I’m now networking regularly on Twitter as Toonerstan. I’d appreciate the follow, and I’ve also provided links there for some new secret demos for Superhero Week.
ETA: Superhero Week is now over. The links for the secret demos can still be found inside my Updates on Twitter.
I haven’t posted in a while, but in the meantime Seth and I have been busy. We’re in serious negotiation for an exciting new partnership to apply Toonamation effects in the mobile space - updates soon. We’ve also developed many new on-demand artistic looks, including several paint variations that improve the state of the art. These apply different algorithms than the rotopaint effect I demoed last September and work just as well to produce awesome videos as they do standalone images. The new effects are pre-release, meaning they’re not yet available through our plugin ToonIt! and may not be for several months. We’re offering them in the form of server-installable binary libraries for use at video-sharing, photo-sharing, and social networking sites, plus for other photo and video-related projects and applications. You can check them out below. Click the image for each effect to see it as a popup video demo. Note that each effect is individually adjustable, usually in multiple ways, but these demonstrate settings that we’ve found to work well overall.
Here’s the before clip used to produce the following demos. I found it at iStockVideo. BTW, I downsampled the frame rate in the clip to 12 fps before applying any of the effects. Several professional animators and animation instructors, along with Jim Tierney of Digital Anarchy, suggested to me that this makes animated looks more convincing.
Here’s our rototoon effect. It’s not exactly new, but I’m including it as a point of comparison and because it’s cool to look at.
This first new effect is called Airbrush. It’s smooth and glossy with rich darks and has a machinima feel. It works well for horror/suspense content and many music videos.
This is our Smooth Paint effect. It generates individual frames that resemble intentionally realistic gouache paintings without visible brush strokes, similar to the artwork of Alex Ross in the graphic novel Kingdom Come.
This effect we call Rough Paint. It has more of an oil paint feel of raised brush strokes.
This is our new Paint Splotch effect. It’s looser and more expressionistic, somewhat reminiscent of Van Gogh. Unlike other research paint effects described in the non-photorealistic rendering literature that have applied irregular color blobs to simulate a painterly appearance in standalone images, our effect also translates well to video.
This effect is called Woodcut. It’s a stark black and white look with thick outlines transitioning to deep shadows and has a strong graphic design feel, similar to Frank Miller’s artwork in the Sin City graphic novels. This effect can be recreated offline by ToonIt! through the proper combination of comic and shadow outlines.
Instead of white, new ToonIt! allows users to set outline background to any color. This is a cool and compelling variation in which background color is randomized and changes frame-to-frame.
The same color randomization applies equally well to foreground outline color for an especially trippy look. Yellow Submarine anyone?
Last but not least is Heat Vision. There are somewhat similar looks available on the web, but this version has been engineered for high temporal coherence. This means that output color distribution is relatively stable across frames and images, which makes the effect look significantly better in video and improves appearance overall.
Thanks for stopping by. If you like these, please let us know or pass the link along. We’re also always open to hearing suggestions for new effects.
Technorati Tags: Toonamation, rototooning, rotopainting, rototoon, rotopaint, toon, plugin, TonIt!, ToonIt, painted, painting, painterly, paint, non-photorealistic rendering, computer graphics, automatic painting, heat vision, woodcut, paint splotch, splotch, paint effect, painterly effect, painted effect, comic book effect, cartoon effect, painted look, comic book look, graphic novel look, airbrush, airbrushed look, video effect, image manipulation, image processing, Van Gogh effect, Van Gogh look, gouache effect, expressionistic effect, Yellow Submarine, Yellow Submarine look, Sin City, Sin City look
Over the last few weeks I’ve developed a new effect related to rototooning. Maybe I could call it rotopainting. I think it produces a more convincing simulation of painting than other automatic methods currently available in or for Adobe Photoshop. Photoshop ToonIt! isn’t out yet (we’re currently integrating a 2X+ speedup to help with big images), but when it is, this will be included. This effect also looks quite cool when applied to video - more on that later. Below are some examples of toons I rendered using rotopainting. These were derived from photos my wife Lisa took last week at PodCamp Philly.
At the closing session of PodCamp Philly I offered to apply this effect for free, plus rototooning, to photos people took of the event. If interested, go here for more info. Also, here’s a link to my Flickr page, where you can see more examples of PodCamp Philly toons.
Technorati Tags: Toonamation, rototooning, rotopainting, toon, plugin, ToonIt!, Flickr, painted, painting, PodCamp Philly, Adobe, Photoshop, non-photorealistic rendering, computer graphics, automatic painting
As I mentioned on my twitter, we’re looking for photo and video evangelists to help us market and license our tech to photo-sharing, video-sharing, internet TV, social-networking, and photo after-market sites. Lisa and I will be looking to hook up with people for that purpose, among others, at Podcamp Philly, running from Sept. 7th to 9th. Expecting general networking goodness to ensue.
