Author Topic: Sketchy Cube (Read 10540 times)

benny! · « **on:** July 07, 2008 »

Hi all,

since some years I am interested in sketchy kind of drawing -
ie. drawing some vectors in that way that it looks like it was
drawn by hand with a pencil.

Maybe some of you remember the cool intro by scoopex &
farbrausch art.

Well, I also wanted to write a engine like this - but the info
on the net about such things are really rate. I finally found
some interesting stuff Tom Meyer and of course by Hugo
Elias.

So, I finally find the time to throw some code together. It is
not very optimized - consider it as a proof-of-concept and/or
prototyp. I am planning to write a more advanced engine on
that topic sometime. Will see what the future brings.

Ok, finally here is the link to the online example :

http://labs.weltenkonstrukteur.de/sketchycube

Some feedback, suggestions and/or ideas are appreciated !!!

Requires
Java Runtime V1.6

Motorherp · « **Reply #1 on:** July 07, 2008 »

Its looking pretty cool so far. One thing that destroys the believability of this being a sketch though is that the lines are all very straight which rarely happens when you actualy sketch something for real. You might want to use perlin noise to add irregularities to your line drawing as described here.

Shockwave · « **Reply #2 on:** July 07, 2008 »

Nice, maybe just use some low resolution cubic spline to add slight bends to the lines? Similar idea to Motorherp bu a different way of getting the result..

The SCX and FR demo had a nice clean white background which looks better than the grainy one you have used here mate.
Also some filled colour (sketched of course) will make this perfect!

benny! · « **Reply #3 on:** July 07, 2008 »

@shocky:
Thanks for advices. I plan to write a little 2D drawing engine for this.
Just the normal drawing commands like line, rect, cirlce, arc... and
so on. So background is not obligatory. About the colour filled I am happy
for some ideas how to implement it ? Cannot think about a proper technique
to be honest. Have to study frb^scx source again.

@Motorherp:
Thanks for feedback. However I am actually using Hugo's info and perlin
noise function. In the final engine you can set the distort factor manually.
In this demo I decided to set it not so high - because it doesnt looked
too distorted in my eyes.

But thanks a lot for feedback.

Clyde · « **Reply #4 on:** July 07, 2008 »

Looks really cool Benny dude, welldone on your efforts. Remarkable Java stuff

stormbringer · « **Reply #5 on:** July 07, 2008 »

very nice one benny!

you should have a look here: http://www.red3d.com/cwr/npr/

search for these papers: http://www.siggraph.org/s99/conference/skapps/skapp_24.html

a lot of work has been done on this kind of techniques. Most of the whitepapers were released for the SIGGRAPH conferences. Go to a university near you and you will find probably all the SIGGRAPH Proceedings => usually heavy books kept well hidden by the librarian! (bastard)

benny! · « **Reply #6 on:** July 07, 2008 »

@stormbringer:

Uhhh .. these are massive links and sources. Thanks a lot - will
study them in future. Thanks!

@Clyde:
Thanks, Clyde dude!

stormbringer · « **Reply #7 on:** July 07, 2008 »

@benny!: you are welcome mate! with my job I have my nose in these pretty much everyday!

I do not know how fast you can go with rendering in Java.. but with OpenGL all this can be done in real-time with an extreme level of quality. Basically the idea is that you have sketch gradients (textures scanned) and you mix them depending on the z-buffer, light sources, etc. This is pretty easy with shaders as you can compute a lot of information per pixel...

happy coding!

benny! · « **Reply #8 on:** July 07, 2008 »

@stormbringer:
Lucky you - are you doing graphic programming in your daily job ?
Kewl 8-)

Well, actually I could use OpenGL in Java, too. If necessary I could
think about - because there exists java bindings for OpenGL (JOGL).
Hmm .. will see how far I can get...

Thanks again!

stormbringer · « **Reply #9 on:** July 07, 2008 »

@benny!: yop, I spend my days (and nights) creating tools for the film post production (visual effects, etc). It's really a nice job with everyone involved (including clients) being driven by passion (belive me,you have to, these jobs never really pay off the efforts put in them!). The funny thing is that this industry (motion picture/post production/blablabla) is full of old-school coders from Amiga/Atari days

benny! · « **Reply #10 on:** July 07, 2008 »

@stormbringer:
wow. working with former sceners - that sounds like a really
nice atmosphere at work place. Need to change industries
then ;-)

stormbringer · « **Reply #11 on:** July 07, 2008 »

@benny!: there is always an opportunity to move to another industry. I've always wondered why some many people with talent for gfx/vfx coding are working for boring industries like banking/insurances/etc? maybe it pays better.. but definitely less fun. For me the choice was somehow natural when I attended an exhibition about the broadcast/film industry.... and saw Amigas being used for visual effects for commercials and stuff. It was clear to me what I wanted to do.

benny! · « **Reply #12 on:** July 07, 2008 »

@stormbringer:

Hmm ... maybe I should start doing some research about that
business field. To be honest never thought about broadcast/
film industry. Right now I am self-employed doing mostly contract
work. But most of it is doing application programming in e-commerce
and web2print related stuff...

Hmmm ... /me is thinking ...

stormbringer · « **Reply #13 on:** July 07, 2008 »

@benny! & other interested people here: if you are in Europe in September, consider a visit to the IBC show (http://www.ibc.org) .It may give you ideas

benny! · « **Reply #14 on:** July 07, 2008 »

@stormbringer:
that might be an interesting trip. I'll definately keep this
date in mind. Maybe I can manage it to go there. Thanks
a lot!

rain_storm · « **Reply #15 on:** July 07, 2008 »

Nice one the thought of doing something like this has often crossed my mind too but I dont know how to go about doing it may look into it in future cos its one excellent effect. I do have one suggestion which may not be so difficult maybe you are already doing this, the colour of the lines should fade to light grey and back to dark (but not bold) there is a hint of this already but it could be on display instead of hinted at

Rbz · « **Reply #16 on:** July 08, 2008 »

Looks really nice benny!

I hope you make a big prod using it

benny! · « **Reply #17 on:** July 08, 2008 »

@rain_storm:
Thanks, mate. Fading colors might be also interesting. Right
now I am only using some transparent colors. Will see how
far I can push this effect.

@rbz:
Thanks rbz.Yup - a little intro with a storyline or something
like that would be cool. Will see.

Optimus · « **Reply #18 on:** July 09, 2008 »

Cool! Long time to see a nice java applet.

benny! · « **Reply #19 on:** July 09, 2008 »

Quote from: Optimus on July 09, 2008

Cool! Long time to see a nice java applet.

Yeah - nice to see you visiting the forum again, mate!