Non-photorealistic Renders (NPR)
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Yeah, the new Sketchy product for Iray is sort of doing what I'd like, and I know I could add an iray pass into Linerender, but with Sketchy being a shader product it means you'd have to apply it to all of the surfaces, which wouldn't lend itself well to mixing with other passes. In a perfect world, I could see doing something like a 3Delight pass with Visual Style shaders, a 3Delight pass for outlines, and an Iray Sketchy pass for shadows but I don't think that would be doable.
Well, it's doable, just might be too much work.
One of the things I like about Linerender is that I can easily combine it's 3DL with Iray.
And yeah, I really wish Sketchy had done something like my art shaders, applying (at least potentially) as a geo shell or decal.
I suspect that you might be better off taking a line render into something like Clip (Manga) Studio or ArtRage and tracing over it freehand - if only in part (careful use of a palette knife might deal with the rest). The problem with procedural methods is that they tend to look, as you note, a little precise - though they are a good starting point. So for a painted effect, I will use Cutout and sometimes Drybrush filters before taking the result into ArtRage and going over it all with a palette knife.
Of course, it all comes down to compromise. Time is money, so you have to find a balance between quality and how much you can charge for it.
All the toon cameras in LR9K were made in Shader Mixer, so you can import them and fool around with them =)
As for the outlines, if you make them thicker, they will become sort of "calligraphic". The max width is 11. Starting with 12, 3Delight creates a "special effect". // try disabling the line width limits and rendering, it can look fun //
You can use different cameras and different line widths, and then composite them. The AutoRender script can help setting this up.
Here a 5 px width outline from a "normal" camera render is combined with an 11 px outline from an Edge Blend camera.
Toon Supergirl with the new Sketchy shaders.
Made a couple of tweaks in Photoshop with the Nik Collection.
Been away from DS for a while, but decided to download Trustyle's Spiderman and see how it rendered after reading the new Iray Sketchy thread:
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/146041/sketchy-toon-and-art-style-shaders-for-iray-commercial/p1
- Greg
Very cool, Diva. Is there any way to make the strokes less homogeneous? It would be great if the strokes were not all facing the same direction, but instead followed the contours of the geometry (especially the hair).
- Greg
Interesting, Kettu. Dynamically masking the different passes (line widths) based on object color, z-depth, etc. seems like it would produce some good results.
- Greg
Thank you, Greg!
And I'm not sure, but I've, so far, not found any settings that follow the contours of the geometry. But I've not tried them all, yet. I'm still baffled about 2/3 of the settings and still need to figure them out. lol
I'm debating whether to delve deeper into Linerender or just bite the bullet and move over to Sketchy. I don't have a Nvidia video card (downside of being a Mac user) so the GPU acceleration isn't a draw, but I've some experience working with Reality in the past and have a photography background, so having lighting work more like it does in the real world does have a bit of an appeal. I'd learned 3Delight at first and then got into Reality, then took a pretty lengthy hiatus from doing anything in DAZ and am now way behind on learning Iray, but I could see the desire to just have to learn 1 rendering, and having it more real world based, for when I want to do realistic or NPR renders so that might be a better approach all around for my needs.
Loving the style here, care to share how you achieved the look? I'm really liking the drawing style, is this straight from Iray or with postwork? I'm feeling tempted to pick up Sketchy but had just bought Linerender recently so I'm a little reluctant to drop more money right now, but seeing renders like this is tempting me big time.
I've been playing with the new Sketchy Shaders this evening. My first effort wasn't stupendous, although not really terrible, I don't think. This one is definitely better. This is the slightly postworked version. I needed to play with the contrast and brightness just a touch, not much.
Gallery Link
adacey: I'm leaning hard toward Sketchy. I have both products.
Linerender9000 can do a few things Sketchy absolutely can't, like ColorID outlining. It's output is fairly 'line perfect,' however, and I've found it requires a lot of postwork to get effects I want -- but it produces interesting stuff to work with. But it's also rather hard to know what you are going to get until you try it, and it takes a while to render.
Sketchy, on the other hand, can show you what it will do pretty fast (particularly if you have NVIDIA cards and can make use of the NVIDIA preview). It renders generally faster than Linerender, but there are a few situations where it won't work quite as well.
Overall, my verdict is that Sketchy is faster, easier, and more easily produces interesting results.
