A good starting point for the B&W is to go with 'draft diagram' preset and switch blues to white or black.

There are a bunch of presets that set various effects, although for my webcomic I've moved to simply converting to PWToon, turning on outlining/interior lines, and then maybe changing line size, but I'm emulating a semi-realistic style.

Yea I will have to look at the settings and all when I get it. It seems all Greek to me know, being new to DS I got alot to learn! Thank you so much for the info on this tool!

A good starting point for the B&W is to go with 'draft diagram' preset and switch blues to white or black.

There are a bunch of presets that set various effects, although for my webcomic I've moved to simply converting to PWToon, turning on outlining/interior lines, and then maybe changing line size, but I'm emulating a semi-realistic style.

Some of my PWToon renders:

http://willbear.deviantart.com/art/Dobie-Guard-PWToon-587892145?q=sort:time gallery:Willbear&qo=50

http://willbear.deviantart.com/art/Colo-584676679?q=sort:time gallery:Willbear&qo=92

http://willbear.deviantart.com/art/SciScene-Toon-585241043

http://willbear.deviantart.com/art/Falling-Home-584280250

Thank you for posting these! They look fabulous! I am thrilled that this can also do black and white. Looks to be a great tool for toon renders. I will certainly purchase this tomorrow! Thank you! :)

Some of my PWToon renders:

http://willbear.deviantart.com/art/Dobie-Guard-PWToon-587892145?q=sort:time gallery:Willbear&qo=50

http://willbear.deviantart.com/art/Colo-584676679?q=sort:time gallery:Willbear&qo=92

http://willbear.deviantart.com/art/SciScene-Toon-585241043

http://willbear.deviantart.com/art/Falling-Home-584280250

Hi DaWater Rat! I have looked at toony camera but have heard that it has some issues..so am a bit leary to spend 20 bucks on it until I get more positive info on it. I will look up pwtoon works! Thank you so much for chiming in..I am new to Daz Studio but wanting to learn and conquer it lol! Wish me luck! I will need it! :)

I've been very happy with PWToon shader. Gives a lot of control and pretty easy to use.

pwToon works pretty well.  Also the Visual Style shaders, though they don't tile (my only complaint with them).  And there's a Toon Style camera, which I don't have, so I can't comment on.

- Note, I haven't yet tried any of these in 4.9, but pwToon and Visual Style were both working for me in 4.8

I like him, a quick 3dl render using Killian and PWToon

It's not an RDNA thing, it's been there for ages.

I have other stuff in the bundle it's part of, like PWToon and PWEffects (both of which I really really love). I don't know for certain, but my gut is that PWSurface2 is probably not worth getting and is fairly old stuff that's superceded by shaders like UberSurface 2 and AoA SSS.

That said... you could always buy it and find out, and if you don't like it, return it. I, for one, would be curious what you find. ;)

The last couple of pages in my webcomic are done using PWToon, if you are curious.

There's apparently something similar in Carrara.

Another thing to check out is ToonyCam Pro, Skunkville Noir, and a few other items. (I'm happy with PWToon, but I'm debating getting ToonyCam as well, just to have several options)

Outlines are easiest done with PWToon or similar, or that geoshell outline thingie. There is a lot of cool options for 3dl.

Hmmm that's interesting. I didn't even know that existed. Wishlisted for later, thanks~ Can't really tell how it works from the product page.

Blender has an option called Freestyle I've been wanting to play with where you can mark any edges as a freestyle line which will then render as solid lines (at least I think that's how it works.)

Yeah, working with better lights and coming back to 3DL I've quickly realized 'convert everything to omUberSurface' should be step 1. (Or PWToon or whatever else I'm using)

I'm also realizing how cool some of the options are; Velvet is AWESOME.

Which reminds me... AoA Subsurface or omUberSurface? Subsurface seems to have a lot of fiddly stuff Uber doesn't, but I think I've noticed Uber renders WAY faster... am I right?

I've encountered something interesting, sort of stumbled on it really...the default Catmark subdivision algorithm really does make a negative impact on render times.  Especially with the AoA shader...not sure why, But switching to the 'legacy' Catmull-Clark sped it up significatntly.  I did a simple test with extreme subd levels on a simple 6 poly cube.  The Catmull-Clark in both Studio and as a RIB rendered in around 12 secs at a subd level of 9...Catmark about 10x slower in Studio (no change in RIB, because it is passed as Catmull-Clark to the RIB).

