Just to say I really love where you are going with this. More so because my own experiments are sort of heading this way too though I'm still experimenting mainly with B&W though occasionally colour where I have got the water colours with outlines sort of working.

I certainly would n't post my own images on another thread unless they OK'ed it but also would n't want to start another identical topic. If you fancy talking about this sort of non-realistic rendering on this thread let me know and I'll post up a few of my experiments and perhaps we can both learn from each other. I use toonycampro and both the visual and manga shaders plus the Gimp so knowing whats achievable with pwToon would be great to know.

I love it. I guess maybe I'll have to get pwtoon as well, I'd love to capture the same look in my own work.

Thanks for your replies and input everybody. It was very helpful.

This time, I used a fog camera, pwToon with lines for variation and ToonyCam Pro. With a lot of postwork, here's the result. Hope to create in the future a real online comic that a lot of people will like.

Thanks.

Xenomorphine said:

Yeah, every time I see something using cartoon-style shaders, to replicate cell-shading, it descends way too far into uncanny valley territory.

I think I know what you are talking about. Correct me if I am wrong.

This happens when someone takes a cel shader like pwToon and just applies it to a model with realistic textures. To me this has never looked right.

What I do is either not use textures or if I do I make sure I convert the texture to white and black. I then use the diffuse channel's color settings to set the color.

I use the same treatment with inanimate objects, like say a bench with a realistic wood texture.

The above can also apply to Reality/LuxRender. If you use a 3D object with non-realistic textures don't expect to get much realism from your LuxRender image.

nDelphi said:

jorge dorlando said:

Hello
I bought and downloaded pwtoon now using the DIM,
it was installed using the DIM too ... But I can not find it there in Daz Studio ...
Where is it located?

It should be under Shader Presets in pwToon_DS4.

Don't forget to download the Crescent's pwToon Cel Shaders presets:

http://www.sharecg.com/v/69733/browse/21/DAZ-Studio/Crescents-pwToon-Cel-Shaders

Here are the tutorials:

http://cyonixgfx.deviantart.com/art/pwToon-Tutorial-1-The-Basics-257226861

http://cyonixgfx.deviantart.com/art/pwToon-Tutorial-2-DAZ-Gen-3-257227270

Hmm, ok
Thank you
Now , let me see what it is capable ...

jorge dorlando said:

Hello
I bought and downloaded pwtoon now using the DIM,
it was installed using the DIM too ... But I can not find it there in Daz Studio ...
Where is it located?

It should be under Shader Presets in pwToon_DS4.

Don't forget to download the Crescent's pwToon Cel Shaders presets:

http://www.sharecg.com/v/69733/browse/21/DAZ-Studio/Crescents-pwToon-Cel-Shaders

Here are the tutorials:

http://cyonixgfx.deviantart.com/art/pwToon-Tutorial-1-The-Basics-257226861

http://cyonixgfx.deviantart.com/art/pwToon-Tutorial-2-DAZ-Gen-3-257227270

Hello
I bought and downloaded pwtoon now using the DIM,
it was installed using the DIM too ... But I can not find it there in Daz Studio ...
Where is it located?

Swawa3D said:

These look nice, I like the style. Nice unified color pallet and poses. Here is some feedback based on my tastes, disregard it if it does not fit your vision or your target audience...

I think the background mountains look great but might be taking away attention from the characters with how detailed they are. I would prefer more line width variation, so the dark outlines have thicker and thinner parts. I think the characters could use more contrast with the lights are darks. If your not already familiar, I would look up the rule of thirds for composition, generally want to place focal points at 1/3rd the width & height of the image. I would make the character's clothing a different color than the wood structures in the background or try not to overlap them so they don't blend together. Hope some of that might be constructive.

Other things you might want to consider checking out if you have not already: Visual Style Shaders, Manga Style Shaders, Camer Magic: ToonyCam Pro, Filter Forge. Although you might already have a perfectly good method for achieving the results your after.

Thanks for the replies. For the lines I did use ToonyCam pro. I use also pwToon often. Maybe I can do something with depth Camera.

The background was a part of the Viking village, maybe I can fade the backgrounds to a lighter color, it's easily done with a depth map. A lot can be done with pwToon, but I have problems with textures and have to replace them with colors. I post some examples of them of what I made a few weeks back.

Ikyoto said:

I'm making a sci-fi series/graphic novel/script
... Thoughts?

