New Line Shader Needed

#1

In addition to lots of stills using GI, I do a lot of orthographic line drawings.
EIAS line drawings (using the line options in the geometry tab) work OK, but are very limited, and sometimes fail to create good results on subtle organic shapes.

It would be very useful to have a shader for this type of technical illustration that could draw outlines, and contour lines to simulate technical drawings (think CAD with hidden lines) as well as hand sketch techniques. NPR is a bit too “artsy” for this.

This new shader would need to recognize clipping maps as object edges, and have some better line controls than what is in the geometry tab. Perhaps some ways to control line width over a surface, and creation of dashed hidden lines, etc.

The Cel shader and Gradient shader (set to view edge) can get close to these effects on very organic geometry, but fail to give any reasonable effect on rectangular objects or flat surfaces.

I have seen some samples from XSI and Cinema that look better than what EIAS offers, although I am not necessarily lloking to clone that functionality.

Surely there is some industrious developer out there that could code something like this?

If anyone else sees this as useful, please chime in.

If a developer shows interest, we could begin collecting images of the type we would like to simulate.

Any thoughts?

#2

Yo,

You should buy HyperGlass ;)
The new additional video has a tip that shows you how to do the sketch effect (of the extended object edge line variety). Perhaps Brian can upload a sample picture if he still has one (I don't have any with me and I'm away for the weekend). 

Unfortunatly a shader can't do some of the things you're suggesting, a shader can only effect the surface of an object, it can't extend beyond it - this is what I was told by the Igors when I suggested the same thing a couple of months ago -.

If I understand you correctly Runline can provide you with the dashed line edges etc that you’re after, as is shown in the demo videos on the Paralumino site.

Bon weekend!
Ian
#3

“Outlines” could be on the inside edge of the object, if that was a limitation, although choice of “Inside”, “Centered”, and “Outside” strokes would be better.
Perhaps this is a combo plugin/shader if manipulation of geometry is necessary.

I am collecting some images to share to illustrate what I am talking about.
Please everyone chime in if they have ideas around this type of rendering style, or would just find this useful.

PS.
I bought the first version of Hyperglass. If Brian offers an “upgrade” price I will consider getting the updated version, but (as great as it is) I am not going to pay for the whole thing twice.

#4

Hi Dave…

Yup… I plan to offer “Workflow” seperately for a limited time. Price will be set for $10. Here’s a shot of Ian’s render sketching technique.

#5

Great, I’ll be sure to pick it up.
I am intrigued by the “line extensions” in Ian’s sample.

#6

I have never used Cinema, so maybe someone with firsthand experience could give some input.

It looks like Cinema has an extensive system for this type of thing, and it looks like it goes beyond just a shader or plugin, but includes some “postprocessing” types of effects.

Here is the link to the “Toon” manual download for those that may be interested.

ftp://ftp.maxon.net/pub/r9/docs/manual_sketch_9.0_us.pdf

It looks like this is all of the functionality I am talking about and then some.
It also looks very complex to set up, at least initially.

Any interested developers please review the documentation from the link above to see what features could be implemented in an “illustration” style rendering system for EIAS.
If there are limitations to the way EIAS handles plugins and shaders, then this is good input for Matt and team to develop new functionality for EIAS as a whole (new plugin format, etc.)

For the users: How many people would find this type of rendering system helpful?

I will be reviewing Ian’s workflow tutorial and his sketch technique shortly :wink:

#7

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