Sketchy - Toon and Art Style Shaders for Iray [Commercial]

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  • this looks totally cool, what sort of render times are we looking at though and will the draw brush style textures jump around wildly animated like Poser Sketch or Carrara NPR or stay static in relation to the camera?

    the latter being prefered

  • ArtiniArtini Posts: 9,475

    Looks great, DimensionTheory, will wait for the release, then.

     

  • Ghosty12Ghosty12 Posts: 2,060
    edited February 2017

    They do look interesting but since I run my renders through Pastello and Spektral Art probably not much use..  The only thing that may change my mind is that it renders faster than Iray currently does on my system and does not bog down my computer among other things..

    Post edited by Ghosty12 on
  • Oso3DOso3D Posts: 15,015

    My experience with art shaders is that generally they DO run faster, because you tend to stop doing stuff like SSS, use fewer texture maps, and so on, all of which will speed things up.

     

  • DimensionTheoryDimensionTheory Posts: 434
    edited February 2017

    Thank you everyone!  I will try my best to keep up with the questions.

    There's not a whole lot to say about release dates since it's not in my hands at this point.  The set had recently entered QA testing when I posted the thread.

    Render times are going to be on par with normal Iray renders that exclude things like refraction and SSS, if you render a character with just diffuse / cutout you'll get a general idea.  It will however likely "look" finished faster, especially with the draw styles, because the effects will mask what would otherwise be perceived as noise.  The Star illustrations I posted only took about 5 minutes on two 1080s and I normally let things run cleaner than they need to be.

    Existing texture support was worked in best I could but it will still won't work sometimes with certain textures.  This is because of how the code for shaders themselves work and in most cases not because of the presets (I'll try to explain).  For custom shaders to be cross compatible with existing textures they need to have the same "flag" as the shader they're being loaded over.  It wasn't really a problem with 3DL but from what I can tell Iray added some new "flags" that it uses in the default shader, and these "flags" differ from the 3DL ones.  So depending on what these toon presets are being loaded over things like Bump Map may not see matching flags which will make them fail to load.  You'll have better luck applying them over Iray materials than 3DL in my experience.  Maps like Diffuse and Cutout Opacity should always work (I wanted to make sure these worked and don't think I've seen them not carry over).  If the existing shader uses Refraction for transparency maps though it won't carry over.  All of the 80 "Full Presets" will overwrite all textures except Cutout Opacity, but you can get the same effects as these presets while retaining the most textures by loading the base shader and applying the included modifiers.

    I'm rendering out some simple animated GIFs to post but the general idea is that the Draw Style textures are locked to scene space.  Things like sketch lines will not move if you move or rotate the character they're applied to.  If you move the camera those sketch lines will stay stationary within the scene, so if you're panning the camera past a figure with sketch applied the sketch lines will move with the character.  There are different modes for mapping the Draw Style effects though, if your model supports them well enough you can use UV mapping and the sketch lines will stay locked to it like other textures.  General toon outline effects will always look the same.

    Post edited by DimensionTheory on
  • Sigh....... *opens wallet and throws cash at screen*

    Yes please.

    Getting closer to not needing PS for post...

     

  • 3Diva3Diva Posts: 11,557

    Sigh....... *opens wallet and throws cash at screen*

    Yes please.

    Getting closer to not needing PS for post...

    That's my dream too. :) Straight renders, little or no post work. That would be awesome.

     

  • nicsttnicstt Posts: 11,715

    This looks really interesting

  • this sounds as if itwill give the appearance of handdrawn animation I want, sadly carrara NPR and Poser sketch do move in local space ruining the illusion, a global noise shader would not but as both generate brush strokes you do not get that effect and this looks like it will rather like YAtoon does but hopefully easier and faster.

  • Griffin AvidGriffin Avid Posts: 3,764
    edited February 2017

    Yeah, you'd have to do what many do and do that with the video itself. And use cartoon filters/effects on your finished movie.

    That's what I do and I did have a question- if that would work on animations. I think it would be a neat thing- even if they lost the sketch look while they moved, but got it back when they stopped.

    Unless, I read that sorta wrong.

     

    To be honest, I kinda wished you hadn't created this thread cause now I'm obsessed with the release date and can't stop thinking about that third pic above.

    Any ideas as to pricing or a deep dish discount when it arrives?

    Are you going to do add-ons or a part II?

    Arrghh- okay, okay.Close forum.....and get back to work.....

     

     

    Post edited by Griffin Avid on
  • DimensionTheoryDimensionTheory Posts: 434
    edited February 2017

    Here are some animation examples to check out.  First one shows the general toon outline on a rotating figure, second shows the sketch effect on that rotating figure and third shows how it behaves when the render camera is moved.

    https://www.dropbox.com/s/djmbndlg6ukpv1c/SGA.gif

    https://www.dropbox.com/s/iyuwvmsrzk9ug7n/SGB.gif

    https://www.dropbox.com/s/nbh1pztdt0cyteq/SGC.gif

    Other projection types and Coodinate systems will behave differently.  Object mapping will lock more of the draw style to the figure so it follows with the rotation

    I may end up doing an expansion set with more draw styles but other than that I can't think of much I could really add that isn't already being included.

    Post edited by DimensionTheory on
  • AtiAti Posts: 9,130

    Here are some animation examples to check out.  First one shows the general toon outline on a rotating figure, second shows the sketch effect on that rotating figure and third shows how it behaves when the render camera is moved.

    https://tinyurl.com/zog6s5m

    https://tinyurl.com/j9kj6xe

    https://tinyurl.com/jr8cdsc

    Other projection types and Coodinate systems will behave differently.  Object mapping will lock more of the draw style to the figure so it follows with the rotation

    I may end up doing an expansion set with more draw styles but other than that I can't think of much I could really add that isn't already being included.

