The product is supplied on 6 CDs in the case of the Reyes Pack and in a zip file in all other download versions. To install the software, please follow these steps:

1. Be sure that your Windows 2000/98 is set to allow additions to the directory containing 3ds max 4. If this is not the case, open the File manager window and change the directory attributes (or tell the system manager to do it).

2. Insert the CD in your CD-ROM drive if you have a hard copy of the product or unzip the file if you have downloaded your software, and then complete the following steps in both cases:

3. Ensure that the 3ds max 4 program is NOT running.

4. Insert the CD (in the case of Reyes Pack) and execute the "setup.exe". You will be asked to type in some information such as user name, etc.

5. The sofware will be installed automatically in your 3ds max 4 directory.

Verify that the plug-in has been installed correctly by launching 3ds max 4 and checking the Current Renderers section of the Rendering/Render menu. Click the button labeled Assign, and there should now be a new renderer called NPR1 Renderer. If this is not the case repeat the installation procedure and check for any error that may occur. If error persists, e-mail us at support@reyes-infografica.com.

Once the installation process has been completed, the first time you open the NPR Renderer, you will be prompted with the license registration request. A dialog will appear showing your 3ds max Hardlock-ID number, and prompting you to enter your full name (valid names should have more than six characters and are case-sensitive) and the authorization code. To get the authorization code follow these instructions:

SEND THE HARDLOCK-ID AND PLUG-IN SERIAL NUMBER WITH YOUR FULL NAME TO REYES INFOGRÁFICA S.L. BY E-MAIL (auth@reyes-infografica.com), OR FAX (+34 915 400 718). WE WILL SUPPLY YOU WITH THE AUTHORIZATION CODE THAT YOU WILL HAVE TO ENTER IN THE LICENSE REGISTRATION REQUEST.

Reyes Infografica is delighted to announce the birth of a new family of Reyes products, its NPR1 render represents the most innovative concept in non-photorealistic render software to date. The field of non-photorealistic renders is an area within 3D currently centering a great deal research. NPR1 Reyes achieves spectacular effects such as cartoon, portrait, etching or oil painting and it does so by focussing on the representational units used to interpret them such as lines, brushstrokes, pencil strokes etc. In other words, NPR1 takes these and links them to information sources, (flow field, Z-buffer, luminance) allowing the user to mix and match the combinations by modifying the available parameters. The results are a myriad of different effects on the render. In this first version we illustrate three of the many effects that can be achieved (cartoon, painterly and hatching). Future versions will open up the possibilities of this versatile approach. This product includes the well-known CartoonReyes render.
Below we take a detailed look at the different parameters and options which make up this first version and their utility.
We hope you have as much fun using NPR1 Reyes as we have enjoyed developing it for you.

Render : The user must enable this parameter to ensure that the NPR effects chosen appear in the render.

Use Canvas Color : When we enable this option, a canvas color determined by the user will be employed rather than the color of the render itself.

Use Cartoon Line : Adds a cartoon line effect once the rendering process is complete. The line parameters will be determined by the CartoonReyes plugin, included in this version of NPR together with its corresponding users manual.

NPR calculates where the brushstrokes should be applied on each object at the start of the animation, so that they will remain as fixed as possible on the object throughout the animation. This way we can avoid particles jumping from one frame to another. If the user does not wish to have this stability with regard to the particles, for instance to imitate the idea that each frame has been hand-drawn again and is therefore not identical to the previous frame. For this reason we have created the following parameters which define a variation in the position of the brushstrokes and allow the user to decide in which frames this must occur.

Seed Count : Number of different seeds used throughout the animation. The default value of 0 indicates that this characteristic will not be used during the animation and therefore we will avoid the change in position of the particles on the object during the animation.

Seed Range : Duration of each seed measured in frames.

To understand this more fully we are going to include a simple application example. For instance, if the user selects Seed Count = 3 and Seed Range = 2, the resulting effect will be the following:

That is to say, in the first two frames the brushstrokes will appear fixed to the object, in frame 3 the brushstrokes will be renewed so that the position of the particles will be altered and the same wil happen in frame 5. Then from frame 7 onwards the particles will return to the same position as in the first frame and so on.

