Style Experiment

Dave R

Thanks.

FS is FotoSketcher.

JGA

OK thanks

pbacot

Looks good! What did you set the clay render at, or which preset did you use in Kt for the clay. I want it lighter and whiter but with strong AO.

So this is only KT shading (no SU shadow--just lines)? Or shadows from both KT clay and SU? Only sun-no sky?

Dave R

Hi Peter, my apologies for the delay. For the renders I used the 07 preset with attenuation on the sun set to Inverse. Here's that render without any editing.
Slats Render.png

And this is with attenuation set to None.

Slat coffee table none.png

I've got a seamless background in the model and with the sun angle as it is, the background toward the right is not getting much light.

Here's the image I made combining the un-attenuated sun image with the lines and shadows.
Slat Table Render.png

One thing that would probably help would be to make the backdrop wrap around to the camera's left and maybe put something above the model as a reflector. It might also be better to set the sky to white. I didn't bother with either of those things.

Dave R

Peter, I did a little playing this morning. this is what I came up with.

I changed the viewpoint so I could show some of the background. I unsoftened the background edges so they show and made their lineweight thinner than the table. You probably know how to do all that but I did this for someone else. Anyway, in KT, the sun is still set with no attenuation but this time Soft Shadows was selected and the radius set to 5. In my image editor I set the render to black and white and increased brightness a fair mount to go a little more high key. I did add a FotoSketcher image but it is made brighter and is somewhat transparent so it only shows in the shadows.

Slat Coffee Table high keyFS.png

Dave R

Peter, here's a comparison for you. These are straight out of KT. Same settings except for the render presets.

Ambient Occlusion Preset
Preset 08

pbacot

Thanks Dave,

That gives me more to work with. Also looking for nice way to quickly output things such as massing studies where I want it not to look like SU (sorry) and have a little life without taking up the afternoon. With my clay or AO outputs I've tried de-saturating and adjusting the contrast because the overlay tends to darken the whole model, if you know what I mean, so I was interested in how that might be better achieved. (Also for use in PP of regular renderings.)

Peter

Dave R

Peter, I hope there is something useful there, anyway. Do you lay the clay render over another image or is it on the bottom? I usually put the render at the bottom of the pile.

jeff hammond

@pbacot said:

Thanks Dave,

That gives me more to work with. Also looking for nice way to quickly output things such as massing studies where I want it not to look like SU (sorry) and have a little life without taking up the afternoon. With my clay or AO outputs I've tried de-saturating and adjusting the contrast because the overlay tends to darken the whole model, if you know what I mean, so I was interested in how that might be better achieved. (Also for use in PP of regular renderings.)

Peter

one possible way to achieve this pretty quick..

in sketchup, hide/delete any ground planes or walls etc that you don't need lines for then set to hidden line mode**.. export the SU model as .png/.tif with transparency turned on..

in photoshop, use 'multiply' as the layer blend mode as opposed to 'overlay' ..

**realistically, what we need in sketchup is a combo of hidden line and wireframe mode.. then we'd be able to export a transparent image composed of only the lines we want with no faces to mess up the blending in post..

Dave R

Jeff, that's essentially what I do now.

Export on PC doesn't allow for exporting PNGs with transparency. ThomThom has an export plugin that will export with the background transparent, though.

And I've made a feature request for that display style several times including in person at 3D BaseCamp last fall. Maybe it'll happen.

jeff hammond

@dave r said:

And I've made a feature request for that display style several times including in person at 3D BaseCamp last fall. Maybe it'll happen.

pbacot

This is TEST. basically exporting linework from CAD elevations through SU and Daves' grainy pencil style.

In this case having the white fill in the model is useful to delineate the background. I use "color to Alpha"

I wish I could just export the shading from KT AO. Always have to remove background and color.

Here I can finish up a quick study if I were to punch out the windows, add a few lines in the roof and model that porch a little (heh, it is just a cutout). I hadn't put all the siding on yet either.

dunlap elevations pp.png

Dave R

That looks nice Peter.

As for the background, you can put your model on a seamless background even if it is the size of a house. Make that background white in the render and you're all set.

Dave R

How about something like this, Peter?
house of Clay.png

Here's a screen shot of the setup.
KT House.png

It's the same seamless background I've been using on many of the other images of this house. I added a couple of spotlights to illuminate the background only. No settings other than to turn on Soft Shadows for the sun.

The only other change I made was to set the image to black and white while editing. Otherwise it's just a simple matter of dropping the lines in over the render.

pbacot

@dave r said:

Peter, I hope there is something useful there, anyway. Do you lay the clay render over another image or is it on the bottom? I usually put the render at the bottom of the pile.

I put it under. But it is yellow colored and the background (even white "sky color") is pinkish. In this one I removed the background, desaturated then also put the layer color to alpha. Set it above another white layer, (eventually one mask layer and layer for the ground wash)

Setting up a house "studio" not a bad idea. I took off the SU shadows and so forgot: no ground shadows! (if there were any in this shot)

pbacot

That looks good, Dave! Thanks for the demonstration too. Peter

Dave R

Thank you. And you're welcome.

And here's a version of that image with pencil shading.
house of Clay pencil.png
Still a pretty quick process.

More contrast with Ambient Occlusion.
house of Clay ambient Occl.png

jeff hammond

@unknownuser said:

@dave r said:

And I've made a feature request for that display style several times including in person at 3D BaseCamp last fall. Maybe it'll happen.

i just tried a quickie experiment and it went pretty good.. since you seem to be in an experimental mode today, maybe you can mess around with it some..

set the style with thicker profiles and depth cue (maybe around 4px at least) --not sure if this is absolutely necessary, it's just how i set it up..

export a hidden line view .png (doesn't need to be transparent at this point)..

open in photoshop then go Select -> Color Range…
click on the color of the face an/or background..
push delete..

you should be left with only the line work on a transparent background..

(adjust fuzziness in the color range select or use refine selection in order to make adjustments as need be)

….
not sure but there might be something useful in there..

Dave R

Jeff, I'll give that a try. Normally I just import the lines image onto a layer set to Multiply and I don't have to monkey with the white background. It doesn't affect the underlying image at all.

Sometimes, as in the case of the image where I show the background with the unsoftened edges, I make several lines exports at different sizes and resize them all down to the same size.

jeff hammond

oh.. right, i guess i forgot what the context of this thread is

i mean, i think your examples look great as you're showing and there's no need to do what i mentioned above..

that's more/less talking about when you want to have textures in a render but still show some of sketchup's line work.. in which case, the sketchup output of the texture begins to fog the rendered version.. and the darker the you try to make the lines, the more fogged the rendered textures become..

so, on that note, carry on..