Attached Link: http://www.kevinhammer.com/animation/ed-test.avi

Howdy everybody! I've been playing with different rendering and compositing methods trying to come up with a unique look for the next animation that I'm planning on doing. I'm trying to expand on what I learned from That Darn Robot and come up with a look somewhere between a 2d and a 3d style. Here's a test animation I made. The movements are pretty choppy, but it's just meant to test out the look. Any comments?

That was a pretty big download for a 2 seconds video. Anyway, I think that table texture looks a little weird. Maybe you should reduce the number of "ripples". The shirt shading looks cool. Maybe you could try to get the whole skin to look like that. Right now that skin-shirt contrast just doesn't look ok for my personal taste (but you have the final word, obviously). Keep it up

nemirc
Renderosity Magazine Staff Writer
https://renderositymagazine.com/users/nemirc
https://about.me/aris3d/

Thanks for the comments nemirc! I've been playing with the table and you're right, it does look better with less ripples. Thanks!
The guy's clothes and hair are just regular 3d renders with outlines on them, while the guy himself is cell shaded. I like the idea of keeping the guy cartoon looking, but I think the real shading on the clothes helps to add depth to it. I've been expirimenting with these combinations so long that I think I'm just used to it by now. I hope that while watching the animation the veiwers will get used to it too. This one will be a lot longer than the last one since I'm actually writing out a story first ;)

I like the look too. I'm curious, is this a Poser render or something else?

Before they made me they broke the mold!
http://home.roadrunner.com/~kflach/

Yes and no. The room was done all in lightwave. The guy's hair and eyes were modeled in lightwave and brought into poser 4 (the later versions run too slow). The guy's clothes and hair are a standard poser render while the guy himself is from the cartoon with lines preview. I composited it all together in after effects along with some color replacement and lighting effects to make it all fit together like it's in the same room. Believe it or not, this method is actually more effecient for me than trying to do everything in either program by itself.

So it sounds like the weak link in the chain would be if you were using a moving camera??? I say that because matching the camera moves in the room (using LW) with the camera moves from the "standard Poser render" would be a real pain in the backside. Am I correct in thinking you either don't have Pro Pack or you have a version of Lightwave that's not compatible with it? I ask because I'm still using ProPack with version 6.5 of Lightwave. I end up using the LW renderer (and camera) for everything. When I import the Poser scene into Lightwave it creates LWOs of all the objects. As long as I don't change the names (or eliminate any of them) I can change the textures all I want within Lightwave. I haven't spent much time with Lightwave's SuperCellShader but I suspect it could give Poser's cell shading a run for its money.

Before they made me they broke the mold!
http://home.roadrunner.com/~kflach/

The cell shader in lightwave is great! Much better and much more customizable than poser's. But, poser is good enough to pull off what I'm trying to do. Don't have pro pack, just an old copy of poser 4. For camera movements, I'll mostly do them 2d style like I did on that darn robot. I'd render the background realy big from lightwave, animate in a big poser project over the background, then in aftereffects I'd move the video layer in a standard size project to simulate a camera moving over a 2d image. It gives a much more cartoony pan that way since the perspective doesn't change. There are a couple parts in this project that will have more involved camera moves, but in those you either won't see the feet so it won't have to line up as precise, or the characters will be flying, so it won't matter.

Sounds like you've done some serious planning. That's great. What's your general timeline? Are you looking at a Christmas 2005 release? Eariler? Later?

Before they made me they broke the mold!
http://home.roadrunner.com/~kflach/

Probably much much later ;) I'm still writing the story, and I haven't even started on actual dialog yet! This thing is very much in pre-production.

Cool. I trust you'll keep us posted on your progress. ;-)

Before they made me they broke the mold!
http://home.roadrunner.com/~kflach/

Will do! So far I have most of the story written. It's getting kind of long so I don't know how much I might end up cutting out. I've made 1 set and 3 characters so far, but it'll need much much more. I'll be working on this one for quite some time.

BIG lesson from Pixar: It's all about the story! ;-)

Before they made me they broke the mold!
http://home.roadrunner.com/~kflach/

Big lesson from nemirc: When it comes to cinema, it's all about how you visualy present a GOOD story ;)

nemirc
Renderosity Magazine Staff Writer
https://renderositymagazine.com/users/nemirc
https://about.me/aris3d/

Here's a quick test render of the 3 characters I've made so far. The guy on the right came out looking a little green for some reason. I think in the future I'll need to render each character seperately and comp them back together so I can have seperate color balance controls for each of them.

Well, I was playing with it a little more today and came up with this image. I added a bit more shading detail to make it look not quite cartoon, but more of a painted style. Which do you think works better?

I personally like the second one better. I love mixing styles - 2D animation with 3D animation for example - but I think it's better when each element is consistant with itself. A flat 2D head on a 3D body feels awkward. I heads have more diminsionalty on the second on so it looks more like they belong together with the bodies.

