Max to Illustrator or Orthographic outlines
polycounter lvl 18
I want to have orthographic outlines of some models. I cant get or at least i don't know the process to get the dxf/dwg format with the illustrator import for cs2 to understand to choose a particular axis. It defaults to an angled view. Is there a plug in I need?
Barring this, Ink and Paint in Max will not work with Orthographic view. Is there another material shader I can use to mimic outlines alone that will render in orthographic views?
Trying to get a blueprint kinda look going. Without the trigon interior(so cant just render wireframe).
Barring this, Ink and Paint in Max will not work with Orthographic view. Is there another material shader I can use to mimic outlines alone that will render in orthographic views?
Trying to get a blueprint kinda look going. Without the trigon interior(so cant just render wireframe).
Replies
EDIT: Ink and paint should kinda work in orthographic view, if you decrease the overlap bias, that is if the problem is that some of the outlines arent appearing.
Like how bad is it when you use ink and paint in orthographic view, cus I did a test in orthographic front view and you can see below in the image my results.
A. Overlap bias = 10
B. Overlap bias = 0.5
C. Overlap bias = 10 except I detached the pieces(selecting Elements) as you can see in D
1. Get and install the PSD Path Unwrapper script.
2. Select what you want in an orthographic viewport with backface culling enabled.
3. Select inverse, then delete the rest of the model, since you don't want backfaces?
4. Delete the interior edges, since you only want outlines?
5. Planar unwrap the leftover geometry.
6. Run the PSD Path Unwrapper script. This should give you some paths in Photoshop and a EPS file IIRC.
I hope that helps.
Or just thought of this instead.
1. Render out your model with a solid color material. Or different sections with different colors.
2. Select in PS then click the Make work path from Selection on the Paths panel.
I bet you can take those paths over to Illustrator somehow.
Overlap, I'll look at its settings, but my models outline looked nothing like yours when in orthographic. Is that Max 9 or is it higher? It specifically says in the help for ink and paint it wont render correct in orthographic. (Which thus far seems correct). Maybe fixed in later revision?
As you state, AI format only works on splines, so it wouldnt help.
Ben Ill give those a shot. Kinda convoluted, but whatcha gonna do? I just dont get why AI cant allow me to choose the viewpoint to import of the model. Seems like a large oversite.
http://www.cgarena.com/freestuff/tutorials/vectorendering/vector.html
Should work fine for most purposes, what I found is that it is not perfect, it's vector translation is resolution dependant and it sometimes has jaggies. There is however a plugin called illustrate, that does render super clean crisp vector paths independant of resolution (as it should be). http://www.davidgould.com/
Enable Contours in the Render Setup window and then in the Materials window go to the bottom of a material and open up the mental ray Connection. Under 'advanced shaders' is the contour slot where you add the shader. It's a post-process effect.
To get the eps output go back to the render window and change 'Contour Output' slot to Contour PS.
Edit: I need to learn ta read more better like. This is what StJoris was suggesting.
Another thing you could try is to setup cameras, like frontview, sideview, whatever view you want, and decrease the FOV down to 1.1 or less to match it to an orthographic view and see how that works out.
Then theres also google sketchup, I think you can render outlines like in this video
[ame]
import your model and try rendering in orthographic view*shrug*
Brazil render also has its own toonshader very similar to ink and paint but better, maybe theirs might work in your orthographic view it does in my one, just download the free version only limit is the image size which is 1024x511 maximum
Back face culling did not help, nor ignore backfacing. The amount of time to hand delete all hidden geometry wouldn't be prudent. So I used the vector export function the the uv (Ben already have that plug in (love it). Selected Mapping; Normal Mapping: Box. I then got all four sides. Now, the issue is of course, I need to delete all the lines inside the exterior contour.
St. Joris, thanks for the link. Still learning Mental Ray, and followed directions. It did work as advertised , but it worked like toon shader in that wasn't very "blueprint" like. More organic lines. Which wouldn't fit with idea attempting. I also don't have $300 to spare to test that Illustrate program.
Esoteric, that's just getting way too much to get a simple contour to go and use/learn Google sketch up. Thanks for the idea however. Camera found out did have an orthographic checkbox, so I can use the ink/paint shader. But the UV render is going to give me the most exact output since it will just be lines and vector based versus an image like ink/paint would.