Pick Object : Allows the user to select an object so that he/she can change the properties of the brushstrokes that will cover it. This way we will be able to create and modify the parameters of brush, shape, color, luminance and distance effects etc, such as the layers of paint which we will superimpose on the object to create the desired NPR1 effect.

Close : Closes the NPR1 effects utility.

New Layer : Creates a new NPR effects layer. This layer will be inserted on top of the selected one, so that the NPR effects of this layer are superimposed on the previous ones. The layer should be named so that the process of creating it can be completed.
If the user wishes to modify the default parameters that appear when a new layer is created, they can do so by saving a layer with the name "default.npr" in the layer default directory. This way when new layers are created they will have these parameters.

Edit Layer : Modifies the selected layer. This option will give you access to the Layer Editor.

Delete Layer : Deletes the selected layer.

Rename Layer : Renames the selected layer.

Enable / Disable Layer : Enables / Disables the selected layer. This option allows the user to disable the application of the selected layer so that the NPR effects related to that layer do not appear in the render.

Move Up : Modifies the order in which the layers are applied so that the brush strokes of the selected layer will appear below the previouslayer.

Move Down : Modifies the order in which the layers are applied so that the brush strokes of the selected layer will appear superimposed on the next layer.

Copy Layers to Objects : This option allows us to copy the set of layers of the current object to the other objects in the scene so that these other objects are treated in the same style as the current object, with the same brush, direction etc...

NPR this Object : This parameter enables the application of NPR effects for this object. If it is disabled the object will appear rendered with the default max renderer.

Deformable Mesh : This option permits the brushstrokes to be recalculated if there is a change in the mesh of the object from one frame to another during the animation, so that the brushstrokes adjust to cover the new shape.

The Layer Editor allows us to change the final aspect of the selected object so that we can control the direction, shape, color etc of the final brush strokes thus achieving effects such as that of oil painting, watercolour, hatching etc...

The Layer Editor can be divided into two clearly defined areas: the parameters that affect the morphology of the brush, such as Stroke, Brush Map, Color, L-Fade, Z- Fade, and the parameters that affect the direction of the brush on the object applied according to the mapping coordinates, the Flow Field Editor.

In the top left hand of the editor we can see a 3D viewport which represents the object to which we are going to apply the layer of NPR effects and where we will be able to see the direction of the brush strokes applied. In order to manage the view point we have two options:

Orbit view : in order to rotate the current view of the object which we are treating we must keep the left hand mouse key down and at the same time move it to suit our needs.

Zoom view : If we wish to get closer or further away from the object we are working with we should press down the left and right side of the mouse at the same time and move the mouse vertically.

All the layers have the option to save and load information, so that these parameters can be used at a later stage if needed.

Load Layer : allows us to load the parameters from a layer saved previously. The parameters of the current layer will be lost and replaced by those of the layer loaded from the disk. The format of the layers is .npr and can be found in the directory of default layers.

Save Layer : allows us to save the information of the current layer on disk.

Render Layer : We can use this option to see how the changes carried applied to an object will look. The render will appear in the Flow Field Editor window (bottom left) in the render box.

Apply to Object : Using this option the parameters of the current layer will be applied to the object. It is very important to apply the changes to the object because otherwise the parameters will not be saved and we will lose all the changes made up to that moment.

Stroke Parameters

Size : Indicates the size of the stroke which will be applied to the object, and is relative to the size of the object in question. A size of 1 to 10 is usually fine in most cases.

There are two ways of controlling the number of strokes that will appear on the object we are working with, giving us the possibility of choosing between density of strokes and total number of strokes. One option automatically excludes the other.

Density : With this option the user can choose the density of strokes per object surface. Therefore a high index will mean a greater concentration of strokes and viceversa. To the right of this box we can see an estimate of the number of strokes resulting from the application of the specified density. As an example we can say that a value of 100 will cover the entireobject with strokes and a default value of 50 is usually right in most cases.

