Real-time watercolor rendering of 3D objects and animation with enhanced control

Abstract

First, I would like to acknowledge everyone whom I have had the pleasure to share quality time with. Without every single contribution that each one of you has made, I would probably not be writing this. I would like to thank both of my supervisors, Prof. Seah Hock Soon and Assoc. Prof. Hans-Martin Rall for their support and guidance. An immense gratitude goes also to my mentor, Asst. Prof. Davide Benvenuti, for insisting on bringing me back to Singapore. Without him, I would probably be freezing in a Nordic country doing something completely unrelated to what I am doing now. I was lucky to count on the support from all three of you, motivating me and giving me the liberty to do exactly what I have always wanted to do. My endless gratitude goes to my 'adoptive' French supervisors Joëlle Thollot, Pierre Bénard and Romain Vergne. I have looked up to you since I started this endeavour and it has been a true pleasure and an unreal learning experience working together with you. I would like to also thank my partners-in-research, Amir Semmo and Alexandre Blerón, whom I have learned a lot from. A special thanks goes to Henriette Peter, for her invaluable company, support, encouragement and care. Without her affection, I would probably be in a very different place right now. To my family, I literally owe you my life. You have molded my personality and removed all boundaries for me to make it this far. Thank you very much for your limitless support and love. I would also like to express my gratitude to the Singapore International Graduate Award (SINGA), the Interdisciplinary Graduate School (IGS) at the Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore, the Multi-pAtform Game Innovation Centre (MAGIC) and the Maverick team at Inria Grenoble Rhône-Alpes for supporting me financially and academically during my studies.

Non-photorealistic rendering of twentieth-century cartoonists' expressiveness in 3D real-time

“…Nevertheless, using terms such as "stylized rendering" or "expressive rendering", in their opinion, is not appropriate either. Montesdeoca (2018) makes a clear distinction between "expressive rendering" and "non-photorealistic rendering." He refers to expressive rendering as "a complex and extensive field which not only deals with the aesthetic of each style but also its interactivity and art-direction.…”

“…For example, Blender's Grease Pencil technology enables artists to draw 2D directly on the 3D viewport, which was used in the French animated film, J'ai perdu mon corps (2019), the winner of crystal for a feature film at the Annecy festival in 2019; One Small Step (2018) by Taiko Animation Studios achieved the illustrative style with flat shading, multiple lighting passes, shadow masks, contour rendering and rotoscoping. The NPR techniques were also widely utilised in the Japanese anime style due to the demand of the Asian market for hand-drawn style (Montesdeoca, 2018). Inspired by these productions, Montesdeoca (2018) implemented art-directable watercolour techniques in Autodesk Maya with real-time rendering, which has also been developed as a commercial product, MNPRX by Artineering (figure 2.2).…”

“…This research focuses more on enabling user interaction in a 3D real-time environment with a traditional graphical pipeline. Similar real-time tools have been developed for rendering 3D objects in a wide range of watercolour styles (Montesdeoca, 2018).…”