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  • DAZ_SpookyDAZ_Spooky Posts: 3,100
    edited December 1969

    LOL Sorry. I do mean the Carrara plugin.

    Here's a Toon Pro render. It's a cool plugin, but I'm lost because rthere re lines where they shouldn't bex and I have no idea how to fix it.

    Try swapping your Alpha for Transparency (IIRC that fixes it.) .

    Note that presumes you are talking about hte Carrara plug-in from Digital Carver's Guild "Toon Pro."

    Tried it. It sort of worked, but still has a line across his forehead.

    This is the M5 Elite hair.I played with that hair in particular. It is drawing a line on the edge of the skull cap. Which is the edge of the geometry, and how Toon Pro is designed to work. Unfortunately it does not appear to take into account transparency or alpha to determine the "edge."

  • ShaneWSmithShaneWSmith Posts: 636
    edited May 2014

    Something that might interest comic folks:

    A 74 page miniseries that I put together using DAZ models is free from now until the end of Free Comic Book Day only!
    http://shanewsmith.com/published-works/james-flamestar/

    Although thematically and narratively, the book works very well, I'm also very proud of how the book turned out visually, and I hope you agree that this software is capable of producing an impressive range of different types of artwork.

    1801386_702763493096255_4379194327783963111_o.jpg
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    Post edited by ShaneWSmith on
  • VIArtsVIArts Posts: 1,496
    edited December 1969

    LOL Sorry. I do mean the Carrara plugin.

    Here's a Toon Pro render. It's a cool plugin, but I'm lost because rthere re lines where they shouldn't bex and I have no idea how to fix it.

    Try swapping your Alpha for Transparency (IIRC that fixes it.) .

    Note that presumes you are talking about hte Carrara plug-in from Digital Carver's Guild "Toon Pro."

    Tried it. It sort of worked, but still has a line across his forehead.

    This is the M5 Elite hair.I played with that hair in particular. It is drawing a line on the edge of the skull cap. Which is the edge of the geometry, and how Toon Pro is designed to work. Unfortunately it does not appear to take into account transparency or alpha to determine the "edge."

    Figured it out. Select "Model" and go to the Effects tab. Scrolli down to Toon Pro Override.

    Uncheck Synch All. Select the skull cxap from the shading domains list.

    Check Override for selectedf domains and set the slider next to lin color to 0.

    Goodbye, line :D

  • LycanthropeXLycanthropeX Posts: 2,287
    edited December 1969

    I just got Manga Studio 5 last night. I have been thinking about getting it for a while but i kept passing on it. When I was a freelance cartoonist I was doing things old school. Everything hand drawn, hand inked, all the panel layout done by hand. Really old school. So looking at comic book programs for me has always been kinda off putting for me. Even when I got into computer art, my thinking was, I have 2D graphics progs, what can I do with Manga Studio that I can't do in a regular 2D prog. I have had MS5 for less than 24 hours now and I have to say .... Oh. I get it now. I really haven't had time to mess with it that much but i am already impressed. Working in MS5 is soooo much easier. And it really feels more like drawing on paper. Looking forward to doing a lot with it.

    Also I recommend checking out Poser Pro 2014, the comic book render settings are awesome and really fast and easy to use.

    I still love doing old school hand drawn comics, but i am not nearly as anti-computer comic as i was years ago.

  • VIArtsVIArts Posts: 1,496
    edited December 1969

    It seems my Toon Pro Override in tee effects tab in Carrara doesn't like my Genesis. I can't select surfaces.

    Could anyone who has it maybe make a preset I could load to fix f lines on the face?

  • rogerbenrogerben Posts: 0
    edited December 1969

    Since people have been sharing their Daz-to-comic processes here, and I haven't seen mine represented, I figured I'd throw a a few things up here. I have literally no idea if this will be of any use to anyone, but it's what I do.

    Within DS, as a rule, I scale up all character heads, eyes, hands, and feet, anywhere from a minor 5% to a more significant 15%. The way I work in post means always losing some (most?) of the render's nuance, but I want to make sure I preserve the essence of facial expressions, gestures, and stances.

    As for post-work, well, that's the real time-sink. I've experimented with virtually every filter and automated sketch tool I could find over the years, and finally gave up on them. (Akvis Sketch was the best of the lot.) Now I just render at retina iPad resolutions, use Dropbox to move the render to the iPad, and go to work in Procreate with a stylus. I drop the render's opacity to about 70%, and basically lightbox/ink on a layer or three. With the line work, my goal is to abstract and then exaggerate the primary shapes in a panel.

