Non-photorealistic Renders (NPR)

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  • firewardenfirewarden Posts: 1,454

    Here's my latest try at the Viking Village for my game environment... Multiple Topaz filters. I just wish I could get my computer to produce what I see in my mind's eye. Somewhat closer, though, I think.

    viking village midtown path.png
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  • djigneodjigneo Posts: 283

    Here's my latest try at the Viking Village for my game environment... Multiple Topaz filters. I just wish I could get my computer to produce what I see in my mind's eye. Somewhat closer, though, I think.

    That's looking pretty cool, though!

  • mindsongmindsong Posts: 1,693

    Goodness, your  "mind's eye" has high-standards - that's a wonderful technique and result.

    Is your workflow to get that result a family secret? (I respect that if so, but wow!)

    cheers,

    --ms

  • firewardenfirewarden Posts: 1,454
    edited September 2016

    Thank you for the feedback! :) I like it better upon retrospect and will be satisfied with it, I think. I wanted to get the foreground textures to blend a little more smoothly, but couldn't get it to work without blurring the background too much. Maybe someone with more experience and knowlege of the filters could get it to blend; who knows? 

    I will try to list the workflow in this thread, but I'll have to backtrack through the various file interations. During the last experiment that created this picture, I did two separate treatments of the render with customized Topaz filters and then layered them with 50% opacity of the top picture. There might have been a Photoshop filter in there also. It was one of those late-night sessions with trial after trial, and I'm afraid I was almost falling asleep at that point, lol.

    Life has been crazy as usual today, so I may not get that up here tonight. But I need to step back through it anyway and document it in the design document so I can replicate it (right now it's only tracked with named filters and notes in the filenames). I need a clone to clean up after me! :)

    Post edited by firewarden on
  • 3Diva3Diva Posts: 11,287

    It's been so long since I've posted anything here - figured I'd jump back in with a render of Noodle using the current algos that was cooking as I coded tonight. He's sporting a custom coat I made when I first got LAMH last year. Was going for something scruffy, and made him look kind of grumpy. After checking out Knittingmommy's thread on LAMH, been thinking about having another go at it and giving the poor guy a more dignified haircut that a siamese deserves. Then again, I dunno - kinda like it. 

    - Greg

    Dawww! I love him!

    Come here grumpy kitty! Let me cuddle you! ....aaaaahhhh my face, stop scratching my face. no... no, don't go for the eyes - I need those!

    lol 

    Lovely render, Greg! The fur looks great! I always adore your NPRs! They are so deliciously traditional-art looking! :D

  • Thanks, Diva. When I was posing him, I imagined catching him walking away from the litter box . . . "Yeah, I left you a present right *next* to the litter box. What are you gonna do about it? That's right - nothing! You'll just clean it up . . ."

    Typical cattitude! lol

    - Greg

  • Thanks, Diva. When I was posing him, I imagined catching him walking away from the litter box . . . "Yeah, I left you a present right *next* to the litter box. What are you gonna do about it? That's right - nothing! You'll just clean it up . . ."

    Typical cattitude! lol

    - Greg

    Yeah, I can see that!  I had a cat that did that and he sometimes wore that exact same expression! :)

  • Oh Those look great, @TabascoJack! The space one in particular is fantastic! 

    I really like that "Comic Stylize + weirdness" filter. Sadly I can't afford Filter Forge. I wonder if there is a similar filter available for us broke people who just have Photoshop? lol I'm really enjoying the NPRs so I might have to do some digging around and see if there are any freebie filters that can help give some of the looks that I'm after. :) If you guys know of any free filters that are kind of like the comic style one, please post the links! :D I'd love to check them out!

    I know that inside Photoshop there is a filter called "poster edges" or some such that KIND OF gives that look - but it's a bit blobby and ugly - the FF one seams to give a much better result.

    hi.. i`ve developed custom Toon Photoshop action if you wanna to try. Just PM me for download link or sample images .

