Anonymous at Sun, 9 Jan 2022 01:07:32 UTC No. 874682

>>874677
This seems pretty incredible anon. Are you the one who did the paper too?
I'd be willing to play around with it, though I don't work with characters all that much. Mainly scenes and animations.
Still, I've been on an NPR kick myself, and I've really been liking working in the style.

Anonymous at Sun, 9 Jan 2022 01:17:14 UTC No. 874686

>>874682
Sorry that wasn't clear, paper's not mine! I emailed the author to see if he had a publicly accessible implementation in the works. Nice guy, but he doesn't seem in a hurry to release anything, which is why I went ahead and wrote the addon up.
Nice, then I'll fix a couple bugs and post something with everything needed in the thread. Annoyingly, Blender doesn't really have a way to package custom nodes into addons, so a custom node has to be appended for the addon to work.
Picrel is material-based shading being replaced with the shading rig technique.

Anonymous at Sun, 9 Jan 2022 05:22:39 UTC No. 874717

>>874686
>Blender doesn't really have a way to package custom nodes into addons,
Doesn't it though? The Lightning Boy Shader uses custom nodes and that's an addon.
So does it work in Cycles and Eevee, or just Eevee?

Anonymous at Sun, 9 Jan 2022 05:44:11 UTC No. 874721

>>874717
It does? Nice, I'll go investigate- 30 bucks? sheesh
Looking at the user guide, it seems like the addon might have a collection included in the directory and then that's appended at runtime by the addon? Could work, thanks for the tip anon.
So, the functionality works in both renderers, because all it's doing is create areas of dark of light where you want to edit the shading on the mesh, this part is independant from the actual rendering. The output of the addon's node is right in picrel (left is the shading created with it). You can use this to create areas of permanent deeper shadow, or other vector-precision details in Cycles. But since you don't have the Shader to RGB node, it's a bit annoying to make it play smoothly with dynamic lighting. I think you can probably finesse it, or hell you can bypass it entirely by basing shading on the vector of your light.
Or, you can pipe the addon's output to an AOV field and combine it with Cycles' lighting in the Compositor.

Anonymous at Sun, 9 Jan 2022 13:02:10 UTC No. 874780

>>874677
Here's what I can do with normal map editing. There is a catch: the face. If you want some anime face it's going to give iffy results. If you want some stylized face like you see in Western animation (think Arcane) it's a perfect solution.

Anonymous at Sun, 9 Jan 2022 15:17:58 UTC No. 874821

>>874780
Looks fucking fantastic anon, but just to be sure do you mean normal editing (vertex normal) or actually normal map? because normal maps are industry standard, I'm familiar with the technique. They get you the best results, if your shading can be represented by a higher poly model and your texture is sufficiently high resolution. They'll never have vector precision though, (which is obviously not an issue in all the use-cases for normal maps).
If that is vertex normal editing though, having done some normal editing I have an idea of the amount of work that would be needed for this result. If it didn't need that much work, I'm curious about your workflow kek. Do you use Abnormal?
But yeah, as you mention both normal maps and normal editing work best when the underlying geometry is similar to the shading you're aiming for, the more they differ, the more trouble you'll have. "Some anime face" is in fact exactly what I'm trying to achieve.

Anonymous at Sun, 9 Jan 2022 17:36:34 UTC No. 874846

>>874821
I made it using by creating normal maps by hand in Photoshop. The resolution is basic 4096x4096. The topology of the character was created to be able to use the trick in the first place but there are ways to work with any topology. The advantage of using normal maps to control the shadows over vertex normals is that you get smoother shadows and it's a one size fits all solution rather than having to adjust the vertex normals for each mesh. Plus it can be used for any sort of assets as well as for realistic characters.

The disadvantage is in the stylization. If your aim is to remove as much detail as possible it's tricky.

Anonymous at Sun, 9 Jan 2022 23:20:06 UTC No. 874906

>>874846
Yeah, this correlates with my experience using normal maps. There's a reason it's the most common technique for adding shading detail for 99% of applications. My addon is aimed for highly stylized shading, as you say.
Spent the evening adding a couple QoL features I realized were needed while testing, mainly flipping the rig on the axis, and bone duplication.

Anonymous at Mon, 10 Jan 2022 01:08:46 UTC No. 874923

>>874846
Is this basically like matcaps in zbrush?

Anonymous at Mon, 10 Jan 2022 02:37:05 UTC No. 874935

>>874923
A matcap (blender has em too, they're just worse, or so I've heard) is just a shader that displays a certain part of a texture depending on normal and light direction. What anon is talking about is a standard normal map going on a UV-mapped model (matcaps work on models without UV-maps because they only need the geometry normal).

