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INTEREST: New Inking Technology from Waseda University Makes Line Art Easy


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switchgear1131



Joined: 14 Mar 2013
Posts: 219
PostPosted: Sat May 07, 2016 3:24 pm Reply with quote
Or you can not be lazy and line your own sketches like a real artist would.
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Blanchimont



Joined: 25 Feb 2012
Posts: 3567
Location: Finland
PostPosted: Sat May 07, 2016 4:05 pm Reply with quote
switchgear1131 wrote:
Or you can not be lazy and line your own sketches like a real artist would.

Actually, real artists probably are the target group. A busy mangaka with tight schedule and no assistants would no doubt see the appeal of time saved...
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nargun



Joined: 29 Mar 2006
Posts: 930
PostPosted: Sat May 07, 2016 4:25 pm Reply with quote
switchgear1131 wrote:
Or you can not be lazy and line your own sketches like a real artist would.


There's no inherent merit in work, you know. I mean, the whole idea of "printing" rather than drawing each copy yourself individually is nothing but a labour-saving technological improvement that will Destroy Art.
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Fallen Wings



Joined: 27 Nov 2007
Posts: 160
Location: Australia
PostPosted: Sat May 07, 2016 4:40 pm Reply with quote
Oh wow! This could really help save my arse on my comic pages if programs take this on. Love SIGGRAPH.

I'm actually uber shocked that ANN are even covering it - and don't stop please! This is exactly the type of interest stories I like. I mean, it's all well and good when a limited edition something is made in Japan, but this actually can directly affect people everywhere.

So cool!
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MarshalBanana



Joined: 31 Aug 2014
Posts: 5512
PostPosted: Sat May 07, 2016 4:56 pm Reply with quote
switchgear1131 wrote:
Or you can not be lazy and line your own sketches like a real artist would.
As a tutor at my University once told me "All artists have their own shortcuts"
This isn't fine art, where you spend however long you want on it. Industry art has to be done fast and be of high quality, all real artists use whatever tools that help them archive this. there isn't even any downside, and since they've already drawn the picture, it's not even lazy, why should they basically redraw the image when the quality will be just the same.
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Eigengrau



Joined: 09 May 2015
Posts: 107
Location: Belgium
PostPosted: Sat May 07, 2016 4:58 pm Reply with quote
The problem I see is that the sketches shown in the examples in and of themselves look already pretty finished, without mistakes, guidelines, or underlying rough drafts, quite unlike how many artists' sketches actually look like. Inking for me is often a process of eeking out a correct figure out of a tangle of pencil lines, and I honestly don't see any type of software handling that.
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Usagi-kun



Joined: 03 Jul 2013
Posts: 877
Location: Nashville, TN
PostPosted: Sat May 07, 2016 5:10 pm Reply with quote
Neat! Is this going to be commercially available, or a kind of engineering software adapted for publishers, schools, and studios? You can bet Adobe will be scrambling to catch up. We might just be witnessing a revolutionary moment, for better or worse.
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Mr. Oshawott



Joined: 12 Mar 2012
Posts: 6773
PostPosted: Sat May 07, 2016 7:49 pm Reply with quote
Considering the very-finite nature of manga and animation artistry in the case of time, this new technology of inking could have a huge positive impact on animators... Smile
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Ashen Phoenix



Joined: 21 Jun 2006
Posts: 2946
PostPosted: Sat May 07, 2016 9:10 pm Reply with quote
Fallen Wings wrote:
Oh wow! This could really help save my arse on my comic pages if programs take this on. Love SIGGRAPH.

I'm actually uber shocked that ANN are even covering it - and don't stop please! This is exactly the type of interest stories I like. I mean, it's all well and good when a limited edition something is made in Japan, but this actually can directly affect people everywhere.

So cool!

Agreed. This is a fantastic article and a super cool technology to learn about! I'd love a program like this to help convert my pencil sketches into line arts.
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lys
Encyclopedia Editor


Joined: 24 Jun 2004
Posts: 1017
Location: mitten-state
PostPosted: Sat May 07, 2016 10:00 pm Reply with quote
Eigengrau wrote:
The problem I see is that the sketches shown in the examples in and of themselves look already pretty finished, without mistakes, guidelines, or underlying rough drafts, quite unlike how many artists' sketches actually look like. Inking for me is often a process of eeking out a correct figure out of a tangle of pencil lines, and I honestly don't see any type of software handling that.

And the "inked" results still don't look as good as what I'd expect to see in a finished manga, with odd unevenness and lines that just kind of stop rather than tapering to a graceful end. Example (e) Standing Girl has a lot of detail and darker areas in the sketch (similar to how my sketches often look) and the inked results are kind of blobby and weird. Maybe that one was going from a low resolution input, I dunno.

It's pretty cool to see what technology can do (I too enjoyed seeing this article on ANN!), and this does improve on the other tracing programs it's compared to, but I'd be surprised if professionals start using it. Maybe as a first step, that could be amended with finishing details?

I'm curious about the photo colourization process too! Gonna go read about that now :)
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Afezeria



Joined: 20 Aug 2015
Posts: 817
Location: Malaysia, Kuantan.
PostPosted: Sun May 08, 2016 3:55 am Reply with quote
switchgear1131 wrote:
Or you can not be lazy and line your own sketches like a real artist would.
Why can't these artist have their burden be alleviated a bit? Also, why there's need to be a term such as real artist or not? In the end, they are doing something at least.
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ParkerALx



Joined: 09 Apr 2014
Posts: 194
PostPosted: Sun May 08, 2016 4:00 am Reply with quote
As a hobbyist artist learning to ink, I'm not impressed by the results here. The final linework lacks the, for lack of a better word, personality of an authentic inked drawing. They just don't jump out to me as visually pleasing.

If you must skip the inking step, you're better off darkening and refining your pencil drawings in Photoshop, rather than letting a weird algorithm retool them

Of course, wanting to save time is always appealing. I definitely understand that. But more work will always lead to better results. Optimum efficiency is more important when it comes to most manufactured goods these days, but I wouldn't lump manga in with them just yet.
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SageModeKakarot



Joined: 15 Dec 2014
Posts: 302
PostPosted: Sun May 08, 2016 4:30 am Reply with quote
you know looks like it could be a pretty good application for artists who have a lot to do but not much time

when i ink my art though i prefer to do it by hand but that's just me
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AnimeLordLuis



Joined: 27 Jan 2015
Posts: 1626
Location: The Borderlands of Pandora
PostPosted: Sun May 08, 2016 6:39 am Reply with quote
That sure as hell is impressive and is clearly much better than any other pre existing method, this new technology could very well indeed be the future. Very Happy
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vanfanel



Joined: 26 Dec 2008
Posts: 1261
PostPosted: Sun May 08, 2016 7:50 am Reply with quote
Fallen Wings wrote:
I'm actually uber shocked that ANN are even covering it - and don't stop please! This is exactly the type of interest stories I like. I mean, it's all well and good when a limited edition something is made in Japan, but this actually can directly affect people everywhere.


Thirded. This is the kind of story I'd like to see more of. Your writers might want to have a look at Freestyle development in Blender3D, btw. It's an open-source project for generating lines out of 3D models, and is free for anyone to use now.

For those saying programs like the Waseda one will Kill Art, I don't think it will. It would be lazy to just take whatever this program gives you as your final result, but I think most serious artists will tweak the output themselves before calling it finished. This is best used as a tool to get them *close* to their final result faster.
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