More of Catgirl Joy

A combination of PWToon without outlines, and my Smooth paint postwork method.

Very cute. I like the results you get with your apprach – it has a nice anime cel-shader look.

Thanks. I'm experimenting with it to see if its a viable process for an entire comic project.

Use Raytrace shadows, not deep shadows and see how that works for you.

I wasn't even using shadows in that render. It just ended up looking like there are.

I find Raytraced shadows works well with pwtoon.

More of Catgirl Joy

A combination of PWToon without outlines, and my Smooth paint postwork method.

Very cute. I like the results you get with your apprach – it has a nice anime cel-shader look.

Thanks. I'm experimenting with it to see if its a viable process for an entire comic project.

Use Raytrace shadows, not deep shadows and see how that works for you.

I wasn't even using shadows in that render. It just ended up looking like there are.

More of Catgirl Joy

A combination of PWToon without outlines, and my Smooth paint postwork method.

Very cute. I like the results you get with your apprach – it has a nice anime cel-shader look.

Thanks. I'm experimenting with it to see if its a viable process for an entire comic project.

Use Raytrace shadows, not deep shadows and see how that works for you.

More of Catgirl Joy

A combination of PWToon without outlines, and my Smooth paint postwork method.

Very cute. I like the results you get with your apprach – it has a nice anime cel-shader look.

Thanks. I'm experimenting with it to see if its a viable process for an entire comic project.

If I may make a recommendation based on my own experience, once you have moderate confidence in the process (and I think you're there) you need to start making comic pages. Even if they are throw-away pages. I suggest this because you won't know how viable your process is until you start making sequential pictures and see if you can keep a consistent look from panel to panel. I learned very quickly in my b&w work that I needed to be very specific about my render dimensions, otherwise the width of my lines varied too much from panel to panel. 

In your case, I think you will need to focus on keeping your shadows consistent from panel to panel in terms of darkness and general appearance. 

If you try this, make sure you include a page that has the figure in long shot, medium and close-up. That will really give you a benchmark for moving forward.

And a last thought: I made two superhero pages for a comic I never finished, but it taught me so much in regards to addressing backgrounds and using 3D characters in a composed comic page. I feel that my art really grew from this point and the effort provided me with a leap forward that I would not have experienced if I had not made actual comic pages, rather than separate, static pin-ups. 

Good luck, I look forward to seeing what you do next.

 

PS: I'm not going to repost those comic pages (I've shown it here several times), but here's a link to one of them if you're interested: https://www.daz3d.com/gallery/#images/181696 

 

I used to do comics back in the day. I'm just out of practice.

More of Catgirl Joy

A combination of PWToon without outlines, and my Smooth paint postwork method.

Very cute. I like the results you get with your apprach – it has a nice anime cel-shader look.

Thanks. I'm experimenting with it to see if its a viable process for an entire comic project.

If I may make a recommendation based on my own experience, once you have moderate confidence in the process (and I think you're there) you need to start making comic pages. Even if they are throw-away pages. I suggest this because you won't know how viable your process is until you start making sequential pictures and see if you can keep a consistent look from panel to panel. I learned very quickly in my b&w work that I needed to be very specific about my render dimensions, otherwise the width of my lines varied too much from panel to panel. 

In your case, I think you will need to focus on keeping your shadows consistent from panel to panel in terms of darkness and general appearance. 

If you try this, make sure you include a page that has the figure in long shot, medium and close-up. That will really give you a benchmark for moving forward.

And a last thought: I made two superhero pages for a comic I never finished, but it taught me so much in regards to addressing backgrounds and using 3D characters in a composed comic page. I feel that my art really grew from this point and the effort provided me with a leap forward that I would not have experienced if I had not made actual comic pages, rather than separate, static pin-ups. 

Good luck, I look forward to seeing what you do next.

PS: I'm not going to repost those comic pages (I've shown it here several times), but here's a link to one of them if you're interested: https://www.daz3d.com/gallery/#images/181696 

My approach to lighting PWToon is to use AOA Distant + Ambient light, with occlusion shut off on the Ambient.

The distant light gives shadow and basic lighting, the ambient essentially 'fills in' base color, so I can tweak the baseline as I want. (It's possible to do this with each surface by changing the Shadow color, but that's... 1000x more work for no good reason)

More of Catgirl Joy

A combination of PWToon without outlines, and my Smooth paint postwork method.

Very cute. I like the results you get with your apprach – it has a nice anime cel-shader look.

Thanks. I'm experimenting with it to see if its a viable process for an entire comic project.

what type of lights are people using in pwtoon? I try everything in distant lights and the models always looks like it has to much shadows or to dark.

When I use PWToon, my lights depend on the settings I'm using for the shader. That latest example with the catgirl featured a slightly -X angled distance light, set to 100% intensity, with no shadows. And a second distance light set to diffuse only, at 45% intensity sitting at Y axis +128 degrees. I then parent both lights ot a camera, so I get the exact lightng at any angle I render the image at..

what type of lights are people using in pwtoon? I try everything in distant lights and the models always looks like it has to much shadows or to dark.

More of Catgirl Joy

A combination of PWToon without outlines, and my Smooth paint postwork method.

Very cute. I like the results you get with your apprach – it has a nice anime cel-shader look.

More of Catgirl Joy

A combination of PWToon without outlines, and my Smooth paint postwork method.

I think I've just about got this PWToon/Postwork combo perfected. Trying it on characters with unusual skintones. The more color ranges it works well with the better.

