Pynodes and NPR

This thread on Blender artists has some interesting node set ups using pynodes, most notably (for me) the halftone one, since I've been trying to get something like this for ages!
http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?t=125741&page=6

this is the blender pynodes cookbook.
http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Resources/PyNode_Cookbook

some notes on writing renderman shaders
http://accad.osu.edu/~smay/RManNotes/WritingShaders/surf1.html

more renderman shader writing links
http://www.fundza.com/

someday I'll have a look through this and try to write my own but for now I'll just post it here! I need to finish a few projects first before I can start in on node experiments with a proper project! argh! Maybe I can se them for a game or something? GLSL shaders in real time? hmm.....

paper sculptures

I've always wanted to make an animation that looks like paper sculpture. Its not really natural media, because it requires a really good lighting model (mine looks pretty fake, the shadows are awful, and the models are a bit hard on the edges.
Mostly I'd be into bas-relief. It'd be pretty neat, but fairly hard to animate I think, though the lighting would be the toughest bit.

Wibbles

This is a neat style, like water colours. The way I figure it, the effect can be reproduced by using Oyster's materials which do the charcoal/edge jitter effect, plus added to my edge expansion one. (from here)
To do this, it might be possible to make the vibrations a bit lighter? It may also be able to get the edges and getting the lines expanded like using a brush? What about finding the edge and making a bline/path with it? hmmm?

It might be possible to make a watercolour alike, which means using brushes to make strokes, what about blurring them brushes? Smearing over the paths somehow? What about leaving the camera open, or motion blurring it for ages?

Reebok/Nike style animation

This is based on an advert I saw in the internet once. Its pretty simple, just make the robots, and colour the faces with the different colours. They all have a maxed out ambient. Thats it.



The other thing I thought of, was the Spektor (um, that what his name is?) scribbles. They are kind of robots heads, half robot half rabbit really.

Also I think the Back To Mine album covers are very, very cool. I'm trying to figure out this, possibly using colours and doing an edge search, or cutting the people up, and using camera planes to do it, or even using transparent materials? hmm....

International deviance

This is a cartoon I made as a fan video for Disasteradio, a local artist. I really like his stuff, and see him play as often as I can. Its a track from one of his albums, the story is really strong, and the video pretty much wrote itself.
Anyway, its here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9LXeGg0BnA
Basically, the video was made in blender. The shapes are planes and bezier circles with an unshaded material on them. The shapes are kind of like cut-outs, the movement is all in the X and Y planes.

Oyster - way cool blender materials

Get it from here:
http://blender.blogchina.com/inc/tut-pencil.rar

it looks like this uses an animated material which deforms the mesh, in order to make multiple lines. Its really cool.

Update:
I've had a look at this, and its a combination of a bunch of stuff. There is a material with an IPO, which is basically randomised. This affects the scale of the object (size xyz and displace IPO's) This is also set to affect the normal and displace in the texture. It then uses a motion blur to run through the material IPO, which displaces the mesh and makes the outside lines. The charcoal effect is a cleer texture which looks pretty average on its own, but when blurred looks a lot like charcoal. It may be possible to texture it so it looks like crayon or brush strokes, but I'm not sure yet. I imagine each blur frame could be textured in that way somehow, but I'm not sure.

x-ray materials

Sonix did some really nice x-ray materials, however I can't find the link any more! its a 404 :( http://www.free-webspace.biz/sonix/Cars/Blender234CarMaterialLibraryR1.html
This is the blendernation post:
http://www.blendernation.com/2006/05/11/car-material-library/

Here is a link to a blender materials repository.
http://www.blender-materials.org/index.php

It would be really cool if there was a comp nodes/npr shader equivalent. It would also be better if comp nodes could be saved in full, ie the input and output nodes. Oh well....