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[3ds max] Help me to understand/recreate icon style from the game

Greetings.

I would like to ask your professional opinion about such subject... Here are several item icons from one old game. From your perspective - are they drawn by hand (pixel art, etc) or rendered from the 3D model? 

Just for comparison - this is what i have got by rendering their ingame 3D models - images somewhat similar, but lack something... something for which i cannot find a right word. Original icons still have some style that i cannot repeat. Shader settings? Lights? Shadows? I dont know. May be they made in some style that have a special name? My renders seem to me kind of "dim".


I am using 3Ds Max 2016 and default scanline renderer. Here are my scene settings. 
Material: Blinn. Self-illumination: 0.
Specular: 100. Glossiness: 100. I am not sure they should be both set by 100, but that values come after import OBJ into max, so may be they laid so originally?
Maps: Only diffuse texture with default settings.
Scene light: omni light with shadow map, multiplier: 1.0.

I am newbie on the forum and thus dont want to break any rules and since my question relates to the game i dont want to break any copyright related rule - thats why probably i cannot post any link to the models above for you to experiment with. But for this game an official asset pack is available with all models and icons and also community script to import models to blender. Here are links to them for those who may be interested in the subject. I hope this doesnt violate forum rules.

Please note - i am not interested in the game itself - only in rendering techniques to mimic icon style - thats why i am posting here and not in the game forum. :)

 Please also note i am not a professional artist.

Replies

  • Noren
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    Noren polycounter lvl 20
    I didn't look at the assets, but they probably simply painted over renderings of them to make them better readable. If we assume the models haven't changed during development (which could easily be the case, though) then some of the details are simplified or bigger or even translated. If those are the original icons, then they probably didn't handpixel them save for a few elements (unless they then filtered them so they fit better with the rest of the game). They might have used a toon shader or added the outline in 2D and used some lighting, but the latter doesn't look consistent and mostly like just the texture with an overpaint.

    To get a bit closer with rendering alone, you could use a toon shader, like mentioned (for the lines only, not the rest of the shading) try to reduced the self-illumination a bit, try to push the light above 1 until it blows out (you often can push scanline lights a lot). Omni, spot or directional doesn't matter too much in this situation, but I'd probably use a spot slightly from the left side and top. You can then mix that with a render with full self-illumination where necessary.

    Edit: + some specular, like Klunk mentioned, perhaps using the diffuse to modulate its strength.

  • Klunk
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    Klunk ngon master
    Either hand drawn or rendered then hand embellished.  For starters each icon has dark outline. To reproduce a similar painted model dark wash and dry brush highlight effect you could use an "over egged" light map and ramped up specular with the outlining added in post.
  • Darkloke
    Many thanks for the answers. I thought about toon shader too, but wasnt sure. Also thought about cel shading, but i suppose thats a bit different story, right?

    Can i ask you to give me a few links with some tutorials where described how to make the effects you mentioned. I tried several about toon shading, but they mostly played with falloff maps and it werent the results i was expecting. Also found mental ray contours - are they good in creating outlining or better to achieve this effect through maps?
  • Noren
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    Noren polycounter lvl 20
    You mostly want the outlines combined with the texture, not flat cell shading / a stepped gradient. 

    The simplest way to do it would just be an outline in Photoshop to be honest, you'd have to add internal lines were needed, though. If you want a rendering solution without having to do any post work, the easiest way should be the Ink and Paint Material that works with the Scanline renderer. The help files should get you started.

    Mental Ray Contours probably gives you more control and a better result (it's been a while, though), but seeing how tiny the icons are, that might not matter too much. 

    Another simple option for outlines is to duplicate the mesh, invert its normals, give it a push modifier with a small (negative) value and give it a black material (no double sided material and turn off shadow casting for that one if you need shadows). See e.g. here:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=971QTj_aDac

  • Klunk
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    Klunk ngon master
    having looked at some of the geometry I would say if they used renders they probably used something of a higher resolution to generate the icons. One of the few normal mapped items.....

    it's pretty low res in both geometry and texture :/
  • Darkloke
    Thanks for the tutorial link, Noren.

    Yes, Klunk, may be you are right and they definitely used higher version originally or reduced them specifically for the game, but taking into account icon size this wont make significant difference imho.
  • Klunk
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    Klunk ngon master
    I think you'd be surprised at the effect of a little extra geometry.... here's the above sword with a few extra loops and faked ambience with vertex shading (I also added the spec map from the assets)....

  • Darkloke
    Interesting. Hard to compare with the icon exactly one to one since the render size and the angle is different, but i would like to try this myself. Can you tell what exactly did you set up? Is this 3ds max by the way or another tool?
  • Klunk
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    Klunk ngon master
    this is max 10 with a basic direct x9 normal mapped phong shader where the diffuse is modulated with vertex shading....though I'd wouldn't use this for generating the icons.... I'd use the added geometry with some kind of ambient occlusion render (to produce the ott shading). Though for the quickest turn around I think just hand painting over the original textures is probably the way to go.
  • Darkloke
    Can i take a bit more of your time, Klunk? As i said i am not very experienced and while i can probably find a shaders and maps you mentioned i more interested in certain values you have used (as well as light sources and environment settings if any). Please post some screenshots with these if possible.

    And by hand painting you mean modifying the model texture and then render it in 3ds max or modifying the resulting rendered icon itself in photoshop?
  • Klunk
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    Klunk ngon master
    the environment settings and lights is simple..... default max single light and default ambient. the hand painting could be either or both what ever gets the result your looking for.... whenever I've done this sort of thing it always ends up needing touching up in photoshop and color adjustment. 
    Another thought..... in game models can have a few oddities that mean they don't always play well when imported back into 3d software... seams in the mesh where the mapping has edges or the original mesh had a hard edge in smoothing or vertex color. Also they don't have smooth groups as such just per vertex normals which can be a pain in the arse to deal with in max as they should be kept as specified/explicit but most modifiers do not support this and will just remove them (if your importer applied them in the first place). Obviously you can correct the seams and make a good guess at what the smoothing should look like.
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