> Hand-drawn 2D animations often have watercolour backgrounds. Can we convincingly render 3D scenery as a watercolour painting? How can we smoothly animate things like brush-strokes and paper texture in screen space?
There are various techniques to do this. The most prominent one IMO is from the folks at Blender [0] using geometry nodes. A Kuwahara filter is also "good enough" for most people.
> When dealing with a stylised 3D renderer, what would the ideal "mesh editor" and "scenery editor" programs look like? Do those assets need to have a physically-correct 3D surface and 3D armature, or could they be defined in a more vague, abstract way?
Haven't used anything else but Blender + Rigify + shape keys + some driver magic is more than sufficient for my needs. Texturing in Blender is annoying but tolerable as a hobbyist. For more NPR control, maybe DillonGoo Studio's fork would be better [1]
> Would it be possible to render retro pixel art from a simple 3D model? If so, could we use this to make a procedurally-generated 2D game?
I've done it before by rending my animations/models at a low resolution and calling it a day. Results are decent but takes some trial and error. IIRC, some folks have put in more legwork with fancy post-processing to eliminate things like pixel flickering but can't find any links right now.
[0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljjUoup2uTw
[1]: https://www.dillongoostudios.com/gooengine
There are various techniques to do this. The most prominent one IMO is from the folks at Blender [0] using geometry nodes. A Kuwahara filter is also "good enough" for most people.
> When dealing with a stylised 3D renderer, what would the ideal "mesh editor" and "scenery editor" programs look like? Do those assets need to have a physically-correct 3D surface and 3D armature, or could they be defined in a more vague, abstract way?
Haven't used anything else but Blender + Rigify + shape keys + some driver magic is more than sufficient for my needs. Texturing in Blender is annoying but tolerable as a hobbyist. For more NPR control, maybe DillonGoo Studio's fork would be better [1]
> Would it be possible to render retro pixel art from a simple 3D model? If so, could we use this to make a procedurally-generated 2D game?
I've done it before by rending my animations/models at a low resolution and calling it a day. Results are decent but takes some trial and error. IIRC, some folks have put in more legwork with fancy post-processing to eliminate things like pixel flickering but can't find any links right now.
[0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljjUoup2uTw
[1]: https://www.dillongoostudios.com/gooengine