Distressed Etch

RenderMan Stylized Looks Presets | Distressed Etch

This style evokes the look of an aged etching print, its weathered lines hinting at untold stories and forgotten moments. It features a textured quality, perhaps broken or interrupted in places, creating a sense of mystery and a touch of melancholy.

The Distressed Etch is largely similar to the Etch Lines. In-fact Etch lines forms the basis of this look. There are subtle differences though. First there is the use of a PxrStylizedToon, the role of this filter is to provide a much harsher stepped shadow than the diffuse channel. Second the first Hatching Etch layer is drawn over a Canvas. You can see the dramatic effect a canvas can have on a look. As the texture used can also play a contributing role into the signal levels.

1. Scene Setup

A 3D wireframe model of a teapot on a circular stand, viewed from above in a digital design workspace.

The scene setup is composed of a single light source with basic material applied for each object.

2. Material Setup

The PxrManifold arrangement along with the two fractal nodes is the standard setup for all of my stylized shading looks. And they are the standard for all of the artistic presets in this pack. I might add additional nodes such as the bump map to control the PxrStylizedToon output and various fractal or worley nodes to control the line width and line masking depending on the desired look.

For Maya I have created scripts that either plug a PxrManifold2D into an existing PxrStylizedControl or allows me to call out the attribute of PxrStylizedControl or PxrManifold2D from an object as I tweak those controls constantly while developing the looks. You can download these scripts from this github repo.

The color palette for this look is uniform and is a light beige in color.

The shading network is controlled from the PxrStylizedControl node with:

PxrManifold2D as I’ll be driving the mapping of the brushes using the surface UV, and also to fine tune the the frequency of the hatching for individual objects.
A PxrTexture is plugged into the link thickness and the link mask (the invert of texture). The texture itself is a single brush from the Etch pack. This gives a better look than a fractal for instance as the lines will have an etch effect.

3. AOVs and LPEs

There are no additional AOVs or LPEs other than the default Stylized Looks AOVs.

4. Stylized Layers

The color palette for this style is Beige. So all surface materials share the same color without any difference in value or saturation.

To achieve the distressed Etching look the display filters are composed of the following categories layered in order:

1x PxrStylizedToon filter to produce the desired toon stepping AOV. It will be used as a signal for specific hatching filters downstream.
2x PxrStylizedHatching filters produce describe the etching look
2x PxrStylizedLines filters to produce the desired line-work

These layers are showcased and described below: