 | | | toonshading (organic/ characters) | toonshading (organic/ characters) 2004-02-20 - By Michael Arias
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mike here. below...
-- --Original Message-- --
From: owner-xsi@(protected) 代理 +
Sent: 2004/02/20 (金) 5:50
To: XSI@(protected)
Cc:
Subject: Re: toonshading (organic/ characters)
thank you for this explanation michael...
>> no problem.
i know it's not just applying a shader and some few settings. - i saw the
appleseed trailer weeks ago and the jp.co version days ago and was very
impressed, didn't know they use xsi. - are you working as special-project
support on this as well?
>> the producer and director are old friends of mine and though, towards the
end of the project i spent some time with the character crew, i didn't
contribute much except suggest some techniques and also fix a couple bugs (!)
they found in the 3.5 version. a good bunch of artists.
to come back on the topic. i've seen also some other impressive results done
with the cartoonreyes plugin from the spanish company reyes-infografica. here
are some examples: http://www.reyes-infografica.com/imagen/cartoon/images
/under03.jpg / http://www.reyes-infografica.com/gallery/agudin04.php / http:/
/www.reyes-infografica.com/gallery/agudin02.php
>> nice stuff indeed.
i guess it's nothing that can't be done with the xsi-toonshader as well. it
just depends on the workflow and i'm still trying to find out the best one.
>> i agree. and yes, finding the right workflow really is the trick. you
should take a close look at todd's tutorials and also might want to study some
of psyop's work. not "anime style" strictly speaking, but very illuminating
nonetheless. there's also a german company that's done some wonderful work,
either with si3d or xsi's toonshaders. the "show me heaven" clip is great. http
://www.fiftyeight.com/ <http://www.fiftyeight.com>
i tried with modeling particular areas to get the desired look of ink. on some
perspectives it looks good while when on different it looks strange. maybe i'll
just need to wrestle around for a while like you and once i'll get there.
>> well, at least on appleseed, alot of tweaking was done to get things to
look right on each shot. and this, more than anything else, is probably what
separates the weat from the chaff, so to speak. i don't think there's any
algorithm that will look perfect in any setting without some shot-by-shot
adjustment. if you start to get tired of the tweaking, just think for a moment
about what traditional animators have to go through to achieve these effects...
regards
Michael Arias wrote:
Hi, Mike here. Organic characters are indeed a challenge - not just for toon
rendering, but for any style, pictorial or photorealistic. What one has to
understand first of all is that contour placement is, first and foremost, a
modelling challenge - NOT a rendering challenge (though there are workarounds
available, like using the "Unblending" features in XSI's toon shaders (see Todd
Akita's great tutorial at www.softimage.com). The toon lens shader makes a lot
of assumptions about where you want lines placed - inside, outside, near/far,
between materials, etc. and also allows a great deal of control over line
placement and appearance. But unless the contours are actually there on the
surface, the renderer won't "ink" them. One has a similar challenge when
generating photorealistic imagery: the algorithms at work decide where
highlights and shadows (for example) are drawn but if there's nothing there to
cast shadows, or if a surface is facing the wrong way, you just won't get them.
For contour details to appear correctly they have to be modelled (although, as
I mention, there are workarounds for exceptional cases). Take a look at the
http://www.apple.co.jp/quicktime/trailers/appleseed_large.html Appleseed
trailer, and notice the contour details on the old man's face, where it appears
. The characters here were all rendered using XSI's toon shaders and, regardless
of what one thinks about the movie, I think there is some impressive stuff
there - both "organic" and "mechanical" in nature. But I think it is also safe
to say that we are only now seeing the first worthwhile efforts to simulate cel
animation artwork (and there is doubtless lots of room for improvement). Good
modelling is hard work and much more demanding than adjusting a few sliders on
a lens shader. But, when done correctly, modelling can yield great results -
naturalistic or stylized, when rendered in a photorealistic style or using
something like the toon shaders. Some techniques work better than others -
subdivision surface crease control is critical if you're using subds, and some
types of geometry are easier to work with than others (for example, generally
speaking, NURBS are only really useful for creating smoothly varying surfaces
with uniform detail). Another thing to consider is that hand-drawn animation
artwork, though it may emulate reality, is very much dependent on the hand of
the artist in question - just like modelling. No two artists will draw the same
character the same way, regardless of how detailed character sheets are made,
and a character seen from one angle may, when seen from another angle, reveal
itself to be a completely different "geometry". When drawing animation, an
artist makes decisions primarily on what looks good - and these decisions are
made on a frame-by-frame basis - there's no way to achieve that in CG if one is
not willing to get one's hands dirty with details (like modelling wrinkles
creases so that contour lines will appear consistently). By the way, I say this
all because I too have wrestled much with these challenges. I only wish it were
as easy as applying a shader... I am happy to continue this discussion with you
- either on this forum, or directly. m.