    Once all the blacks are finished, I drop a layer below the render, and using it as a guide, I (again) abstract and exaggerate the existing lighting. Then using an assortment of smudging brushes, I go back to the render itself and simplify or completely flatten the textures of everything.

    Here are a few time-lapse videos of the post process for different panels in my more minimalist/traditionalist style:

    http://youtu.be/0sU36MUR4p4

    http://youtu.be/C1-NwfHtzXk

    http://youtu.be/N0J2rCCFRnc

    I don't have any video, but this a page using a more impressionistic, scratchy style:

    image.jpg
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  • nDelphinDelphi Posts: 1,845
    edited December 1969

    rogerben said:

    As for post-work, well, that's the real time-sink. I've experimented with virtually every filter and automated sketch tool I could find over the years, and finally gave up on them.

    Great stuff.

    I wouldn't mind the time consuming aspect, if only I had the skill.

    I've tried a lot of filters myself, so far the Manga Style Shaders for DAZ Studio are the only ones I have gotten the look for manga I wanted, but by modifying the parameters a lot to get grey scale high resolution.

  • zug22zug22 Posts: 73
    edited May 2014

    You don't need Manga Studio. All you need is a good image editor with layers and draw type features. I make my comic with a seperate layer called "bubble layer" then write the text in another seperate layer above the bubble layer. When I am happy with the text , then I make square bubbles with rounded corners to fit the text. This gives me small, tidy text bubbles that don't hide half the picture and if you spend most of your time making a good image it's worth it. The last step is to make a small triangle for the bit that points to the speaker, once again simple in an image editor with draw-type features. I use Acorn but that's Mac only, I am sure there is something (GIMP?) for Windows folks too.

    I don't do any post at all if possible and all my renders are 1920 x 1920 or bigger, cropped and shrunk in the layout to fit.
    I admit I don't try to copy comic books: Why go to extra trouble to make your images pretend to look like they are drawn? I don't understand why: isn't it enough work already making up the whole thing in DAZ and the n doing layouts as well?

    Try here for my comics: http://prof-null.deviantart.com/gallery/
    I am also on Renderosity with the same handle.

    Post edited by zug22 on
  • JaderailJaderail Posts: 0
    edited May 2014

    One thing many new to the comic book design world do not take into account is the text layout. Many companies, even in the past, have a mock up of the text layout before the art is even stated. I own two books that go back to the old hay days of Marvel comics and both show that a artist was given some idea of the text and its placement in image if a balloon was going to be used. Not so much for overlay type text unless it was going to eat a good chunk of the image or crop a good part of the top or bottom. The Artist then took that into consideration and often left detail out in areas they knew would be covered in the finished product.

    For a new to comic artist a script and a simple layout of the page with text, just a doodle on paper will do, will greatly help the artist plan the art for that page. It also helps to learn flow from panel to panel as far as the text is concerned. There is even a full chapter on just sound effects and there use in one of the How to Draw Comics by Hand books I still have.

    Note: I never claimed I was good at this myself, that is the reason I own the books.

    Post edited by Jaderail on
  • zigraphixzigraphix Posts: 2,787
    edited December 1969

    zug22 said:

    I admit I don't try to copy comic books: Why go to extra trouble to make your images pretend to look like they are drawn? I don't understand why: isn't it enough work already making up the whole thing in DAZ and the n doing layouts as well?

    I can't speak for anyone else, but if I could just draw manga-style comics, I would, because I really like that style and it fits the types of stories I often want to tell. My hands shake, which makes drawing harder for me, and I think in 3 dimensions, which has always made getting my ideas down in 2 dimensions difficult.

    But I think there are a lot of different ways to create images for storytelling art, and I've seen a lot of different styles that I like. Some were photo-realistic, most were not, some looked hand-drawn, some didn't. :) I like having different tools that let me achieve different effects.

    I admit I avoid postwork. I guess I like the technical challenge of trying to get the render to look the way I want without needing postwork, and I usually have better control over the results if I can generate the effect through the render. I'll use it for special effects, though. I'm working on a visual novel (a kind of illustrated branching story) in which the world looks very different depending on which main viewpoint character you choose, and I use Filter Forge and other tools to get consistent variations in the style of the images for the different viewpoints.

