Carrara Non Photo Realistic Works
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On the other hand, the Non-Photorealistic Renderer (NPR) is not a scene filter, it is an alternative rendering engine. It is based on simulated brush strokes. It is accessed in the rendering room. Go to the very top just under the Rendering tab, there is a drop down menu to choose among "Draft," "Non Photorealistic," "Normal Map," or "Photorealistic." Just choose Non-Photorealistic and the menu options will change. Here, I have done a test render of the NPR renderer with the default settings of the same scene as the toon above.
The NPR renderer is capable of a lot of very different looks. You can use it to just get outlines. You can use it for outline + shadow to get a sketch look. You can eliminate the outline and use a more full brush to get a painted look. You can choose the degree of randomness of brush strokes. You can also use "object clipping" for several elements to prevent strokes from going outside an object's space. Here are two very dfferent looks from the same scene.
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Here is one more NPR of the same scene. This is to show the effect of changing the brush. I have some brushes from Ron's scratches. I have chosen a different brush for diffuse, highlight, and shadow. I have also reduced the brush length and thickness. Dang this NPR is addictive. I could play with settings all morning.
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There is also the free YAToon plugin, which has download links at CarraraCafe.
https://bitbucket.org/zgock/yatoon/downloads/
Also, DCG has a plugin that does toon and cell shading for Carrara, but I don't have it, nor do I know how it is different from Carrara's Too!Pro III.
Those long render times were with with outline only. The shadows are from a separate render pass using the photorealistic renderer. Maybe it was something in my scene that was slowing my render down. I tried the NPR again this morning with a scene with just some primitives in it and it rendered so fast I didn't see the progress happen... I just hit render and the final render popped up instantly.
I'll play some more today and see if I can narrow down what was causing the NPR to go so slow.
OMG. So you composited images - within Carrara - using shader maps on a plane? Now you know I'm a rook, because I've never even thought of this.
Just tried it. Amazing! Endless mind-boggle. I may never leave the computer again. Thank you thank you.
In your experience, do some types of maps/channels combine more effectively than others?
Thanks, Stezza! I have more questions about the plugin, but will ask down the road.
Funny, I saw a couple of you guys add faily heavy ambient light, and I wondered why. I've been conditioned to turn it off, because it tends to make images look - drum roll - more flat and two-dimensional. Duh!
I'm also trying to define what people mean by "postwork." Is multipass and compositing in a different program considered postwork?
I have used animated textures on planes with operator functions to composite videos too!
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@diomede thanks so much for all those!
@Stezza, ah I never knew you could go past 100 percent ambient!! and thanks for the heads up on the edge fall off :)
@MDO2010 great idea to start with a simple scene - I did some still lifes yesterday to see what the NPR is capable of - look forwarad to your speed tests!
Yes there is some terrific work. I think it's a high interest thing amongst the wider community (Ie an untapped market of potential Carrara users)
Mmm . . . mmm . . .mmm . . . sure do love me some tasty NPR! Just read through the entire thread, and you Carrara users are off to an enthusiastic start in just a few days. Lots of great imagery here already - looking forward to seeing more!
- Greg
Thanks to you for starting the one in the Art Studio :) ! cheers!
I did a whole bunch of tests today to see what the various settings do - most of them were just arrangements of primitives, but here's one that came out pretty decent. Just pure NPR, no postwork. If I were going to take the time to redo this, I think I would render out the trees separately with different settings.
Just under two minutes for this one, so I think I'm figuring it out. :)
I think that your thinking here is brilliant. NPR is stupidly addictive. An awesome Carrara marketing tool.
Thanks for sharing one of your secrets. I'm trying to stay away from postwork for now, and instead find out what Carrara can do more-or-less by itself. But Fotosketcher is incredibly fun and useful. Dang. Maybe someone can make a Carrara Fotosketcher plugin so I won't feel guilty using it.
MDO2010 speed is good :) The house looks pretty damn good.
@UnifiedBrain - pleasure :) Post work is good :)
Excellent house sketch, MDO.
Heres a non post work job - just Toon1Pro111. It's not a finished image - just an experiment :)
I am just amazed that you can get this result BEFORE postwork. Do you have any thoughts on lighting for NPR vs lighting in general? Should ambient be cranked up, for example?
sorry I should have posted my settings
the ambient was 38 and it had a hdri in the ssecen background (They probably dodnt make much difference?) -s orry amd going to funerals (2) for a few days and will be away from computer will post more when wakes finished...
edit quick test tells me they don't - it's just the scene lights in thisone that make the difference
Thank you, Diomede, for the thorough, detailed examples, and clueing me in on what the Toon! part III engine is. As an NPR guy, this is something I am going to have to play with.