Anonymous at Mon, 10 Jan 2022 03:04:02 UTC No. 874941

>>874780
That's really impressive. Almost looks like King of Fighters 13.

>>874846
>creating normal maps by hand in Photoshop

How?

Anonymous at Mon, 10 Jan 2022 03:27:59 UTC No. 874947

>>874941
Don't stroke his ego too much, we all remember what happened last time.

Anonymous at Mon, 10 Jan 2022 03:33:01 UTC No. 874948

>>874941
NTA, my first guess at doing this would be that he baked a blank normal map for his UV-mapped model with smooth normal, and then used photoshop to add circular/elliptical gradients similar to pic related where needed. I'm curious what his workflow looks like, seems like it would be incredibly repetitive and work-intensive, unless he put together some automation or did a clever trick with the UV map.

Anonymous at Mon, 10 Jan 2022 13:46:21 UTC No. 875018

>>874948

You're pretty much there. I literally just took a normal of a sphere from google images and just morphed it into Photoshop to fit the UV's. The mesh I used had topology that followed every muscle so my UV's were divided accordingly: one island per muscle. It was a lot of work but it's way easier if you're using simpler meshes. Also you don't have to separate the UV islands like I did (I needed it to create that fake outline effect). You can make your UV's like normal and then just morph and blend the spheres where you need them.

I don't know why studios aren't using this trick. You can just overlay this normal map on your regular normal map and it will force the shadows to conform to the underlying shape more aesthetically regardless of light angle. Pic related: same lighting, the one on the left has the normal sphere maps, small difference but very noticeable when compared.

Anonymous at Mon, 10 Jan 2022 13:52:30 UTC No. 875019

>>874948
The trick works on everything btw, including cloth.

Anonymous at Mon, 10 Jan 2022 16:13:00 UTC No. 875040

>>875018
Seems like the sphere-morphing process could be automated somewhat.

Perhaps with layer styles, or putting the UV map on a high subdiv plane and smooth extruding the islands?

Anonymous at Mon, 10 Jan 2022 17:51:13 UTC No. 875052

>>874677
When I first saw how you can stylise shadows via normal editing I thought that to move forward we would need a solution on it's own separate layer that will interact with geometry but won't directly depend on it. Plus in anime you frequently have a very similar facial expressions under a 'similar' light angle but with different shadows so this is a calm face and this is a murder face, afaik being a rig it will be easier to integrate it to trigger in specific pose at least it's easier for a 3d noob like me to imagine that. Good luck on your efforts.

Anonymous at Mon, 10 Jan 2022 18:17:29 UTC No. 875056

>>875040
I don't see why not. It's literally just morphing one 2D shape into another 2D shape. Very old CGI trick, even before I was born. If the trick ever gets picked up I'm sure we'll get a plugin eventually.

Anonymous at Wed, 12 Jan 2022 23:47:54 UTC No. 875524

>>874677
I want to try this!

Anonymous at Thu, 13 Jan 2022 06:16:58 UTC No. 875582

>>875052
Thanks! You've got the right idea, with the shading rig you can have shape keys but for various different expressions, it's pretty handy.
>>875524
Nice! When I have some kind of minimum viable product I'll post a throwaway e-mail and interested anons can hit me up to get a test copy I've been talking with the paper's author on how skeleton animations were supported, once I have that I think the addon will be ready, other than QoL stuff, like better handles maybe.

Anonymous at Thu, 13 Jan 2022 06:18:39 UTC No. 875584

>>875018
I think for most studios, they have the means to have the artist make a detailed sculpt to bake the normal data from. You can get the same result but also have shapes more complex than spheres, though it's obviously a lot more work.

Anonymous at Thu, 13 Jan 2022 13:54:53 UTC No. 875627

>>875584
Ha!
That was my first attempt: just sculpt super stylized details and use those normals to control the shadows. Doesn't work.

Spheres, bro, SPHERES. Trust me, I've tried everything already and the answer is spheres. Another advantage is upscaling. Because you're not capturing any hard surface detail and a sphere is basically just a gradient in all directions, using a 4k texture to control the shadows has the same effect as a 16k texture (in this case you need to create more complex meshes and unwrap the accordingly, not the basic bitch game-ready topology).

