 Hi everyone. Thank you for coming by. My name is Tony and I'm here to talk about non-photorealistic rendering. And for me, for being more specific on how to avoid 3D filling on your NPR animations or animated NPR projects. Because when you're working on a still frame everything's fine, right? Because you can paint textures, you can fake some light reflections or even use grease pencil to paint some specific color details or line work. But then when your camera starts to move a lot of 3D alarms shut out and the trick is revealed, right? It's a 3D model, it's made in 3D and this kind of canny valley starts to happen where it's like, yeah, looks to be but no, right? And I want to share my finding techniques but most of all this kind of mindset that I've been building up that helps me to answer a recurring question why that almost all the time hits me when I'm working on an NPR project which is why my NPR animation doesn't look 2D enough. But first of all let's clarify one thing with another question. Does an NPR animation have to look 2D? And by that I mean cheating the audience eyes, making them mask themselves like it's 2D, it's 3D. And the answer is no, it's not strictly necessary. Because NPR it's about stylizing the final result of a 3D project, getting away from PBR results and also making some kind of point in terms of look and artistic intention. But the illusion of 2D it's not something that has to be there because there are plenty of projects around there that actually feel 3D. I mean it doesn't matter at all because they look awesome anyway you like. So yeah, the next question should be do I want my NPR animation to look 2D? And yeah I think it's kind of obvious question but I think it's important to think about this before moving forward because if from now on if you want to fake 2D you have a new job which is replicate 2D limitations and avoid 3D perfection. I like to call this job the 3D killer. And you will ask okay Tony, but where all this motivation of faking 2D or killing 3D comes from? Well I guess because I am a 3D generalist where I start my my professional career as an illustrator and yeah to the illustrator and to the animator and yeah one day I could for no mind draw and love you. This is all your fault. Told me this amazing software called Blender and yeah we start making video games together and this is how I get myself into the this insane 3D journey and yeah some years later I finally joined Pepe School Land which is Daniel Martínez Lara animation school to become a 3D animator but then the same year E.B. was released and everything changed for me because I would like to shade and light in my 3D scenes but with this new toy that lets me see my notes in actual real time that just boost my shading experience so much that much that even star Daniel starts scolding me because I was spending too much time shading and lighting my animation exercise instead of animating them. He was like Mr. you're here to learn about 3D animation but I was like sorry this is too cool I can look at this rim light like and yeah but that's not all because then I found NPR non-photo realistic rendering and my mind just blew up because I could get this previous intention of getting this kind of 2D animation result back in the days I love it especially when it looks when it looks 2D and yeah in my mind the message was clear I want I want to do this so yeah back to the to the previous question do I want my NPR animation to look 2D and for me the answer is yes thank you so let's go straight to the point as I said before fake in 2D it's about avoiding perfection and reproducing 2D limitations and solving them in a creative way as 2D does. Let's think it in the other direction the opposite direction why my 2D animation doesn't look 3D enough could be a lot of reasons but I think that mainly it's because two of them it's technical limitations and because sometimes it's very difficult to get 3D results with 2D animation and yeah also artistic choices because maybe in terms of style you don't want to get that approach to 3D results right and that's fine so yeah but let's talk about technical limitations this could be might be kind of subjective but if I try to think about the finest 2D animation what I get in result in return is this kind of 3D organic feeling of reality right and this huge amount of control on volumes and shape perfect perspective it's a hard work for 2D animators right while for 3D animators we also we almost have it for free because 3D it's perfect and precise by default yeah for example camera orientation for me this is the highest 3D flag to avoid because in 3D it's always you only have to grab your camera object put a couple of keyframes that you got it right but the 2D animator has a lot of struggle it requires precise drawing skills that yeah when something happens about camera rotation it's the first alarm that shut out and it doesn't look to be at all so but sometimes you don't have a choice you want to make a camera rotation so let's see how to with this mindset how to avoid the 3D feeling right I have this camera animation around my Suzanne I have this cool pencil shader that I've been working on let's put it together to see what happened and yeah a lot of 3D alarms shut out right like obviously this camera it's animated on once so let's make this spider rest thing making the animation of choose and see what happened yeah it's kind of good but I've been looking for something more obvious let's try the animation on force yeah kind of more cranky more obvious right but look we can see that in the shading there are some kind of lines the stick and floating on camera space obviously I'm working on camera coordinates for these lines to get a floating result but yeah if this is a drawing this can be very difficult to put all these lines and every keyframe on the same place so let's just add some variation on these lines on every keyframe as it everything has been redrawn every and every keyframe right and yeah it's much closer right but also this is a new drawing on every keyframe let's talk about this concept that I don't put the same the lines on the same place I have some sloppy hand and yeah put it the lines make some some kind of variation and put it on together on the on the shader with all these lines variation and yeah it's kind of another layer of or irregularity on top of everything which is a it's a plus but yeah let's see also