I took advantage of the huge 50% discount for comic style daily funnies project. I will use pwToon with these.

I just have a quick question. It seems odd to me that when I set the Age dial above 50% I get a character that is old but I notice that the legs and torso scale rises, as well. So it seems Age+ is max at 50% in my case, it creates what seems to be the correct old characters.

Is this correct? Can anyone else verify this, I want to make sure I have everything setup correctly.

I am using the latest DAZ Studio (not the beta) and and everything is installed via DIM.

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?

The Fibermesh set are my own favorite.

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?

Richard Haseltine said:

Imposer12 said:

Richard Haseltine said:

Note that Cartoon Mode affects only the DAZ Default Shader. It is normally hidden, but can be shown from the render Settings pane option menu by checking Show Hidden Properties.

Thanks but what I was trying to convey was making truly cartoon image as on a manga or comic book cover/page.

The Cartoon mode in previous versions of DS, if you mean the one in render settings, has always affected only the DAZ Default Shader - it simply triggers a switch to alternative shader code behind the scenes. You can either switch to the DAZ Default Shader for all items in the scene and use the hidden switch in Render Settings, or you can use pwToon or another alternative shader for all items in the scene (or a mix of both).

Thanks for the info but I found "Camera Magic ToonyCam Pro" which is what I'm looking for.

Imposer12 said:

Richard Haseltine said:

Note that Cartoon Mode affects only the DAZ Default Shader. It is normally hidden, but can be shown from the render Settings pane option menu by checking Show Hidden Properties.

Thanks but what I was trying to convey was making truly cartoon image as on a manga or comic book cover/page.

The Cartoon mode in previous versions of DS, if you mean the one in render settings, has always affected only the DAZ Default Shader - it simply triggers a switch to alternative shader code behind the scenes. You can either switch to the DAZ Default Shader for all items in the scene and use the hidden switch in Render Settings, or you can use pwToon or another alternative shader for all items in the scene (or a mix of both).

If max time is a problem then I'm not going to be able to use iray. I can't have my machine taken up with hours and hours of rending without even knowing if it's going to do well or not. With Luxrender, by example, I let it use my machine for four long days and the graininess NEVER went away. How will I know if that will happen here? I won't. I have no way of knowing especially judging by the conversations I'm finding about this system.

I mean, yeah. The lighting is fabulous. But that's all anyone seems to want to talk about, and all the great lighting in the world isn't doing people like me any good when we can't even get a finished render. But that's neither here nor there....

And as I mentioned before it's not like I can tell the system to pick up where it left off. This machine is my livelihood. While it's rendering I'm lucky to be able to answer forum posts. So my misgivings about switching to iray may have just been confirmed.

But I'll try not to be too disappointed. At least pwtoon is fixed, and some of my livelihood was destroyed when it went down. I should be working on getting that part fixed.

Have you ever tried Crescent’s pwToon Cel Shaders presets?

http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/48444/P15/#711622

You will definitely get better looking cel shading.

http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/48444/#710131

And this is how I prepare textures for use with pwToon.

http://www.daz3d.com/forums/viewreply/711717/

Hi there. I'm Katrina. You may have heard of me from previous posts regarding pwtoon and how it broke from about DAZ 4.6 up until now, providing horrible blue renders as far as the eye can see.

Out of curiosity I tried it in the new beta release tonight.

It has taken everything I've thrown at it so far in the past several hours. Only one sliver of blue, on an old piece I hadn't updated yet. A very tiny piece.

The lines are, dare I say it, even smoother than before.

THANK YOU DAZ FOLKS FOR FIXING THIS!!! (Even if my comic is essentially dead now it's been so long.) Still, WAH! THANK YOU!!!

Still testing though!

For example, geoshells? Not so much so far.

But waaaah! So. Happy. I'm gonna. Die.

I'm past making cutsey jokes about this anymore. It's just plain ridiculous how every single time without fail when there's a new DAZ update I lose everything, and I mean everything. I take all the precautions in the world but what good does it do me when the system is just going to break yet again. Bad enough the money I scrimped and saved for weeks just to buy pwtoon was nothing but a big waste as of DAZ 4.5.whateverinsertnumber here. But seriously, enough is enough. I'm to the point I simply dread new DAZ. I dread their updates. I just have nothing good to say about it anymore.