Anonymous at Thu, 13 Jan 2022 16:35:05 UTC No. 875644

>>875627
>That was my first attempt: just sculpt super stylized details and use those normals to control the shadows. Doesn't work.
Interesting, why not? Any normal map is just a representation of a relief on the surface of the low-poly, so my hunch is that any normal map should have a corresponding high poly with the same normals. At what step did you run into issues?
On the second point though, do you mean you have a 4k texture that looks like >>874948 and then you unwrap each "spherical normals" island onto it? Cuz that does seem like a good technique to get a lot more resolution for your buck.

Anonymous at Thu, 13 Jan 2022 17:13:17 UTC No. 875646

>>875644
>On the second point though, do you mean you have a 4k texture that looks like >>874948 and then you unwrap each "spherical normals" island onto it? Cuz that does seem like a good technique to get a lot more resolution for your buck.
Yes but the other way around. I wrapped the normal map sphere on the UV island.

>Interesting, why not?
Because the light will hit the object from all directions, in practice a normal map which has RGB in all directions translates to a sphere. You could do the sculpt thing like you described but it will only look good when it's lit a certain way. Move the light a little and the effect all falls apart. This is why Ark System Works (Guilty Gear etc) explained the need for each character to have its own illumination source (plus one for the face). In every animation frame the light is moved in such a way to give the best possible result. If you watch their animation frame by frame you'll see how in certain keyframes the shading is pretty crappy. Pic related. Notice how moving the angle just a little bit can ruin it, and the lightsource in these turntable models is just from left to right.

A sphere lights the same regardless of light direction, therefore if you only use spheres you won't have to constantly worry about the light source.

Anonymous at Thu, 13 Jan 2022 18:08:07 UTC No. 875648

>>874677
>wasting your time in a shader
yikes

Anonymous at Thu, 13 Jan 2022 20:54:22 UTC No. 875679

>>874780
he looks like that new basedjack meme with giga chad's body

Anonymous at Fri, 14 Jan 2022 09:20:50 UTC No. 875755

>>875646
>each character to have its own illumination source (plus one for the face). In every animation frame the light is moved in such a way to give the best possible result.

Good to know they are absolutely fudging it.

Anonymous at Sat, 15 Jan 2022 07:25:38 UTC No. 875958

>>874677
Well the problem is clearly that even for 300x300 resolution it takes 14ms which is not useable for games only renders.

Anonymous at Sat, 15 Jan 2022 07:27:21 UTC No. 875959

>>874686
Did you make the pic you just posted? I'm wondering if anyone on this board can actually make something like that and I'm making a game that would requires skills like that.

Anonymous at Sat, 15 Jan 2022 17:08:39 UTC No. 876030

>>875755
Hey, if it works. Computer Graphics are all tricks, smoke and mirrors.
>>875958
Picrel is the performance evaluation of the technique. While the frame time is nearly 14 ms in one of the cases, that is when the object occupies 100% of the 1920x1080 resolution, and when the number of edits is 100, which in my experience is the higher limit of the number of edits you would end up using on a character naturally. For lower numbers of edits the usual frame time at 100% is quite real-time, though obviously it's more expensive than a normal PBR shader. I think there's also place for optimization with edit grouping. It's always valid to be concerned about shader performance though.
>>875959
The model is by Rukikuri, who is pretty fantastic at normal editing for anime style characters. You can try hitting her up on Twitter, but she's got better things to do than make assets for some anon.

Anonymous at Sat, 15 Jan 2022 17:23:17 UTC No. 876033

>>876030
>if it works it works
based

Anonymous at Sat, 15 Jan 2022 19:50:57 UTC No. 876047

Neato. Does this work with sub 10k models and being improrted into UE4/Unity/Godot?

Anonymous at Sat, 15 Jan 2022 20:18:32 UTC No. 876050

>>876047
It works with a 1 tri model, no restrictions there. I'm still figuring out deformation tracking, UV mapping may be required, but I'm not sure yet.
Also, this is extra functionality, so it would require a custom shader to be used in a game engine. I plan on making an addon to support it on Godot, the original author made a UE4 implementation, so it should be possible to make one for Unity. I'm not making it unless I get paid for it though, Unity sucks kek.

Anonymous at Mon, 17 Jan 2022 20:09:24 UTC No. 876523

>>874780
Shading reminds me of this

Anonymous at Tue, 18 Jan 2022 06:08:43 UTC No. 876631

>>874677
>no download button
Sad! I tried to recreate some other dude's tutorial. He literally generated primitives with a bunch of math nodes and used them for shading. Kinda okay for anime faces and topology, but too much of a trouble when it comes to semi-realistic proportions in my project.

