Problem with 3D line rendering
Moderators: Víctor Paredes, Belgarath, slowtiger
Problem with 3D line rendering
I love the new 3D options in Anime Studio 7! I can imagine all sorts of ways of combining 2D and 3D elements that just aren't possible in any other program. The only thing I'm having trouble with is for lathed and inflated shapes, the silhouette lines are often very broken up in both the preview view and final render. Am I doing something wrong or is it like this for a reason?
Here's a picture to better illustrate the problem I am talking about.
I'm not doing anything special. Just have silhouette edges enabled and nothing else. I find it hard to believe that the beta testers did not ecounter this problem, so there must be an explanation for why the edges are broken up the way they are.
I'm not doing anything special. Just have silhouette edges enabled and nothing else. I find it hard to believe that the beta testers did not ecounter this problem, so there must be an explanation for why the edges are broken up the way they are.
Thanks for the reply, GCharb. I loaded up your anme file, and increased the curvature on the points to make the lathe profile more rounded and got the same broken silhouette edges that I had been seeing.
To me, this is looking like a bug. When you have curved lathe profiles, the faces are smaller and there is less difference between their normals. It looks like it is possible for a non-visible edge to get marked as a silhouette edge, so when the non-visible edges are removed during the clipping phase you get an outline with these gaps.
To me, this is looking like a bug. When you have curved lathe profiles, the faces are smaller and there is less difference between their normals. It looks like it is possible for a non-visible edge to get marked as a silhouette edge, so when the non-visible edges are removed during the clipping phase you get an outline with these gaps.
Yeah, definitely appears to be a pretty consistent problem with rounded objects.
With regards to 3D shapes being rendered as polygonal meshes, I'm totally cool with it. It means that the same toon rendering system can be used for both 3D object files you import as well as the 3D shapes you create internally. In fact, you can export the internal 3D shapes as .obj files so you could edit them in an external 3D package and then reimport them with the same toon effect. However, I agree that it would be nice if we had some control over the mesh density used in the final render, so we could get it to look as smooth as we wanted.
With regards to 3D shapes being rendered as polygonal meshes, I'm totally cool with it. It means that the same toon rendering system can be used for both 3D object files you import as well as the 3D shapes you create internally. In fact, you can export the internal 3D shapes as .obj files so you could edit them in an external 3D package and then reimport them with the same toon effect. However, I agree that it would be nice if we had some control over the mesh density used in the final render, so we could get it to look as smooth as we wanted.
This new 3D render could be so awesome for sets and environments and props.
Even if they are just proxies for renders in other apps or for the purpose of previz , animatic or as guide layers in 2d /3d mixes.
Which brings me to the relevant question , can you export the camera in AS7?
I ask because this could be a powerful previz and story-art tool now, but some kind of camera info exchange would be needed for actual, real, proper production integration .
I guess a work around would be a constrained 3d layer to camera with visibility off , exported as poser then to the next app (maya or 34d, lw or max vue whatever) as an obj the converted into a camera. Phew.
Camera export, even as a script, should be built into any animation software tagged "pro" .
So I hope so.. 
Even if they are just proxies for renders in other apps or for the purpose of previz , animatic or as guide layers in 2d /3d mixes.
Which brings me to the relevant question , can you export the camera in AS7?
I ask because this could be a powerful previz and story-art tool now, but some kind of camera info exchange would be needed for actual, real, proper production integration .
I guess a work around would be a constrained 3d layer to camera with visibility off , exported as poser then to the next app (maya or 34d, lw or max vue whatever) as an obj the converted into a camera. Phew.
Camera export, even as a script, should be built into any animation software tagged "pro" .
So I hope so.. Imported objects and figures render the same, but that's a good point about the camera. I had already played with it a bit without much luck, but I have since done some much more systematic experiments and found that the lines get better the further the camera is away from the object in the z-direction. This render was made with the camera being positioned at 8.0 on the z-axis:chucky wrote:How about loading a rigged figure?
How do the outlines render with them?
Have you tried scaling the object and FOV?
It's not uncommon for renderer to be fickle about such things.
Just a thought.