Number : Allows us to decide the exact number of brushstrokes that will cover the object. We should keep in mind that a low value will not generate enough brushstrokes to cover the object and an excessively high value will make the render much slower and not possibly not achieve the desired effect.

Random : Random variation of brushstroke size. This parameter can be used to achieve different effects produced by covering the object with different size brushstrokes.

Z - margin: This value indicates the distance between the brushstrokes and the object. On some occasions we will notice that the brushstrokes go through the object because some areas have a high curvature and these brushstrokes produce an undesired effect. By increasing the Z-margin we can avoid this intersection between the object and the brushstrokes.

Direction Parameters

Angle : Defines the direction of the brushstrokes. A value of 90 will produce a rotation of all the strokes of 90 degrees. We shouldn't confuse this parameter with the Flow Field Editor which allows us to define the direction of the strokes on the object and not of the brushstroke itself. This parameter is very useful when trying to achieve a hatching effect, that of a pencil drawing. A simple way of achieving this is to apply different layers each rotated 45 degrees with relation to the previous in order to imitate the pencil strokes.

Random : Random variation of brushstroke size.

Browse: Allows us to choose the shape of the brush with which we will cover the current object. To create our own brush we can use different packages on the market for the creation and retouching of images. Keep in mind that the format of the final brush image must be .tga and that the alpha channel must contain the shape of the brush, such as strokes produced by pencil, felt-tip pen, oil paint, watercolor etc.

When it comes to choosing the color of the brushstroke that will be used to paint the object, we can choose from various options that will determine the final aspect of our "work of art".

Canvas Color : This tool will let us use the color of the texture of the actual object as the color for the brushstrokes. Each brushstroke will take on a different color depending on its position on the object we are going to paint.

Inverse Canvas Color : Will produce the same effect as the previous option, but the color used will be inverse of the object.

Predefined Color : We can also choose a fixed color for all the brushstrokes. This option is often used for hatching when we are trying to achieve a pencil stroke effect or a single color felt-tip pen.

Random HSV : Random variation of the following components: Hue, Saturation, Value and color of the brushstroke.

Alpha : Indicates the transparency of the brushstroke. A value of 0 will make the brushstroke totally transparent so that it will not be visible in the final render.

Random : Random variation of the transparency of the brushstrokes. Each brushstroke will increase or decrease its transparency ramdomly depending on the value assigned to this parameter.

Luminance : Relates the luminance of the color of the object with the transparency of the brushstrokes that will cover it. In the case of hatching for instance, you can choose to have more brushstrokes in the dark areas than in the bright areas.

Luminance Fade In : By using this option we can control the brushstrokes of the dark areas of the scene.

Enable : This parameter will determine whether this luminance effect appears in the render or not.

Luminance Fade Out : By using this option we are able to control the brushstrokes with the greatest luminance in the scene.

Enable : This parameter will determine whether this luminance effect appears in the render or not.

We have the following parameters to thank for being able to achieve different NPR effects depending on the distance between the camera and the object. On certain occasions as in the case of animated objects, we can see that the NPR effect looks correct at a certain distance but when the distance between the object and the camera increases the brushstrokes get smaller and do not maintain their original size. By using the Z-Fade we can enable a layer during a specified distance range from the camera, so that once this range is exceeded the layer is disabled making the brushstrokes totally transparent. If we use this method in an exclusive manner between the different layers of the object we will achieve the final objective which is to make the object resemble a particular NPR style at a specific distance, and a different style when the distance changes, depending on the indications of each individual layer.

Depth Fade Out : In order to use this option we should define the distance range over which the brushstrokes dissappear in the render, that is to say, an initial depth value where the brushstrokes will begin to be transparent and another where they will become totally invisible. To define this range we use the buttons on the left and right of the panel which read the distance from the object to the camera in the current frame.

Enable : This parameter will determine if this distance effect is present in the render.

Depth Fade In : In order to use this option we must define the range of distances over which the brushstrokes will appear in the render, that is to say an initial depth value where the brushstrokes will begin to be visible and another where they will be totally visible. To define this range we use the buttons on the left and right of the panel to read the distance from the object to the camera in the current frame.

