NPR & third-party renderers?

Discussions about rendering in SOFTIMAGE©
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Hirazi Blue
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NPR & third-party renderers?

Post by Hirazi Blue » 02 Nov 2014, 12:21

Of all the available renderers for Softimage, which one would conceivable give the best "result to hassle" ratio when strictly using it for non-photorealistic “toon” rendering. I know of the specific benefits of 3Delight in this arena (in that it is way faster than Mental Ray – duh), but I was wondering what the other renderers brought to the table (and if it would be worth it to give the last of my money a little going-away present).
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edit: yes the statement at the end doesn't make much sense, but it sounds better that way, I think
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Mathaeus
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Re: NPR & third-party renderers?

Post by Mathaeus » 02 Nov 2014, 23:27

By the way, built in Mental Ray Contour shaders are also a way faster than Softimage's lens ray tracing solution, as they are a sort of post process or something. But, never ever it was possible to plug in something meaningful into 'contour' material slot. Why is that, why no one shader warrior caught the dragon :) now is yet another one irrelevant mystery... Not that much options with this MR built in contour stuff, anyway. It should work in Maya or Max, if you want to try.

Don't believe you'll find anything faster than 3Delight's contours, definitively nothing that samples better, because of 3Delight reyes technology, but number of implemented features is smaller than Softimage lens thing, too. Great for mechanical stuff and simple contours, but that's it.

Finally, hard to find serious usage of contour shaders outside of Japan, these days - so, if possibilities are important, SI contour thing stays as one of kings, I think. Despite the render time and time to set the correct sampling.

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Hirazi Blue
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Re: NPR & third-party renderers?

Post by Hirazi Blue » 03 Nov 2014, 12:03

Thanks for your reply.
The "elusive" contour shaders in Softimage are a genuine and unresolved "XSI-File" I guess. =:)
But indeed 3Delight would seem to be the most thorough solution,
although I'd love to have more control of the Cinema 4D "Sketch & Toon" variety.
Still wondering, however, what those of us who own a more expensive renderer do when it's "toon time".

And your Japan remark rings true, obviously, but I am very much a fan of that kind of work anyway...
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FXDude
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Re: NPR & third-party renderers?

Post by FXDude » 03 Nov 2014, 14:07

You can also do alot with a realtime incidence shader with very high contrast, and posted in either Fusion, Nuke or FXTree :)

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FXDude
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Re: NPR & third-party renderers?

Post by FXDude » 07 Nov 2014, 17:09

Reminded me of this thread when I saw this (!)

http://www.fakob.com/2013/silhouette-ed ... velopment/

Seems quite versatile! and much more natural than other means..

Image

Image

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mattmos
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Re: NPR & third-party renderers?

Post by mattmos » 07 Nov 2014, 18:00

Blender's inclusion of the freestyle module is working looking into - loads of outline options.

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Hirazi Blue
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Re: NPR & third-party renderers?

Post by Hirazi Blue » 08 Nov 2014, 14:48

Thanks guys. I know about the ICE silhouette compounds and I seem to recall them to be promising but somewhat lacking, although I must admit I can't recall what exactly I thought was lacking at the time I tested them.
Freestyle was very promising technology and then it got "acquired" by AutoBlender. :((
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