Anyway, it's good to know that there's at least a work around for the time being, but I still I think I'll report it as a bug to the Smith Micro website as I can't think of a technical reason it has to be this way. I'm surprised that the Mike or Heyvern didn't want to add their comments on this issue, though.
Hmmm... Another (or not another) strange thing about the new 3D render engine I noticed is that, as much as I play with the "Edges" settings, it seems like if was not possible to obtain that variable width 3D edges of previous versions anymore, and (in certain cases) I liked it
And why it seems like if the "Edge offset" (to control the edge thickness of imported 3D objects) setting doesn't be available neither??
Cause I can't get to simulate it by means of all the other new 3D "Edges" settings, unless... well, unless I be missing something here, of course...
And why it seems like if the "Edge offset" (to control the edge thickness of imported 3D objects) setting doesn't be available neither??
Cause I can't get to simulate it by means of all the other new 3D "Edges" settings, unless... well, unless I be missing something here, of course......
Hi Ramon,
The thing you have to understand is that the approach used to render edges in AS7 is totally different to previous versions. The old way was really just a way of faking edge rendering by having a slightly larger version of the object behind it in black. This new way is actually rendering the edges and it's realy just the beginning.
I can imagine that in the future it would may be possible for scale compensation to work on 3D edges, so the edges would be made thicker the closer they are to the camera. It should also be possible to add support for all the same edge effects as 2D lines, such as textured strokes, etc.
However, it would have been nice in these early days for there have been a legacy mode where you could use the old style of rendering silhouette edges if you wanted to. Perhaps you can fake it, though, by making a copy of the object, setting its color to black, putting it behind the original, and making it a little bit larger, depending on your required offset.
The thing you have to understand is that the approach used to render edges in AS7 is totally different to previous versions. The old way was really just a way of faking edge rendering by having a slightly larger version of the object behind it in black. This new way is actually rendering the edges and it's realy just the beginning.
I can imagine that in the future it would may be possible for scale compensation to work on 3D edges, so the edges would be made thicker the closer they are to the camera. It should also be possible to add support for all the same edge effects as 2D lines, such as textured strokes, etc.
However, it would have been nice in these early days for there have been a legacy mode where you could use the old style of rendering silhouette edges if you wanted to. Perhaps you can fake it, though, by making a copy of the object, setting its color to black, putting it behind the original, and making it a little bit larger, depending on your required offset.
...Eyyy! Thanks for your reply (and other things )
Well, as far as I can imagine for the tries I did in the past, it seems to me like the old mode could be much more complicated that you describe (surely for simplification reasons), cause with it, you even got that intersecting strokes going into the object (I mean, that "internal" strokes when certain pasts of the object appeared superimposed) and, in fact, I think it worked just reverse, like if the stroke never go beyond the structure and maybe taking into account some other structure factors? I really don't know, but some thinks make me think that it could not be easily fakeable at all...
Anyway, sincerely, as in this case I'm not too much directly affected as in other "similar" retro-issues (like the dreadful "Shape Effects" one (yeah, I'll never forget it
)), I'm not losing sleep over it, but it doent deny that with this kind of decisions (someone said patterns?), I be always a "little" frightened about what feature that I like and I used to use, will disappear or suffer weird changes unexpectedly and with "no refunds".
Of course, in this case I can see some positiveness and promising possibilities so I won't complain too much, but... I'll always see it like a dangerous play
)Well, as far as I can imagine for the tries I did in the past, it seems to me like the old mode could be much more complicated that you describe (surely for simplification reasons), cause with it, you even got that intersecting strokes going into the object (I mean, that "internal" strokes when certain pasts of the object appeared superimposed) and, in fact, I think it worked just reverse, like if the stroke never go beyond the structure and maybe taking into account some other structure factors? I really don't know, but some thinks make me think that it could not be easily fakeable at all...
Anyway, sincerely, as in this case I'm not too much directly affected as in other "similar" retro-issues (like the dreadful "Shape Effects" one (yeah, I'll never forget it
)), I'm not losing sleep over it, but it doent deny that with this kind of decisions (someone said patterns?), I be always a "little" frightened about what feature that I like and I used to use, will disappear or suffer weird changes unexpectedly and with "no refunds".Of course, in this case I can see some positiveness and promising possibilities so I won't complain too much, but... I'll always see it like a dangerous play
...