{"id":5448,"date":"2016-01-30T21:05:36","date_gmt":"2016-01-30T21:05:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jurn.link\/dazposer\/?p=5448"},"modified":"2022-08-04T07:07:39","modified_gmt":"2022-08-04T07:07:39","slug":"vue-2015-and-the-npr-feature","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/dazposer\/index.php\/2016\/01\/30\/vue-2015-and-the-npr-feature\/","title":{"rendered":"Vue 2015 and the NPR feature"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’d almost forgotten that Vue XStream 2015 added a new NPR (Non-Photorealistic Rendering, or ‘toon and paint’ to the rest of us) module, when it shipped last spring. I took a quick look at what people have been saying about it, and doing with it over the last nine months. <\/p>\n

\"npr4\"<\/p>\n

\"nprpanel\"<\/p>\n

Unfortunately there seems to have been very little interest in this feature. Judging by the half-dozen 2015 NPR renders shown online, there was even less use of the feature. Just a few tests.<\/p>\n

Here are the better ‘not-too-Photoshoppy’ demo pictures made with Vue 2015’s NPR: Vue’s own planes’ promotional picture; some trees by CG-Garlic<\/a>; and (with some Photoshop) Dave de Kerf’s “Trench Run”<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Untitled_npr3\"<\/p>\n

\"vuepromo\"<\/p>\n

\"trench\"<\/p>\n

This again confirms my general theory that the mass of 3D users only really want “photoreal, photoREAL, PHOTOREAL!”. Though we may may occasionally go “oooh<\/em>!” at an NPR picture for five seconds, before going back to using the magnifying glass to get each of Genesis 2 Female’s individual SSS skin pores looking just right<\/em>.<\/p>\n

But I also have a theory that the professional artists — those who can massage these sorts of NPR effects up to the level where most paying clients can’t really tell if they’re 3D or 2D — they just don’t want to say anything about it or show it off in public. Because they’re making money off it. Mostly that’s just my educated guess, but I have heard various people say things along those lines. Did you know, for instance, that the artist Dave Gibbons extensively uses Poser and he made one of the all-time-great graphic novels, Alan Moore’s Watchmen<\/em>? Yup, Poser. And I bet most readers can’t get a third of the way through a copy of ImagineFX<\/em>, without muttering: “they must<\/em> have used Poser or DAZ for the basis of that one…”.<\/p>\n

Anyway, here’s everything I could find on Vue 2015’s NPR. There’s not much. Nothing official from Vue on YouTube, which is kind of amazing. But Vladimir Chopine of Russia has a good solid 35-minute tour of the NPR module for free on YouTube, part of his longer paid-for GeeksAtPlay video introduction to using Vue 2015. The NPR module looks very powerful and flexible, able to combine and merge multiple lines and effects. If this was a Photoshop plugin for sketching and painting over imported 3D models in Photoshop, there would be a mini-industry built around it by now…<\/p>\n