NPR – that stands for NON PHOTOREALISTIC RENDERING. in my earlier post from april 29, 2011 I explained that I want to work with some of my student here in singapore in that direction. I can see unlimited artistic looks in animation, way more interesting than just using CG as it is used in most animations today. even overrendered realistic versions of environments can be turned into phantastic, real artistic phantasy worlds. imagine a VAN GOGH similar oil-painted cornfield that moves in the wind, or rough pencil-sketches of people rushing through streets, all that with a constant moving camera.
some similar experimental feature films have been done a few years ago – WAKING LIFE 2001 and A SCANNER DARKLY 2006. the difference to these films is that they were rotoscoped using a special software, that still kept a pretty realistic and live-action-like look, but definetely not artistic. I guess nobody so far was willing to invest into something more ‘ART’-related, afraid there would not be an audience. maybe. but – there are still a lot of people who stand in line to get into museums, art-exhibitions and galleries.
the artwork below started as photographs. I changed them using different software, in some of them a combination of up to 3 softwares. all the presets that I modified can be used not just on one picture like what you see here, but as well on the thousands of single frames of a preproduced live-action, CG-animation or a combination. of course it is possible to add on top of it all traditional drawn animation or background-elements.
my name is hans bacher, – I work as production designer in the animation film industry. for the last 45 years I lived and worked in exciting places around the world. after 7 years of teaching in singapore I am back at my homebase in manila, working on a few more books.
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It would be great to see how these hold up temporally. I like that you’ve kept the search so diverse.
There’s an amazing short film that I’m sure you’re probably aware of by a Russian artist, using only oils on glass, and he animated it by shifting the paint around manually with his fingers. Its fascinating stuff!
there’s part 2 on youtube, and a making of video. Fascinating. Purely amazing.
from hans –
alexander petrov, yes – I know all his other films too. but his technique has nothing to do with NPR. he is using some live action reference the way a lot of other animators use it for inspiration.
Hi Hans, wonder if you could share a bit more time with us on a brief introduction of these NPR approaches, how do you achieve these, are they some photoshop filters or other private technology?
from hans –
send me an e-mail
i would also like to know how you achieved those effects. I am a character artist for games and i see great potential in using this kind of artistic direction on real time graphics.
from hans –
then send me an e-mail