Anonymous at Tue, 18 Jan 2022 06:14:42 UTC No. 876632

>>876631
I don't think this technique would work well for semi realistic styles. If you're aiming for something somewhat realistic you can probably get the results you want with a high res normal map of a good sculpt. I'm curious, what was the tutorial? Did it base the primitive location on UV coordinates?
Also, still working on the MVP, will be making the github public when it's ready. The deformation tracking is tricky, but I added another few nice QoL features.

Anonymous at Tue, 18 Jan 2022 06:30:45 UTC No. 876634

>>876632
here is the tutorial - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQW2wqltB0A

> for semi realistic styles.
My stuff is stylized but kinda has semi-realistic proportions. Pic related I messed around with normals and data transfer but the shading still looks like ass

Anonymous at Tue, 18 Jan 2022 06:38:31 UTC No. 876636

>>876634
Heh, I messed with the exact same tutorial. It's nifty, but it's way too much of a hassle to make any kind of custom shape through that, or to modify it if you make changes to the mesh.
Doesn't look horrible. What in particular would you like to improve with that shading? I guess there's that quirk with the temple, but I think you could fix that with the proxy mesh.

Anonymous at Tue, 18 Jan 2022 06:48:14 UTC No. 876639

>>876636
It looks like ass in motion. I did use proxy mesh and stuff, but if it looks good from one angle, it looks horrible from another angle

Anonymous at Tue, 18 Jan 2022 07:03:15 UTC No. 876644

>>876639
Yep, that's pretty blatant. What's the shape of your proxy? Maybe try to play with the mapping in the Data Transfer, the "Nearest Corner etc" things, I found some worked better than others.

Anonymous at Tue, 18 Jan 2022 07:16:09 UTC No. 876646

>>876644
Well, I tried spheres, tried same mesh as this head but deformed in some areas to make shading smoother (using it rn). Tried with both subdiv on and off, but well as you can see my only option now is to edit normals which I dont have time to do anyways.
>mapping in Data
Yeah, tried that, no luck.
The thing is that artist who makes anime models with a really good shading - her models have messed up topology just to get shading right. I cant imagine this will work right with animations. Static picture - sure. Facial animations? Nope.

Anonymous at Tue, 18 Jan 2022 07:21:34 UTC No. 876649

>>876639
You're not getting it. This is what happens when people with no artistic understanding try to mimic a certain style.
Anime face shading has AT MOST 14 possible variations based on light angle (left, right, top, bottom, front, back, plus the in-between positions if you want to get really detailed). This means that for the left light source you get one shadow variation, top light source another variation, etc. There's no in-between transition shapes between these variations. You have a shadow transition at each angle of light which is why it looks like shit. The guy who made the tutorial also made this mistake. The reason why you got different results from the guy should be obvious: you're using different meshes. The guy was using a teardrop shape with a triangle (basic bitch female anime head), while you're using a more complex shape.

Anonymous at Tue, 18 Jan 2022 07:29:00 UTC No. 876653

>>876649
It can work just fine. See RWBY characters, with realtime shading tansitions and stuff.

Anonymous at Tue, 18 Jan 2022 07:31:41 UTC No. 876654

>>876646
What I've used is basically a sphere deformed to have a shape a bit closer to the head. Actually, I think it was a cube with many levels of subdiv. Don't hesitate to have the proxy mesh have a bigger distance from the target, that adds a natural smoothing to the modifier.
Also, that mouth topology is there so that the normals don't get messed with when the mouth is animated, otherwise it gets hard to keep all those loops under control.
>>876649
You're not wrong that the issue is artistic rather than technique. But you're also self contradicting when you say that there's at most a certain number of light angles, and then in-between positions... Once you have enough in-between positions, you basically have a continuous transition. There are some anime art styles where the mangaka will indeed keep to specific, discrete light source angles, but others are compatible with a continuous spectrum. However at some points you have sharp changes in the shadow's topology, when the rembrandt triangle appears, how the eye socket is lit, that's where you can have issues (which this addon is attempting to tackle).
>>876653
Eh RWBY isn't terrible, but I wouldn't hold it up as an example of fantastic anime-style rendering. It has really embraced its CGI aesthetic.

Anonymous at Tue, 18 Jan 2022 07:44:18 UTC No. 876659

>>876654
>a sphere deformed to have a shape a bit closer to the head
Yep, kinda like in this tutorial, I get it https://youtu.be/7KzhNYyp63A?t=69
>Don't hesitate to have the proxy mesh have a bigger distance from the target, that adds a natural smoothing to the modifier.
Huh, will try that.
The only point that other anon is right about and I already mentioned it is topology. What works for smooth oval shape of anime character is not going to work for more complex mesh suck as my character. Anyways, good luck with an addon, anon. I really wanted to test it, but well, take your time cuz it's going to revolutionize NPR, mark my words.

