huge improvement!
Sgt. Inez: Blunt Implements of Force | Daz assets | Blender render | Clip Studio Paint post-edit
The gun from the Nanonense Cyber Suit for G8F set seemed like a good candidate for custom NPR texturing. While unwrapping the UV in Blender wasn't too complex, isolating sections of the mesh proved challenging; triangles made up the bulk, with few quads to select and turn into material slots. After a fair amount of patience and trial-and-error, I was able to get the look I wanted.
Below are renders of the gun in neutral lighting.
Cheers!
So when do we get see the first issue of this comicbook? I feel we know the characters, and now we'd like to see then in action in a narrative.
FirstBastion,
Eeerh, that might be a long time coming.
I do have a few storylines in mind, and if the project was solely prose then I'd have started writing things down. But generally speaking I'm in the world-building stage; most writers get lost here, a rabbit hole of endless discovery and fascination. On the surface I'm learning 3D stuff, but working on the visuals is what's really going on underneath. Basically I'm developing the look of things, trying to imagine the universe where these stories unfold.
Cheers!
While going through recent work above, I made a handful of turntable animations. They're very useful to study how the lighting on the figure changes. With these short clips on hand, I put together a video, plus a catchy tune, using Blender's built-in video editor.
Below is the YouTube clip ...
Cheers!
You worked very hard to get this look.
vrba79,
Yes, and a lot of it just fell into place the last few weeks.
Thanks for dropping by.
Cheers!
Sgt. Inez: Spirited Rebuff | Daz assets | Blender render | Clip Studio Paint post-edit
Lt. Andriv & Sgt. Cleo | A Moment of Second Guessing | Daz assets | Blender render | Clip Studio Paint post-edit
A little image bashing with Affinity Photo.
Cheers!
Sgt. Inez: Lightness of Being | Daz assets | Blender render | Affinity Photo post-edit