Steve Garfield of Vlog Soup interviewed Lan Bui about how he made his picture video of ComicCon 2007, including his reaction to my subsequently converting it to a toon video using Toonamation rototooning. The interview is posted at (click image):
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FYI, I rendered the ComicCon toon video with a software testbed that I experiment with to create new effects. So I didn’t exactly use ToonIt!, but the effects and settings I used are all currently available there, meaning anyone with ToonIt! could have done the same thing.
Technorati Tags: Steve Garfield, Vlog Soup, rotoscoping, rototooning, automatic cartoon, toon, plugin, cartoon, comics, non-photorealistic rendering, computer graphics, Toonamation, ToonIt!, picture video, ComicCon 2007, animation
I’m here for the second day of NPAR 2007, a Siggraph preconference on Non-Photorealistic Animation and Rendering. Yesterday I heard a talk by Henry Kang called “Coherent Line Drawing.” BTW, I met him after, plus his partner, Seungyong Lee, and they’re both nice guys and smart. Anyway they were talking about their research to produce an effect which looked somewhat similar to Toonamation’s comic outlines. I think our approach produces results which are naturally more aesthetic, and, of course, I’m totally impartial. AFAIK, they haven’t tried applying their algorithm to video. If/when they do, I’m guessing they could improve their results by applying bilateral filtering to input images before constructing their edge tangent flow field (image processing geek speak). I probably have bilateral filtering on the brain, because I’m taking a Siggraph course about it tomorrow morning, plus they were generous in sharing their results. They’re friendly rivals who don’t have a plugin yet.
Technorati Tags: NPAR 2007, bilateral filtering, Siggraph, outline drawing, Henry Kang, Seungyong Lee, non-photorealistic rendering, computer graphics, Toonamation, ToonIt!
As part of a “CHANGE MY PHOTO into POP ART Competition” in the Flickr Pop Art group, I changed this:
into this:
using the default comic setting.
Texas artist Kevin Cherry liked the Lichtenstein look of my toon and in turn integrated it into a hand-assembled mixed media collage:
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Photograph of the real to artistic digital manipulation to art in the real. Very cool!!!
Technorati Tags: rotoscoping, rototooning, automatic cartoon, toon, plugin, cartoon, comics, non-photorealistic rendering, computer graphics, Toonamation, ToonIt!, Flickr, Pop Art, Lichtenstein
I created this cartoon picture video of ComicCon 2007 using one pass of Toonamation rototooning (default hard edge setting for online video).
It was adapted from an original picture video by Lan Bui with his kind permission.
Technorati Tags: rotoscoping, rototooning, automatic cartoon, toon, plugin, cartoon, comics, non-photorealistic rendering, computer graphics, Toonamation, ToonIt!, picture video, ComicCon 2007, animation
I gave an Open Grid presentation at BlogPhilly (I’m glad Lisa coaxed me into it), where I volunteered to toon photos people were taking at BlogPhiladelphia. I ended up tooning about a third of the photostream, applying default settings for hard edge, comic, and ink and wash. Here’s my Flickr page, where you can find toons I uploaded sorted according to pre-toon photographer.
In case you were wondering why some photos weren’t chosen, selection was a bit arbitrary, but we ended up concentrating more on photos where faces were visible and where there was some contrast for our algorithms to play with, especially across the faces. I think this made for toons that were more interesting aesthetically. I’m including several representative ones I liked below, though I had many other favorites. These all happen to be landscape orientation, just because that displays better here. Also, if you liked our toons and are using them on your blogs or passing them around, let us know. Thanks.
![791277616_22ee8cd21e[1]_r1.png](http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1418/823200598_b137982be7_o.png)
![791134396_08df8d8c57[1]_r1.png](http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1047/822644267_04c50a6d62_o.png)
![791100528_3364c86dc0[1]_r1.png](http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1322/822605275_0476ba3106_o.png)
![790229971_dc955c1f2a[1]_r1.png](http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1331/823398646_8c19e98497_o.png)
![791120406_92244bbab4[1]_r1.png](http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1195/822615187_db5b21c102_o.png)
![791072424_4a1c7fb65d[1]_r1.png](http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1026/822570251_c9676e9518_o.png)
![791120818_0db0d526cc[1]_r1.png](http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1043/823492642_5528035ebe_o.png)
![808852738_a9acb8e581[1]_r1.png](http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1003/822761539_4fac6963c2_o.png)
![808151675_086bc9013c[1]_r1.png](http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1326/822758251_705fe47277_o.png)
![808853784_b45e7c1a0e[1]_r1.png](http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1390/823639644_f0722fdabc_o.png)
![802232579_d41fe35e0e[1]_r1.png](http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1083/825185781_436567f5ed_o.png)
Technorati Tags: Toonamation, rototooning, toon, Toonerstan, Toonerlisa, BlogPhilly, BlogPhiladelphia, Flickr
My wife Lisa and I will be heading over to BlogPhiladelphia tomorrow and Friday. I look forward to meeting the local tech community and having a chance to check out what they’re working on. If you’re there too, and would like to chat, drop me a line or look for the guy wearing the Toonamation t-shirt.
