Genssi 8 Starter essentials has the AutoFit clone for Genesis 9, so that fitted items can be down-converted. Default resources has a number of issues, including FilaToon, the Filament toon shader.

Oh... and turning "Generate Texture Mipmaps" off in Filament can be very helpful as well if things aren't looking the way you need them to

Dartanbeck said:

daveso said:

I'm thick as a brick. This stuff is flying over my head, like out of site. I decided to give it a go, but wow, I'm so not knowing what to do, I realize everyday how much I have no clue about in DS. I think I might have to start over, from the very beginning. #1 - this is DAZ Studio. This is how you launch it. 
Yeah ... like the description by Mada seems right on..but what are LUT?  I cannot get an outline no matter what I do? Why does it ask me to select a node? What are they asking for? It seems these shaders and associated files are all over the place. Maybe its more together in Content Library and not Smart Content? Then there's stuff in Essentials, Shaders, who knows where else. 

Okay, let's see if we can help.

..but what are LUT?

Okay, at this stage in the game, don't even Think about what a LUT is. That's for when you get more advanced into really tweaking things

I cannot get an outline no matter what I do? Why does it ask me to select a node? What are they asking for?

For this and any other problems you might have, do this as your first step into all of this - okay? Just follow me here:

1. Load one of the presets - Base Anime Femine or Masculine - or Vicky 9
2. In the Scene pane, open the hierarchy of the figure - just one level will do. We want to see everything that's parented to the figure
3. Look for a parented item that ends in the words: "Toon Outline"
4. Select that and, in the Parameters pane, use Mesh Offset to edit the thickness of the outline

Keep in mind that this Toon Outline is a very special shader that is not always visible at all times. It shows up according to the angle of the camera along with whatever might block it from view. It's been carefully designed that way to create a good outline without looking crazy all over the place. A very special shader indeed!

So now, if we add clothing or mesh hair or props that are not Filatoon already, Select the item and go to the Surfaces pane.

1. Select all surface materials Except for those that should be transparent and, for starters, apply the General Filatoon Shader Preset (Shader Presets > Filatoon > Presets)
2. Applying that shader has now also applied a Toon Offset Geometry Shell for you - unless there was already a GeoShell on it. 
3. In the same way, we can now select that Toon Offest in the Scene pane, and edit the outline using Mesh Offset in the Parameters pane.

 

Something else to know about Filatoon:

Filatoon character presets tell Filament to turn on the headlamp for itself.

It does this because it requires at least one Daz Studio light source to be present in order to become visible (not including HDRI or Sun/Sky).

 

Adding your own lights to the scene (think Photography studio techniques here) and then turning the headlamp slider off in Filament Draw Options will give you a Lot of power towards creating the look and feel that you want.

Filament Draw Options Node can be loaded via the Create menu - waaaaay toward the bottom > Create New Filament Draw Options Node

Select that in the Scene pane and make adjustments in the Parameters pane. Be careful! There are a lot of options in there! If you've added at least one light, start by editing the Headlamp option to 0.00

The sliders toward the top that begin with "Color Grading" are a Lot of fun to use for adjusting the overall look of the scene!

 

Hope this helps man!

 

@Dartanbeck I sincerely appreciate your help on this. Unfortunately, thick as a brick I am. Nothing seems to be as you state... I'm really happy for those having a good time with this, but it just makes me frustrated. I'm having enough problems with Ultrascenery 2, so I'm backing off this new toy and maybe will try again a some future date.  My patience is just not there anymore. Everything just seems so frustrating as I get older. It  just makes me want to move on from DAZ Studio even, but I stick as I've spent so much money over the years.

Ron Knights said:

So now again, we have a paid version of DAZ Studio. Many years ago I paid extra for DAZ Studio Advanced (was that the name?). Right after that, DAZ Studio went free.

I just don't see any compelling new features for the paid version of DAZ Studio. It's nothing that interest me. And all those sale prices and coupons continue to confuse me.

I can't help wonder if this new paid version is a step toward DAZ Studio version 5. Will DS v5 be a subscription only version?

It isn't a paid (subscription) version of daz Studio - it is a subscription set of additional plug-ins, and content, and possibly other things on top of the standard daz Studio - which has had updates in the latest build and has just gained a Filament-based toon shader, so clearly not being neglected in favour of the subscription strand.

Daneel said:

So if I understand correctly:
Engine - viewport / Filament
Filament Draw Options where I can play with the settings.
 