Before they made me they broke the mold!
http://home.roadrunner.com/~kflach/

I vote for the second one as well.

nemirc
Renderosity Magazine Staff Writer
https://renderositymagazine.com/users/nemirc
https://about.me/aris3d/

The votes seam unanimous! Style #2 it is! I'm anxious now to comp them all together with a background to see how it all looks in context. Instead of putting them all in the apartment set, I think I'll use this as motivation to put together my 2nd set, the electronics store where the two on the left work.

I have to see that :p

nemirc
Renderosity Magazine Staff Writer
https://renderositymagazine.com/users/nemirc
https://about.me/aris3d/

Here's a test of the characters in the electronics store set. I was skeptical as to how it would look with the new compositing style and the more cartoony elements of the background, but I think it turned out pretty cool. You don't want to know how many after effects layers it took to get this look! I'll still play with it a lot more to get it just right, but it's getting closer to what I'm going for. Somewhere between a 2d and 3d look.

Generally I like it. Very nice result. I have to be honest with you, I am not so enthusiast about making cartoon looks with 3D apps. From my personal point of view that's what 2D animation is for, not 3D... same reason why you never see me doing cell shadings ;) Anyway... I still admire what you've come up with, specially considering how much work it takes to get it to look like that. Just an observation. Is there a way you can get that contour on everything? It serves to separate the characters from the background but the lack of contour inside the characters makes them look weird. For example the shirt's collar seems to 'blend' with the character's neck.

nemirc
Renderosity Magazine Staff Writer
https://renderositymagazine.com/users/nemirc
https://about.me/aris3d/

Ahh, I'd overlooked that! It was late when I was compositing. I also fixed the color balence. The dude had gone blonde!

Small detail but it looks better now

nemirc
Renderosity Magazine Staff Writer
https://renderositymagazine.com/users/nemirc
https://about.me/aris3d/

It might also help if the walls in the store were actually darker. I know that at the local electronic stores they have dark walls so all the colored merchandise "pops" out. I suspect that in this picture darker walls would give them more of a sense of depth - as in they'd appear further away - as well as popping out the characters a bit more. One possible negative is that it may make the room seem smaller. It's just an idea - something to try out if you haven't already.

Before they made me they broke the mold!
http://home.roadrunner.com/~kflach/

Hey, I like the 2D/3d look of this! Very cool looking stuff.

Thanks Jim! Bob, I like the idea, but I think I like having this set all bright since I have so many dark sets in the story already. Even the backroom at this store is pretty dark. Overall, I'm trying to make the brightness of the sets match the tone of the scene. I'll try a scene in the backroom next, since it'll have more interesting lighting.

No problem. I don't know what else is going on so I'm just throwing out ideas. ;-)

Before they made me they broke the mold!
http://home.roadrunner.com/~kflach/

Here's a test render of the backroom of the store. I wanted to see how the style would work in a darker more moody environment.

It looks cool bot comparing both images here they look more 3D. Even the skin looks 3D which kinda makes the cartoon look disappear :(

nemirc
Renderosity Magazine Staff Writer
https://renderositymagazine.com/users/nemirc
https://about.me/aris3d/

Good point. I'll need to play around with the composition settings a bit more.

How's this try look? It's a subtle difference, but I think it helps.

It does help a lot. THey feel less 3D that way.

nemirc
Renderosity Magazine Staff Writer
https://renderositymagazine.com/users/nemirc
https://about.me/aris3d/

Here's a test render of a city set I've been working on for the story. It's still a work in progress. No doors yet! :)

These look great. I'd love to see a test animation with motion blur, just to see how it holds up in this toon style. Good work.

---

Tools :  3dsmax 2015, Daz Studio 4.6, PoserPro 2012, Blender v2.74

System: Pentium QuadCore i7, under Win 8, GeForce GTX 780 / 2GB GPU.

"...and come up with a look somewhere between a 2d and a 3d style." I think you suceeded, the style looks prety good to me.

no complains here maybe only one: the shadows under the windows are too large.

nemirc
Renderosity Magazine Staff Writer
https://renderositymagazine.com/users/nemirc
https://about.me/aris3d/

Thanks for the compliments and advice everybody! This city set is one of the most involved models I think I've ever tried to make. It's a lot of fun. I'm glad I'm doing it in a cartoon style, I'd go nuts if I had to model it all photorealistic. This is the most fun I've had on a project like this. I only wish I had more time to work on it. I'll keep the updates coming though!

I decided to go back to a more cartoony style. It fits with the background style more.

Here's the other

what I am really keen on is an animated characters test. It would be nice to see how the shading and all reacts as they move around, for example when they move from a well lit area to a dark area and such.

nemirc
Renderosity Magazine Staff Writer
https://renderositymagazine.com/users/nemirc
https://about.me/aris3d/