    All of these links give a 404 page not found error.

  • Direct links must change dynamically to prevent hotlinking.  I've switched them out with ones going through the Dropbox frontend.

  • AtiAti Posts: 9,130

    They look nice! For animation, I like the first one best, but I doubt I'll do animation with it, so I'm still voting for the second style. :D

  • Impressive, DT!

  • CybersoxCybersox Posts: 9,061

    Here are some animation examples to check out.  First one shows the general toon outline on a rotating figure, second shows the sketch effect on that rotating figure and third shows how it behaves when the render camera is moved.

    https://www.dropbox.com/s/djmbndlg6ukpv1c/SGA.gif

    https://www.dropbox.com/s/iyuwvmsrzk9ug7n/SGB.gif

    https://www.dropbox.com/s/nbh1pztdt0cyteq/SGC.gif

    Other projection types and Coodinate systems will behave differently.  Object mapping will lock more of the draw style to the figure so it follows with the rotation

    I may end up doing an expansion set with more draw styles but other than that I can't think of much I could really add that isn't already being included.

    How complex would it be to switch your sketch effects out for others?  There's a nifty workaround with the 3DL visual effects shaders to use a watercolor texture instead, and while these look great, it would be nice to be able to expand the range of pencil/scratch effects.

  • I have a request/question: is it possible to do a faux rim light effect using Sketchy?

    Here's an example: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/456341374727734545/

    Here's another: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/456341374727597472/

    It's a comic effect I used to notice where certain textures would appear as a faux rim light. It was used as a design choice in most cases, but it would also be used to denote that a character was wearing a darker color than the printing palettes of the time could demonstrate.

    It's an effect I can do with pwToon and would definitely be something I'd look for in an Iray toon shader.

    Thanks!

     

  • KA1KA1 Posts: 1,012

    Oh my @DimensionTheory I may have actually wept with joy when I saw the potential in this product!!

  • evilded777evilded777 Posts: 2,464

    Wow. You continually amaze me

  • nelsonsmithnelsonsmith Posts: 1,336

    Will definitely support !

  • 3dOutlaw3dOutlaw Posts: 2,471

    Very cool!  :)

  • Sfariah DSfariah D Posts: 26,312

    My insomnia is making me wonder if I can just apply it to one figure in scene but leave the rest of the scene 3d

  • Thanks again, everyone!  I'm sorry for being slow to respond, currently there's really only enough time for me to render out examples and do testing etc during the weekend.

    Quality assurance suggested I do a tutorial for new users showing step by step instructions so I put together a video that will be included with the set or uploaded somewhere it can be easily grabbed.  It was something I wanted to do originally but wasn't sure it was needed so the confirmation was appreciated.  I know that some may not like video tutorials but it's really the best I can do with the amount of information I wanted to cover.  It's 15 minutes long and it's literally packed to the brim with information and examples, you can see constant render updates showing you exactly what the presets being loaded are doing and there's never more than a couple seconds of silence (about 3 hours went into recording and re-recording voice overs to make sure everything was clear, concise and useful).  I'd like to ask that this thread not turn into a discussion about how these sort of things should be presented.  If after the product is released anyone needs me to elaborate on what's covered in the video I'll be happy to.

    I took a moment to recreate the faux rim light examples that were posted and got some pretty decent results using just the presets provided and some adjustments to the gamma in render settings (along with a mesh light to get some directional lighting).  The white outline presets will create the rim light effect but when the gamma is changed to produce high contrast you can get some faceting issues on lower poly geometry.  Changing the object to use SubD and increasing the SubD level is an easy way around it but will of course need more resources (the image I attached has everything SubD-ed by either 3 or 4 levels but that's likely a little overkill).

    Draw style effects like the sketching are just texture maps and can be swapped out just as easily as any other texture.  I'll likely be putting together an expansion of draw styles not long after the base set gets released.  I covered most of what I could think of at the time but there are styles like water color that I would really like to get added.  If I can get a texture map created that sells the effect well enough I will do it for sure.

    You can mix and match these presets with any other Iray shaders you may have, so you can have any single model it your scene sketched or printed with the rest of your scene rendering as any other Iray image.  Mixing materials will also be useful when working with stuff like Eye Moisture because you can use the existing settings.  You won't have to worry about getting the toon shader to produce eye reflections.

    Rimlight.jpg
    1000 x 1300 - 157K
  • dreamfarmerdreamfarmer Posts: 2,128

    Any news or rumors about this?

  • TooncesToonces Posts: 919

    All I can say is thank you for putting together a tutorial!

  • Ooh. So shiny! I'll already own everything else you've made, @DimensionTheory. Hurry up and take my money.

     

    Thanks, @3dOutlaw, for looping me in.

  • FirePro9FirePro9 Posts: 456

    I love the look of this image, any tips on reproducing it?  Thanks, looking forward to picking this up.

    image

  • Thank you!  The tutorial should cover everything you need to know to create something like the image there.  QA suggested I upload the video to Youtube so they can post it on the product page which means I can actually share that here now.  Everything is done on their end and the product will actually be getting released sooner than expected!

  • AtiAti Posts: 9,130

    Everything is done on their end and the product will actually be getting released sooner than expected!

    That's great news! 

  • rono64rono64 Posts: 58

    Can't wait to get this!

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