Oh hey, this might be a good place to describe my process for generating art-style renders.

 

Ok, first, I like using PWToon. I also have ToonyCam... I find ToonyCam is better at getting a more consistent, smoother line, but PWToon seems to pick up on fine lines and detail better.

PWToon has two settings: Diffuse Upper Bound, Diffuse Lower Bound. This essentially determines the shading between the diffuse color and shadow color. If the two values are equal, shading will tend to be all or nothing. I find it useful to set Diffuse Upper Bound to 0%.

If you REALLY want a simpler illustrated look, my recommendation is to shut down specular (specular strength 0%). Possibly also erase the diffuse color maps and replace them with simple colors (this can be a bit time intensive). For black and white lineart, erase all the diffuse color and set to white.

Turn on draw outline and draw interior line. If you want you can do some funky things with the colors of these lines, but I generally leave them black. Increase Outline Width as much as you can before stuff starts looking black; the program uses normals to draw lines where the surface is perpendicular to the camera, but if the entire surface is angled mostly away from the camera, it will fill all black. You see this a lot with floors and roofs, where half of it will turn black; it will likely require less line width.

Also, line width is absolute. You should test this with test renders at the size you will be using. If you test at, say, 1080x1080, and then increase to 2160x2160 for actual rendering, all the lines will look half as wide.

 

Now... lighting. I suggest some combination of distant and ambient light. Distant light angled from the side can be great for lineart, making very distinct shadows and bringing out details. Ambient light can create more tones -- you have the black lines, then somewhat dark shadows (only somewhat because ambient is lighting the shadows a little), and then bright main figures. If you want a very hard black and white, don't use distant light with shadow softness, and don't use ambient at all. For a medium 'black lines but otherwise simple colors, remember to shut off ambient occlusion from the ambient light (set it to 0).

Another approach is not to use distant light at and just use ambient light. With ambient occlusion, you get a nice shading effect without true shadows... this can look pretty cool.
 

 

Excellent, thanks! I've only recently discovered the NPR thread and this is a great primer to help get started. 

I just put this one in the gallery. I did it with pwToon.

Old Man Argues with Tree.

Oh, addendum:

The outline is highly sensitive to bump and displacement. If surfaces look too 'blank' to you, try upping either/both. If surfaces look too 'busy' or dark with fiddly details, drop the values.

Most of the work to get the render right involves tweaking outline widths and bump/displacement until you get the look you want.

Thankfully, PWToon is pretty darn fast. Ambient occlusion slows things down a little, but hey.

I also find that, with hair, you probably want to shut off lines and rely on ambient occlusion or shadows to bring out details.

Oh hey, this might be a good place to describe my process for generating art-style renders.

Ok, first, I like using PWToon. I also have ToonyCam... I find ToonyCam is better at getting a more consistent, smoother line, but PWToon seems to pick up on fine lines and detail better.

PWToon has two settings: Diffuse Upper Bound, Diffuse Lower Bound. This essentially determines the shading between the diffuse color and shadow color. If the two values are equal, shading will tend to be all or nothing. I find it useful to set Diffuse Upper Bound to 0%.

If you REALLY want a simpler illustrated look, my recommendation is to shut down specular (specular strength 0%). Possibly also erase the diffuse color maps and replace them with simple colors (this can be a bit time intensive). For black and white lineart, erase all the diffuse color and set to white.

Turn on draw outline and draw interior line. If you want you can do some funky things with the colors of these lines, but I generally leave them black. Increase Outline Width as much as you can before stuff starts looking black; the program uses normals to draw lines where the surface is perpendicular to the camera, but if the entire surface is angled mostly away from the camera, it will fill all black. You see this a lot with floors and roofs, where half of it will turn black; it will likely require less line width.

Also, line width is absolute. You should test this with test renders at the size you will be using. If you test at, say, 1080x1080, and then increase to 2160x2160 for actual rendering, all the lines will look half as wide.

Now... lighting. I suggest some combination of distant and ambient light. Distant light angled from the side can be great for lineart, making very distinct shadows and bringing out details. Ambient light can create more tones -- you have the black lines, then somewhat dark shadows (only somewhat because ambient is lighting the shadows a little), and then bright main figures. If you want a very hard black and white, don't use distant light with shadow softness, and don't use ambient at all. For a medium 'black lines but otherwise simple colors, remember to shut off ambient occlusion from the ambient light (set it to 0).

Another approach is not to use distant light at and just use ambient light. With ambient occlusion, you get a nice shading effect without true shadows... this can look pretty cool.
 

Oh wow! That looks SO GOOD, Will! I REALLY need to get PWToon! I've been keeping an eye on it for a while now but it never seams to go on sale. 

You did an amazing job with it! I love the turtle man!

Thank you!

