Hey guys! I'm currently using AS7 Pro and also doing some frame by frame stuff and here's what I'm wanting: I need a program that will help me create nice backgrounds (nature) but will allow me to toon-shade (cel-shade) it so that it matches my 2d character style. I've heard about Vue and it sounds great, but I don't know if it has a good toon-shader. It also has an export module I could get, so I could bring in my backgrounds to Poser or Daz, for instance, but does anyone know how good they can do cel-shading? I've seen some screen shots, but not a ton. If anyone has any other ideas please let me know, but price is definitely an issue. I'm poor =) Thanks in advance!
--Jason
Backgrounds/software help
Moderators: Víctor Paredes, Belgarath, slowtiger
Vue can render cel shaded images, even good ones, but Vue is expensive, takes huge amount of power to render, we're talking hours and hours on an average PC, and that's for one pic.
They used Vue in Avatar but rendered only still frames that we're then composed and used as matte in Nuke.
These frames took up to 72 hours a pop on a large render farm, Vue is a nice piece of software, allows to build anything from scratch, but the learning curve is steep.
Have You had a look at Blender, it has a really good looking cel shader and as far as I know renders much faster then vue and is somewhat easier to learn.
They used Vue in Avatar but rendered only still frames that we're then composed and used as matte in Nuke.
These frames took up to 72 hours a pop on a large render farm, Vue is a nice piece of software, allows to build anything from scratch, but the learning curve is steep.
Have You had a look at Blender, it has a really good looking cel shader and as far as I know renders much faster then vue and is somewhat easier to learn.
Hey GC! We gotta stop meeting like this =). Thanks for the info about Vue. Another software I'm looking at is Bryce. I hadn't looked at it much yet because I thought it was expensive, but it's not.
I have looked at Blender some (I have it currently installed) but I hadn't thought to use it just as a renderer. I guess I could always buy a decent 3rd party renderer if I knew for sure it could produce a good look for my backgrounds.
Maybe I'll take a closer look at Blender the next couple of days. I know Daz Studio has a separate toon-shader you can get for like $25, and I like the example renders I've seen. Just so much to think about when you're doing an animation by yourself! I'll keep at it =)
I have looked at Blender some (I have it currently installed) but I hadn't thought to use it just as a renderer. I guess I could always buy a decent 3rd party renderer if I knew for sure it could produce a good look for my backgrounds.
Maybe I'll take a closer look at Blender the next couple of days. I know Daz Studio has a separate toon-shader you can get for like $25, and I like the example renders I've seen. Just so much to think about when you're doing an animation by yourself! I'll keep at it =)
Hey Gilles,
Yah I actually have the free version of Daz on my Mac. I tried doing some stuff in it but it was very frustrating. Half the time materials and props don't even load. But with luck I can use it as a renderer if it comes to that. I'll take a look for some shots of Blender's toon-type renders. Thanks again =)
--Jason
Yah I actually have the free version of Daz on my Mac. I tried doing some stuff in it but it was very frustrating. Half the time materials and props don't even load. But with luck I can use it as a renderer if it comes to that. I'll take a look for some shots of Blender's toon-type renders. Thanks again =)
--Jason