Anonymous at Tue, 18 Jan 2022 08:04:03 UTC No. 876661

>>876659
Kek this guy's voice is annoying, but damn it's nice to have some concise rigging tutorials. And thanks for the as yet undeserved vote of confidence haha, keep lurking and hopefully I'll have something testable within a week.

Anonymous at Tue, 18 Jan 2022 17:39:20 UTC No. 876736

>>876653
>RWBY
Clear-cut example about people with no artistic understanding trying to mimic anime. Eww.

>>876654
>But you're also self contradicting when you say that there's at most a certain number of light angles, and then in-between positions

No. I'm explaining to you how you need to approach this style. Fixed light angles means illuminating the character in the exact same way even though the light is still moving. Only after the light passes a certain threshold angle does the shading change. If your light is at anywhere between 5:30 - 6:30 you get one shading (front light). If the light is at 2:30 - 3:30 you get another shading (left light). If the light is between 3:30 - 5:30 you get another shading (front-left light). This means you need 3 shading styles to cover 60 degrees of light rotation. This is how artists think and this is how stylized 3D anime is done.

From a technical standpoint I doubt you can vertex paint your way to more than 14 shading styles to get your smooth transition bs. But good luck trying to figure out a shading style for each degree of light rotation. Btw, they're 129600 in total. Gambare!

Anonymous at Sun, 30 Jan 2022 17:17:40 UTC No. 879059

this is a surprisingly good thread bump

Anonymous at Tue, 1 Feb 2022 03:54:45 UTC No. 879302

Can't wait to see more
bump

Anonymous at Tue, 1 Feb 2022 04:07:31 UTC No. 879304

>>876736
Good points all. I agree really, the technique allows for tuning how sharply the shading shifts with light direction and I expect in many cases you'll want the transition to be quite sharp for improved control. Also, vertex painting is not used here, this would result in really awful shading resolution comparatively.
>>879059
>>879302
Thanks, OP here, this ain't dead, but I've been talking to the paper author on figuring out some kind of collaboration since I implemented a couple features he's interested in. Will keep yall updated.

Anonymous at Tue, 1 Feb 2022 04:55:49 UTC No. 879310

Gonna share these paywalled tutorial videos that were promised over a year ago but never made public.

Rukikuri Soft Anime Shading (Quick & Simplified!) 4:10
https://files.catbox.moe/aq0a8f.mp4

Rukikuri Anime Shading (FULL Walkthrough) 24:05
https://files.catbox.moe/fvi75c.mp4

Anonymous at Tue, 1 Feb 2022 13:51:37 UTC No. 879361

>>879310
you are a BLESSING anon, thank you

Anonymous at Tue, 1 Feb 2022 19:03:29 UTC No. 879412

>>879310
Rukikuri is a treasure. I use this technique as well, I'd say smoothing normals using this is a pre-requisite to the shading rig, cuz the blocky normals you would have normally are just not usable as a baseline for the rest of your shading.

Anonymous at Wed, 2 Feb 2022 00:04:00 UTC No. 879469

>>879310
How do these compare to the other techniques in this thread?

Anonymous at Wed, 2 Feb 2022 00:12:14 UTC No. 879474

fuck this place
it s either morons or psychopaths wastin my fucking time. i hope they nuke you again

Anonymous at Wed, 2 Feb 2022 00:14:17 UTC No. 879476

>>879469
There are pros and cons. With normal editing you can get vector-accurate shading that can shift dynamically, so that's pretty great. However, as you can see in the longer video, you need specific topologies to achive this, so your shading is restricted by the geometry, you can't have a shadow move across the face for example, you can have have it appear and disappear. Also, even if your normal edit looks good with a certain light angle, it can be difficult to make it look good at all angles, and you have limited control in that regard. An advantage is that it works in any renderer where you import the model thereafter without need for particular treatment, it "just works". For this kind of render, I think normal editing is the widely used technique with the best results. The OP technique I'm working on has the advantages of being completely geometry independent, and of not requiring faffing about with normal vectors, which is a bothersome process as you can see in Rukikuri's video. It also lets you have complete control on the shading at any arbitrary light angle. But it does require a custom shader wherever you're rendering to process the shading rig.
>>879474
Nice to have you here anon, enjoy your stay.

Anonymous at Wed, 2 Feb 2022 05:35:14 UTC No. 879533

>>874677
So did this ever eventuate?
Is it something that can be used in a game? Or would the addon just be something that would be used for rendering?