Yeah, that's right ! Nice ! And also give her some shadows, for instance, by setting Deep Shadow Map in DistantLight > Shadow Type.

Edit: Hmm... I still don't like harsh shadow ~~ too iray mind-set, haha ~ Post-work might be needed.

Yikes, the learning curve Looks like I'm gonna be thrashing about a bunch before getting anything close to the Vicky 9 promo renders. Hair is going to be a problem. Eyes are going to be a problem. But ok, it's a start.

G8.1M
100% Kota, 30% The Brute, 10% Toon Hero (Head)
Skin: Kota

Is there a way to get a sky in Filament other than a billboard/cyclorama?

So if I understand correctly:
Engine - viewport / Filament
Filament Draw Options where I can play with the settings.
 

Grim-Red said:

@crosswind

"- Q1: does Filament support Spotlight ? Why it looks weird with splotlight ? (ss1) If I crank up Lumen, it looks even worse ! (ss2)"

YES. Make sure you select your light and turn off the photometric option. All the old lights from 3DL ( distant, spotlight, linear light etc) work with Filament. If you need shadows projected on objects, floor etc select the shadow option " deep shadow map".

"- Q2: how to make soft shadow on the figure, it looks too harsh. With a distant light in the scene, I made a spotlight a mesh light with Disk + Height as usual, the shadow on the face is still harsh. (ss3)  It's totally different from Iray render (ss4)  Besides, there's meant to be a shadow on some area on char's face with that spotlight, but there isn't ~~" See Q1 answer

"- Q3: as for Outline shell, why I cannot see outline in some area... like the outline on the hoodies body, on the hair sides... (ss5)  And the outline is not so smooth, like sort of dot lines ( in the render...)."

That becomes more/less visible depending on where you placed the light and how you rotate the scene. That shell acts like a solid glossy surface, it doesn't reflect everything every time. You have to see wich angle works best depending on what you want to be seen best.

 

"- Q4: Opacity on the hair cards doesn't work . Is there any good way to make hair a bit transparent ?" Not as far i know, for now.

"- Q5: Depth of Field doensn't work in Filament at all ! Is that true ?"

Correct, to date DoF does not work with Filament. The way around is to do separate renders, save in .png ( transparent background for the figures you intend to have) and assemble the multiple renders by blurring the background/items in background with Photoshop or any photomanipulation program of your choice ( even GIMP).

Ah, it's really good to know ! I should've checked more info. from the PDF posted by Mada... just went for a try in a rush, haha ~  Some quick tweaks made things getting much better !

Thank you very much !! 

Dartanbeck said:

crosswind said:

Daneel said:

I have absolutely no idea how is this Filament working. Can you suggest me sources where I can learn about it? What options have to use or modify?

I bought Vicky 9 and all of the filatoons but I have no idea, how can I use them. :(

Me too ~ almost first time I went for a workflow with Filament and the new toon shader an hour ago. I got some fundamental knowledged in her from Jay https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dE1pSOPfLNw

Maybe you can take a look first. Then just need to understand what those properties in Filament drawstyle / toon shaders work for, and have more experiments with them.

That can certainly help, just know that we don't get the same results using those methods with Filatoon.

 

Filament has undergone a Massive Upgrade in Daz Studio with this release. 

Since the Genesis 9 Toon figures load with a special instruction to turn the headlamp On (so that we can see something - anything) the Scene Lighting scale, for example, has little to no affect at this point (first loading character)

 

So here's what to do:

1. Load one of the preset figures (at least until we understand everything)
2. Create > New Filament Draw Options Node
3. Create Distant Light

Now play around with the Filament Draw Options and the light settings - back and forth a bit to get a feel for what's going on.

 

Note that many (most?) of those options are over my head.

The settings that are really beneficial to play with from the user's side - at least in the initial stages, are the Color Grading options toward the top as well as the Distant and Scene lighting strength options. I find it best for me to turn off the headlamp in the Filament Draw options right away, so I can use "My" lights without the headlamp impeding my flow

Yep, I got it ~ I'm now reading the PDF that Mada shared and try what you suggested. It's getting better and better . Nice ! Thank you very much !

@crosswind

"- Q1: does Filament support Spotlight ? Why it looks weird with splotlight ? (ss1) If I crank up Lumen, it looks even worse ! (ss2)"

YES. Make sure you select your light and turn off the photometric option. All the old lights from 3DL ( distant, spotlight, linear light etc) work with Filament. If you need shadows projected on objects, floor etc select the shadow option " deep shadow map".