It's a kappa, a weird Japanese marsh monster with a bowl-shaped depression on its head that has water in it. If the water is spilled, the kappa dies (or is weakened or something). They also apparently have an absolute love of cucumbers (I overlooked putting a cucumber in the render, heh).

I THINK PWToon has been on a few sales, but not often.

The original photorealistic Iray image, and then PWToon version (with some adjustments and NIK tool)

 

Oh wow! That looks SO GOOD, Will! I REALLY need to get PWToon! I've been keeping an eye on it for a while now but it never seams to go on sale. 

You did an amazing job with it! I love the turtle man!

I'm not sure B&W lineart is the right direction for this image, given how much is going on... but I love the fiddly detail.

(PWToon with diffuse/specular mostly erased, bump tweaked to show the right amount of detail)

Thank you, djigneo and algovincian. Especially for not falling out of your chairs laughing while snorting coffee out your nose at my strange process. ;)

There's so much second-guessing here. I could have stopped at several places. The layers were obviously made and filtered to combine a saturated watercolor with the simplified cartoonized version of the render to emphasize lines and retain some details while muting the photorealism and busy-ness of the original.

Then I look at the graphics in this thread, such as  KA1's Steampunk Star, algovincian's Noodle, timmins.william's PWToon turtle, well, the list goes on with all of y'all in this thread, LOL. I am just left with my jaw on the ground. I'm very inspired to keep trying!

The original photorealistic Iray image, and then PWToon version (with some adjustments and NIK tool)

Just a thought you have got DS pointed to the place where PWToon installed to, I think I remember having problems with that once.

I re installed. I believe that its in the right location. Im a manual installer so I tend to place things where I want them. Ill double check though.

Its in the right spot.

Personally I would try installing it via DIM to be honest its one of those things that needs some stuff in the program I think. In the morning I will check where and how mine is installed and post back.

But if all the bits are in the same place where they are on you other computer it should work.

Installing through DIM did the trick. Im in business.

There was a glitch in DS 4.8 where pwToon was acting quite wonky. Are you trying to use it on a Mac? I noticed it then. The problems were resolved when 4.9 was released. It might be a matter of just doing the upgrade. If pwToon is debugged for DS 4.9, it might still be buggy under 4.8.

Just a thought you have got DS pointed to the place where PWToon installed to, I think I remember having problems with that once.

I re installed. I believe that its in the right location. Im a manual installer so I tend to place things where I want them. Ill double check though.

Its in the right spot.

Personally I would try installing it via DIM to be honest its one of those things that needs some stuff in the program I think. In the morning I will check where and how mine is installed and post back.

But if all the bits are in the same place where they are on you other computer it should work.

Just a thought you have got DS pointed to the place where PWToon installed to, I think I remember having problems with that once.

So I have just the one folder.pwToon_DS4  and that has all of the assets (as far as I know). Listed in shader presets.

Just a thought you have got DS pointed to the place where PWToon installed to, I think I remember having problems with that once.

I re installed. I believe that its in the right location. Im a manual installer so I tend to place things where I want them. Ill double check though.

Its in the right spot.

Just a thought you have got DS pointed to the place where PWToon installed to, I think I remember having problems with that once.

Did you reinstall PWToon?

I know PWToon can be glitchy for some people.

Its working fine for me I'm using DS 4.9.2.70.

So I filed a bug. It must be something about my computer or something that pwToon dosent like. There goes the morning...

It's weird, because PWToon was out in, what, 4.6? Seems odd 4.8 would give you trouble that I'm not seeing in 4.9.

Again, how are you applying the shaders? Which specific presets are you applying? Try something dramatic, like 'blueprints.'

 

PWToon was around long before 4.6, it came out in 2008, I'm pretty sure I bought it when it was released and June 2008 is the date of that order, it wasn't a Daz original then.

You will need to reinstall it when you update DS.

Try applying the Base then the Preset, make sure you have both the surface and the figure selected.

 

No luck. Having some strange configuration issues. Going to start a new thread about it.

It's weird, because PWToon was out in, what, 4.6? Seems odd 4.8 would give you trouble that I'm not seeing in 4.9.

Again, how are you applying the shaders? Which specific presets are you applying? Try something dramatic, like 'blueprints.'

 

PWToon was around long before 4.6, it came out in 2008, I'm pretty sure I bought it when it was released and June 2008 is the date of that order, it wasn't a Daz original then.

You will need to reinstall it when you update DS.

Try applying the Base then the Preset, make sure you have both the surface and the figure selected.

Oooh. Weird! (And since so few people seem willing nowadays, I'll admit I was just wrong. Heh)

Well, no change. 4.9 is installed and pwToon still does not work. Im at a bit of a loss here.

Wait, I have to update my lights and shaders. Im still using 4.8 stuff...