For instance if we want the brushstrokes to start disappearing in frame 25 and we want them to be totally invisible in frame 50, we will use Depth Fade Out to achieve this effect. We will position ourselves in frame 25 and we will show the properties of the layer of the object to which we wish to apply the effect. Then once in the thumb index of the Z-Fade (Fade Out) we will use the button on the left to capture the distance from the object to the camera. We will apply the changes with Apply to Object and we will position ourselves in frame 50. Once again we show the properties of the layer and use the button on the right to capture the new distance from the camera to the object.

Enable : This parameter will determine if this distance effect is visible or not in the render.

Flow Field Editor Views

We have a choice of different view points so that we can observe the different phases in the application of the brushstrokes.

Flow Field : Shows a simplified view of the lines that the brushstrokes will follow on the object. In this view is where the line modifiers will be created which will determine the direction of the brushstrokes (Uniform, Point, Source, Segment, Attractor, Vortex). These stroke modifiers will be explained in more detail later.

Stroke Map : Shows the strokes of the brush in a more detailed manner marking the directions the brushstrokes will follow in relation to the stroke modifiers.

Render : Shows the final render of the current object with the applied brushstrokes.

Flow Field Parameters

Show Modifiers : When using the Flow Field view we can show or hide the stroke modifiers by using this option.

Refresh : When we make changes in the Flow Field view we should press this button if we want the changes to be updated in the Stroke Map view and in the 3D object one.

Channel ID : This parameter indicates which object mapping channel is used for the direction of the strokes. In fact the initial direction of the strokes before using the stroke modifiers is determined by the way in which the user has mapped the object, being allowed to choose between the channels of the texture of the given object. A maximum of 4 different mapping channels can be used and these channels will coincide with the first four defined in the object.

X Tile : Allows the direction of the strokes to coincide on the horizontal borders of the stroke map.

Y Tile : Allows the direction of the strokes to coincide on the vertical borders of the stroke map.

Stroke Modifiers

There are various stroke modifiers with which we can change the direction of the brushstrokes on the object to suit our needs. These will be invaluable when we wish to have specific effects on determined areas of the object such as whirlwinds, oblique lines etc...

Uniform : This stroke modifier creates a uniform direction along the whole of the stroke map.

Point : Modifies the direction of the strokes towards the position where this modifier is located.

Source : Produces a deflector effect around the area of influence of this modifier.

Segment : Modifies the direction of the strokes along this segment which is defined by clicking with the left hand button on the mouse on a position and dragging it to another.

Attractor : Produces an attraction effect around the area of influence of this stroke modifier.

Vortex : Creates a spiral effect around the area of influence of this stroke modifier.

Once a stroke modifier has been created we will always have the option to change its properties, delete it or even delete all the modifiers of the stroke from the stroke map:

Select : Selects a stroke modifier in the stroke map. With this option we can edit the parameters of the selected modifier.

Delete : Deletes the selected modifiers.

Reset : Deletes all the modifiers reseting all the parameters of the Flow Field.

In this tutorial we'll go through the very basic concepts you'll need to master theNPR1 Reyes. Although we don't use other max resources extensively, some knowledge of 3DStudioMax is needed to be able to complete the exercise.

The NPR1 is a versatile effects tool, so for this exercise we will use a still life scene and render it as if we where painting on canvas.