  • Velvet GoblinVelvet Goblin Posts: 532
    edited December 1969

    This is a great thread! And I've picked up some new techniques that I'm aching to try.

    I don't do comics because I have no talent for narrative. But I like the style for art. I guess when you're only doing one image at a time, you have more time for lots of postwork, which is good, because it's often my favorite part.

    I use Photoshop, and liberal use of any effect that might look interesting. I'll convert a duplicate layer to monotone, using the channel mixer to get different effects, and layer it on top with varying degrees and types of opacity. Or I'll use Poster Edges, or Cut Out -- again at varying degrees of opacity. Sometimes as a soft light layer, sometimes hard, sometimes lighten or darken -- whatever works. Sometimes all of them. I experiment like crazy.

    Some of my unflattened PDS's have been 2GB in size because I have so many layers and things I've tried.

    When I finally get something I like, I'll go through it with a smudge brush (especially if I've used Poster Edges, which leaves all sorts of artifacts everywhere), using the occasional clone tool for spots here and there, and sometimes even an actual simple brush tool *gasp*. :)

    Since a lot of it is kind of repetitive brush work, it can be very relaxing, the way pencil shading can be Mostly I just really enjoy the process of trying all sorts of new combinations.

    I can't claim it as great art or anything, but it is a lot of fun.

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  • ShaneWSmithShaneWSmith Posts: 636
    edited December 1969

    rogerben said:
    Since people have been sharing their Daz-to-comic processes here, and I haven't seen mine represented, I figured I'd throw a a few things up here. I have literally no idea if this will be of any use to anyone, but it's what I do.

    Within DS, as a rule, I scale up all character heads, eyes, hands, and feet, anywhere from a minor 5% to a more significant 15%. The way I work in post means always losing some (most?) of the render's nuance, but I want to make sure I preserve the essence of facial expressions, gestures, and stances.

    As for post-work, well, that's the real time-sink. I've experimented with virtually every filter and automated sketch tool I could find over the years, and finally gave up on them. (Akvis Sketch was the best of the lot.) Now I just render at retina iPad resolutions, use Dropbox to move the render to the iPad, and go to work in Procreate with a stylus. I drop the render's opacity to about 70%, and basically lightbox/ink on a layer or three. With the line work, my goal is to abstract and then exaggerate the primary shapes in a panel.

    Once all the blacks are finished, I drop a layer below the render, and using it as a guide, I (again) abstract and exaggerate the existing lighting. Then using an assortment of smudging brushes, I go back to the render itself and simplify or completely flatten the textures of everything.

    Here are a few time-lapse videos of the post process for different panels in my more minimalist/traditionalist style:

    http://youtu.be/0sU36MUR4p4

    http://youtu.be/C1-NwfHtzXk

    http://youtu.be/N0J2rCCFRnc

    I don't have any video, but this a page using a more impressionistic, scratchy style:


    I really love the style you end up with. It reminds me a little of the Telltale Games' aesthetic, and that's no small compliment.

  • nr_millernr_miller Posts: 8
    edited December 1969

    I've been using ToonyCam for something we're throwing together for a pitch to a few networks. We had to replace multiple artists for lack of work and daz with toonycam kinda saved our asses. It's a work in progress but I'm happy with the style, there's still quite a bit of photoshop work it's become an important step in the process.

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  • VIArtsVIArts Posts: 1,496
    edited December 1969

    Been forever since i used comic life 3. Can't remember how to import renders. Any help?

  • Ghosty12Ghosty12 Posts: 1,955
    edited December 1969

    Been forever since i used comic life 3. Can't remember how to import renders. Any help?

    Just drag the image from your folder into the frame you want it to go into.. The best thing about Comic Life 3 is that feature speeds up workflow immensely..

    Here are a couple of examples of my work using a photoshop action on the renders and CL3 for the comic, I have Manga Studio 5 but as said before I use Comic Life 3 now because of the increase in workflow it gives me..

    Midnight_Rendezvous_1.jpg
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    The_Initiation.jpg
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  • VIArtsVIArts Posts: 1,496
    edited December 1969

    Do you manually resize your renders in CL3? Resize to Actual Size makes it too big

  • Ghosty12Ghosty12 Posts: 1,955
    edited March 2015

    Do you manually resize your renders in CL3? Resize to Actual Size makes it too big

    CL3 will resize the renders for you, main thing is to decide on the dimensions of the frame and the picture but if the image is too small for your tastes you can manually resize the image.. But in most cases what I do is to double or triple the original image size to the frame size..