-- --Original Message-- --
From: owner-xsi@(protected) ä»£ç† +
Sent: 2004/02/19 (木) 18:32
To: XSI@(protected)
Cc:
Subject: toonshading (organic/ characters)
i was doing some toonshading research, trying to come up with some anime
ink & paint results instead of these typical common toonshading
results... but it's just hard or even impossible to get those anime 2d
looks on organic characters... (with no sunglasses, mechanical masks/
gear, etc.)
in 2d the ink lines represent all the important contours supported by
shadows and the main cel-paint of the particular element (see here an
example: http://www.production-ig.co.jp/anime/gits3/episode01.html) - in
3d it would be very difficult or even impossible to achieve that
"toonshading" you see on the frame with the two older men... i am
especially talking about the ink-lines. maybe texturing them would be a
way but usually ink-lines change with direction & perspective too.
what would one other suggest? i know 3d-toon is good for mechanical
workflow... but with "naked", organic characters... it seems rather
difficult.
it would be nice to hear what michael arias would say...
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<DIV>mike here. below...</DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">
<DIV><FONT size=2>-- --Original Message-- -- <BR><B>From:</B>
owner-xsi@(protected) 代理 + <BR><B>Sent:</B> 2004/02/20 (金) 5:50
<BR><B>To:</B> XSI@(protected) <BR><B>Cc:</B> <BR><B>Subject:</B> Re:
toonshading (organic/ characters)<BR><BR></FONT></DIV>
<P>thank you for this explanation michael... </P>
<P>>> no problem.</P>
<P>i know it's not just applying a shader and some few settings. - i saw the
appleseed trailer weeks ago and the jp.co version days ago and was very
impressed, didn't know they use xsi. - are you working as special-project
support on this as well?
<P>>> the producer and director are old friends of mine and though,
towards the end of the project i spent some time with the character crew, i
didn't contribute much except suggest some techniques and also fix a couple
bugs (!) they found in the 3.5 version. a good bunch of artists.
<P>to come back on the topic. i've seen also some other impressive results
done with the cartoonreyes plugin from the spanish company reyes-infografica.
here are some examples: <A
href="http://www.reyes-infografica.com/imagen/cartoon/images/under03.jpg"
>http://www.reyes-infografica.com/imagen/cartoon/images/under03.jpg</A>
/ <A
href="http://www.reyes-infografica.com/gallery/agudin04.php">http://www.reyes
-infografica.com/gallery/agudin04.php</A>
/ <A
href="http://www.reyes-infografica.com/gallery/agudin02.php">http://www.reyes
-infografica.com/gallery/agudin02.php</A>
<P>>> nice stuff indeed.
<P>i guess it's nothing that can't be done with the xsi-toonshader as well.
it
just depends on the workflow and i'm still trying to find out the best one.
<P>>> i agree. and yes, finding the right workflow really is the trick.
you should take a close look at todd's tutorials and also might want to study
some of psyop's work. not "anime style" strictly speaking, but
very illuminating nonetheless. there's also a german company that's done
some wonderful work, either with si3d or xsi's toonshaders. the "show me
heaven" clip is great. <A
href="http://www.fiftyeight.com/">http://www.fiftyeight.com/</A><A
href="http://www.fiftyeight.com"></A>
<P>i tried with modeling particular areas to get the desired look of ink. on
some perspectives it looks good while when on different it looks strange.
maybe i'll just need to wrestle around for a while like you and once i'll get
there.
<P>>> well, at least on appleseed, alot of tweaking was done to get
things to look right on each shot. and this, more than anything else, is
probably what separates the weat from the chaff, so to speak. i don't think
there's any algorithm that will look perfect in any setting without some
shot-by-shot adjustment. if you start to get tired of the tweaking,
just think for a moment about what traditional animators have to go
through to achieve these effects...
