3D renders with a rough "concept art-y" style?

September 17, 2014 11:22 AM

I'm trying to find examples of 3D rendered artwork (images, games, videos, etc) that have a rough style to it/resemble concept art, but am coming up short, anyone have examples?

Most of the examples/tutorials for 3D rendered art I've come across seem very smooth/glossy, I'm looking for something that's a bit rougher (in sillhouette and/or in texture) than the usual, but can't seem to find much.

Something with a painterly effect like these digital artist's 2D paintings is what I'm looking for ideally (if you have any other artists that fit this theme, add them to the thread, I always love seeing more 2D examples):
Simon Stalenhag
Shaddy Safadi
Sergey Kolesov

The closest I can find in 3D is this:
Neil MacCormack
But he seems to render in 3D first and THEN paints over the rendering in photoshop. I'd be interested to see if there are examples that don't use photoshop after rendering (Photoshop for textures, etc before the 3D rendering is totally OK).

I don't necessarily need images or videos with tutorials, but if there are that would be awesome.

posted by Chicoreus to Media & Arts (8 answers total)

LOVE, which was an MMO by an independent developer that got some hype a few years ago but never really took off. This isn't much help instructionally but it is a game that renders somewhat the style you want.
posted by vogon_poet at 11:39 AM on September 17, 2014

Pixar has some research in making Painterly CG, looking towards feature-length films.
posted by filthy light thief at 12:04 PM on September 17, 2014

There's a software tool in development called I Love Sketch that allows artists to sketch the 3-D framework of an object (sketch, in a normal forced-perspecive 2-D kind of way) which then renders automatically to a 3-D object. Check out some of their demo videos.
posted by aimedwander at 12:27 PM on September 17, 2014

Are Flower or Journey from thatgamecompany heading in the right direction?
posted by Rock Steady at 4:52 PM on September 17, 2014

Perhaps try searching for "cartoon renderer", the first result seems to have several panterly examples.
posted by sammyo at 5:31 PM on September 17, 2014

The term "NPR" ("non-photorealistic rendering") may help you in your search. However, there's a lot of different looks that could be classified as NPR, so you may need to narrow it down within those results.

Have you perused the galleries at CGSociety and similar?
posted by Alterscape at 9:45 PM on September 17, 2014

Some of the scenes/views/environments in Portal 2 (and other Valve games to an extent) have a somewhat painterly look to them.
posted by Drexen at 3:44 AM on September 18, 2014

The Borderlands games are deliberately done in a concept-art style, although it's a rougher, more comic-book-like look than you're referencing.
posted by neckro23 at 8:38 AM on September 19, 2014