  • nohiznguyennohiznguyen Posts: 262
    edited September 2016

    laugh

    devi007.jpg
    621 x 1200 - 219K
    Post edited by nohiznguyen on
  • firewardenfirewarden Posts: 1,454

    mindsong, my apologies for taking so long to post this workflow for the Viking Village Midtown scene I posted earlier. 2 new puppies, a daughter w/Asperger’s in her last year of university, a dad w/dementia, and my own ADD, etc., mean that sometimes I can’t sit down for a long focused work time very often at times.

    I had also not documented my process perfectly, meaning I had to rediscover 1 step’s settings, plus I had forgotten the graphic dimensions I started with which threw me for a bit. Note: Topaz filters work very differently on the same picture at significantly different resolutions.

    Since there seems to be no way to tell what Topaz filter I created my custom filters from, I’m including pictures of each step. I’m also guessing that someone else knows an easier way with less steps to create a similar image. :)

    Walkthrough w/Photoshop and Topaz filters Simplify and Clean to create a non-photorealistic image.

    Working with a 2560 x 1440 image.
    View/hide layers as necessary

    Layer 1:
    Name: Original Render

    1. Open original render
    2. Save as a new PSD

    Layer 2:
    Name: TS Watercolor - Viking Village

    1. Duplicate Original Render layer and rename
    2. Apply Topaz SIMPLIFY filter preset Watercolor - Viking Village

    Layer 3:
    Name: TS VVExp + PE 1,0,1 + TC FEVV3

    1. Duplicate Original Render layer and rename
    2. Apply Topaz SIMPLIFY filter preset Viking Village Experiment
    3. Apply Photoshop filter Artistic > Poster Edges (1,0,1)
    4. Apply Topaz CLEAN filter preset Fluid Edges Viking Village 3

    Layer 4:
    Name: TS Viking Village Experiment Line

    1. Duplicate Original Render layer and rename
    2. Apply Topaz SIMPLIFY filter preset Viking Village Experiment
    3. Apply Topaz SIMPLIFY filter preset Viking Village Experiment Line
    4. Select color range sample white w/fuzziness 1
    5. Delete selected white background, leaving only the lines created by the filter

    Layer 5:
    Name: Viking Village with Lines

    1. Duplicate layers 3 (V V Exp + PE 1,0,1 + CLEAN) and 4 (Viking Village Experiment Line)
    2. Make sure the lines only layer is on top of the full-color layer
    3. Set opacity for duplicate Viking Village Experiment Line layer to 25%
    4. Merge these two duplicate layers to make this 5th layer
    5. Rename layer to Viking Village with Lines

    Layer 6:
    Name: Final image

    1. Duplicate layers 2 (Watercolor for Viking Village) and 5 (Viking Village with Lines)
    2. Make sure the Viking Village with Lines layer is on top
    3. Set opacity for duplicate Viking Village with Lines layer to 50%
    4. Merge these two duplicate layers to make this 6th layer
    5. Rename layer; this layer is now your final image.

    For what it’s worth, that’s how I tortured Photoshop and Topaz for this image…

     

    1 viking village midtown path walkthrough - original render.png
    2560 x 1440 - 7M
    2 viking village midtown path walkthrough - watercolor viking village.png
    2560 x 1440 - 4M
    3a viking village midtown path walkthrough - viking village experiment.png
    2560 x 1440 - 5M
    3b viking village midtown path walkthrough - viking village experiment + poster edges 1,0,1.png
    2560 x 1440 - 5M
    3c viking village midtown path walkthrough - viking village experiment + poster edges 1,0,1 + clean viking village 3.png
    2560 x 1440 - 4M
    4a viking village midtown path walkthrough - viking village experiement lines.png
    2560 x 1440 - 1M
    4b viking village midtown path walkthrough - viking village experiement lines @ 100%.png
    2560 x 1440 - 4M
    5 viking village midtown path walkthrough - viking village experiement lines @ 50%.png
    2560 x 1440 - 4M
    6a viking village midtown path walkthrough - watercolor and 2nd color version w lines merged.png
    2560 x 1440 - 5M
  • djigneodjigneo Posts: 283

    @firewarden, Thanks for the notes on your workflow. It's very cool and rather inspiring! Line work of course "draws" my attention. (Pun FTW)

  • djigneo said:

    @firewarden, Thanks for the notes on your workflow. It's very cool and rather inspiring! Line work of course "draws" my attention. (Pun FTW)

    Yeah, it's always interesting to sneak a peek into other's workflows - thanks for taking the time to post!

    - Greg

  • I was playing around with a couple of ideas for another project when I ended up with this.  More images on my Laboratory thread, but this is my favorite of the group.  Rendered in 3Delight with Toony Cam and then post work in GIMP 2.9 beta with the NIKSilver Effects.

  • Oso3DOso3D Posts: 14,885

    The original photorealistic Iray image, and then PWToon version (with some adjustments and NIK tool)

     

    Kappa.png
    1080 x 1080 - 2M
    KappaToon.png
    1080 x 1080 - 2M
  • firewardenfirewarden Posts: 1,454

    Thank you, djigneo and algovincian. Especially for not falling out of your chairs laughing while snorting coffee out your nose at my strange process. ;)

    There's so much second-guessing here. I could have stopped at several places. The layers were obviously made and filtered to combine a saturated watercolor with the simplified cartoonized version of the render to emphasize lines and retain some details while muting the photorealism and busy-ness of the original.

    Then I look at the graphics in this thread, such as  KA1's Steampunk Star, algovincian's Noodle, timmins.william's PWToon turtle, well, the list goes on with all of y'all in this thread, LOL. I am just left with my jaw on the ground. I'm very inspired to keep trying!

  • Oso3DOso3D Posts: 14,885

    I'm not sure B&W lineart is the right direction for this image, given how much is going on... but I love the fiddly detail.

    (PWToon with diffuse/specular mostly erased, bump tweaked to show the right amount of detail)

     

    Ship at Sea BW.png
    1080 x 1080 - 2M
  • firewardenfirewarden Posts: 1,454

    That's awesome, timmins.william! Just stunning. It looks hand-drawn to me; I can so see that as a high-quality, full-color book illustration.

    I downloaded the Nik tools when they were mentioned earlier (I think in this thread), but haven't played with them yet.

    I'm in that stage where what I want still exceeds my skillset. I'm thinking another 1,000 hours of DAZ and I *might* get there... (And staring over y'all's shoulder.)

  • Oso3DOso3D Posts: 14,885

    I enjoy photorealism, but I also enjoy stylized artwork, so been bouncing around trying to develop in every direction at once. Heh

    I'm hoping to get some gigs doing illustration work; a lot of people are disinterested in CGI photorealism for most stuff, due both to preconceptions and stylistic reasons. I've made a few inquiries, but I think what I need to do is take a setting document of mine and illustrate it fully, develop it a bit, so that people can see what I can do.

     

  • firewardenfirewarden Posts: 1,454

    @timmins.william, I meant the turtle. I didn't see the other post until just now. You should write and illustrate your own book and sell it on Amazon. :)

  • Oso3DOso3D Posts: 14,885

    Thank you for the kind words!

  • 3Diva3Diva Posts: 11,287

    The original photorealistic Iray image, and then PWToon version (with some adjustments and NIK tool)

     

    Oh wow! That looks SO GOOD, Will! I REALLY need to get PWToon! I've been keeping an eye on it for a while now but it never seams to go on sale. 

    You did an amazing job with it! I love the turtle man!

  • 3Diva3Diva Posts: 11,287

    I'm working on a new Toon character but am finding that G3 doesn't do so well with toons. G3F adds a bit too much realism that needs to be removed in post work for toon characters (at least with the ones I've been working with). Here's a NPR of my new toon girl - I had to do some post work on her neck/chest to get rid of weirdness. 

    Here's the before:

    As you can see the neck area is a bit wonky. I'm guessing it's the collarbone or something, but it looks off. I'm sure it wouldn't look as bad on a more realistic character, but for toons it looks ick. I tried applying a smoothing modifier to her but it didn't help. Any suggestions? I know there are some smart cookies here that might be able to give me some suggestions I didn't think of. :)

    I'll probably mainly use her for NPRs but I would like to eliminate as much post work as possible, so getting that neck/chest area smoothed out would be good. 

