looking for a better way to make NPR style illustrations

[pradipta]

Hi everybody,

 

i was working on a illustration few days back and I found am not getting the very affect am looking for in a NPR stylized image. The process I t followed was, I took a front elevation render made in 3ds max, saved in alpha enabled tga and imported in photoshop and started painting over the image. Using few layers I came up with something not that bad but not that great either, So, i was to post here, what are the best method people use for making NPR style render. In my case, the base images are rendered using 3dsmax or sketchup and then the images put through various process under an image editing software like photshop. Even the backgroud are 2d images/composited images and painting etc with NPR styling.

 

If there is something anyone can post, I will really appreciate, thanks in advance

[CHE]

Hi Pradipta,

 

NPR workflows are very subjective IMO. There are many techniques out there that can be applied to this topic. Ernest Burden is the master in this area. There are some tutorials and posts by him that go over the techniques that he uses; do a search in the forums. Here is a quick mockup from an already existing rendering (3dsmax+vray). I rendered a AO pass to help me generate sketch lines in Photoshop. One can also create masks to deal with the dark values in the AO pass (trees/plants/grass; it would be better to add these in Photoshop or render as a pass for better control) and give the underpainting a softer look. One can also hand draw the sketch lines, etc. Again this is just one technique. Experiment with different passes, filters and so on. I hope it helps.

E

Edited May 19, 2010 by CHE

[M V]

I came across this the other day. It is an incredible simple FREE program. Bring a render out of Max into it and play with the different styles. The filters are something between Photoshop and Painter's autopainting technologies. Mix this with a linework export from SketchUp and your golden.

http://www.fotosketcher.com/

[Dave Buckley]

why don't you start with the NPR style inside of 3DS Max.

 

Take a look at the contour shaders, they could give you a good starting point for something to paint with in photoshop.

 

just a quick thought

 

attached a screenshot as a quick point in the right direction if you've not used them before

[Dave Buckley]

heres a better example of using the contour shaders in max as a starting point, the thing i like about the contours is that i don't need lights in my scene

 

use something like this in conjunction with mattes/render elements and digital painting and your on your way to some good NPR stuff, combine with your own stuff for your own unique touch etc

[John Pruden]

Wow! That Fotosketcher program is pretty sweet. I had previously experimented with DAP (Dynamic Auto Painter). Fotosketcher is really fast and easy though. (though both programs produce nice results) DAP is probably still quite a bit more powerful though. And not free (free to try, full release is only $35 or something like that). Anyway, in 10 minutes or so, I produced the attached image. 1 pass in pencil for edge work comped over a color brush stroke pass. Pretty nice!! (beats the heck out of photoshop filters IMO)