INSIDE 3DS MAX® 7 [Electronic resources] نسخه متنی

Ink 'n Paint

Many might think of a rendering that imitates a 2D line drawing as a giant leap backward. Now that we are in the brave new world of 3D renderings, what could the possible advantages be?

• It's what the client wants.
  There's a big tradition, especially in architectural renderings, of a nice, clean pen-and-ink sketch of a proposed design. A textured 3D rendering can portray color selections that haven't been made or materials that haven't been agreed upon. Nervous clients can think you're trying to ram an idea down their throats with a fully finished picture. A "2D" sketch (or one that imitates 2D) keeps them at a familiar comfort level.

• It's less detail-intensive.
  When toon-shading, such as with Ink 'n Paint, you only have to put the big effort into detail that you, the artist, wish to show. In a sketch of a proposed building, the rest of the city surrounding your concept only needs to be hinted at with a few lines. A detailed cartoon character can coexist with a desert background of a few lines and color masses.

• Lighting and rendering are quick.
  No need for time-intensive lighting solutions, Video Post effects, or expensive rendering packages to get as close to reality as possible. You build your scene, you add a light or two and a camera, and you're off to the races.

• It's what the market wants.
  Face it, the majority of animation sold today is 2D. There's no need to swim upstream to sell your animationtoon shading can be the best of both worlds, especially when combined with standard cel animation.

Note

An excellent example of combined 2D and 3D was the Cartoon Network show Futurama. Most of the background and ships were 3D, while the characters were 2D.

While not truly an alternate rendering system, Ink 'n Paint is different enough from normal scanline rendering to be considered as such. First off, don't let the seemingly simple rendering quality fool you; the computational overhead is very high, and large data sets can take quite a while to render.

Creating a toon-shaded rendering is as easy as assigning a material and rendering as you normally would. Ink 'n Paint materials are accessed by opening the Material Editor, clicking an unused material swatch, and selecting Ink 'n Paint as the material type (Figure 20.5).

Note

Ink 'n Paint materials will only work in Camera, User, or Perspective viewports. Trying to render in an orthographic window will lose the Ink outline and give an incorrect render.

When first using Ink 'n Paint, there is a tendency to think of the material settings in the same way as you would think of normal materials. A better way is to consider them as ways to control the color bands. Don't let existing lighting influence you too greatly when an oddly colored object jumps out at you.

In the first rollout, you can set Bump and Displacement. With Ink 'n Paint, the effects are much more subdued, and these are used primarily to add a little sloppiness to the rendering. As you can see in Figure 20.6, even though a high degree of both Bump and Displacement were added with a Noise map, not much has happened.

The Paint Controls rollout is where most of the action happens. The Lighted color swatch is the master color, from which the Shaded color is automatically set by the percentage spinner. A good way to get the Highlight color is to first turn it on by checking its box, and then drag-copy the Lighted color swatch onto it. Select Copy from the dialog, and then open the Highlight's Color Selector by clicking the swatch and decrease the Saturation level until it looks good.

Paint Levels controls the number of color bandsmore is usually worse. The size of the highlight area is controlled by the Glossiness spinner. Maps can be applied, but the resolution differences between the toon color bands and the bitmaps make them quite problematic to use. It's best to use geometry whenever possible, even for patterns on another material.

As you scroll down in the Materials Editor, you come to the Ink Controls rollout (Figure 20.7). It's tough to get inking just right, especially on models with mixed inter penetrating and modeled surfaces. The Ink can be of variable width and can have a map applied (a Noise map works well) to give it a very hand-sketched look.

In its most basic usage, a pen-and-ink-style drawing can be made by setting the Lighted color to white and globally assigning this material to all objects in the scene. This is a good strategy to use when a client wants to see a "sketch" of your rendering before committing (Figure 20.8).

I usually like to start with a nonvariable line, as playing with the line width can happen after a suitable set of outline characteristics is chosen. Start with just Outline, especially if you have interpenetrating objects, as in our Spaceman example. If you need to start adding more lines, experiment with the settings one at a time. If your lines seem to be doubly heavy, try adjusting the Intersection Bias value of the materials (Figure 20.9). Don't be afraid to duplicate materials, and tweak the Intersection Bias to get just the look that you want where you want it!

When you want to add details, as on the face of the Spaceman, Smoothing Groups and Material IDs are the way to go. You can use them to outline certain portions, or use Multi/Sub-Object materials to add detailing. Figure 20.10 is an example of this technique. To make Smoothing Groups and Material IDs easier to implement, and because the raytracer tends to choke on big scenes, it's wise to use a low-polygon style of modeling. Your models should be more exaggerated, with big differences in surface variation and lots of sharpness.

Figure 20.1.