this outline thickness it's always the same on every keyframe that means that I match the same pressure with my pencil on every keyframe this had had to be something difficult right so yeah let's also have some more variation every keyframe and yeah it starts giving a much closer to the vibes right and yeah let's also have some loose strokes around the object to make some sketchy thing and yeah this is far away from our first proposal right of making a cool shader and put the animation on choose no there's a lot of more concepts in the in between that give it give us a closer approach on to the animation but all these things about adding imperfections it's not something new on on 3d workflows right because on photorealism we have to add imperfections to to to have some more livable results right like adding some vebbles on our meshes and breaking these perfect 90 degrees corners or also using roughness and normal maps and that's because again 3d it's perfect and precise by default and this won't be different for NPR we also need those imperfections so yeah that's the interesting here is that 2d tries to solve these 3d challenges in a creative way and that's what you need to replicate because you know it's it's not something that 2d reach in an easy way so you have to think what's difficult for a 2d animator and not use 3d solutions to solve your problems you need to find this creative way to to solve the specific situation that you're working on as a 2d animator and the first place I would I should try to avoid this camera rotation thing and trying to make some parallax thing or even faking focal length animation camera too but yeah I like to think about this concept that a 2d animator it's modeling texturing shading rigging and yeah also animating and on the same time so when you're working on a personal NPR animated project this puts you in the same kind of same place like a 2d animator but what happens when you're trying to make a whole production when you try to involve different kind of artists in order to make a whole production with this style and right now I'm working on a personal project that would like to to bring it you as a finished project but you know personal projects what a hell sometimes and yeah in this project I'm trying to find this pipeline and reach all these 3d aspect that you have to take in count in order to avoid the the 3d feeling and the most important is what involved in what kind of aspect involves in every department in on this on this production but yeah again it's a it's a working progress project but I will try to to to highlight some some kind of aspect that I found and hopefully the next year I come back and make a extended version maybe in the classroom and let's see more specific specific progress but yeah let's see on this chapter for example for style purposes sometimes doesn't have mouth at all and and sometimes he does a big mouth too so for that making this in 3d because of topology and UV maps limitations it's a difficult thing to do so what I tried I decided to do it's model three kind of heads and using geometry notes I I switch from one to another this which is driving by a bone about the head and yeah also because the animation it's not interpolated I can make the switch and nobody knows this right it's just a pop-up effect kind of thing also if it's it's a bone I can store it like a NASA Liberty so I can switch from a head to another you know more easy way for rigging purposes this rig is made by Nacho Maure for rig purposes we chose an option that is very simple and not quite difficult and technical aspects and who lets us deform the the character and the way that we want and yeah for example for animation again don't move your camera as I said set a viewport with camera arbitration what we do is the camera movements are quite of reframing practical reframing stuff than more than camera movements and then all these camera shakes and movements are made in post-processing like liar and thing as to the does because today hasn't had this ability of moving your camera and redrawing all this perspective again so yeah animated on a flat and static camera and then you have can start making some parallax or or this kind of effects and yeah also with with shading I choose color flat it's not playing at all I choose let's see if it works no no yeah I choose some pencil and color flat choices because I think it's kind of the minimal expression of to the animation and yeah also using this normally going back this is not the correct it's late yeah it's the solid view we have a render pass with a flat color then above everything I put the line as it was a plastic sheet of to the animation and also as I choose color flat I can also add some more details and correcting shadow problems with with to the it's not a very high level to the animation is just fixing fixing some shapes and even giving more variation on top of this right also line work sometimes doesn't work fine so yeah it's kind of fixing things in in a in a forward vision you know if you can to to go in backwards you you start struggling in technical things my my choice was to being able to make some hand drawn or handmade corrections above everything and latest because using to the it's it has no sense trying to make an NPR result without drawing anything right at the same time and on photorealism we are using photographs for for making textures or made paintings right so why don't you would draw and use to the to fade to the right so yes at this point some someone already asked why don't you draw it in the first place and yeah I think is for me this as this question is like asking someone that made photorealism why don't you make a picture in the first place right and yeah but I think as 3d has proved across the years its versatility it's a powerful ally on your productions and yeah it's also a personal choice I decide to get into this NPR madness world and yeah with 3d you have the power to extend your your productions and I'm also better 3d artist than 2d artist so this is my personal choice so yeah this kind of it I don't know if I rushed too much but yeah I hope you'll find some something useful in my presentation and maybe the next time that you buy this super ultimate NPR super shader on some gum page and you put it in your scene press play and nothing works maybe you have some guidelines to define why my NPR animation doesn't look to the enough so