MNPRX is all about art-direction and offering ways for artists to interactively control the 3D render towards their desired vision. Therefore, we offer 4 different levels of control, which help to control the stylization from the highest level of control (Style Presets) to the lowest level of control (PaintFX).
Style Presets and Attributes
At the top level of control are Style Presets (style button in the MNPRX Shelf), which allow you to quickly change the style that MNPRX is currently running in.
Style Presets contain and modify attributes from the style configuration node.
The style configuration node (conf button in the MNPRX Shelf) contains every global parameter available in the active stylization. These parameters are applied over the entire image.
Material Presets and Attributes
At the middle level of control are Material Presets (mPre button in the MNPRX Shelf), which allow you to quickly change the materials that are currently assigned to selected objects. If the material is shared between objects, it will modify the material for all objects (as seen in the video below). To avoid this, make sure to tick the Create new material for the selection. More information can be found in the Material Presets documentation.
Material Presets contain and modify attributes from the painterly Uber Materials and Geoproxy Materials.
The painterly Uber Material (loaded through the Material Presets and selected by clicking on the mat button in the MNPRX Shelf) presents every material setting and parameter. These values are applied on all objects that share the same material.
MNPRX materials can also drive stylization effects procedurally through the use of NoiseFX.
NoiseFX
The NoiseFX tool (nFx button in the MNPRX Shelf) allows to control effects procedurally at the material-level of control. To use it, select an object with an assigned painterly material and modify the sliders of the effects that you want to control in the NoiseFX window. More information can be found in the NoiseFX documentation.
PaintFX
At the lowest level of control are PaintFX (pFX button in the MNPRX Shelf), which allow you to paint effects onto the 3D objects at the vertex level (effects are assigned per vertex). This allows for meticulous local control over the stylization. More information can be found in the PaintFX documentation.
Proxies
In parallel to all these levels of control are Proxies (created by loading the _proxy material preset: mPre button in the MNPRX Shelf). Proxies are invisible objects controlling your stylization.
Geometry proxies can take the form of arbitrary 3D objects i.e., spheres, complex objects or simple planes. All proxies can be placed in your scene to control and stylize whatever is behind them. Their usage in 3D is versatile, as they can be placed onto a small part of your scene, or over the entire scene, in the form of a filter plane. More information can be found in the Proxy documentation.
Make sure to watch the stylization examples to learn how to take advantage of each level of control when stylizing your scenes. Once you are happy with the results, render out your animation!