Cartoon look

Oso3D

Thought it'd be useful to start a kibbitzing thread here about how to get good anime and cartoon looks.

Things I've worked out:

PWToon I'm happy with. Getting a two-tone shadow/regular look can be achieved by setting the shader's Diffuse Upper and lower Bound to the same value. 0% seems to work pretty well, but if you want more shadow coverage you can increase it.

Use ambient lighting to, effectively, set how dark that second shadow tone is.

Anime Eyes or something like it is useful to get a drawn look to the eyes. The most useful thing is the reflections, to artificially plop in stylized eye reflections. Possibly also the eyelash effect, but I haven't figured out how to add that.

Hiro 3/4/5, Aiko, Keiko, and other anime style characters can be useful to get the right 'look.' But not strictly necessary -- increasing eye size and nudging the face with standard morphs can get you to good anime looks, depending on what particular style you are going for - anime is broad, not to mention more western cartoons. The biggest thing is getting a drawn look to the eyes.

Hair can be tricky, but this freebie is awesome:

http://nekketsukyoujin.deviantart.com/art/Anime-Hair-Set-1-for-Animedoll-89485450

The final clue to my puzzle/look came to me after watching Archer... no highlights! OOooooooh.

Consider:

First side is what I was getting earlier and being frustrated by. Simply setting specular strength to 0, and bam.

(Click for full size)

Oso3D

Further note:

I'm finding 100% distant or spotlight + 50% ambient light creates a very nice balance.

 

SnowSultan

There are two things you might want to try on those images and see if it improves any. Both postwork, but you don't need any drawing skill to do them.    :)

* Try to lighten the shadows. Toon shadows are usually a bit darker, but not too dark unless the character is in very drastic lighting.

* Smooth any 'crinkly' shadows (like the ones on the bottom-right of the woman's dress), and remove any isolated shadows that don't benefit the image (like that blob on the bottom-left of the dress). Just pick up the main dress color and paint over it.

Oso3D

Both easily done, and good tips. The advantage of this approach is that editting becomes WAY easier with a few colors in the palette. I can also help the process by doing a 100% ambient to get a 'flat' image underneath.

Which ALSO lets me adjust the look, come to think about it, because I can layer 'with shadows/without shadows' and adjust to taste.

 

Diomede

Thanks for starting this thread.  I look forward to following.

Oso3D

Another thing, if you really want a flat look, is to shut off Ambient Occlusion on ambient lighting (or you might want to tweak it, if you want to add some detail)

nonesuch00

SnowSultan said:

There are two things you might want to try on those images and see if it improves any. Both postwork, but you don't need any drawing skill to do them.    :)

* Try to lighten the shadows. Toon shadows are usually a bit darker, but not too dark unless the character is in very drastic lighting.

* Smooth any 'crinkly' shadows (like the ones on the bottom-right of the woman's dress), and remove any isolated shadows that don't benefit the image (like that blob on the bottom-left of the dress). Just pick up the main dress color and paint over it.

Did you make your avatar from a DAZ or Poser figure?

SnowSultan

Did you make your avatar from a DAZ or Poser figure?

I wish.  ;)   Nah, if I remember correctly, I had it drawn by a Russian pixel artist named Xamag for $5 a couple of years ago.

nonesuch00

SnowSultan said:

Did you make your avatar from a DAZ or Poser figure?

I wish.  ;)   Nah, if I remember correctly, I had it drawn by a Russian pixel artist named Xamag for $5 a couple of years ago.

LOL, I didn't think so but it's very nice.