3D Portrait Rendering Experiment

[Mille]

Comments are very welcome on this:)

[thespaceinvader]

The hair's wrong around the edges. You need to work that out first of all, but i'm not certain how. I think you could have done with drawing it on a separate layer. Similarly, the outside of the leg is fairly jaggy.

The (viewer's) righthand two claws could do with being further to the left on the paw.

But it looks good.

[Mille]

The hair's wrong around the edges. You need to work that out first of all, but i'm not certain how. I think you could have done with drawing it on a separate layer. Similarly, the outside of the leg is fairly jaggy.

The (viewer's) righthand two claws could do with being further to the left on the paw.

But it looks good.

Yes - It seems to be overblended. Used the fingertool of Gimp to correct it
Should be much better now:)

[Mille]

And his queen

and panther

[thespaceinvader]

The mane still looks off. IN fact, it looks worse now. It was almost right before, but where it was on a white background, it should have been on black. And the claw's still off.

The lioness/[anther looks great, though. These are starting out as 3D renders, i take it.

[Mille]

The mane still looks off. IN fact, it looks worse now. It was almost right before, but where it was on a white background, it should have been on black. And the claw's still off.

The lioness/[anther looks great, though. These are starting out as 3D renders, i take it.

For sure. I wanted to try what can be done with 3D rendering and cartoon like shaders with manual light configrations.
DAZ is cool tool for this and i wanted to find out, if its possible to use them for Wesnoth for a long time now.
Indeed i really like the comic style of wesnoth very much,

Actually i´m very happy with the result.

Regarding the lions king i think i don´t understand everything you said. When you talked about the claw, i thought you meant ditherings on the left (viewers) side. That is corrected now. If you mean it is of view, then i don´t think so.

The mane is a special problem and perhaps i don´t know how to deal with it right.

[irrevenant]

Dude, why is the lion winking at me

P.S. His face looks overly long too, but if it's a 3d model, that's presumably due to the shading.

[Mille]

Dude, why is the lion winking at me

P.S. His face looks overly long too, but if it's a 3d model, that's presumably due to the shading.

The winking is a good point you tell and true for both images. But that is a general problem of the comic style of wesnoth chosen for the portraits.

IMHO the problem with the movement is, that there is information missing, your brain needs to intepret it correct. (THATS NOT MEANT AS AN OFFENSE):) .
An important part of info lies within bluring. If the hand, defineteley in the foreground would be not so sharp (Camera depth of field), than the image would look at least more dynamically. Movement bluring would add an additional part of aggressive.

I think your point is absolutely right and i went quite a lot of thoughts in this already when generating the image. (E.G. making the claws bigger, implmenting a diagonal relation between eyes and claw ,

So for me the question is, how to implment the aggessive touch .

I have different ideas, what can be done, but some of them are not compatible with the Wesnoth cartton style and portrait shading.

1.) Blur the claw in foreground (doesn´t match Wesnoth stlye i think)
2.) Blur by adding a cell halo to simulate the claw move (might be possiple) but i have no idea how.
3.) animate the portrait and the claw would definetely fix the problem (no solution for a still image)

A general theory of image analysis is the the implentation of a partly circled element in the image composition to simulate movement. To understand what i mean simply look at Peter Brueghel the olders masterpiece "The blind leading the blind" . Indeed the queen and panther image already uses this trick with some effect to you. both the leg itself as well as the leg in addition to the partly circled chest element show such an rounding. Perhaps this is the reason you think he is winking.

I hope you understand what i mean:) ts very difficult to describe such visible and optical impressions and ideas. A would really like to hear if there are additional ideas on this.


Regarding the long face - I don´t know. Most liekeley i think, that the relation is ok.

[Iris]

I thought my attraction worked only for my female domestic cats. The lioness likes me.

[Mille]

I thought my attraction worked only for my female domestic cats. The lioness likes me.

HUH - I fear I don´t understand you ????

[Iris]

I was just joking about her lovely expression.

This is an interesting experiment. I don't recall anything similar ever been done before, like, rendering 3D models in a cartoonish style. Although looks good and so, the inner outlines don't really make it look like a painting or cartoon (see Lutesian portraits for a reference of what I mean), they still look three-dimensional to me, which is not something bad.