I took the plunge and installed content manager because you HAVE to have that to try the new beta build. Worst mistake EVER. Oh sure I installed all this stuff. Big deal. From that moment on my content manager was broken. I have stuff. Yay. I can't USE IT. I can't even FIND IT. Nor my characters I made myself, my folder structure which is VERY IMPORTANT TO WHAT I DO, or anything really. So yeah, I have nothing. I tell it to rebuild metadata. It does nothing. I try all the old tricks. What a waste of my time.

So I uninstall. K. Gonna reinstall 4.7 and ignore content daz breaker and the new build, if it's going to be this much trouble. I was over this 2 updates ago.

Aaaand I'm looking at content manager installind and "not responding".

And there's NOTHING I CAN DO IF IT WON'T EVEN INSTALL.

Seriously. Not. Happy.

timmins.william said:

While I'm frustrated by shaders, there are reasons many people will want to use 3delight. I mean, I'm really enjoying Iray, but I still plan on using 3Delight for a bunch of stuff.

A lot of shaders still work tolerably well in Iray, and can serve as a launching point. I've done a bunch of renders with no shader changes, and they still look cool. The only shaders that just don't work are funky things like PW Effect.

That's because they aren't shaders...they are presets for existing shaders, which happen to get autoconverted (like the base DS shaders)

PWToon IS a shader...and it doesn't convert.

I don't know if anyone has already mentioned this or not - but the problems with PWToon creating greeny shadowing when using more than 1 light has been solved.

spearcarrier said:

Okay going through this thread. My eyes are spinning. I'd like to make sure I understand what's going on.

1. There will be a lot more to learn with the new release. (oh dear god I'm still learning the old release....)
2. Head lamps??
3. Some of Age of Armour's lights are broken, and there will be a need for Iray specific shaders.
4. I will have to get a new computer to run this, as will a lot of people, and although folks with good jobs may not think $300 for one part is expensive the rest of us feel that it is.

Okay then....

1. How will the old shaders be working in Iray? New settings, new learning curve, or... same old?
2. This is very very important. Has anyone tried pwtoon in it yet. If so, does pwtoon behave like it USED to before 4.7? I really gotta know before I tell do a fundraiser for a new computer that will not die while trying this new beta. Cuz if pwtoon is fixed, happy day. The other toon shaders? They don't do right. I bought pwtoon for a reason.

Here's hoping.

1. Yes - but that's half the fun.
2. Headlamp - select your camera and it has a new property. You can turn the headlamp on/off and change the intensity. It is there to make sure a scene without any light is not dark.
3. Try reinstalling these to the beta application. they need files in the application path.
4. It will run on CPU. :) Try and see how it does and go from there.

part 2.

1. Some things convert well...others may need a bit of tweaking. Most shaders built for 3delight will not work the same in Iray. The same as they will not work in Poser. There is a learning curve, but there is documentation. Woot!
2. Toon renders are best left to 3Delight. pwToon is a shader and will not work. Iray is a photoreal renderer and you really don't want it for that type render anyway. :)

Doc links:

Nvidia Iray:

Nvidia Iray Documentation

Iray Uber Shader:

Iray Uber Shader Documentation

Kat

Okay going through this thread. My eyes are spinning. I'd like to make sure I understand what's going on.

1. There will be a lot more to learn with the new release. (oh dear god I'm still learning the old release....)
2. Head lamps??
3. Some of Age of Armour's lights are broken, and there will be a need for Iray specific shaders.
4. I will have to get a new computer to run this, as will a lot of people, and although folks with good jobs may not think $300 for one part is expensive the rest of us feel that it is.

Okay then....

1. How will the old shaders be working in Iray? New settings, new learning curve, or... same old?
2. This is very very important. Has anyone tried pwtoon in it yet. If so, does pwtoon behave like it USED to before 4.7? I really gotta know before I tell do a fundraiser for a new computer that will not die while trying this new beta. Cuz if pwtoon is fixed, happy day. The other toon shaders? They don't do right. I bought pwtoon for a reason.

Here's hoping.