Had nothing to do with the new Sketchy product, Linerender9000, or Iray - sorry if my post lead you to believe that. In that thread, Spidey made an appearance and it made me want to take a quick stab at it myself.
As far as how it was created goes, I have shared quite a bit about the process in this thread, and one other thread I styarted here in the forums:
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/68493/algovincian-non-photorealistic-rendering-npr
I've tried to post as much information in these threads as possible. I suggest reading through the threads in their entirety, and hopefully this will answer some of your questions.
I know it's complicated and there's a lot to go through, and I've been asked this question quite often, so I took the time to single out a few posts I've made that have more information for those interested:
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/811806/#Comment_811806
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/980556/#Comment_980556
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/981107/#Comment_981107
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/980363/#Comment_980363
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/982867/#Comment_982867
Hope this helps, and I hope you to see you post some of your own NPR!
- Greg
I almost bought the sketchy shaders, but the more I see of the output, the more I think I'll pass. So far, I'm not seeing anything that I can achieve more easily with a Photoshop filter. Does anyone with the product think it's capable of doing more than the sketch filters? I would love to see some examples.
So I just got Sketchy and LineRender, and I ended up preferring a painterly postwork look for this image
(It's one of DimensionTheory's backgrounds currently in FastGrab...really nice!)
I grabbed LR9K too and if I put raytracing to 0 it flies with little discernable difference so animations possible
I threw a 2 minute quickie up on youtube
I rather like LR9K I must say
adacey:
Regarding your question if LineRender9000 could create crosshatch, or pencil style images. Yes, it does.
Since It is based on scripted camera rendering, one can use any scripted camera in the mix besides what comes with LR9000.
I add in SketchCam, and change out the sketch filter textures for different effects.
SketchCam (and ToonCam) was a past Christmas freebie by the creator of ToonyCam Pro. It comes with just one sketch filter effect defined by two textures, but since it uses a texture folder and the ability to call up any texture for effects, you can use any greyscale tiling textures at your disposal. I have added about fifty to my folder including some from my MangaStudio catalog. Though SketchCam isn't floating around out there for everyone to just grab, maybe you could contact the PA for TCPro and see if she would gift you a copy.
Here are two images created with LR9000 utilizing SketchCam. They are reduced in size, so you have to look hard, but you should be able to make out the different sketch techniques. Also, I love the sketchy line work in the first image. That is all LR9000. That is one line technique I couldn't achieve with TCPro.
Mustakettu85:
That is an interesting technique. I am going to have to try that one. Thanks for sharing...
Loving the great images everyone.
I had to have Fuseling's new magic kit. I like the way the coloring came together on this one.
I got an art gig (yay!) for upcoming RPG Galactic Dragons (wuxia + wild west + D&D in Spaaaace)
He wants a certain Chinese painting style, so I've been refining it. Some of the images use Linerender9k + PWToon, the others use Sketchy for Iray.
http://willbear.deviantart.com/gallery/62333720/GG
Again, one of the things I love about Linerender9k is that I can totally just set everything up in Iray and do a few linepasses anyway, in 3DL.
Wow, WilL! Those are all just gorgeous. I especially like Vanara Out, Tea with the Dragon, Tengu, and Elf Woman. Okay, I guess I really like all of them, LOL. Just amazing that you did that in DAZ. :)
I'd say that depends. If you're trying to have it render a scene that isn't set up for NPR, it will be slow. But, for instance, you don't have to use AO or especially full GI to get outlines or other "traditional" toon FX like you can get from the LR9K cams. So you can create light "groups" and use one for correct GI, and one for outlining/toon - with the env light casting ambient only. It is a huge speedup already.
Another slowdown thing is SSS. I've been turning it off manually because for me it's not a problem, but it shouldn't be difficult to automate turning it off and back on, scene-wide.
dhtapp, nice image! Looks like an etching texture effect. Is it with new Sketchy shader?
I've bought Sketchy but haven't played with it yet. This one's a bit of a cheat on the "rendering" part being NPR. ...it was rendered in standard IRay, then I ran it through a couple of Photoshop macros I keep on the shelf to get high-pass definition and a little higher contrast and saturation. Then I finished up with a Filter Forge effect called "Artification" which I tend to reach for a LOT. :D
Thanks for commenting!
I actually found LR9K fast but I did stick raytracing and shadow down to the left as neither needed and made much if any difference
Sketchy + Fotosketcher
Wow! Looks line pen and ink/India ink.