The light rendering of her jaws is also too realistic, and makes a heavy contrast again the whole picture's style. A contrast that I don't like, personally. Also, I notice some lack of antialiasing in some fangs' edges.

Consider this is the opinion of a non-artist man who hates 3D games because of their 3D-ness. I like Wesnoth exactly because of its 2D-ness, it's easier for my mind to handle when playing.

[Mille]

I was just joking about her lovely expression.

Oh sorry - I simply missed it

This is an interesting experiment. I don't recall anything similar ever been done before, like, rendering 3D models in a cartoonish style. Although looks good and so, the inner outlines don't really make it look like a painting or cartoon (see Lutesian portraits for a reference of what I mean), they still look three-dimensional to me, which is not something bad.

At least not in the Wesnoth Forum it seems. I searched the whole forum and the only topic i found regarding this issue was a message by myself pointing the 3d freaks what kind of 3d tools can be used to create art for Wesnoth. (This didn´t include only the Portrait graphics). And yes - You are right about the inner lines. But you must see, this was all done in the free, costles tool DAZ Studio with its standard cartoon renderer. So most likely this is everything than the best solution. I know that there are better shaders, but most likely not for DAZ. So for now, using untextured rigged models, manually optimized lightning and distance distance lightning seems to be the only solution to solve this. Indeed the result is quite promising right now i think.

The light rendering of her jaws is also too realistic, and makes a heavy contrast again the whole picture's style. A contrast that I don't like, personally. Also, I notice some lack of antialiasing in some fangs' edges.

Well regarding the light rendernig of the jaw is a matter of your visual preferences i think. I have no problem with this, but honestly i really like it. Espcially as shaded in the same way with the same lightning i think it would be ok. Antialising is indeed a problem, but postprocessing is a possibility here, but i hope that there are better shaders out there, that deal with this problem as well. I´dont about this right now, as it isn´t need, when you use real textures on the models.

Consider this is the opinion of a non-artist man who hates 3D games because of their 3D-ness. I like Wesnoth exactly because of its 2D-ness, it's easier for my mind to handle when playing.

I have no problem with this statement. Indeed i prefer 2D games as well.
Thats the reason i like Wesnoth. But IMHO its also true, that the line between 2D art and 3D art is a very vanishing line. In fact i see some really impressive benefits in this type of workflow. Indeed there are only a few artist here, that have really shown impressive skills. uite few more with good skills. And you know that wesnoth is already very lucky to have
more than every other Open Source Game i know of.

So see this as a experiment of technology preview to encourage more people to create portrait in this kind of way, mostlikely Campaign, Faction and Era Contributors, who would like to have good quality portriat graphics in addition, but want to concentrate on the gameplay mostly.

In fact it is a good idea to gshow some advantages of this style of workflow, as there is no other thread in this forum covering this issue:

1.) You can completely morph models to unique characters easily. This is even true for fantastic characters as well. And all this in a short time.

2.) Storing character mrophs allows you to use your character again and again in your campaign, showing the same facestructures in different positions and clothes during your campaign over and over again. And again, in a very short amount of time

3.) You have the ability to create facial moods very easily, while this is perhaps the most difficult task when you us normal 2d graphic tools. Think of closing eyes, opening mouths, gerowing claws, aggressive looks and so on in minutes, not to mention poses and soon.

4.) Make it possible to produce storyline arts with your characters very fast. Even good looking animations are possible.

Well, i don´t wanted to make a commercial, but the more i think about it, i like the idea of an alternative workflow for those you want to use it,

[Mille]

Well - I knew why i chose animal first for this experiment. Human Shading is much more complicated. I have just made a small test with different shader confugrations and lightnings.

comments welcome

[thespaceinvader]

The first one's the best - the latter two are too yellow. BUt i'd say either make the shadows hard-edges or fully blurred rather than leaving them with the broken edges they have at the moment - it make it look like the guy is under dappled lighting like a forest canopy rather than just being shaded.

[Mille]

The first one's the best - the latter two are too yellow. BUt i'd say either make the shadows hard-edges or fully blurred rather than leaving them with the broken edges they have at the moment - it make it look like the guy is under dappled lighting like a forest canopy rather than just being shaded.

i think so too. what disturbs me most is the lineart.
This to are much better i think regarding shding and lightning, but unluckliy they only work with anime figures:(((
Whats cool is, that the depth of field effect of the camera greatly enhances the girls contours as well