The shaders for PWToon wont translate to Realty (and ultimately out to LuxRender) so be prepared for some tweaking, and while Reality is suited to allow (arguably) more photo-realistic rendering I personally have not seen a render stylized to be cartoon-like.

Off the top of my head I would either try to:

A) Work out the PWToon issue,

B) Render in 3Delight and try a 2D plugin for Photoshop or Gimp or some other app that stylizes for cartoons

C) take a look at Casuals exporter from Daz Studio to Blender using Cycles which appears to me a much more capable of a stylized result and it's free in the freebies forum.
with this It helps to be somewhat comfortable in navigating around Blender which is quite different than Studio

SmallFry said:

SmallFry said:

A fix for the bug where multiple lights render incorrectly when rendering with pwToon on the Mac version.

Other than that...?

I have an idea or two now...

After running into some problems with pwToon, I gave the Default Toon Shaders another look and found that they're not as poorly featured as I'd thought. They're actually pretty good! Which got me thinking... How about a tweak or two of the Default Toon Shaders?
1) The ability to choose the shadow color. While the default is good, allowing the change could offer more vibrant renders.
2) Offer an option similar to pwToon for Rim Shading, with interior and exterior colors and blending modes for them.

I know that the default shaders are meant as a kind of starter set before moving on to more featured shaders like pwToon or the Visual Style shaders, but with a few tweaks it'd be possible to bring a few more of those functions into the default sets.

Oh, another tweak for the Default Toon Shaders: Allow for texture tiling. I was doing some experiments last night and notices that some brick wall textures got blown out of proportion. Turns out there are no tiling abilities in the Toon Shaders. I know I can get tiling in pwToon (whether by design or happy accident, I don't know), so maybe a tweak for this as well?

SmallFry said:

A fix for the bug where multiple lights render incorrectly when rendering with pwToon on the Mac version.

Other than that...?

I have an idea or two now...

After running into some problems with pwToon, I gave the Default Toon Shaders another look and found that they're not as poorly featured as I'd thought. They're actually pretty good! Which got me thinking... How about a tweak or two of the Default Toon Shaders?
1) The ability to choose the shadow color. While the default is good, allowing the change could offer more vibrant renders.
2) Offer an option similar to pwToon for Rim Shading, with interior and exterior colors and blending modes for them.

I know that the default shaders are meant as a kind of starter set before moving on to more featured shaders like pwToon or the Visual Style shaders, but with a few tweaks it'd be possible to bring a few more of those functions into the default sets.

I know that Reality (with LuxRender) can make amazing realistic renders, but can I use Reality to render toon images as well?

I found a bug in pwToon with DS and I'm trying to find some way to get around it. As an alternate renderer, might I have any success with Reality?

Thanks in advance for any help.

A fix for the bug where multiple lights render incorrectly when rendering with pwToon on the Mac version.

Other than that...?

Richard, I get lots of error messages when I use pwToon, even on the PC. Here's a small sample of some of them:

WARNING: /src/sdksource/general/dztokenbuffer.cpp(1561): The token "float GlossinessStrength" already exists!
WARNING: /src/sdksource/general/dztokenbuffer.cpp(1561): The token "float GlossinessStrength" already exists!
Created RenderCacheBlock
Created RenderCacheBlock
Created RenderCacheBlock
Created RenderCacheBlock
3Delight message #45 (Severity 1): S2072: the shader '/Applications/DAZ 3D/DAZStudio4 64-bit/shaders/pwToon.sdl' uses a different interface version. Automatic conversion was successful. It should be recompiled for better performance.
3Delight message #61 (Severity 1): R2385: vtransform() or ntransform() with a projection matrix will yield unexpected results (in shader 'pwToon' on object 'shapematerial_Face_1049_361')
3Delight message #61 (Severity 1): R2385: vtransform() or ntransform() with a projection matrix will yield unexpected results (in shader 'pwToon' on object 'shapematerial_Ears_1054_361')

The dztokenbuffer.cpp errors stretch up a ways and the the 3Delight messages go on for each material zones in the scene.

I am jealous you can get PwToon to work at all. It does nothing at all anymore with the newest version of DAZ Studio for me.