  • 3Diva3Diva Posts: 11,287
    edited September 2016

     I create my Toon girl and 3DU releases a great new toon character hours later. http://www.daz3d.com/stylized-megan-character-and-hair-for-genesis-3-female-s ;

    Ahhhh WHY does she have to be so cute!? 

    Sorry to highjack your thread, Greg! lol I'm just so torn now. I love my girl but ... new cute toon girl ..with no neck/chest weirdness! ARGH So tempting!

    Post edited by 3Diva on
  • RuphussRuphuss Posts: 2,631

    i like your Toon girl much more than the new much to kitchy Megan

  • 3Diva3Diva Posts: 11,287
    Ruphuss said:

    i like your Toon girl much more than the new much to kitchy Megan

    Dawww That's sweet of you to say! :) I really like my toon girl, I just wish I could figure out what is up with her chest and how to fix it. I do think Megan is pretty cute though, too. I'm glad they're releasing more toon characters, they are a lot of fun, imo. I should probably pass on Megan for now though and focus on trying to fix my girl. 

  • Dawww That's sweet of you to say! :) I really like my toon girl, I just wish I could figure out what is up with her chest and how to fix it.

    You can take your mesh (I imagine the shape is a dial combination?) to a modeling program and use a smooth brush or a similar tool. The only thing you'll need to remember is to save out a character preset beforehand - to have a duf that stores dial slider values. Then when importing the morph, you enable "reverse deformations" and point the "pose" file to your character duf.

  •  I create my Toon girl and 3DU releases a great new toon character hours later. http://www.daz3d.com/stylized-megan-character-and-hair-for-genesis-3-female-s ;

    Ahhhh WHY does she have to be so cute!? 

    Sorry to highjack your thread, Greg! lol I'm just so torn now. I love my girl but ... new cute toon girl ..with no neck/chest weirdness! ARGH So tempting!

    Hijack away, Diva! Your (and everyone else's) posts are always welcome.

    BTW, I actually thought of you when I saw this character this morning. I've purchased quite a bit of 3DU content (extremely high quality work IMHO), and still have a few in my wishlist to pick up. Looks like I'll be adding her to the list!

    - Greg

  • I'm working on a new Toon character but am finding that G3 doesn't do so well with toons. G3F adds a bit too much realism that needs to be removed in post work for toon characters (at least with the ones I've been working with). Here's a NPR of my new toon girl - I had to do some post work on her neck/chest to get rid of weirdness. 

    Here's the before:

    As you can see the neck area is a bit wonky. I'm guessing it's the collarbone or something, but it looks off. I'm sure it wouldn't look as bad on a more realistic character, but for toons it looks ick. I tried applying a smoothing modifier to her but it didn't help. Any suggestions? I know there are some smart cookies here that might be able to give me some suggestions I didn't think of. :)

    I'll probably mainly use her for NPRs but I would like to eliminate as much post work as possible, so getting that neck/chest area smoothed out would be good. 

    I'm a sucker for freckles - too bad they get lost in your NPR process. As far as the deformations go, I think Kettu's advice is sound. Can't remember if you ever ended up picking up Carrara or not, but it has a smoothing/displacement brush. Also, I think you've mentioned Sculptris before, which has great sculpting tools.

    She looks great already, though. At the rate you're coming up with new characters, looks like you'll have to speak to Knittingmommy about upping the number of muses - 3 just won't cut it!

    - Greg

  • Oso3DOso3D Posts: 14,885

    Oh wow! That looks SO GOOD, Will! I REALLY need to get PWToon! I've been keeping an eye on it for a while now but it never seams to go on sale. 

    You did an amazing job with it! I love the turtle man!

    Thank you!

    It's a kappa, a weird Japanese marsh monster with a bowl-shaped depression on its head that has water in it. If the water is spilled, the kappa dies (or is weakened or something). They also apparently have an absolute love of cucumbers (I overlooked putting a cucumber in the render, heh).

    I THINK PWToon has been on a few sales, but not often.

     

     

  • Check during the Everything On Sale sales. I picked up my copy during the first Catch-up sale this month. It was a choice between that and the Manga Shaders...

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