More Non-photorealisitic Renders (NPR II)

tkdrobert

AlmightyQUEST said:

tkdrobert said:

akmerlow said:

 

[...]

The long answer: You can apply pwtoon shaders to a figure and maintain the textures.  That will give it a cartoon look.  Unfortunately, the method (Ctrl + click on the toon shader) didn’t work, so I had to replay all the textures to the diffuse setting in the Surface tab. 

[...]

 

For whatever it's worth, using ctrl+double click on a shader preset should still be bringing up the window that lets you tell it to ignore maps. Did that dialogue not pop up? Otherwise what can happen is if the surface had a custom shader (like, for instance, the iray uber shader), channel names change so maps don't transfer over. There is a freebie iray to 3delight script that at least keeps most maps in their proper channels if that is what happened, I usually use that first and then apply the pwtoon preset if I'm starting with something that has iray shaders applied.

The model is made for Poser.  The texture loads with 3Delight properties.  On the main mech, the box did pop up, but the textures did not stay.  On the armor (legs, arms, back), however, it worked properly.  The armor is a newer product.  Every other model I've used so far has coorperated.  Next time, I'll try the converter, then apply the toon shaders and see what happens.  That, of course, is if I remember LOL.  I'm not getting any younger and I get easily side trackered on other projects.

towdow3

i started tooling around with pwtoon. I like it. i think this one is with the daz toon shaders.

vrba79

tkdrobert said:

akmerlow said:

Oh yeah, robotech! i mean.. Macross! Love mechas.

So, how do you combine all those npr shaders together?

The short answer, Photoshop

Or as I call it "The Post-work Swiss Army knife".

towdow3

question what can we do when rendering enviroments with pwtoon, vSS, and toon shaders? i notice that flat surfaces end up with huge black spaces.

 

vrba79

towdow3 said:

question what can we do when rendering enviroments with pwtoon, vSS, and toon shaders? i notice that flat surfaces end up with huge black spaces.

 

For Backgrounds I've started using the D|S's default toon shader, with the outline setting switched off, which I replace with the geometry shell line shader freebie.

tkdrobert

towdow3 said:

question what can we do when rendering enviroments with pwtoon, vSS, and toon shaders? i notice that flat surfaces end up with huge black spaces.

 

My guess would be not enough light.  The downside of 3delight is the lighting.  You need multible spot lights or distant lights.  That's why you will see me do images in IRAY, then use topaz filters to make it look painted (i,e. my Batman Beyond image)

vrba79

towdow3 said:

i started tooling around with pwtoon. I like it. i think this one is with the daz toon shaders.

My #1 tip for using PWToon or any other toon renderers, is to turn off all bump maps in your scene. You get a much cleaner look.

vrba79

Here's another pic of my exotic cutie, Joy using a combination of PWtoon with UE lighting and some lite Photoshop postwork.

Artini

Looks great, vrba79. You've really mastered that technique.

 

mmitchell_houston

akmerlow said:

Thanks for explanation. So it's like different render passes.

btw, what's the closest thing to poser7's sketch in daz? i have pwsketch but i'm only on daz4.x now

I don't know of a camera plug-in that will render sketches for DazStudio, however I have found a plug-in that produces almost identical results. Now, I am aware that there are MANY, MANY sketch filters out there (and I looked at several of them), but this one (which is not free or cheap) behaves in almost exactly the same way the Poser Sketch Render does: Akvis Sketch.

http://akvis.com/en/sketch/index.php

 

vrba79

Artini said:

Looks great, vrba79. You've really mastered that technique.

 

Thank you! ^_^ There's a reason PWToon remains my favorite toon shader.

AlmightyQUEST

towdow3 said:

question what can we do when rendering enviroments with pwtoon, vSS, and toon shaders? i notice that flat surfaces end up with huge black spaces.

 

Depending on what exactly you are seeing, I can tell you that with pwToon (and anything that has outlines based on normals rather than material IDs), what you describe sounds like when happens when the whole surface is considered an outline. You can tell if this is the problem if you move your camera so you are looking right at the surface, and it renders as you would expect (if it is still too dark, then it could be the other issues mentioned, like excessive bump/displacement, not enough light, etc.)

What I do for that is just select the surface that went dark and turn off outlines (and sometimes inlines for pwToon, but that doesn't always have the same problem). Since it is often only one or two surfaces that are at too far of an angle to the camera, the other surfaces make up for it. So for instance, turning off outlines on the floor doesn't look out of place if the walls still have outlines. If the environment doesn't have enough surfaces (everything is one surface) this can be an issue. I am aware there are tools in DS that can help with material zones, but I haven't used them myself so I can't offer much guidance there.

wsterdan

vrba79: My #1 tip for using PWToon or any other toon renderers, is to turn off all bump maps in your scene. You get a much cleaner look.

Thanks for this! As soon as I read this, I was amazed that I hadn't thought of this over the last few years. Simple, yet elegant!

-- Walt Sterdan 

vrba79

wsterdan said:

vrba79: My #1 tip for using PWToon or any other toon renderers, is to turn off all bump maps in your scene. You get a much cleaner look.

Thanks for this! As soon as I read this, I was amazed that I hadn't thought of this in the last fwe years. Simple, yet elegant!

