I wanted to know if there was a way to change the line thickness and/or toon bias with expression.

Click to view attachment

When you have a scene with objects in background they render with the same line thickness as the objects in foreground.. The problem with that is the background objects become black spots.

Is there a way to use expressions to make the line thickness and/or toon bias change size the farther away the object is from the camera.

An example line starts at 1 at 5' from camera reduce to .25 at 30' then stay at .25

I have look at the expressions on the camera and found how to get the line thickness and toon bias. But I don't know how to get the distance from the camera.

Any ideas

I believe the distance from the camera can be calculated from knowing the XYZ position of the camera and the object and there's probably a Pythagorean theorem thrown in there too.

X distance^3 * y distance^3 * z distance^3 = distance^3 ??

There won't be a single property that gives distance between two objects.

how about a bone?

Bones have positions too. But a bone in a model probably won't have its World XYZ in its XYZ. (or maybe there's a way to find that?)

I'd put a new Null in the chor and constrain that to the bone and then read the XYZ of the NULL

The camera has the X,Y,X, on it's translates so I can use those.
Now I need need to figer out what I can use for the distance from the camera.
I need sleep

we covered that already



X position of the camera - x position of the object = the distance along the x axis

Like wise for the other axis

then you use the Pythagorean theorem to to find the straight line distance (the hypotenuse).

Correction on the formula

straightline distance^2 = x^2 + y^2 + z^2


I think that's the right one.

Very interesting!
Would be really really great, if you could get that to work!

Would be pretty handy if we could save expressions as separate script files and load them into new projects. A script that changes the width of a toon line based on its distance from the camera would be useful in a wide variety of projects.

Can you copy from the expression editing window and past into a text editor?

Yessir, you can...I do it all the time.

What if you had a bone in your models that, aimed at and scaled to reach the camera. Then use the scale of the bone as the multipler/divisor in the expression. The larger the scale, the smaller the line thickness.

That's thinking!

After going throw some tutorials I have come to the conclusion that I don’t have a clue on how to use the expression to accomplish this....

The problem is the line thickness and bias is one number form. I can change it over time. But changing it within a frame over distance may not be possible.

Unless someone know how to change the thickness and bias numbers into something like a time channel that is based on distance not time or something like that.

This maybe a feature to throw in the AM report. If no one can come up with something I will add it to AM report.

I've already tested using the scale to reach bone and it works, but I need to reverse the direction the line thickness change according to the scale.

There does seem to be something wrong with v16 in regards to creating expressions. I'll have to investigate further.

But In v15 this ca be done. Don't have time to whip up an example rightnow. possibly later, or someone else will chime in.

Can you give a screne shot

Here's an example of the toon lines automaticly adjusting according to the distance from the camera. I was able to reverse the line settings according to the scale.

There is a flaw though, when using multiple instances of the SAME model, the lines reference the first instance. I had to save it as another model. Another issue would be if you have a long object that is far and near, it will only have one line thickness, no perspective to the lines.

Mark,
That is really great. I never would have considered that approach.
Once again I find myself in awe of what others can create with A:M.

Could you make a quick video tutorial on how to set this expresion up?

Great work by the way.

Great job



I had a suspicion that was going to be the case. But at least it works.

Sorry Jason, I don't do video tuts.

After some more testing, and I want to add a pose slider for a variable, I'll post a model that can be imported into your models (if that works).

Just curious, why anti vid tut? Aside from that it takes time and effort, and in the end 12 people will view it and 3 people will really get something out of it.

You asked, I said no, and now I have to explain why I don't want to?

Simple some people just don't like doing them.

Don't worry there is some people on the forum that do very good video tutorial. Maybe one of the can do one after he is done.

BTW, hasn't Holmes already done a tut on expressions in general?

Great stuff, Mark!

Well, I ran into another issue, group priorities. The setup needs a group (all of the geometry) for the expression. This group overrides all the settings in the other groups. This should not be, if a surface property is "NOT SET", it should not override group properties that are set, no matter the hierarchy.

Groups have been an issue in v16. This probably won't be a priority for Steffen, since things have changed for things to work correctly, and his solutions to reports are materials. I'll have to see if that will work, but it will have to wait til tomorrow.

Steffen has ventured into this during v16 and I think he found that a nominal fix broke many other things.

I think the solution is to use a material on the group somehow rather than set the parameters directly in the group. I may be recalling that incompletely.

You must not have kids. Yes you have to explain yourself.

Just kidding.

For such a smart guy you could use a class in social etiquette.

P.S. So could I

Great, now I have to go to classes for social etiquette, what next?

P.S. Who says I'm smart to begin with?

I never made a tut on expressions. I wish I had. I might have a clue about them then...
Looking on the forums for one now.

There is a Tech Talk on Expressions here.

Thanks David.

We can definitely use more tutorials on expressions. For a powerful little feature there not much in the way of tutorials.

I'll see if I can start a thread soon...it's been something I've been thinking about for a few months.

this is a good place to look also lots of info ,expressions samples

http://users.hol.gr/~sogou/animaster/expressions.htm

I almost finished what I started tonight...but I'll have to wait until early Saturday morning to get it finished. I'll post it then.

This solution doesn't use expressions, and it is kind of simplistic, but it seems to work. I think the original issue was that the toon lines on very small or far away objects obscured the models. Here are some settings that minimize that problem.

Thanks , much appreciated!

I've managed to figure out the issue I was having. Using a material was the ticket. I still need to add the pose slider, as a multipler into the expression, for adjustability.

I've created a model to import into any model. Once imported and saved, drop the model into your chor and the toon lines will adjust according to the distance from the camera.

I'll post the import model as soon as I get the slider set and tested.

P.S. There was also talk about automatic bias adjustment. What settings would be needed for closeups or far away?

Yes the Toon Lines bias, that would go from low to high number so background props would render with less lines.

Also color method with it set as percent of underlying color. And change of color would be a bonus

If you can get the line thickness to work. These should not be much of a problem.

P.S. dose this work with object that reach from foreground to background?

No

Consider that toonlines that have perspective don't really exist in regular cartoons, either.

Bumper since I have a lot of scene with thing like streets, alley-way a canal and other things that would need that.

But I have not just been sitting idly by I have cooked up two reports for AM reports

One will be to set up the line thickness like the fog control. Which has a two set point control.

The second is a distance control module/program that would allow you to set up to ten point or more over a distance something like the time line but with a set number of points. This second part should be able to be added to a lot more then just the line thickness. Thing like all of the above, fog an a lot of other items that I have not thought of.


To some degree they do that on some cartoon and animes.
This shot is not an idea example but it shows it some what.
Click to view attachment

I remember hearing an interview with the animation team for this show. They said they had similar problems with the outlines.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9ydrIMnwZY

Here's the import model. I did not add anything for the bias.

Open your model in A:M. Right click on your models name and choose import>model. Import the "toon_lines_import" model and save your model to a new name. Drag and drop your model into a new chor. In the models user properties, there is a pose slider to adjust the overall line thickness to your liking (save settings). Then in the chor, position your model where you like and the toon lines will adjust according to the distance from the camera.

Note: Multiple instances of the same model will need to be saved as new models. Camera in the chor MUST be named to the default "Shortcut to Camera1", in order for the "Aim At" constraint to work.

I was thinking, I may add the camera focal length into the expression. That way, when zooming in and out on a model, the toon lines will adjust thickness as well.

Here's version 2. Toon lines adjust according to the camera's focal length as well.

You have a gift for this sort of thing.