Anonymous at Wed, 2 Feb 2022 05:52:13 UTC No. 879536

>>874677
I don't get how this works.
It uses lights to generate shadows that are topology independent? They rotate a light around the character, and then keyframe these shadow-lights at certain points in that rotation that are used as interpolation points.
How are the shadows projected onto the mesh while maintaining vector quality? How in the fuck does this method translate over to a game engine?

Anonymous at Wed, 2 Feb 2022 06:16:51 UTC No. 879541

>>874677
>concessions are needed in the geometry
What concessions?

Anonymous at Wed, 2 Feb 2022 19:57:42 UTC No. 879628

>>879533
Still a WIP. It can be used in a game, with manageable but non-negligible performance hit. There's more info on performance in the original paper: >>876030
>>879536
The shadows projected do not use a texture, but rather a mathematical equation, this is how vector quality can be maintained. To use this in a game engine, you need the shader to be able to read the properties of the shading rig. The shading rig being basically a second skeleton who contains the transform and property data of the shading edits (what you call shadow lights).
>>879541
Basically, your shading is only as detailed, and is shaped by your geometry, since what you're editing is your vertex normals. So if you want to add a sharp nose shadow, you have to add corresponding edges loops around the boundary of the desired shadow, see >>879310 for a detailed explanation.

Anonymous at Wed, 2 Feb 2022 22:44:30 UTC No. 879648

>>879628
Awesome, thanks for the response.
I admit I only had a quick glance over the paper so far - planning on reading it this weekend.
What you said all makes sense.

Anonymous at Thu, 3 Feb 2022 09:50:43 UTC No. 879775

>>876523
maybe the massive muscly dudes in that, not the girl herself

Anonymous at Thu, 3 Feb 2022 10:58:06 UTC No. 879788

>>876639
I tried doing that with the data transfer modifier for heads and faces in blender as well, but it always ended up with too many jagged shadows. I'm still using the old Blender 2.8, and something I've found to work better is to manually edit the normals with Blender's primitive normal editing tools. Facial features are just too complex for the data transfer modifier to really work the way I need it to. Even with the simplified facial features of a cartoony character, data transfer just can't seem to deliver.

Anonymous at Thu, 3 Feb 2022 13:52:19 UTC No. 879826

>>879788
>Even with the simplified facial features of a cartoony character, data transfer just can't seem to deliver.

Most people don't realize that the typical anime face has been designed for simplicity and effectiveness. It's more than a stylistic choice, it's a necessity. There are only a handful of ways to light an anime face (the same is true for drawing but it's irrelevant to this discussion). This is a way to cut corners when drawing and coloring a panel/frame. A typical mangaka can draw and ink at least 2 pages a day. This speed is due to the formulaic approach they have to drawing. When Disney makes an 2D animated movie they take years and have a budget of tens of millions of $. When an anime studio makes a 20 min episode they only have a few months and less than 300k$.

The approach of looking at faux 2D anime and trying to apply the same techniques to another style is intrinsically flawed. You might have the key but you're using it on the wrong lock. If you people start looking at WHY anime looks the way it does you will understand why you're not even getting close to the same results.

Just because anime has simplified facial features and the Disney look (for example) has simplified facial features, it doesn't mean they're both simplified in the same way. You people are like constructors who want to build a house without making a blueprint first. Doesn't matter you technical you are, doesn't matter what new solutions pop up. What matters is you figuring out a style FIRST then looking for ways to achieve that look, not the other way around.

Anonymous at Thu, 3 Feb 2022 17:51:57 UTC No. 879868

>>879788
The Data Transfer mod doesn't give you enough control in the interpolation modes, the only way to get good control is to transfer by topology and manually edit the normals of your guide mesh.

Anonymous at Thu, 3 Feb 2022 21:05:45 UTC No. 879930

>>879788
Well, hopefully people are also understanding that they must use the abnormal plugin in order to edit the normals properly, as shown in >>879310 's video. Natively Blender isn't there yet.

Abnormal Plugin
https://github.com/bnpr/Abnormal

Anonymous at Fri, 4 Feb 2022 05:06:26 UTC No. 880013

>>879930
You kind of can without plugins, it's just inconvenient and you have to take notes on what you're doing every time you want to make a change.