"- Q2: how to make soft shadow on the figure, it looks too harsh. With a distant light in the scene, I made a spotlight a mesh light with Disk + Height as usual, the shadow on the face is still harsh. (ss3)  It's totally different from Iray render (ss4)  Besides, there's meant to be a shadow on some area on char's face with that spotlight, but there isn't ~~" See Q1 answer

"- Q3: as for Outline shell, why I cannot see outline in some area... like the outline on the hoodies body, on the hair sides... (ss5)  And the outline is not so smooth, like sort of dot lines ( in the render...)."

That becomes more/less visible depending on where you placed the light and how you rotate the scene. That shell acts like a solid glossy surface, it doesn't reflect everything every time. You have to see wich angle works best depending on what you want to be seen best.

"- Q4: Opacity on the hair cards doesn't work . Is there any good way to make hair a bit transparent ?" Not as far i know, for now.

"- Q5: Depth of Field doensn't work in Filament at all ! Is that true ?"

Correct, to date DoF does not work with Filament. The way around is to do separate renders, save in .png ( transparent background for the figures you intend to have) and assemble the multiple renders by blurring the background/items in background with Photoshop or any photomanipulation program of your choice ( even GIMP).

@lachi

check page 1 and 2, there are some tips on how to get started. :)

Here a quick run with Josie 9 turned into a Filatoon.

Load anime toon

parameters---anime---zero all anime morphs

load Josie 9 morphs ( head and body)

Hair and dress manually converted with the filatoon shader

crosswind said:

Daneel said:

I have absolutely no idea how is this Filament working. Can you suggest me sources where I can learn about it? What options have to use or modify?

I bought Vicky 9 and all of the filatoons but I have no idea, how can I use them. :(

Me too ~ almost first time I went for a workflow with Filament and the new toon shader an hour ago. I got some fundamental knowledged in her from Jay https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dE1pSOPfLNw

Maybe you can take a look first. Then just need to understand what those properties in Filament drawstyle / toon shaders work for, and have more experiments with them.

That can certainly help, just know that we don't get the same results using those methods with Filatoon.

Filament has undergone a Massive Upgrade in Daz Studio with this release. 

Since the Genesis 9 Toon figures load with a special instruction to turn the headlamp On (so that we can see something - anything) the Scene Lighting scale, for example, has little to no affect at this point (first loading character)

So here's what to do:

1. Load one of the preset figures (at least until we understand everything)
2. Create > New Filament Draw Options Node
3. Create Distant Light

Now play around with the Filament Draw Options and the light settings - back and forth a bit to get a feel for what's going on.

Note that many (most?) of those options are over my head.

The settings that are really beneficial to play with from the user's side - at least in the initial stages, are the Color Grading options toward the top as well as the Distant and Scene lighting strength options. I find it best for me to turn off the headlamp in the Filament Draw options right away, so I can use "My" lights without the headlamp impeding my flow

Daneel said:

I have absolutely no idea how is this Filament working. Can you suggest me sources where I can learn about it? What options have to use or modify?

I bought Vicky 9 and all of the filatoons but I have no idea, how can I use them. :(

Me too ~ almost first time I went for a workflow with Filament and the new toon shader an hour ago. I got some fundamental knowledged in her from Jay https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dE1pSOPfLNw

Maybe you can take a look first. Then just need to understand what those properties in Filament drawstyle / toon shaders work for, and have more experiments with them.

Daneel said:

I have absolutely no idea how is this Filament working. Can you suggest me sources where I can learn about it? What options have to use or modify?

I bought Vicky 9 and all of the filatoons but I have no idea, how can I use them. :(

1. In Daz Studio go to Create > Create New Filament Draw Options Node
2. Select the Filament Draw Options Node in the Scene pane
3. Adjust settings in the Parameters pane
4. Have Fun!!!

I have absolutely no idea how is this Filament working. Can you suggest me sources where I can learn about it? What options have to use or modify?

I bought Vicky 9 and all of the filatoons but I have no idea, how can I use them. :(

It's awesome though. We get a really cool result... save as a preset of some sort - shader, lights, scene subset....

After a while, we're going in and working with glee!!!

The biggest thing for me was to get in there, put a nice light rig together and parent all of the lights to a Null that is located at the base of a character, turn off the headlamp in Filament Draw Options (or adjust it accordingly - whatever works best), and then saving stuff out.

After my lights were the way I want them, I saved a Scene subset and only included the Null (with the lights inside) in the save dialog.

