The Maya Non-photorealistic Rendering Framework (MNPR) is a direct 3D stylization framework developed as part of Santiago Montesdeoca’s PhD research in Real-time Watercolor Rendering of 3D Objects and Animation with Enhanced Control. It partially contains and supports the technology found in:
- Art-directed Watercolor Rendered Animation
- Art-directed Watercolor Stylization of 3D Animations in Real-time
- Edge- and substrate-based effects for watercolor stylization
- Direct 3D stylization pipelines
- MNPR: A Framework for Real-Time Expressive Non-Photorealistic Rendering of 3D Computer Graphics
It proposes a direct stylization framework for Expressive Rendering, another common term for Non-Photorealistic Rendering (NPR), directly in the Maya viewport. This makes the system instantly familiar to artists accustomed to the software. The backend is developed using C++ and HLSL/GLSL, whereas the frontend is being handled through Python and MEL.
The prototype framework has been open-sourced under the MIT License and it can be found at GitHub and NTU’s data repository. The professional, customized and actively maintained version MNPRX is based upon this original work.
If you are intending to use MNPR for a project, you should strongly consider using MNPRX, instead. Check the MNPRX release log to view the new available features.
Key Features
- Direct 3D stylization pipeline with real-time feedback in the Maya viewport
- Thoroughly documented code to ease implementation of different styles
- Tool palette to art-direct stylizations at multiple levels of control
- NPR agnostic architecture
- Artist friendly