Dashed line option for Toon and/or Contour

[Eric Summers]

Having a dashed line option and control of the gap and segment lengths would be a great addition to the Toon material and Contour texture! I just had to spend a lot of time making something "good enough" that would be a two minute job with dashed lines as a built in option.

[INNEO_MWo]

Maybe some kind of a mesh texture (or a combination of a mesh with a huge pattern and a mesh with a small pattern but huge gap) might bring kind of dashed look a like lines as color of the contour? It might work on geometry that isn't that complex in shape?!!?

[bdesign]

Hi Eric-

Here is test I did using the Contour Texture with a Weave Texture in the Color parameter. Set the Warp Color the same as the Contour Texture Background Color, and the Weft Color to the desired dashed line color. Set the Warp Width and Weft Width (under the Threads dropdown) to 1 , use the Width and Height parameters (under the Size and Mapping dropdown) to control the dash length, set the Angle to 90°, and set the Shift U and Shift V values to half of the dash length values.

Cheers,
Eric

[INNEO_MWo]

Using the weave is a great idea. But I would combine the weave with the contour in the opacity a label material. So you don't need to match the base color. And adding some more nodes, a dash dotted contour might be possible.

Good job Eric (the KeyShot ninja stroke back)


Cheers
Marco

[Eric Summers]

Hi Eric-

Here is test I did using the Contour Texture with a Weave Texture in the Color parameter. Set the Warp Color the same as the Contour Texture Background Color, and the Weft Color to the desired dashed line color. Set the Warp Width and Weft Width (under the Threads dropdown) to 1 , use the Width and Height parameters (under the Size and Mapping dropdown) to control the dash length, set the Angle to 90°, and set the Shift U and Shift V values to half of the dash length values.

Cheers,
Eric

Thanks Eric, that is a technique that I wouldn't have thought of! It works well for simple shapes but it seems to be limited for curved objects and intersecting parts. I was working on a test of it but I had to stop; I was going to post some screenshots of what I was running into and what I tried. Hopefully I'll be able to get back to this soon.

Good to hear from you! Cheers!
Eric

[INNEO_MWo]

Hello Eric.


May you post a shape you have in mind?

[Eric Summers]

Hi Marco,

This is a quick screenshot from the file I was working on. The cube and sphere were just there for reference.

[Eugen Fetsch]

Hi Eric, take a look at the Freestyle option in Blender 3D - it took me 5 minutes to create.
You can export your models and camera from KS via FBX to Blender for it. By filtering out the surfaces you can render only the lines on alpha.

Examples and *.blend attached.

[Eric Summers]

Hi Eric, take a look at the Freestyle option in Blender 3D - it took me 5 minutes to create.
You can export your models and camera from KS via FBX to Blender for it. By filtering out the surfaces you can render only the lines on alpha.

Examples and *.blend attached.

Thanks Eugen, that's an interesting option! Definitely a possibility for one-off renders.

[INNEO_MWo]

some angles work but not in every direction. Just look into the model. But this solutions isn't quite good as Eugen's!