Any Iray tricks to generate outlines?

Oso3D

I'm torn. I like the speed and easy of setting things up in Iray. I like outline/cell looking stuff.

 

I know people have found cool ways to generate weird visual effects (like the ghost shader)... has anyone found a way to generate outlines in Iray?

 

Marshian

Hi Will,

I have some very promosing results! Stay tuned.

Oso3D

I've had some half-decent results with Iray Canvasses and material ID, but then, of course, you run into the usual problems of transparency (particularly with hair).

 

Rodrij

You can use mcjTeleBlender 2 to export figure to blender, then you can use Freestyle to render only the outlines in whatever style you like making sure to sync up the camera frame width,length  etc.. You can then take that oultine render and place outline layer on top of your any Render with photoshop or GIMP since all you will be using is blend modes and some erasing of unwanted lines.

Freestyle is the best outine result I've seen.

 

Oso3D

Thanks, but that's a lot of work plus using Blender, which is ... Timecube UI or something.

At THAT point I'd just as soon use 3DL to generate outlines with dzToon or geoshells and line them up, or use Iray Canvass: Material ID (and filter like you suggest)... which I've considered. But it'd be nice to have a faster solution.

 

throttlekitty

The old school method is to duplicate the geo, inflate it slightly invert the normals and give it a pure black single-sided surface. It's not perfect, but works well enough until a proper shader shows up for it. I don't know if you can do the inflation part within DS though.

Oso3D

How do you invert normals? Because otherwise that sounds perfect with an easy geometry shell

larsmidnatt

timmins.william said:

How do you invert normals? Because otherwise that sounds perfect with an easy geometry shell

not certain you can do it in DS, you can in modelling programs though.

larsmidnatt

I lied, you can do it in studio with the geometry editor. (edit>Flip normal of selected polygons)

Oso3D

Interesting. I will have to experiment!
Might be useful with geoshells as an Iray version of that 3DL geoshell outlining thing.

I was hoping I could fake something with refraction edges or top coat or something, but no such luck.

 

Oso3D

There's an easier way to flip normals, you can scale one axis to -100%.

The problem is that all the shaders/objects seem to be double sided, and I have no idea how to change that.

 

jag11

Top coat is the way to go... Apply the Coated Flip-Flop Paint Iray Shader, set Base/Flip/Flo Colors to White, Coat Color to Black, roughness to your liking... maybe not the best method but not bad at all...

Oso3D

Jag11: The what now?

Edit: Oh hey, that's actually a base shader.

 

Sphinx Magoo

How successful has anyone gottne with a Toon render in Iray? I've been doing a ton of work lately in pwToon. I guess that's considered "Old School" now that Iray is here...?

 

Oso3D

I think the easiest way to do Toon Render, other than a general filter, is to use an Iray Material ID canvas pass.

Then you could put that as a layer, and then posterize each section to, oh, 4 (or whatever) shades. You could also play with the same material ID sections to do outlines.

Seems like a lot of work, though; I've dialed in to a particular post style involving Laplace edges. It's not really cartoony, but it sits somewhere between it and regular realism.

 

Also, if you simplify textures a lot and use simple lighting and appropriate figures, bright colors, and so on, you can get a toon look.