Finishing Touch Filter/Plug-in for cartoon animation

[Ben G unguren]

As for noise, the film grain filter will produce better results. You can also use the “Noise HLS” filter (which renders faster), adjusting the hue, saturation, and lightness noise separately — choose the “Grain” type of noise, which will allow you to increase the grain size if you want to. Finally, you need the noise to change from frame to frame; I use a simple expression for the Noise Phase attribute: random(0,2700)

As for the other stuff, it’s pretty hard to give much advice without seeing what your images look like. Basic color correction filters are common, like Levels, Color Balance, Hue/Saturation, etc….

Ben Unguren
Motion Graphics & Editing
http://www.mostlydocumentary.com

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[Tudor “ted” jelescu]

I agree that noise/grain could help and also that it is hard to give blind advice, especially in matters of finishing visual stuff. It depends so much on what your art looks like AND what you want to convey visually. I spent hours in the studio just doing grading tests to figure out what is the right adjustment that helps enhance the story.
So, post some stills or a clip and then you’ll get more input.

Tudor “Ted” Jelescu
Senior VFX Artist

[Anders Sundstedt]

Hi,

Thanks both of you, I did mean Film Grain I got it confused with noise there.

I am rendering out a .mov h264 clip from a scene and will upload to Vimeo and share shortly.

Cheers
Anders

[Anders Sundstedt]

<iframe src='https://reels.creativecow.net/e/14103' width='900' height='506' frameborder='0'></iframe><p><a href='https://reels.creativecow.net/film/scene-3-test'>Scene 3 test</a></p>

[Anders Sundstedt]

https://reels.creativecow.net/film/scene-3-test

[Tudor “ted” jelescu]

Fun- it depends a lot on what feeling you want the piece to have, but my first instinct would be to add grain, a few micro scratches, a slight gate weave and a tiny flicker, make everything look more film like.Before applying all the above I would try a Channel Blur to soften a bit the look.

Tudor “Ted” Jelescu
Senior VFX Artist

[Walter Soyka]

Tweaking the shading may help you get that little bit extra.

Your shading now is flat — there’s no variation in tone, so the viewer doesn’t feel like there’s a real light in the scene anywhere. The shading certainly doesn’t have to be realistic to be dynamic — even a subtle and stylized stylized glow on one side and shadow on the other will help add a little interest, depth and finish.

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events

[Anders Sundstedt]

Thanks all of you for you help. After a lot of tests I decided that for this animation I didn’t want shadows, mainly because the majority either had black backgrounds or they were far from the background (water or a map). Anyhow, I also wanted the cartoon look more like hand drawn old fashioned cartoons flat on background. Thus I didn’t want to add gradients like is often used on vector animations.

Your tips however will come to use on my future animations!

I will be uploading a demo reel to the demo section, containing clips from this and another animation.

Thanks!