For something using the AoA shader, I used a naked G3F default load...3 min at Catmark...under 1.5 min Catmull-Clark, so about half.

Yes, Catmark is an OpenSubDiv algo...does 3DL actually support OpenSubDiv (I know it didn't when the change to Catmark was made the default)?

Does Iray support OpenSubDiv?  If so, that could explain why the change was made, but if it does then why is it so memory impacting to use?

Isn't OpenSubDiv supposed to be 'better', more efficient, etc?

Yeah, working with better lights and coming back to 3DL I've quickly realized 'convert everything to omUberSurface' should be step 1. (Or PWToon or whatever else I'm using)

I'm also realizing how cool some of the options are; Velvet is AWESOME.

Which reminds me... AoA Subsurface or omUberSurface? Subsurface seems to have a lot of fiddly stuff Uber doesn't, but I think I've noticed Uber renders WAY faster... am I right?

I've been really enjoying using arealights in 3DL to get some rather nice, realistic-approaching renders. Amusingly, arealights + PWToon is creating a wonderful sweet spot of 'realistic lighting with simplified/fast renders.'

I've been debating getting the AoA light pack, but it's a bunch of money and I'm not sure, at this point, how necessary it'll be -- if I want something fast and don't care about realism, distant light and maybe UE2 for a little touch seems sufficient. If I want really good, soft lighting that reflects, arealight + UE2 Bounce.

Given all that... how necessary are the AoA lights?

I just don't want to spend the money and then have it sit in the crate unused.

Given that the AoA stuff is not compiled shaders (at least the surface shaders are), I have little interest at this time. The AoA surface shader is so slow, it is near imposible to work with on some stuff and figures.

As for you, think of it this way. Is it on sale, and do you 'Know' you 'need' it. Cool toys are cool to get, tho sometimes what you already have may be better (or it may not). The tools you have were free, the other stuff is not. If you are unsure if you 'Need it' or not, then it may be just a case of not having enough experience with using what you have. That ultimately is why I have not gotten the AoA cameras and lights yet, I don't know enough about what I do have to be sure there is stuff I want to do that they cant and the AoA mey be able to.

Here is a good example, the AoA cameras vs what is included in Studio. I have a single time use once and not again need for a special render of my test chamber. I have not figured out how to make the Studio cameras do a longitude and latitude render (not a sphere inside a square, and actual Lat-Long render). I have not read anything anywhere that states that the AoA cameras can do that as well, so I keep plugging away with what I have.

I've been really enjoying using arealights in 3DL to get some rather nice, realistic-approaching renders. Amusingly, arealights + PWToon is creating a wonderful sweet spot of 'realistic lighting with simplified/fast renders.'

I've been debating getting the AoA light pack, but it's a bunch of money and I'm not sure, at this point, how necessary it'll be -- if I want something fast and don't care about realism, distant light and maybe UE2 for a little touch seems sufficient. If I want really good, soft lighting that reflects, arealight + UE2 Bounce.

Given all that... how necessary are the AoA lights?

I just don't want to spend the money and then have it sit in the crate unused.

Two 3DL renders, one color, one B&W, of a character inspired by new Pugmire RPG (D&D setting where uplifted animals inherit the mantle of civilization and humans are the long-gone 'old ones')

http://willbear.deviantart.com/art/Dobie-Guard-587866742

http://willbear.deviantart.com/art/Dobie-Guard-PWToon-587892145

 

Cool renders =) And that setting, the way you describe it reminds me a lot of this 90s game - www.gog.com/game/inherit_the_earth (which is awesome BTW, and not just because the main character is a fox, although of course I am pro-fox biased =D )

What do you all think of this one ?

It's made up of three layers...

1. 3DL regular render for colours
2. 3DL pwToon Technical Drawing render for some edges and shadow
3. Text Effect pencil sketch of 1 good for details

Then I used multiply and a little transparency on the pwToon.

This is just beautiful. Like a retro-style postcard.

Ok, what I did for this one:

Figure and duplicate figure. First is PWToon with white outline and the lights off. Second is PWEffect (it doesn't have to be, but the Ghost mode makes nicer transparent figures without showing eyeballs and such)

http://willbear.deviantart.com/art/Outline-test-588130247

Note: apply PWToon (or whatever) to the base object BEFORE putting a geoshell on it. For some reason I've found geoshells confuse some shader conversions.