1.- To start the tutorial open the scene named "NPRTutorial01.max" that comes with the NPR1 samples.
2.- What you see now are a few apples ( some say that they look more like peaches ) on a cloth. There is a plate as well and a jug of water, but for the time being we will concentrate on the apples.
3.- Select the NPR1 utility in Tools-> More …
4.- Click on Pick Object and select the apple that is not on the plate.
5.- Now you'll see a new window, this will allow you to view all the layers that have been applied to this object, to select them and to edit them. Since we don't have any, none will appear.
6.- Click on New Layer. Name the layer ( "layer1" will do).
7.- Click Edit Layer. Now you should see the layer editing tool. In the 3D viewport you'll see the apple.
8.- Click Render.
9.- An image of the apple with NPR applied should appear. Note however that the appearance needs touching up. This is due to the way in which the brushstrokes were applied.
10.- To modify the way in which the brushstrokes are placed we must edit the Flow Field.
11.- But before we do this, lets first have a look at how they are positioned.
12.- Select Stroke Map in the view list box. Now you can see how the particles are positioned over the object.
13.- Go back to Flow Field.
14.- Now click on the Uniform button and place the gizmo on the Flow Field Editor.
15.- Select Stroke Map.
16.- Now the strokes follow a pattern, let's see how this affects the strokes of the brush.
17.- Click Render.
18.- If you can't see clearly how the strokes are placed on the object you can set the color to a fixed value. To do this go to the Color tab. There you can select a predefined color and set it to whatever color you like, e.g. A shinny yellow. Now click on Render and see how the strokes are more visible. Now go back to the canvas color for the rest of the tutorial, after all yellow apples only exist in wonder land.
19.- In the preview the strokes don't fit the apple shape completely. To improve this edit the Flow Field, click on the Uniform gizmo that we placed before and edit it by left clicking over it and moving the mouse until the field is vertical.
20.- Now click Render. Much better now, right?
21.- Still, we would like to have more strokes so they cover the whole of the surface. To do this we must modify the number of strokes in the stroke tab.
22.- Here we can decide how many brushes we place over the object or work with a density index. The method we use depends on where we are going to use this layer. If we are going to use it in different sized objects we should use density, on the other hand if we don't what to have a huge number of brushstrokes, which will make the render much slower, we should opt for a fixed value.
23.- Since we are going to use this layer only on the apples we can select Number.
24.- Set it to a higher value, let's say 30000, click Render.
25.- Notice how the brush has covered the whole surface now. But the strokes are barely noticeable so we should make them smaller. Set the Size = 3. Click Render.
26.- Now the apple looks fine, click Apply to Object to apply this layer.
27.- Since the rest of the apples are like this one, we don't have to do the same thing to each of them. In the Layer Manager window, there is a button called Copy Properties to Objects. This allows us to copy this layer onto the objects we select. Click on it.
28.- On the list select all the objects called apple and click on Copy to.
29.- Now all the apples have the same NPR effect. To see how it looks hide all the elements of the scene except the apples and click Render

30.- Unhide the rest of the scene now and click Pick object in the NPR Utility. Pick the water jug.
31.- Create a new layer "base layer", and click Edit Layer.
32.- For this object we want a new brush that is a bit firmer not as soft as that used for the apples, the default brush.
33.- Click on the Brush Map tab and select Browse. There click on "crayon2b.tga".
34.- Since the surface of this object is bigger, any pattern forming over the surface will be more noticeable so we can opt for a more ramdom flow field. You can do something similar to picture . It is done with an Attractor and a Uniform Stroke modifier.
35.- Set the Density parameter to 80.
36.- Click Render. As you can see the surface covered is not quite enough, so increase the density a bit and push up the size of the brush to 7.0.
37.- You will notice how some strokes overlap the top edge of the jug. This is due to the sharp border there. To improve this effect we have two options: we can make the strokes smaller, or we can place them a bit further away from the object by modifying the Z-margin parameter.
38.- Since reducing the Stroke Size is not what we are looking for, set the Z-margin to 0.111
39.- Click Render.
40.- Keep on fine tuning until you feel satisfied with the results.
41.- Since the plate is almost hidden and the surface is comparable to that of the jug we can copy the layer of the jug onto it.
42.- Do it by using the Copy Properties to Object button.

