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It's Not Rocket Science! by George Peter Gatsis – Bringing 3D And 2D Together.

George Peter Gatsis writes for Bleeding Cool;

Greetings everyone. This is one of my characters, Joe King… No seriously… and don't call him Sheryl.

It's Not Rocket Science! by George Peter Gatsis – Bringing 3D And 2D Together.

Joe is hanging around a tropical planet that's pretending to be a sun.
( Long story short: the universe is overrun with monsters that eat planets. So the planets disguised themselves as suns. Think of a spicy, peppery pizza… with just spicy peppers and no water in sight… yummy. )

It's Not Rocket Science! by George Peter Gatsis – Bringing 3D And 2D Together.

These are Joe's friends in a spaceship… in 3D space.
( trust me they are in there… they just happen to be playing poker at this time. )

It's Not Rocket Science! by George Peter Gatsis – Bringing 3D And 2D Together.

There are wonderful 3D programs out there like MAYA and 3D Studio MAX, which are purchasable items…
and Google SketchUp and my new hero on the block… Blender… which are FREE!

Oops!! Forgot to turn off the wireframe.

It's Not Rocket Science! by George Peter Gatsis – Bringing 3D And 2D Together.

There that's better.

If Joe and his friends would come together right now, it wouldn't be a good thing.
Reality would collapse! The universe will explode! All existence will vanish… or worse.
They just don't look like they belong together.

It's Not Rocket Science! by George Peter Gatsis – Bringing 3D And 2D Together.

So what in the name of William Shanter do we do? Is there a transporter that can take apart the very fabric of the two different realities and bring them together?

Why, yes Lois… there is.

It's Not Rocket Science! by George Peter Gatsis – Bringing 3D And 2D Together.

We have to render the 3D artwork with a POSTERIZING effect.
All the 3D programs out there now are quite a bit in common with each other…
For one thing… they all open and save files.
Another is that they can change up the gradation of the colors of light and shadow to simplified TOON.

Wait WHAT!!? That's crazy! Why would you simplify an awesome rendering of a spaceship? You'll loose all that wonderful detail and look and stuff!

Ah… but we are going to simplify it AND keep all the detail.

That's impossible! I still think you are crazy.

It's not crazy for the Manga or Anime stuff that we all love right from birth.

It's Not Rocket Science! by George Peter Gatsis – Bringing 3D And 2D Together.

What we have here is the POSTERIZING effect applied to the 3D geometry… or TOONED rendering ( with an ALPHA MASK )…

It's Not Rocket Science! by George Peter Gatsis – Bringing 3D And 2D Together.

It's Not Rocket Science! by George Peter Gatsis – Bringing 3D And 2D Together.

That's nice… but where are the black lines that hold this reality together… and thereby bringing Joe and his friends together?

We must render another file ( with an ALPHA MASK )… a if-you-will… a 60s era love, peace and all that jazzy stuff kinda file!

It's Not Rocket Science! by George Peter Gatsis – Bringing 3D And 2D Together.

Here we have a second render with all the different geometry given a distinctly different color.
Almost all the colors in the different geometry don't overlap on each other… THIS IS IMPORTANT.

It's Not Rocket Science! by George Peter Gatsis – Bringing 3D And 2D Together.

We are going to combine these two different dimensions of color files to create the blacklines that hold the artwork together and re-unite Joe and his friends.

We start off by bringing both renders into Photoshop… and layering one on top of the other.

WAIT WHY PHOTOSHOP!?? Why not some other program? And how can I get out of this chicken army?

Secure that chicken Hudson! You can use another image editing program… But for this demo… we are doing it in Photoshop.

In photoshop there is a wonderful filter called FIND EDGES.

It's Not Rocket Science! by George Peter Gatsis – Bringing 3D And 2D Together.

Once you engage this filter on an unsuspecting layer all things begin… to be glorious!

It's Not Rocket Science! by George Peter Gatsis – Bringing 3D And 2D Together.

It's Not Rocket Science! by George Peter Gatsis – Bringing 3D And 2D Together.

That's okay… I think I see where you are going with this…

It's Not Rocket Science! by George Peter Gatsis – Bringing 3D And 2D Together.

We adjust the levels of the artwork to make everything that is not white… BLACK! ( dramatic drum noise: dum, dum, dum, duuummmm! )

Yes, but there are lines that don't connect around the ship. What do we do oh great and powerful gaa-zoo!!!

This is where we use the selection of the ALPHA MASK and put a stroke around the ship.

It's Not Rocket Science! by George Peter Gatsis – Bringing 3D And 2D Together.

 

 

 

 

 

Then we merge the black line artwork with the posterized rendering.

It's Not Rocket Science! by George Peter Gatsis – Bringing 3D And 2D Together.

But the lines don't all connect! What do we do?

It's Not Rocket Science! by George Peter Gatsis – Bringing 3D And 2D Together.

Simple, just touch up the little bits of area with a simple brush stroke… and THERE YOU ARE!!!

Joe's friends have just made the transition from 3D space to 2D space… and nobody spilled their hot beverages in the process.

It's Not Rocket Science! by George Peter Gatsis – Bringing 3D And 2D Together.

That's nice… Hanging out in negative space looks okay… but where is the planet disguised as a sun?

It's Not Rocket Science! by George Peter Gatsis – Bringing 3D And 2D Together.

Oops… here it is.

It's Not Rocket Science! by George Peter Gatsis – Bringing 3D And 2D Together.

And here is all three of them in the same reality… THE UNIVERSE IS SAVED!

Brought to you by, the number 7, the letter U and a generous helping of spicy pizza!

Sincerely,

Sincerely,

George Peter Gatsis


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Rich JohnstonAbout Rich Johnston

Founder of Bleeding Cool. The longest-serving digital news reporter in the world, since 1992. Author of The Flying Friar, Holed Up, The Avengefuls, Doctor Who: Room With A Deja Vu, The Many Murders Of Miss Cranbourne, Chase Variant. Lives in South-West London, works from Blacks on Dean Street, shops at Piranha Comics. Father of two. Political cartoonist.
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