Then I did the same with a base Filament Draw Options Node with everything at default except with the headlamp turned off - save as Scene Subset - only selecting the Filament Draw Options Node.

For designing custom characters, it can be fun and rewarding to simply go through and apply Filatoon shader presets to existing characters we've already made. However, I've noticed much better Anime/Cartoon/Manga results if I instead load in one of the Base Anime figures and rebuild the character using that - watching the eyes carefully throughout this process. It look So Much Better with all of the new Toon Anatomy pieces in place!

cathan01_wwg1wga said:

The filatoon shader is really nice. I was just getting used to my anime/ painting routine using daz iray and gimp, but filatoon reduces my workload significantly (postwork, especially). Now I just have to learn how to use filament more efficiently...

Adding your own lights helps even more.

That will open up a lot more fun when adjusting the Filament Draw Options - like the amazing Color Grading options!

So don't forget to go Create > Create New Filament Draw Options Node (way at the bottom)

The filatoon shader is really nice. I was just getting used to my anime/ painting routine using daz iray and gimp, but filatoon reduces my workload significantly (postwork, especially). Now I just have to learn how to use filament more efficiently...

daveso said:

I'm thick as a brick. This stuff is flying over my head, like out of site. I decided to give it a go, but wow, I'm so not knowing what to do, I realize everyday how much I have no clue about in DS. I think I might have to start over, from the very beginning. #1 - this is DAZ Studio. This is how you launch it. 
Yeah ... like the description by Mada seems right on..but what are LUT?  I cannot get an outline no matter what I do? Why does it ask me to select a node? What are they asking for? It seems these shaders and associated files are all over the place. Maybe its more together in Content Library and not Smart Content? Then there's stuff in Essentials, Shaders, who knows where else. 

Okay, let's see if we can help.

..but what are LUT?

Okay, at this stage in the game, don't even Think about what a LUT is. That's for when you get more advanced into really tweaking things

I cannot get an outline no matter what I do? Why does it ask me to select a node? What are they asking for?

For this and any other problems you might have, do this as your first step into all of this - okay? Just follow me here:

1. Load one of the presets - Base Anime Femine or Masculine - or Vicky 9
2. In the Scene pane, open the hierarchy of the figure - just one level will do. We want to see everything that's parented to the figure
3. Look for a parented item that ends in the words: "Toon Outline"
4. Select that and, in the Parameters pane, use Mesh Offset to edit the thickness of the outline

Keep in mind that this Toon Outline is a very special shader that is not always visible at all times. It shows up according to the angle of the camera along with whatever might block it from view. It's been carefully designed that way to create a good outline without looking crazy all over the place. A very special shader indeed!

So now, if we add clothing or mesh hair or props that are not Filatoon already, Select the item and go to the Surfaces pane.

1. Select all surface materials Except for those that should be transparent and, for starters, apply the General Filatoon Shader Preset (Shader Presets > Filatoon > Presets)
2. Applying that shader has now also applied a Toon Offset Geometry Shell for you - unless there was already a GeoShell on it. 
3. In the same way, we can now select that Toon Offest in the Scene pane, and edit the outline using Mesh Offset in the Parameters pane.

Something else to know about Filatoon:

Filatoon character presets tell Filament to turn on the headlamp for itself.

It does this because it requires at least one Daz Studio light source to be present in order to become visible (not including HDRI or Sun/Sky).

Adding your own lights to the scene (think Photography studio techniques here) and then turning the headlamp slider off in Filament Draw Options will give you a Lot of power towards creating the look and feel that you want.

Filament Draw Options Node can be loaded via the Create menu - waaaaay toward the bottom > Create New Filament Draw Options Node

Select that in the Scene pane and make adjustments in the Parameters pane. Be careful! There are a lot of options in there! If you've added at least one light, start by editing the Headlamp option to 0.00

The sliders toward the top that begin with "Color Grading" are a Lot of fun to use for adjusting the overall look of the scene!

Hope this helps man!

Umi no Senshi no Ishi said:

I feel like a newbie all over.

I loaded the new Vicky 9 and she comes in all black?

I've got 4.23

Filament is on

Render to viewport

No idea what's going on.

Make a Distant Light and you can move it around for other lighting angles.  Essentially it replaces your camera and headlamp.  I find pointing at her to also help!

Umi no Senshi no Ishi said:

I feel like a newbie all over.

I loaded the new Vicky 9 and she comes in all black?

I've got 4.23

Filament is on

Render to viewport

No idea what's going on.

Make a distant light.