GMIC plugin wow!
mschack
Posts: 337
I am embarassed to say I just discovered this and it is amazing, thanks Philemo!. Now I know what you were all talking about during the challenges... GMIC filter... what?
This thing should be released with Carrara!
Anyway, does anyone have an idea why my preview doesn't show the filter result? I always just see the plain render...
Post edited by mschack on
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The GMIC plugin was done by Philemo, many thank-yous to him for that. https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/2929156/#Comment_2929156
My preview box sometimes shows the effect, but mostly does not, have to do a test render to check !
This plugin was a game changer for me. With GMIC, you have many of the same controls that you get in postwork, but now they are in Carrara.
"Most" of the time I can see some sort of preview. Sometimes you have to go back and forth between "Reset View" and "Render" a few times to get the preview to kick in. But the preview render will only let you know that a filter is working, and will generally not give you an exact idea of what your Carrara render will look like.
Sometimes it will stop previewing, but still work on your Carrara render. Sometimes you will get a split screen effect in your Carrara render, which means that one of your GMIC filters is gliching (you can stack filters) and needs to be reset. The simple solution is to change that filter to a different one, and then change it back to the original again.
Ok so it's not just me then... Thanks Bunyip and UnifiedBrain!
Does Philemo bot support this any longer?
I think that he has limited time. In March he talked about working on an updated version of GMIC. But I'm not sure if an updated version would resolve all the issues. For example, I asked him about the preview issue a while back, and he said that it may be too complex to completely resolve.
For my workflow, the plugin works just fine in its current state. Then again, I have spent hundreds of hours exploring it, so I know what to expect.
After working on a realistic skin shader, the other side of me takes over...
This is 'Artistic- Pastel Art'
I think this would be cool for a comic.
cool - what would the basic non-gmic render look like?
(how simple can the scene be to get a cool effect like yours?)
tnx,
--ms
It's just some replicated cubes, a plane, a text primitive and the freak. Looks terrible without the filter lol.
tnx for doing that for the comparison!
for all the work to get super 'detail' (which I also love/appreciate), it's clear that simpler NPR (read *faster* too!) renders *can* carry the bulk of an idea if they are composed/abstracted effectively.
("if i had more time, i would have written less" - I dunno who said it, but I love that quote)
I think this really ties into what @diomede is getting at when he promotes the idea that the brain will fill in the gaps - and we can (should) use that effect to our advantage.
Those background cubes are buildings... they just are. especially in the gmic-d version.
These 'tricks' and techniques are pretty compelling tools in the toolbox when forming a workflow/style for a bigger project.
best,
--ms
The irony in 3d is that once we acheived the ability to make 'perfect' rendered images, it has been a constant struggle to find ways to make them imperfect. Same thing happened in digital music, reality is flawed and are brains are used to it, so when we see or hear something 'perfect' it stands out like a sore thumb.
I am trying to find a combo of GMIC filters for a nice stylized comic look, maybe for a larger project. There are sooo many options though... like I said, wow..,.
That's my status as well. Either in the render-engine, or in post, or ... both - if 'the look' I'm after is worth it.
I'm a sucker for good realism, both for the quality when achieved, as well as the appreciation of the mastery of the challenge.
But I'm becoming less certain that that's the best path for my goals - both affordability (all aspects) and personal styling. I really like some of the more impressionistic styles as I move along through life. @bunyip02's NPR stuff is really throwing me for a loop, relative to where I had intended to be going when I started down this adventure.
curious where you end up too.
cool stuff all,
--ms
I am a big fan of impressionistic styles too. I like the realistic stuff, but so many people are so good at it, better than I'll ever be lol. Just check out the DAZ gallery on any given day.
If I come up with something I will definately share my progress in this forum, hope you do also!
Very Cool, mschack!!! Love it!
Make human looks like a good option for character creation. Good for general characters anyway. There is also a ton of user assets that you can browse right in the app. The fbx export will bring the rigged/dresses/posed character nicely into Carrara boned and textured correctly.
mschack, that looks great, really cool effect.
I think the hyper-realism is about to take a nosedive. Looks to me like Unreal5 and Metahuman stole everybody's lunch. The thing is... I think it's a bit boring once it gets to that level. It's a very impressive feat, but in the end you're left with renders that just look like regular old boring people. I'm thinking that now that render speed is instant and realism is perfect, DAZ will have to shift to perfecting NPR approaches/rendering to stay in the game.
And Carrara's got a ton of great resources for non-photoreal. :)
I agree. The problem i think with the photo real thing from an artistic standpoint, especially if you want to tell a story, is all the assets you require, not just characters but all the hi end models/assets you need to make a believable looking render.
Non Photoreal you can cheat like hell haha!
The Artistic-Painting effect is quite nice also.
Watching this thread with interest. I only dabble with the GMIC filter but I think it has a lot of potential as part of a workflow for comic and other NPR style animations. UnifiedBrain has done some inspiring stills for the challenges.
Filters - [Artistic-Mc_Pendraw] - [Artistic-Painting]
Before
After
Added [Artistic-60's Cinema] and [Colors-Mixer RGB] and a few more background bits...
I really like both of them!
I love how the armor details came out in that last one though. Very nice!
interesting - the figures work for me, the trees are a bit too far out, but the background mountains have a good look.
I think I'm looking at splitting the foreground/background styles - where the background is a toonish DOF blur - like your freak render, and the main figures somewhere in the cel/anime style, but I'm not certain how impressionistic I can go, but far more than disney.
GMIC's effects are appealing because they're right in the render.
Thanks for showing the stock render with the sytlized versions. it's useful and interesting to compare.
--ms
+1
Thanks for the comments Dart and Bunyip.
mindsong, I am actually trying as much as I can to make it look drawn and not 3d, I think the characters stiil could be more stylized like with the pastel effect but you don't have control over those details and the colours sometimes details cover the face etc.. Also note that the details don't scale with render size, a large render ends up looking different. I think the solution in the end will have to be making multiple effect renders and combining them in an external image app. On a side note, GIMP does have a nice toon effect...
If Philemo ever reads this, (first, thank you very very much!), it would be nice to replace the filter enable check box with an amount slider to control how much of each effect is added to the final render...
I have played around with the sdk and know this might not even be feasible. It seems to me that the Carrara filter effects were a side feature and kinda shoe-horned in. For instance the need to re-render every time to change the post effect, instead of just buffering the original render.
If DAZ ever reads this and one day decides to make Carrara 9, please replace storyboard tab with a 'Post Filters' tab... ahhh I can dream...
More work on comic look with GMIC. Artistic-Painting + Degradations-Blur Bloom + Degradations-Rain & Snow
Not sure about the text bubbles (added with an old version of manga studio), would like to try and do something different for the text.
...and a few grass transparencies for y'all
Should have put the grass in the shrubbery thread, oh well
Philemo really had a great idea when he decided to make this plugin. The GMIC catalog of filters is immense with nearly endless possibilities. Hell, it probably Is endless!