43.- Now we will work on the piece of cloth.
44.- Since the border is very sharp and it doesn't have a regular curvature, this object is going to be tricky.
45.- Pick the Object and create a New Layer. Don't forget to check the NPR this Object check box.
46.- There select the soft crayon brush."crayon2b.tga".
47.- Set Density to 100, and create a Uniform Flow Field.
48.- Click Render. Notice how the brushes on the border don't fit properly. To avoid this we must increase the Z Margin value. Set it to 0.1.
49.- Click Render, much better…
50.- To give this piece of cloth a bit more color we can add some noise to the color. To do so go to the Color tab and set the three noise values H S V to 10%. To reduce the dark colors on the border set alpha parameter to 60%, this will make the brushstrokes a bit more transparent.
51.- Click Render. Now the cloth looks good.
52.- Click on Apply to Object to confirm the changes made.

53.- Now let's work with the table base, pick it and create a New Layer.
54.- Don't forget to check the NPR Object check box.
55.- We'll use the same brush as for the piece of cloth, with it we can achieve a blurring effect so we concentrate the attention on the apples.
56.- The Flow Field should be a fairly uniform one, and the strokes should follow the grain of the wood.
57.- As you might have guessed the default density won't work well with this object so you might as well increase it to 90.
58.- Click Render.
59.- Now it looks fine, click Apply to Object.
60.- This was the last object, so we can have a look at the final render with all the elements.
61.- Click the Render Icon. Pretty isn't it?
63.- Now let's look at the whole animation.
64.- Set the Time Output to active time segment in Render Parameters and check the Save File check box.
65.- Click Render. This can take a few minutes so be patient.
66.- On the final render we see something that wasn't visible before, the flickering on the wood. This is due to some brushstrokes overlapping and having almost the same Z value. To make it less sensitive to these changes we should increase the Z margin value of the table to 0.2.
67.- Click Render after doing this and see the difference.
68.- This exercise has covered most of the basic NPR1 parameters and their uses. Practice makes perfect as we all know so the more you play around with this versatile utility the more you'll discover on your journey towards mastering it.

1.- Open the scene called "NPRtutorial02.max".

2.- As you can see we have a scene containing a hat and a walking stick. We are going to study the way in which to get the same effect that an artist would achieve by using a pencil to draw these objects, a hatching effect.

3.- To do this we go to the NPR1 which we can find in the utilities menu in 3DSMax.

4.- We click on NPR1.

5.- To select the walking stick and change its properties, we must click on Pick Object and select the walking stick. The Layer Manager menu will appear where we will be able to manage the layers applied to the objects we are going to treat.

6.- We will create a New Layer and call it "hatching01" for example.

7.- We then click on Edit Layer where we will have access to the brushstroke parameters of this layer.

8.- We are going to create the pencil stroke effect. For this we are going to need the following elements: a brush that simulates a pencil stroke and by using the luminance of the scene we will try to get the dark areas to have more strokes and the bright areas to have less.

9.- We will begin by changing the brush in the BrushMap thumbnail. There we click Browse and look for the brush callled "walkingstick.tga" in the standard BrushMaps directory.

10.- Once we have the correct brush we will look at the color options. We will choose the parameter Predefined Color and select black, the color with which the brush will paint on the object. For the hatching effect we tend to use a predefined color rather than the color of the object, so that we can be sure that the color of our pencil does not change throughout the render.

11.- Now in L-Fade thumbnail (which allows us to define the area where the brush will paint depending on the luminance of the scene) we enable this option leaving the default parameters.

12.-Once all these steps have been completed we go to the Flow Field window and once there we apply a Uniform vector as shown in the image. This can be done by simply pressing the Uniform button and then clicking the Flow Field window (bottom left).

13.-When this is done we must confirm the parameters which we have modified with Apply to object.

14.-Now we only have to click Render to see how our work of art is progressing. The walking stick appears to be a bit too dark, as if we had painted over all its surface in the same way not differentiating between dark and bright areas.

15.-We are going to make some minor adjustments to make the walking stick look just right. We will edit the object once again with NPR1 utility / Pick Object and select the walking stick.

16.- In the Stroke window we are going to modify the default parameters. We will choose 2.5 for size and 200 for object density. Then we need to click Apply to Object as before. By doing this we can make the pencil strokes smaller and ensure that they cover the walking stick increasing the number of brushstrokes with the density parameter.

17.-Now we are going to move onto changing the properties of the hat. We will use the pointilism technique and to do this we will create three clearly differentiated layers.

