Ever since Poser 6 came out, with its much-improved material options, I've been working on trying to get a decent-looking sketch or pencil-type shader.  I know it can be done, since Olivier over at RDNA posted an image using just such a thing, but he's developing his pencil shader as part of his second Art Materials pack store item, and anyway it hasn't been released yet.

The biggest problem I found was creating a shader that could produce good results fairly reliably.  I kept finding formulas that looked good from just one angle, or on just one object, but which made a blotchy mess when I tried using them again in different scenes.  Finally, eureka, I think I've gotten something which works most of the time on most types of stuff.  It's still heavily influenced by the camera angle and lighting, and it doesn't work in every situation, but more often than not it does work.

This shader is not something which is perfect, and it probably wouldn't be that user-friendly... it's always going to require some tweaking of the material settings to get a good effect with every different scene.  Still, if it seems like something other people could use, I'll finish it up, package it, and put it in the FreeStuff.  Here are some sample renders with the pencil-shader material, using Vicky 2 RR and Anton Kisiel's Egyptian clothes, with Transpond's modular arch as the background. 

First render, using the shader and a single white light, rendered with Firefly.

Second render, with a second light added and from a slightly different camera angle.  (Don't forget that R'osity's new forum settings are thumbnailing these images... please click on them to see the image full-size and get the best idea of how the shader works.)

Finally, more of a close-up portrait style render.  This is where the most work still needs to be done, because in closeups I'm still either getting very light shading, or shading that is much too heavy and unaesthetic.   Rendered in Firefly with a single white light again.

Whaddaya think, sirs?   :)

regarding olivier's shaders, I recall he was selling toon shaders, but I haven't seen any examples in the gallery here lately, excepting maybe one where a guy posted a sneaky rabbit animation. are there alotta good renders using his toon shaders at rdna (other than promotional ones), or are they tricky to use, causing folks to fall back on firefly or even the dreaded Poser toon renderer? regarding your pencil shader, I want to encourage you in developing it. however, IMVHO it needs alotta postwork to make it look like a human artist's pencil sketch. the same goes for whatever olivier is working on - best of luck in getting something that will work well.

It looks very good to me, I hope that you do make it a free item.

fauve - you have something interesting going on.   Your sketch shader results look good so far, but a little more contrast would be nice.  I find the Poser 6 Sketch mode very difficult to control, so if you are successful in creating a range of sketch shaders, that could set off a whole different direction of creativity.

Looks good so far - I'll definitely be following the progress on this one.

Looks good, fauve... you got another interested party here... :)

 

jonthecelt

I would apreciate something like this. I love the effect. Would it be possible to package several different set-ups so the optimum could be chosen for each scene element do you think? I tried doing node set-ups for this and my results were aweful. Your results are FAR better than Sketch Designer I think.

I like the airiness of it. Let me know if you post it so I can try it.

Great look!

 

 

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Absolutely interested!!!!

Good work ! Is there a way to increase the contrast ?

They look good; I'd be interested in using them.

Sebastian