<P>regards <BR>
<P>Michael Arias wrote:
<BLOCKQUOTE TYPE="CITE"> Hi, Mike here. Organic characters are
indeed a challenge - not just for toon rendering, but for any style,
pictorial or photorealistic. What one has to understand first of all is
that
contour placement is, first and foremost, a modelling challenge - NOT a
rendering challenge (though there are workarounds available, like using the
"Unblending" features in XSI's toon shaders (see Todd Akita's great
tutorial
at <A href="http://www.softimage.com">www.softimage.com</A>). The toon
lens shader makes a lot of assumptions about where you want lines placed -
inside, outside, near/far, between materials, etc. and also allows a great
deal of control over line placement and appearance. But unless the contours
are actually there on the surface, the renderer won't "ink" them. One has a
similar challenge when generating photorealistic imagery: the algorithms at
work decide where highlights and shadows (for example) are drawn but if
there's nothing there to cast shadows, or if a surface is facing the wrong
way, you just won't get them. For contour details to appear correctly they
have to be modelled (although, as I mention, there are workarounds for
exceptional cases). Take a look at the <FONT size=-1><A
href="http://www.apple.co.jp/quicktime/trailers/appleseed_large.html"
target=_BLANK>http://www.apple.co.jp/quicktime/trailers/appleseed_large
.html</A></FONT>
Appleseed trailer, and notice the contour details on the old man's face,
where it appears. The characters here were all rendered using XSI's toon
shaders and, regardless of what one thinks about the movie, I think there
is
some impressive stuff there - both "organic" and "mechanical" in nature.
But
I think it is also safe to say that we are only now seeing the first
worthwhile efforts to simulate cel animation artwork (and there is
doubtless
lots of room for improvement). Good modelling is hard work and much
more demanding than adjusting a few sliders on a lens shader. But, when
done
correctly, modelling can yield great results - naturalistic or stylized,
when rendered in a photorealistic style or using something like the toon
shaders. Some techniques work better than others - subdivision surface
crease control is critical if you're using subds, and some types of
geometry
are easier to work with than others (for example, generally speaking, NURBS
are only really useful for creating smoothly varying surfaces with uniform
detail). Another thing to consider is that hand-drawn animation
artwork, though it may emulate reality, is very much dependent on the hand
of the artist in question - just like modelling. No two artists will draw
the same character the same way, regardless of how detailed character
sheets
are made, and a character seen from one angle may, when seen from another
angle, reveal itself to be a completely different "geometry". When drawing
animation, an artist makes decisions primarily on what looks good - and
these decisions are made on a frame-by-frame basis - there's no way to
achieve that in CG if one is not willing to get one's hands dirty with
details (like modelling wrinkles creases so that contour lines will appear
consistently). By the way, I say this all because I too have wrestled
much with these challenges. I only wish it were as easy as applying a
shader... I am happy to continue this discussion with you - either on
this forum, or directly. m.
<BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"><FONT size=-1>-- --Original
Message-- --</FONT> <BR><FONT size=-1><B>From:</B> owner-xsi@(protected)
.COM
ä»£ç† +</FONT> <BR><FONT size=-1><B>Sent:</B> 2004/02/19 (木)
18:32</FONT> <BR><FONT size=-1><B>To:</B> XSI@(protected)</FONT>
<BR><B><FONT size=-1>Cc:</FONT></B> <BR><FONT size=-1><B>Subject:</B>
toonshading (organic/ characters)</FONT> <BR> <FONT size=-1>i was
doing some toonshading research, trying to come up with some anime</FONT>
<BR><FONT size=-1>ink & paint results instead of these typical common
toonshading</FONT> <BR><FONT size=-1>results... but it's just hard or
even
impossible to get those anime 2d</FONT> <BR><FONT size=-1>looks on
organic
characters... (with no sunglasses, mechanical masks/</FONT> <BR><FONT
size=-1>gear, etc.)</FONT>
<P><FONT size=-1>in 2d the ink lines represent all the important contours
supported by</FONT> <BR><FONT size=-1>shadows and the main cel-paint of
the particular element (see here an</FONT> <BR><FONT size=-1>example: <A
href="http://www.production-ig.co.jp/anime/gits3/episode01.html">http:/
/www.production-ig.co.jp/anime/gits3/episode01.html</A>)
- in</FONT> <BR><FONT size=-1>3d it would be very difficult or even
impossible to achieve that</FONT> <BR><FONT size=-1>"toonshading" you see
on the frame with the two older men... i am</FONT> <BR><FONT
size=-1>especially talking about the ink-lines. maybe texturing them
would
be a</FONT> <BR><FONT size=-1>way but usually ink-lines change with
direction & perspective too.</FONT>
<P><FONT size=-1>what would one other suggest? i know 3d-toon is good for
mechanical</FONT> <BR><FONT size=-1>workflow... but with "naked", organic
characters... it seems rather</FONT> <BR><FONT size=-1>difficult.</FONT>
<BR><FONT size=-1>it would be nice to hear what michael arias would
say...</FONT>
<P><FONT size=-1>---</FONT> <BR><FONT size=-1>Unsubscribe? Mail
Majordomo@(protected) with the following text in body:</FONT> <BR><FONT
size=-1>unsubscribe
xsi</FONT></P></BLOCKQUOTE></BLOCKQUOTE></BLOCKQUOTE>
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