    Post edited by Ghosty12 on
  • jorge dorlandojorge dorlando Posts: 1,156
    edited December 1969

    Here:

    comicin.jpg
    1920 x 1092 - 545K
  • VIArtsVIArts Posts: 1,496
    edited December 1969

    Well, my image was 1000x1000, so I tried 3000x3000. It loads the same size. I don't see where you can set frame dimensions?

    And which option do you use to save out images?

  • jorge dorlandojorge dorlando Posts: 1,156
    edited December 1969

    Well, my image was 1000x1000, so I tried 3000x3000. It loads the same size. I don't see where you can set frame dimensions?

    And which option do you use to save out images?

    Already managed to solve your problem?

  • VIArtsVIArts Posts: 1,496
    edited December 1969

    Somewhat. I wanted my render to fill a whole page, but since I couldn't get it to fit itself, i just resized manually and cropped out the empty space in GIMP.

  • jorge dorlandojorge dorlando Posts: 1,156
    edited December 1969

    Somewhat. I wanted my render to fill a whole page, but since I couldn't get it to fit itself, i just resized manually and cropped out the empty space in GIMP.

    You can, provided that clear the writing box:
    Maintain aspect ratio

    comicin.jpg
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  • BTLProdBTLProd Posts: 114
    edited December 1969

    Besides Photoshop and GIMP, what would you suggest is a good program to help me with comics? I don't want to have to paint a bubble every single panel.

    Maybe this?
    http://plasq.com/products/comiclife3/win

    Corel Draw or Adobe Illustrator would be my recommendations.

    Note if you have the Adobe Creative Cloud suite you get Illustrator included.

  • VIArtsVIArts Posts: 1,496
    edited December 1969

    Somewhat. I wanted my render to fill a whole page, but since I couldn't get it to fit itself, i just resized manually and cropped out the empty space in GIMP.

    You can, provided that clear the writing box:
    Maintain aspect ratio

    I'm lost. Where is that window?

  • jorge dorlandojorge dorlando Posts: 1,156
    edited March 2015

    Somewhat. I wanted my render to fill a whole page, but since I couldn't get it to fit itself, i just resized manually and cropped out the empty space in GIMP.

    You can, provided that clear the writing box:
    Maintain aspect ratio

    I'm lost. Where is that window?

    Here in tab details , in comiclife
    please unchek /clear the set box

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    Post edited by jorge dorlando on
  • barberoybarberoy Posts: 98
    edited December 1969

    Haven't seen many pwtoon renders in this thread so I thought I'd post one. Needs an eyebrow prop, if anyone knows where I can yet a free one?

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  • Eustace ScrubbEustace Scrubb Posts: 2,686
    edited December 1969

    barberoy said:
    Haven't seen many pwtoon renders in this thread so I thought I'd post one. Needs an eyebrow prop, if anyone knows where I can yet a free one?

    Will any of these do?
    http://www.sharecg.com/v/65650/browse/21/DAZ-Studio/Marieahs-1-Click-M4-Brows
    http://www.sharecg.com/v/62327/browse/21/DAZ-Studio/Free-Genesis-Fibermesh-Eyebrows
    http://www.sharecg.com/v/68017/browse/21/DAZ-Studio/Anime-Bushy-Brows

    The Fibermesh set are my own favorite.

  • barberoybarberoy Posts: 98
    edited December 1969

    Will any of these do?

    Thank you! As it turns out I own Hitomi (who knew?) which has a eyebrow prop. But I will find a use for joequick's eyebrows.

  • VIArtsVIArts Posts: 1,496
    edited December 1969

    Sorry jorge, I m still rather new to the program. I tried doing what I thought you meant. View > Uncheck stuff? But I still can't find that tab.

    Am i6 doing something wrong? Your tabs/interface looks different from mine.

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  • VIArtsVIArts Posts: 1,496
    edited December 1969

    barberoy said:
    Will any of these do?

    Thank you! As it turns out I own Hitomi (who knew?) which has a eyebrow prop. But I will find a use for joequick's eyebrows.

    Hiro 5 has one too. There's also Sickle Super Brows on Rendo.

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