For those wondering, the girl is Dorothy Totenkopf, a ghoul.

I definitely think you have achieved a consistent look with clean lines and distinct colors/shapes. The one point that looks semi-finished is her hair. The rest of her body has a black outline, but her hair does not. To my eye, this makes the illustration look unresolved. In comics terms, it's as though you penciled/inked the entire illustration but then left the hair to be finished by the colorist. Even a single thin line (added in postwork) to add definition to her bangs would help make the illustration look more resolved. But daaaaaamn, man! You definitely do good work!

I think I've just about got this PWToon/Postwork combo perfected. Trying it on characters with unusual skintones. The more color ranges it works well with the better.

For those wondering, the girl is Dorothy Totenkopf, a ghoul.

TKDRobert, what helmet/head is that on the left? I think I recognize most of the body.

https://www.daz3d.com/ancient-horus-for-genesis-8-male

https://www.daz3d.com/elebeast-for-genesis-3-male

https://www.daz3d.com/fleet-ops-admirals-cabin

https://www.daz3d.com/solaris-station

https://www.daz3d.com/hfs-interstellar-officer-for-genesis-3-male-s

https://www.daz3d.com/time-soldier-outfit-for-genesis-8-male-s

And, of course, https://www.daz3d.com/pwtoon

I love the strong lines in this piece, but they are getting lost in the dark skin colors.

Is anyone else getting a Talk-Show Vibe from this? I do, and I'm loving it!

TKDRobert, what helmet/head is that on the left? I think I recognize most of the body.

https://www.daz3d.com/ancient-horus-for-genesis-8-male

https://www.daz3d.com/elebeast-for-genesis-3-male

https://www.daz3d.com/fleet-ops-admirals-cabin

https://www.daz3d.com/solaris-station

https://www.daz3d.com/hfs-interstellar-officer-for-genesis-3-male-s

https://www.daz3d.com/time-soldier-outfit-for-genesis-8-male-s

And, of course, https://www.daz3d.com/pwtoon

 

AR Ghost Marines

TKDRobert, what helmet/head is that on the left? I think I recognize most of the body.

https://www.daz3d.com/ancient-horus-for-genesis-8-male

https://www.daz3d.com/elebeast-for-genesis-3-male

https://www.daz3d.com/fleet-ops-admirals-cabin

https://www.daz3d.com/solaris-station

https://www.daz3d.com/hfs-interstellar-officer-for-genesis-3-male-s

https://www.daz3d.com/time-soldier-outfit-for-genesis-8-male-s

And, of course, https://www.daz3d.com/pwtoon

For a pretty basic PWToon, this was very easy and fast render.  

tkdrobert did a great combined image using three of them here:  https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/4028391/#Comment_4028391

This is the best thread for VSS, that has the outline freebei link at the start as well, imo:  https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/10961/manga-style-visual-style-topic-update-sept-23rd-2017-fixed-dropbox-links-commercial/p14

Linerender pass combined with VSS would probably look great!  Now I am wondering if you can do this at once...may try it with linerender or PWToon for lines and VSS for colors.

Very nice!  Oh yeah I love tkrobert's images.  I will check out that other thread.

For a pretty basic PWToon, this was very easy and fast render.  

tkdrobert did a great combined image using three of them here:  https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/4028391/#Comment_4028391

This is the best thread for VSS, that has the outline freebei link at the start as well, imo:  https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/10961/manga-style-visual-style-topic-update-sept-23rd-2017-fixed-dropbox-links-commercial/p14

Linerender pass combined with VSS would probably look great!  Now I am wondering if you can do this at once...may try it with linerender or PWToon for lines and VSS for colors.

Of the ones you mention there, I've had most luck with Visual Style Shaders (using the free geometry shell outline shader), and then PWToon, which was not in your list.  If you got an example of the style you are after, maybe we can recommend something or an approach?  I got a nice line from Linerender, but the quality versus render time, etc...versus PWToon...I couldn't justify that it was worth the extra render time.  (though it was better)

Oh, yes I did forget to mention that one and of course...I have it as well.  LOL.  I am on a Mac Pro 8-Core which can't compete at all for Daz rendering.  So saving time would be awesome.  iRay takes forever + a day to render just about anything.  3DL does much better.  So I will need to add PWT into my experimentation.

As far as look goes, I guess I would default to some of the sample images that made me buy any of these plugins in the first place.  First we have the Sketchy one here.

https://www.daz3d.com/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/0/2/02-sketchy---toon-edge-and-art-style-shaders-for-iray-daz3d.jpg

With the LR9K, I really liked this look:

https://www.daz3d.com/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/0/2/02-linerender9000-daz3d.jpg

PWT would probably be this one:

https://www.daz3d.com/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/p/w/pwtoon-0.jpg

Hopefully this helps.  I am not opposed to using Photoshop and doing some layer compositing, but it would be nice if I could achieve some line work inside of DAZ first to emulate a traditional comic ink outline first.  And I am also looking at Visual Style Shader to see about exporting flat color images (like 2D) right out of DAZ as another layer to experiment with.

Thanks!

Of the ones you mention there, I've had most luck with Visual Style Shaders (using the free geometry shell outline shader), and then PWToon, which was not in your list.  If you got an example of the style you are after, maybe we can recommend something or an approach?  I got a nice line from Linerender, but the quality versus render time, etc...versus PWToon...I couldn't justify that it was worth the extra render time.  (though it was better)