Anonymous at Fri, 4 Feb 2022 09:24:43 UTC No. 880045

>>879826
Pretty much, you would have to be an 2d animator to get a good eye for it. Stylized 3D always looks off to me when put into motion. There's plenty of subtle aspects that create the overall 2D look:

https://twitter.com/somon_png/status/1410291138465079306

Anonymous at Fri, 4 Feb 2022 11:02:41 UTC No. 880049

hey, sorry newbie here but regarding the normal map trick for stylized lighting, can't you just bake like usual and then posterize it in photoshop by like 5-10 levels, add smart blur, duplicate and add a high pass filter at like 3 and have something you can work with? i tried it on this random normal map

Anonymous at Fri, 4 Feb 2022 12:13:54 UTC No. 880057

>>880049
No. You're just creating a crappier normal map.

Like I explained already: you need it to look good from every angle of light. This always translates to having a sphere. Always.

For the face you can try morphing a sphere for every facial feature and blend the edges together in photoshop.

Can this be achieved through sculpting and baking? 100%
What you need to do is sculpt blindly, meaning you turn off any sort of material and just leave a flat featureless color. Create a light with a threshold/ramp similar to that of cell shading. Then using sculpting tools try and shape the shadows to your liking. Pay zero attention to the shape of the mesh, only care about the shape of the shadows. When you're done just bake the normals of this blind sculpt. This is a very roundabout way of doing it. Using Photoshop is way easier because you can easily make changes on the fly whereas with a sculpt you have to resculpt and rebake the whole thing.

Anonymous at Fri, 11 Feb 2022 02:42:14 UTC No. 881569

That's a good thread
I only dabbled in anime style NPR once, when i tried to make a vtuber model and export it as .vrm. I couldn't get the normals to look good when animating it, and eventually gave up.

Anonymous at Fri, 11 Feb 2022 03:47:01 UTC No. 881576

>>880045
What is this? Looks like something by Trigger.

Anonymous at Fri, 11 Feb 2022 05:46:55 UTC No. 881586

>>881576
Close, Gainax

Anonymous at Fri, 11 Feb 2022 09:07:00 UTC No. 881602

>>881586
My first guess was FLCL because of the guitar, but even though it's been a while since I've watched it, I don't remember a sequence like that in the show. So it's throwing me off.
What's it from? The "Wait that anime" button doesn't seem to give a good result, and from the gif it looks like it could be something fun to watch.

Anonymous at Fri, 11 Feb 2022 09:13:41 UTC No. 881603

>>881602
>>881586
Actually, now that I think about it, it probably is FLCL.
During that scene where it's got the big robot wearing the trench-coat or whatever.

Anonymous at Fri, 11 Feb 2022 20:40:21 UTC No. 881734

>>881603
Yeah it's from FLCL. That scene was my favorite, homage to their roots and the super classic 'Daicon IV' intro animation, just stellar animation overall and ontop my fav tune at the time 'Blues Drive Monster' by The Pillows was playing. I was very into J-rock back then.

Anonymous at Wed, 16 Feb 2022 02:18:31 UTC No. 882747

Bumping to keep this thread alive, most interesting thread in a while

Anonymous at Wed, 16 Feb 2022 07:04:13 UTC No. 882808

>>882747
To keep it interesting we'll probably need more personal reports from anons on what their workflow is like and how it ends up looking

Anonymous at Fri, 18 Feb 2022 02:52:37 UTC No. 883282

>>882808
I want to start making anime style models. It's just that I'm still learning the basic fundamentals.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLa1F2ddGya_-UvuAqHAksYnB0qL9yWDO6

I'm at 6/43. If I skip ahead to shading can I finally learn how to add some anime style cell shading to my models?

I want to just get into it but when you're just starting out it feels like there's 300 hours of tutorials that you have to watch first.

Anonymous at Fri, 18 Feb 2022 07:50:12 UTC No. 883303

>>883282
The thing with an anime style, is that either you need a very good understanding of both 3D art and 2D anime style art to pull it off well, or it's one of the easier things to do if you just want to do the basic stuff.
The basic stuff is basically just plugging diffuse lighting into a color ramp and replacing the gradients with specific shades. That, plus outlines with whatever method you want, either drawn on with a texture and or inverted hull. If you want an anime look that's the fundamentals.

Anonymous at Fri, 18 Feb 2022 08:10:47 UTC No. 883304

>>883282
If you want to just fuck around you can make some crappy "cartoonish" models so that you can practice general proportions and stuff like that. You do have to remember that you will have to practice "realism" at some point in order to make your stuff look actually good. There's no shortcut around it, I've tried.

Anonymous at Fri, 18 Feb 2022 11:38:10 UTC No. 883320

>>883282
>I'm still learning the basic fundamentals.
>can I finally learn how to add some anime style cell shading to my models?
You should have posted in the stupid questions thread instead of hijacking this one. You can play with shaders now if you like, but there's no point when you can barely model.