I just recently moved up from Carrara Pro 6 to Carrara Pro 8.5, but I am only a once in a while user, because my NPR needs have been utilized elsewhere for years, and I haven't really seen anything to draw me into using Carrara for NPR until now.
You guys rock! The examples here are outstanding, and you guys make me want to give Carrara a serious try for my NPR work.
Other than mildly playing with CP6's NPR engine, producing one mediocre YaToon render several years ago, and demoing the worst trial I ever encountered ever in Toon! Pro (completed images with watermarks would have been better) several years ago as well, I really haven't used Carrara for much. Hell, even the background environments I created in Carrara, I would default render, and then outside NPR postwork those to what I wanted.
Anyone know of good settings to emulate Anime style matte painting backgrounds for the NPR engine (settings, brushes, brush sizing, etc.)? I believe I have seen some examples of this from a Carrara NPR image, but was unsure if it was composited in behind the Carrara NPR main figure, or all done in-house.
Thanks again.
Dang again! Just amazing.
But sorry, I need to keep asking. Can you define "no postwork?"
Anybody?
Can you post a specific example?
I'm finding that NPR brushes create wonderful and diverse backgrounds.
I too am interested in seeing exactly what Carrara can do "in house."
"Postwork" is pretty much anything that you do to an image after it has been rendered. So "No Postwork" = the render straight out of Carrara (or whatever you are using). Sometimes people don't treat adjustment of levels and contrast as postwork, but really it is. So multipass and compositing in a different program I would definitely class as postwork. In general I am very comfortable with using postwork - to me the aim is to get the best possible image and if that means a little tweaking after the render, I am all for it. The exception would be if for example you are selling a product and you postwork the images to give a result that couldn't actually be done with that product, that is cheating and is a big no-no.
yep, if you open a render in another app and save then it's postwork.. even if only adding your sig.
here's one example I did earlier... in total four renders composited in PSE
Harpsburg lighting was only ambience at 200 ( two renders NPR and PR )
The cavaly dude was lots of lighting skin shader added and two renders NPR & PR
Harley Quinn - two renders (NPR & PR ) composited
@DaremoK3 - regarding anime cel style. I recommend that you find out more about YAToon (free plugin with link above) and DCG's toon plugin. You can find some discussion and reviews of YAToon here in the forums and at CarraraCafe. For example,
http://carraracafe.com/tag/yatoon/
I don't know about a similar review for Digital Carver's Guild (DCG) cel style plugin, but maybe someone else does.
Here is a YAToon plugin example -
posted at CarraraCafe, not by me.
Thanks for the detailed post Phil. That was my understanding as well. Is there a concensus here from the more experienced folks? If not, it could get pretty confusing when responding to each other.
Head Wax says that postwork is good. I think that he understates it a bit. Postwork can be awesome!
I've done a fair amount of postwork in the past, but not in Carrara yet. For the same reason I stopped using DS, I stopped doing postwork. It's simply a constraint I put on myself to force me to learn the program.
That's why I get extra inspiration from non-postworked renders. If I know that the artist did it in Carrara-only, then maybe I can too.
But I would make no such demand on others - unless I was temporarily granted the power of absolute dictator, and that is unlikely to ever happen.
For me, I almost always use "no postwork" to mean "this is the raw render straight out of the rendering program" (I don't count minor cropping of an image or adding a signature as postwork though, but do count color adjustment, which I personally do on almost every image, as postwork) and when I see someone else say that, this is what I assume they mean as well unless there are clarifying/expanding comments around it. It's a non-judgemental term for me - just purely informational. No postwork in and of itself is neither better nor worse, all that matters is your goal for that image and if you acheived it.
Well, here is my custom G3 character in Carrara wearing clothes of Genesis 1. It was a challenge to make his wheel-collar working in a proper way. One of the problems of Toon III for me is jagged edges, and I don't know how to escape this. The Best quality of antialiasing gives nothing.
The first picture has been made in Toon III style, the second one is the result of tweaking NPR parameters.
is that Edward from Twilight?
very nice renders Vyusur
Thank you very much, Wendy! Maybe someone similar... I saw your picture in Paradise challenge and I love it. The emotions on girl's face are incredible!