An animation about family discord by Xiaoxuan Zhao
Render style test
29 Nov 2021
My first render style test was the Toon shader in Maya. First I set up a directional light, then assign a toon shader under the Rendering tab to the model, and adjust the colours and areas of the light and dark areas. Finally, duplicate the model and reverse normals to create the contour lines.
The disadvantage of this method is that the placement of the contour lines cannot be controlled, for example, the line around the facial features is not clear, and I cannot create lines inside the ear and under the belly.
Toon shader
29 Nov 2021
I followed GAKU's tutorial to do the second test in Blender. This test is to simulate a sketching style. The darker parts of the model can be textured with a Sketch Brush image for a more hand-drawn look. The contour lines were created using Cloud textures and then made additional adjustments with the Grease Pencil.
The disadvantage of this method is that the colours are only black and white, but I learned how to use the Grease Pencil to mark the contour lines in this test.
Sketch style shader
Clouds texture
Grease Pencil
Sketch style render
5 Dec 2021
I followed BNPR's tutorial to do another test project. In this test, I learned how to create a hand-drawn style contour line that can be adjusted with parameters. In this way, I was able to create contour lines with more flexibility than in the previous two methods.
Contour line nodes
30 Jan 2022 - 2 Feb 2022
After I added textures to the character model, I tried to mark freestyle edges to create contour lines around the ears, facial features, feet etc. I also marked freestyle faces to exclude excess contour lines around the facial features.
Freestyle edges
Freestyle faces
Excess edge lines
Exclude excess edge lines
1 Feb 2022 - 4 Feb 2022
I drew a crayon style texture image in Procreate, then overlaid it on the rendered image and added some nodes to adjust its saturation, brightness and other parameters. I got a hand-drawn rendered image as a result. The texture image can also be resized and positioned in the animation to give a more dynamic visual effect.
Texture image
Texture nodes
Rendered images
6 Jun 2022 - 12 Jun 2022
Based on feedback, I used different coloured counter lines for the different coloured objects in the rabbit's home to better serve as a background.