-- Walt Sterdan 

Sometimes the simplest solutions are the most elegant.

tkdrobert

I rendered this over and over again.  I'm still not staisfied but I'm ready to move on.

mmitchell_houston

tkdrobert said:

I rendered this over and over again.  I'm still not staisfied but I'm ready to move on.

I see what you mean. It's nice, but... Yeah, there is something not quite right about it.

One of the big problems is the background textures. They just don't look like they go with the comic book approach you're shooting for. The background stonework is blurry, and the concrete in front just looks like gray cheese. These would be greatly improved by dumping the textures entirely and just going with solid colors here. The body, btw, is okay. A little dark, but that's okay. Maybe a little more light on the face?

tkdrobert

mmitchell_houston said:

tkdrobert said:

I rendered this over and over again.  I'm still not staisfied but I'm ready to move on.

I see what you mean. It's nice, but... Yeah, there is something not quite right about it.

One of the big problems is the background textures. They just don't look like they go with the comic book approach you're shooting for. The background stonework is blurry, and the concrete in front just looks like gray cheese. These would be greatly improved by dumping the textures entirely and just going with solid colors here. The body, btw, is okay. A little dark, but that's okay. Maybe a little more light on the face?

I thought about using solid colors, then I vetoed myself.  I'm going to try it one more time.

tkdrobert

2nd try

mmitchell_houston

tkdrobert said:

2nd try

Much, much better! This removed a lot of the distractions that were in the first one.

mmitchell_houston

mmitchell_houston said:

tkdrobert said:

2nd try

Much, much better! This removed a lot of the distractions that were in the first one.

Looking at it again, I did like some of the lighting choices from the first draft: especially on his shoulders and chest. But the second one is just much stronger and comic book-ish.

tkdrobert

mmitchell_houston said:

mmitchell_houston said:

tkdrobert said:

2nd try

Much, much better! This removed a lot of the distractions that were in the first one.

Looking at it again, I did like some of the lighting choices from the first draft: especially on his shoulders and chest. But the second one is just much stronger and comic book-ish.

I’m still not satisfied.  This image frustrated the hell out of me.  Line render worked fine, but I’m still trying to figure pwToon out.  Sometimes pwToon is a better choice, sometimes VSS is a better choice, sometimes using default textures is a better choice.  For this image it was very hard to make that determination.  I’m going to come back to Daredevil if not this specific image.  

tkdrobert

Now for something totally different.  I went with a more fine arts look for this one.  Part of an on going series of images,  Rendered using IRAY with Topz filters (new ones).

tkdrobert

This one came out way better.  Not perfect, but better.  Used pwToon and LineRender9000.

I figured out what I did wrong on DD but didn't feel like going back to it.

mmitchell_houston

tkdrobert said:

mmitchell_houston said:

mmitchell_houston said:

tkdrobert said:

2nd try

Much, much better! This removed a lot of the distractions that were in the first one.

Looking at it again, I did like some of the lighting choices from the first draft: especially on his shoulders and chest. But the second one is just much stronger and comic book-ish.

I’m still not satisfied.  This image frustrated the hell out of me.  Line render worked fine, but I’m still trying to figure pwToon out.  Sometimes pwToon is a better choice, sometimes VSS is a better choice, sometimes using default textures is a better choice.  For this image it was very hard to make that determination.  I’m going to come back to Daredevil if not this specific image.  

I can completely understand wanting to move on. Right now we're all in a big learning curve about which shaders and tools to use to get the effect/look we want. Very, very frustrating. But, when it works, it can be rewarding.

mmitchell_houston

This illustration was really just something to get back into the swing of things with setting up Poser and the lighting. Sort of an exercise to flex my art muscles before moving on to the next page which, even though I'm working on two pages with four almost-identical panels featuring just one character (small changes in poses, focusing on his emotions changing), pose some interesting workflow decisions on how to maintain the lighting across four panels while I'm changing the pose. Sounds easy, but with my workflow, I typically don't save my lights for each of my renders. This is because I experiment with a LOT of subtle light changes. I might generate four to six renders for the shadows before deciding (in Photoshop) which two or three to keep.

Sorry, just babbling a little, I guess.

This is my character Moon Wolf (however, you would not be amiss if you notice a striking similarity to Black Pather or Batman). I used my typical workflow (described below in my Noir Tutorial, see the link in my sig) of rendering in Poser, cleaning up a bit in Photoshop and finishing in Manga Studio 5 EX (aka Clip Studio Paint). HOWEVER: I did actually try something new that might speed up my work and make editing the shadow layers a little faster (in this case, it would be the blue tone layers). This possible speed increase has me optimistic about moving forward with my comic work. We shall see if this "little cheat" helps in the long run. If it does, I shall add it to my tutorial and share it here.

tkdrobert

I couldn't let it go so 1 last tweak

tkdrobert

It's a little slow at work today, so I've been browsing art on DA.  Man, sometimes looking at other's art motivates me and sometimes it depresses me.  I don't know if I'll ever be satisfied with my skill level.  I wish I could quit my job and go back to scool for art, but I can't.  Oh well, at least I'm doing something.  A year and a half ago, I wasn't doing any art at all.

[email protected]

Some experiments

 

Mollytabby

I love what you've done with these images @GiGi_7, particularly the girls in green dresses. Very striking 

Are they done with Visual Shader or pwToon?

mmitchell_houston

Is this Poser or Daz Studio? If it's DS, what settings/cameras did you use?