quote:
Original post by a person
actually, npr techniques are ussually more difficult because you are basing them on a surreal enviroment thus require artistry to do correctly. furthermore, since the real world is already defined pretty celarly and what many gamers unfrotunatly are looking for, video cards are optimized for "realistic" shading and effects. cell shading is more intensive to the card then doing normal "realsitic" shading. things like pnecil skecth style require even more horsepower. the farther you go from the traditional render techniques the more the video card and cpu will work.
In some cases NPR techniques (like pencil sketch) are more difficult than photorealistic techniques, but cel shading is generally easier to implement (and especially easier on the graphics card) than bumpmapping or stencil shadows. It is a more difficuly technique than just putting a texture on a model and doing some vertex lighting though.
quote:
Original post by a person
it seems easier because you have less to simulate. for instance shadows can be simple, there may be no need of soft shadows in your world. though by the same token, shading the models (with cell shading) may require mulitple textures to handle lighting properly. since you can use the traditional light calculation methods, which modern cards accelerate.
Once again, I was talking about more advanced photorealistic techniques (per-pixel lighting, etc.) Stencil shadows are a multipass technique, bumpmapping requires more than one texture, as do a lot of realistic lighting techniques, even lightmapping. Cel shading doesn't necessarily need any more than a single 1D texture.
quote:
Original post by a person
dont get me wrong, uber realism is difficult as well, but you have more of a fudge factor because the brain while noticing the missing details, will also fill them in. npr techniques ussually rely on this to a further extent and will play with perception in many cases to acheive the look.
trust me, soft shadows is nothing compared to a water color painted world. a pencil sketch world is also mighty difficult. though most npr techniques mimic some form of real world stylized art, thus thankfully have some way of defining them.
now the funny somewaht contradictory statement. this is not to say npr techniques are always more diffiuclt then "realistic" techniques. just that they require more creativity, and you must "fight" with the video card a bit because of what they are designed to render.
I agree with the creativity part, but I wasn't really talking about general npr (which includes pencil sketches, water color, oil painting, etc.), just cel shading (probably the easiest of all NPR techniques.) Generally it's easier on both artists and programmers to make some look cartoony than it is for them to make it look real. Also you can get away with a lot more things if you use a cartoon rendering style. This is true not only in games, but in animation and comic books also.
[edited by - impossible on May 29, 2002 1:13:05 PM]
