I’m not exactly sure, where to put this question, but I guess it might not be too wrong in the beginner’s section…
I’m currently working on a smallish animation project, that is mainly intended for demonstration purposes. It is based on rendered frames (CGI), but to make the look seem more organic I would like to introduce some hand-drawn quality using Krita. Now, I’m wondering…
Is there a suggested method for (semi-)automatically re-creating the renderings in a hand-drawn style? I imagine, this could, e.g., mean putting a photograph on the bottom layer and using a specific brush on an empty layer above. Now, I’m aware of the smudge brushes to blur and blend, but these need way too much effort for this specific project. I’m rather looking for a kind of brush that automatically picks up the color from the the layers below and somehow transforms it, gives it some texture and style…
Note that I’m not necessarily looking for a fully automated filter that makes a photograph look like a painting. (I know, there are quite a few, but I usually find the results cheesy and unconvincing.)
I wasn’t aware that Corel Painter offers a feature like that. So, I looked it up and found something that the product marketing managers of Corel like to call “Auto Painting”. Is this what you meant? If so, I fully agree: This doesn’t look realistic, at all.
Actually, I’m not even looking for a fully automated mechanism like that. I would simply like to automatically pick up the color of the underlying layers while manually painting with a brush… a bit like tracing over a reference image, but without having to constantly switch layers and manually pick up colors again and again.
Or maybe I should ask a more general question: How would you approach tracing over reference images in Krita? Or is that not something that is done?
There is a setting in the brush configuration window (F5, I belive) that lets you do that, it’s one of those options in the left that does not have a chechbox by its side. Unfortunately I don’t remember the name, but that is a thing! You’ll have to activate it for every brush you use, though.
Edit - Wrong. It’s called ‘Overlay Mode’ and it is one of the checkbox options.
I would probably start by degrading the source reference with a GMIC filter. The Kuwahara in Artistic does a good job at sketching the large color mass. Then you can add details on the top with expressive brush strokes (or even easier: make another layer with Kuwahara more detailed on top and use brushes to reveal details of this layer here and there.) Here is an example I made:
Damn, I haven’t implemented Sample Color Labeled Layers for color picker yet, have I
That’s something implemented for various selection tools and I want it to be in the color picker too. Then you could add a color label to the reference layer and with specific options, you would be able to use your color picker and it instead of picking from the current layer, it would pick from the that labeled layer (reference layer).
Thanks to all of you for the tips and suggestions. Much appreciated.
@F035: Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to locate the brush option that you mentioned. Or are you talking about the Overlay blending mode? If that’s what you meant… nice idea, actually. But it doesn’t really pick up a color from beneath. Rather, it increases the contrast of the colors below, depending on the current brush color. That’s not exactly, what I’m looking for. But I might be mistaken and you are talking about something else…?
@Deevad: The example looks really great! If I’m understanding you correctly, you are suggesting to use some artistic filter twice on different layers (thanks for suggesting Kuwahara, I hadn’t known that one) and then to paint on a transparency mask using some brush…? Actually, that’s a good and simple idea, but it also means that I’m not really painting over the reference image - I’m just revealing, what the filter has painted.
@tiar: Ah, yes, that definitely sounds like a feature that would help a lot. How would that work in practice? Would I have to manually sample using the CTRL key (when the brush is active)?
And as to those RGBA brushes… I just looked these up - and, indeed, this looks like an awesome feature in itself. Are you suggesting to use these RGBA brushes on a transparency mask?
@raghukamath: Nice suggestion. As I see it, that would be exactly what would make exact tracing possible. So, in my opinion, that would be a welcome feature for the other brush engines, as well.
(As a side note: The German translation for the option “Sample Input Layer” is pretty funny, but actually totally incorrect, as it basically means “Input Layer Example”. So, someone might want to look into changing that. )
I’m not sure but it could be that overlay mode is not available for all brush engines. I know the smudge engine has it since the point of the mode is to take all layers into account when determining color mixing while smudging and dulling.
Ah, thanks for clarifying that. From a conceptual viewpoint it makes sense, of course, that the overlay mode is only available for the smudge engine. But that also means that we are limited to just smearing the present colors, instead of being able to draw over them.
I’m wondering, if it would make sense to create a feature request to make the overlay mode available to the other brush engines, as well? Or is there a good (technical or conceptual) reason, why it’s done that way?
Pixel engine simply doesn’t need it because all it does is adding collor on top. Smudge engine on the other hand needs the extra color info of other layers to mix colors correctly when simulating the smudge effect so it at least looks like it is smudging the other layers too. You can probably make a smudge brush with basically no smudging or dulling.
Sure, the pixel engine only adds color on top, but the color to draw with has to be selected from somewhere. And I’m wondering, if it wouldn’t make sense to allow the pixel engines to sample the colors from underneath instead of having to manually pre-select them. (My original question, i.e. tracing over reference images, would be one use case.)
Anyway, I’ll try to play around with the smudge engine… would really love to achieve some more natural look… like with bristle brushes or oil… not sure, if that can be done using the smudge engine.
If somebody is interested in photopainting, Krita offers a wide range of possibilities. For example, here i have used 3 different brushes to show how we can use a layer input and distort the content.
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