Cartoon "Gypsy": Let there be color!

Well, it's time to put an end to the work with the three-dimensional image of our main character. Almost everything is ready: there is a model, texture and even animation. The final touches remained: shading, visualization and compositing. We decided to combine the description of these 3 stages into one article, since they are very closely related to each other.


For reference:
A shader is a way of describing surface properties such as reflection, refraction, shading, surface displacement, absorption or reflection of light, etc. Accordingly, shading is the process of compiling shaders.
Visualization or rendering is the process of obtaining a flat image from a 3D scene using special algorithms that process three-dimensional objects, taking into account the properties of the shaders assigned to them.
Compositing is an image processing process in 2D editors such as Photoshop or Digital Fusion.


Preparing the scene for visualization begins with setting the light sources in the 3D scene and setting their properties. It is necessary to make sure that the light of our hero lies as realistic as possible. Despite the fact that we are doing a cartoon, we should not forget about the basic laws of physics. For example, our character is illuminated on the left, which means that the shadow should fall from left to right. If it is in a white room, it should be highlighted from different sides and the shadows, respectively, should not be completely black, but much lighter and a little more blurry. Lighting is one of the main ways to give an image depth. With it, you can easily separate the main and minor objects in the scene, emphasize (or vice versa) to hide the outlines of the character.


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After the correct setting of the light, the shading stage begins. It is very important that the viewer could easily guess from what material what has been done: if the hat or boots are leather, then they should glare, and the texture should be exactly like that of the skin. But the pants, made of fabric, should not glare at all. Any surface in nature is not uniform, whether it is fabric or porcelain: in almost any seemingly absolutely smooth object, there are tiny scratches, pimples or vycherbliny barely visible to the eye. We must take this property into account when creating shaders. To create the effect of naturalness, so-called displacement maps are used. Roughly speaking, this is a black-and-white picture superimposed on a model in a special way: the lighter areas of this picture are squeezed out, while the black ones remain where they were. Such cards can be obtained using specialized software such as Z-brush or Mudbox.
Thus, a 3D artist, exposing various lighting schemes and selecting the most profitable and realistic shaders, animates a three-dimensional character.
In the work on Gojo, we had the opportunity to experiment from the heart and with light, and with the texture of leather and clothing. As a result, the felt hat turned into a leather hat, and the shirt almost became silk.

Having dealt with visualization, we proceed to the final stage: working with the finished image - compositing. At this stage, compositing consists of flattening the layers resulting from rendering. After rendering the 3D package, not only the final image, but also the set of images that make it up, comes out. The result is something similar to the application: separate shadows, highlights, shadows, diffused and reflected light, etc.
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Having these components available, the so-called passes, the artist can adjust the saturation and brightness of glare, color and depth of the subsurface scattering as he needs without spending time on additional recalculation of the image from the 3D package. But we will tell about this stage separately. Be patient :)
The site of the cartoon "Gypsy"