Anime style background workflow

[defmaka]

Hi guys, long time without posting, but had to focus on learning and stuff.
In the last few weeks I’ve tried to establish a workflow for anime style background starting from blender + freestyle ( used 2.79 , don’t know freestyle status on 2.8 ).
Reference image is jiyu gakuen girls school.
I’ve used blam to get focal length and a composition loosely similar.
In blender I’ve created the buildings ( except for the one on the backgorund on the right, he’s from blend swap by bright on piers https://www.blendswap.com/blends/view/15424 ) and tried to get composition right.
I’ve render a few passes on 4 layers, what I used was:
1-Full layer: all models, with Combined to get aerial prospective with Mist, Depth, Normal to use in PS for ligthing ( at the end i did not use it), Shadow to establish light and mood in PS, AO because AO is king, DIFF dir e diff ind but i did not used it. This layer was rendered in 4k at 50 samples with a single diffuse white material overriding everything. Next time i’ll use emission material on everything with different colors to create a clown render and make selection easier in PS.
2 e 3 layer : alpha masks for foreground and background like @10 samples
4-Freestyle layer: with a slight camera distance on stroke thickness

In compositor I’ve mixed mist + combined to get aerial perspective. Mist pass is usefull as a mask for lens blur in ps later.

I’ve exported all the stuff on PS and started using shadow pass inverted to establish mood , the started overpainting and final fixing.

Kudos to Mclelun for his sites, really priceless stuff.

[vasant]

Really cool stuff. How did you achived the sky? did you paintover ?
and also I would love to see 3d view for the above image.

[defmaka]

Thank you for your feedback. The Sky is a simple paintover: I usually start with a colored soft airbrush to establish color and then with a smudge textured brush I had the cloud shape: in post production phase ( after all the paint over is done ) i use a big soft brush in soft light blend mode to get a bloom effect where I think it would be cool.
As for the images, let me show you a few of the passes i used: I just toned down resolution to 1080 ( i rendered in 4k) for easing the upload.

Full pass: it’s the combined pass with a bit of aerial perspective gained mixing mist pass and coloring

lineart pass: it could be usefull if you want to work directly on the lines, i did not used it.

Shadow pass: it’s super usefull to define where lights will be and to achieve the mood of the scene. It’s one of the first pass I use

Mist pass: when inverted you can use it as a driver for lens distortion in PS.

Normal pass: i usually use the green channel to achieve maybe dust effects, this time i did not use it!

in PS is all matter of selecting parts, defining flat color, adding a bit of textures and painting.

[vasant]

Thank you. So kind of you for showing all the passes.