Freestyle Intro (Parameter Edit Mode)

This is a continuation of Freestyle Intro. It is an attempt to give a quick results to those who are curious about Freestyle. I am an enthusiastic user with no ties to the development team, all information here is provided as-is, and is subject to correction. Basically, it works for me, it should work for you. The previous Tutorial covers “Python Scripting Mode” and can be found here:  Freestyle Intro (Scripting Mode)

• The first thing we need to do is go download the latest greatest build (at the time of this writing) here:  This is a 64bit version, so if you can not use that, get a new 32bit one.
• CAUTION! Using these builds on production files (or anything important to you) is NOT advised [currently]. You should make a copy of the file you want to “Freestyle” and use the COPY!!! Also, once you have the copy, you should also NOT open the .freestyle file in any other version of Blender, this can kill your Freestyle settings. You have been warned.

• Here we are again with a nice clean screen.  Check the previous tutorial if you need a better explanation, but this should do it. Make sure that Freestyle is enabled first of all, then make sure “Parameter Editor Mode” is selected.

• Now hit “F12″ and be disappointed.  :( [SIDE QUEST TIME]
• We need to do some quick work to enable materials and lighting that will better show our lines when we start to make them. The premise of this tutorial is to show you how to make lines and to harness the awesome power of parameters, but we need to at least tweak a few things so that we have an easier time studying our creation!
• First, set “horizon Color” to White [1,1,1]
• Enable Ambient Occlusion, leave the Factor at “1.00″ and the Blend Type to “Add”.

• Now you should have an even less impressive default cube, but this is a good thing, we will be able to see very clearly the lines we are about to make.
• [SIDE QUEST END]
• As before, we need to tell Freestyle what to look for, but this time we will need to be MUCH more specific since we are doing the work that previously was done with the script. But how do we tell it? We need to add a Line Set.

• You should notice that we have a Line Set and a Line Style. Explanation please? Sure!!
• I see “Line Set” as an object and “Line Style” as a material [in Blender terms]
• You can have different Line Sets with the same Line Style, but only ONE Line Style per Line Set. If you delete a Line Set, the Line Style remains (like Blender materials) [Examples to follow]
• Lets make a Line Style!!
• By default “LineStyle” appears. This is plain Jane, default. I will give  only a quick example of this for now, as I will expand these  basic tutorials later.
• If you render now, you should get the cube with a very slight outline.
• Let’s adjust the line Thickness; Select “Thickness” under the LineStyle block name, adjust to 4. Results below!

• LINES!!! Well, some of them. Now we need to tell Freestyle WHICH edges it needs to render. There are many ways to do this and as a mesh gets more complex, the more difficult it is to render ALL the lines you might want. For now I will be only briefly explaining a few.
• Refer to the picture for the following:
• Selection by Visibility:  Edges are rendered based on visibility, whether there is geometry in front or not.
• Visible:  only visible edges
• Hidden:  only hidden edges
• QI Range:  Selection based on “Quantitative Invisibility”- What I can see is that it has to do with how many faces are in front of the edge. If you have Start: 0 and End: 0, you effectively have “Visible” only. This means 0 faces in front to 0 faces in front [literal translation not a typo]. Now if we change to S:0, E:1, we render all visible edges AND all edges with a max of 1 face in front. If we change to S:1, E:1, only edges with EXACTLY 1 face occluding them. [overboard, need to move on sorry]
• Selection by Edge Types
• For now I want to focus on simple.
• Inclusive means “Render these” Exclusive means “Do Not Render these!”
• Logical OR means “Render A OR B OR C” any combination of these will be rendered (AB, AC, ABC, A etc….)
• Logical AND means “Render A AND B” if the edge contains “C” the line will not render. (Line AB only will render)
• The rest of these…well I do not want to get into ALL of them, just the ones that matter now:
• Crease:  Edges that have an angle less than that of the specified “Crease Angle” located in the Freestyle panel
• Edge Mark:  THIS [IMHO] is one of the single greatest features for selecting lines to come to Freestyle since I have used it (off and on for almost 2 years). You can select lines in 3Dview EDIT mode and hit CTRL+E

• Selection by Group:  In short, you can include or exclude object groups.
• Selection by Image Border…no great explanation just keep it checked I suppose?
• Now that we have a basic Line Set  and Line Style understanding, let’s make some meaningful lines! The next two screen shots show different ways to get different lines:
• Here is Edge Mark: