Freestyle in Google summer of code

Yay! But I can't wait that long, no I'm going to install it on a virtualbox instead (sigh) so I'm hunting down appropriate anime names for it. Maybe Agent Paper from Read or Die? hmm.....

Stencil shader

I think this one looks quite good, it looks like a stencil to me. It could probably do with a bit harder colouring, and the lines ideally need to be more pointy, but other than that, it works. What I would really like to do is add some randomness into the equation, like moving the stencil image a little in random directions, and comp in paint underneath, so it looks like it being sprayed onto the wall, and then painted over, then the next frame sprayed on top of that.....

Fat outlines

This is my first experiment, based a bit on the previously posted blend file, mostly borrowing the idea of expanding the lines to make the outline bigger. This file uses the alpha of the image, then expands it, and then blurs it, and makes it into a real colour in the colour channel, which is then pasted under the image. The image also retains the alpha channel too, for further comping.

Node rendering

Ok, here is the first of my nodes posts. This is a dissection of an NPR noodles from Blender, by Blenditall.
The original post is out there somewhere, i'm not sure where.

Anyway, this is the node set up and final result:

The node set up uses the first two RGB curves to enhance the shadows and take the highlights out. The blur 10 x10 expands the edges of the lines out, and then the second 'u' shaped RGB curves harden the expanded edge (so its totally black), which is then softened at the edge by the final blur.
This is my version of the noodles, in case the one above is a bit blurry. Its probably wrong, but its pretty close. The lighting is important too, it needs to be above and in front of the object, relative to the camera, and quite powerful as well.

External Renderers

Not too much more right now, I'm off to buy shoes!

Anyway, I 've previously mentioned Freestyle as an NPR renderer (its specifically designed for it). It doesn't like to run under wine,and I'm not willing to take the time right now to piss about compiling it for linux, especially since I can't get it to work :(

Anyway, the other one I've found which is similar is called Pantograph. Its a couple of python scripts which convert renders to SVG (or something, anyway the output is SVG). So this is interesting, in theory you could change the line styles, add a bit of randomness to the lines, whatever. I've not had a play with SVG yet, so I don't know for sure.
But it sounds cool! Link is here:
I should have a bit of a play with it later and see what else I can get from it.

Another thing with potential is Renderman compliant renderers. There are quite a few free ones out there (i'll post a list later). Renderman was invented by Pixarm, and is a shader description language. I'm not sure if its a standard, but its quite popular, and worth looking into as well.

more texture based NPR

As well as the Jules Verne textures, from the same website I got a "sketch shader". I can't find the link now though, the one listed on the site doesn't go anywhere. I might host the blend on this site so they don't disappear.
Anyway, the sketch shader has 9 shaders, all of which are quite awesome. I've been trying to mod them to include a pop-dots style shader, but without much success.
Announcement post
The picture links are dead, though the site is still up. I have the blend file tucked away somewhere.

Here is another one by blenditall, its got the nodes setup, but I can't seem to get it right, I think it relies on lighting a bit as well.
() here are some pictures, including the node setup:

Texture based NPR

For want of a better term (i don't know the proper japanese term for it, no doubt there is one), but this style I'm calling "cute animal manga" (after "cute animal comics", the western style) is a texture based NPR style.
See the post here (its more of a general discussion really):


to quote Sago
"...the toonshaders combined with 1 sunlight always worked fine for me.
Sunlight energy 0.3
Materials:
Emitvalue 1.00 (you might wanna turn that down a bit for white objects, otherwise you can't see the shadowparts on 'em)
Toon difusse shader Ref 0.8, Size 1.5 and Smooth 0
If you wish to make the transition more gradient just increase Smooth (and maybe decrease Size a bit)."

"Jules Verne" textures
This is another texture based NPR, apparently doesn't work that well for animation though. It looks like a lithograph/woodcut style.
I tried to find a picture, but couldn't, though I've seen this before, and it looks really good.

Random Notes:
I've noticed that lighting can play a huge part in making an NPR render look authentic (or not crap, anyway). Sometimes its just using light to blow out the shadows and highlights for the renderer to pick up, or using light to make subtle shadows if you are going for a Disney/Don Bluth cel shaded style.

External renderer: Freestyle

There is also freestyle, a renderer (open source, too) which is compatible with Blender and makes some pretty awesome looking images. I can't compile it at the moment, but I'm updating to Hardy, so who knows, maybe I'll be able to do it. Its annoying there are no binaries out for it under Linux that I could find. :(
Other option is to install virtualbox and w2k and run it under that, but that seems a bit excessive.

OMG First post!!!1!!!1 etc

OK, so this blog is supposedly about my experiments in NPR rendering with Blender. Mostly I want them to be shaders, as I view this as better (less complicated, not "cheating", whatever) than fooling around with geometry, multiple layers etc.

we start with an awesome post at blenderartists.org, that looks quite a bit like water colour, and animates quite well:

blenderartists post
blend file here