18.- We create a new layer called "base" and set the following parameters: size = 2 with a random value of 10%, density = 10 and we will use the "hat.tga" brush in Brush Map thumbnail / Browse. In the same way as we did with the walking stick layer we will use a predefined black color and enable the L-Fade / Fade Out effects.

19.- Once these changes have been done we need to confirm these hat parameters with Assign to Object.

20.- The second layer which we will name "half tone" we will follow the same procedure as with the previous one except that we will use an angle of 45 degrees (Stroke Parameters / Angle) and we will set the L-Fade / Fade Out parameter as shown in the picture (this layer is for the midway tones between black and grey for half tone areas).

21.-The third layer will be called "light areas" and we will follow the same pattern as the others except that in this case the angle will be 90 degrees and the Fade Out parameter will be as in the picture (this layer is for the areas between grey and pure white, areas of greater luminance).

22.- The only remaining item now is the ribbon around the hat. In order to paint this we will use the same layer as that used for the walking stick with a few modifications. Firstly we will copy the properties of the walking stick. To do this we select the walking stick with the NPR1 utility. Once we see the Layer Manager for this object, we will be able to click the Copy Layers to Objects option and by selecting the hat ribbon we will copy all the properties of the walking stick onto the ribbon.

23.- Now we select the hat ribbon in the same way and change the name of the layer to "hatching02".

24.- We Edit the Layer and use the "bow.tga" brush, changing the density to 10 and enabling the L-Fade / Fade Out option.

25.- We click Render and voila! we have a hat and walking stick drawn by hand using a pencil.

MAX display drivers

Remember that NPR1 uses DirectX. Some graphics cards do not support both DirectX and OpenGL simultaneously, and in these cases you will need to change your current max driver from OpenGL to Heidi or DirectX in order to avoid conflict when using NPR1 Reyes. All you need to do is to go to the 3dsmax menu bar "Customize/Preferences/.../Viewports" and check to see what is selected as Currently Installed Driver. If you have OpenGL as your active driver switch it to HEIDI or Direct3D as active driver. You will then be asked to reinitialize 3dsmax and you are in business.

Camera Manual Clipping

This trick is used when the final result is not what we expected and brushstrokes which were supposed to be in a background layer end up superimposed on the others. In this case, we need to adjust the clipping planes of the camera so that these adapt fully to the size of the scene (bounding box scene). This way the NPR1 will be more precise in the application of the brushstrokes.

Z-Margin

When the object has many layers we can avoid them mixing by progresively increasing the z-margin value in each of them. Thus we can make sure that each one is drawn at a different distance from the object (different planes). We should remember that the z-margin value must not be modified too abruptly because otherwise we can alter the previously chosen order in the Layer Manager in which we want the layers to be painted.

Reduce Flickering

As in the previous tip, we are going to use the z-margin to prevent flickering effects on objects. If we find flickering effects on the final render of the animation, this is probably due to the fact that the brushstrokes are too close to the object so we must increase the z-margin value a little.

BrushStroke Resolution

This should be a minimum of 64x64 and a maximum of 256x256 for better performance of the NPR effects. Soft brush contours are recomended to reduce the aliasing effects.

We are interested in hearing your comments, criticism and suggestions about NPR and this documentation. Please send us your views, support@reyes-infografica.com.

Idea & Design: Javier Reyes
Research & Development: Francisco Otero, Jesús de Santos, Raquel Moreta, Jesús Huebra, Javier Larrauri, Javier Reyes
Interface Design: Diego García, Javier Reyes
Interface Implementation: César Sánchez
Quality Assurance: Diego García, Julio G.Romón
Written Documentation: Diego García, Milagros Lemos, Miguel Cebrián, Julio G. Romón

Idea & Design: Javier Reyes
Research & Development: Jesús de Santos, Roberto López, Raquel Moreta, Diego García, Francisco Otero, Javier Larrauri
Quality Assurance: Diego García, Julio G.Romón
Written Documentation: Diego García, Milagros Lemos, Miguel Cebrián