Anonymous at Fri, 18 Feb 2022 11:38:13 UTC No. 883321

>>883282
>he's getting filtered at his first tutorial
ngmi

Anonymous at Fri, 18 Feb 2022 15:10:12 UTC No. 883363

>>883321
>Neo Geo Maximum Impact

Anonymous at Fri, 18 Feb 2022 21:52:57 UTC No. 883419

how do i get a result like this? i only know the texturing part

Anonymous at Fri, 18 Feb 2022 22:10:15 UTC No. 883422

>>883419
I remember back when mantis only made sfw chen shorts on youtube. Simpler times.

Anonymous at Fri, 18 Feb 2022 22:14:34 UTC No. 883423

>>883419
Can you point out some features you want to replicate in particular?

Anonymous at Fri, 18 Feb 2022 22:20:03 UTC No. 883424

>>883423
I'm not that anon, but I've always wondered how he gets shading on his faces so flat without getting normal bugs. It's so flat it's almost as if the face doesn't receive shadows from the face at all while still being able to receive shadows from other objects and the character's own hair.

Anonymous at Sat, 19 Feb 2022 01:39:10 UTC No. 883447

>>883363
impressive

Anonymous at Sat, 19 Feb 2022 01:55:44 UTC No. 883448

>>883363
kek

Anonymous at Sat, 19 Feb 2022 19:16:27 UTC No. 883545

>>883423

Anonymous at Sat, 19 Feb 2022 20:46:04 UTC No. 883557

>>883545
Aren't the left two images like a hard-edge fresnel effect? There's an actual word for it, but that's essentially what it is.

Anonymous at Mon, 21 Feb 2022 17:49:03 UTC No. 883927

Learned how to use the inverted hull method for anime outlines today. Should I keep using it or is there a better method?

I guess this thread kind of became Anime NPR general.

Anonymous at Mon, 21 Feb 2022 17:55:03 UTC No. 883928

>>883927
I wouldn't say there are better methods, but there are other methods with different pros and cons. I'd give a try to Freestyle, just to know what it can and can't do, this way you can make an informed decision on which to use.

Anonymous at Mon, 21 Feb 2022 22:28:44 UTC No. 883974

>>883927
Depends.
The inverted hull can be created as a modifier or also as an independent mesh. As an independent mesh you have the ability to use modelling tools on it. This way you can add thickness to some areas, create a fake depth effect by making the outline thicker the closer it is to the camera, etc. Unfortunately this is time consuming. It's probably worthwhile for a game like Guilty Gear (animated frame by frame) but for interpolated animation you're probably better off just drawing the outlines in photoshop manually. It can also become quite expensive because you're doubling your vertex count.

Anonymous at Mon, 21 Feb 2022 22:32:16 UTC No. 883976

>>883974
A trick with the blender modifier, you can tune the thickness of the outline by changing the vertex group weight assigned to the verts and using that group in the mod.

Anonymous at Tue, 22 Feb 2022 19:13:13 UTC No. 884082

>>874677
You ever get this going in Blender and/or Unity or Unreal?

Anonymous at Tue, 22 Feb 2022 22:36:57 UTC No. 884119

>>883928
Not that anon, but freestyle feels a little dated and obtuse.
Using the Line-art modifier for a grease pencil object has worked pretty flawlessly for me, and has a lot more visual feedback of what everything does. As long as you don't have a fuckton of stuff going on when you're changing settings (i.e. have only the object/collection you want lines on visible) it works pretty quickly when editing. Then you can bake it and it works real time, and you can stack modifiers on top.

Anonymous at Tue, 22 Feb 2022 23:27:41 UTC No. 884143

>>884082
Freestyle only updating upon render is a big downside workflow-wise, but I find that grease pencil lineart doesn't look perfectly clean on complex organic meshes. It has good results on mechanical objects or simpler round shapes though.

Anonymous at Wed, 23 Feb 2022 20:53:58 UTC No. 884301

>>883927
Didn't blender 3.0 just add a proper outline tool instead of this shit that just double the vert count?

Anonymous at Wed, 23 Feb 2022 21:28:12 UTC No. 884303

>>884301
You're thinking of the Grease Pencil outlines. However, inverted hulls work on rigged models exported to other rendering engines, while the GP outlines can only be used for static renders in Blender, so the inverted hull still has a use-case.

Anonymous at Wed, 23 Feb 2022 22:06:35 UTC No. 884310

>>884303
I see, yeah if you're doing games that is the the option most would do, but I do know you can use shaders (in game engines) if you know how to code for that.