First, congrats on having an idea and actually getting started on it, that's two steps farther than most people.

Second, I echo Cris's suggestion, it's an excellent book.

Third, I agree with much of what's been said regarding the 3D vs 2D look. I would also heartily recommend pwToon. If you've already done a large portion of the renders and dread the thought of starting over with new shaders, you can always take a quick run at filters and plug-ins. I recommend Topaz Clean: for a minor investment, you can run a few tests to find a setting you like and have PhotoShop batch process all of your images. I don't, as a rule, download people's artwork from here, but since you asked for opinions, I downloaded your sample page and ran the filter on just the characters. I didn't spend any time on fine-tuning settings or making an accurate selection, the attached image is the basic "Cartoon Detailed" setting; it can be adjusted a gazillion ways, and once done, can be used as another layer over your actual artwork for different effects. It also works better on larger images. If you'd like me to test a few images for you, or see some other samples to give you a better idea of what it's capable of, PM me.

Fourth, I, personally, don't care for the layout as a comic page; I think the images and info could have been arranged to take up half a page, rather than a full page. I don't feel I'm getting my money's worth here. That said, I think what you have does work much better as a script for animation or a movie, where I would imagine the first character speaking and the second either squeezing onto the scene or hijacking it.

I recognized that the plastic/shiny character isn't human, but an android/robot/AL, so that's not a problem.

That's off the top of my head, hope some of it helps. If there's anything I can do to help, let me know.

Good luck.

-- Walt Sterdan

FlyingBaloo said:

Just to be clear, I am not advocating a specific render style over any other.
My example happened to be pwtoon-based, but the main goal was that it was emulating classic comic books to understand the basics.

I am guilty of adding my gripe about the style of regular 3D comics.

Just to be clear, I am not advocating a specific render style over any other.
My example happened to be pwtoon-based, but the main goal was that it was emulating classic comic books to understand the basics.

Cheers and godspeed!

FlyingBaloo,

You are correct on all counts. I still see many 3D comics like this. Even after the introduction of pwToon and many other cel/cartoon shaders out in the market.

Having said that, using these cel shaders is not an easy task. And you will need to get creative when it comes to adding effects such as explosions and action lines, etc. Manga Studio is a software that can help with many of these issues.

And keeping ones characters consistent is also another challenge as every artist does not create their figures and vehicles in the same way.

Anyone one who starts using these shaders will soon find all this out the hard way. I do believe that a comic created with these toon shaders is more pleasing than 99% of the 3D comics out there; if done well, one can still create a mess.

I have been working on a sci-fi graphic novel of my own, it's taken me time to learn all this and I am still learning.

Samples:

Starting with the "bad" stuff, you're making 3 of the things that go with all the terrible Daz/Poser comics we see for years:
- Cheap tits: Looking like an opportunity to show breasts (seriously, 90% of the bad 3D production is close to softporn, you've got to aim higher)
- Lack of homogeneity: you don't have a specific feel or a look to your comic, resulting for instance in your 2 girls looking like they're coming from a different artist
- Grandeur: I would say it is very difficult to find help and be taken seriously when you talk about the "first issue being free at least" when your production is not yet convincing [EDIT: this sounds harsh as I reread it, but my intent is to be constructive and I do not mean to offend]

Now for the good:
- You have a goal and apparently a full story in mind, which is brilliant and will help when you feel you're about to give up (which will come if you're aiming for something qualitative).

My advice at this point:
- Stop rendering altogether. Work on your script, write down the main tenets of your story.
- Take a pencil and paper and create very ugly, quickly drawn panels of how that would translate visually.
- Refine the dialogs.
- When you're sick of it, create a scene here and there for motivation.
- Go back to dialogs, panels and story and swap between the tasks. After the first night of sleep, you will change quite a few things and the story will already be better. The 20th time you read your dialogue aloud, even you will find out why people deem find it heavy and unrealistic (as the author, it's not that easy to find out).
- Before doing serious renders, find the look you want and make sure all your characters have the same feel
- Don't spend too much time finishing your early pages. By the time you're finished, you will redo them anyway because your skills at storytelling will be much better.

Once you're done, it doesn't really matter if you are fully convinced or not. You've done it, which is more than most of the people starting 3D comics can say! And you will be better prepared for the next one.

At that point, I will suggest reading books about making comics, going deeper into what makes it good or bad, how it works, what you can do with it. There is currently a MOOC at coursera, if you can bear the eccentric prof. Kuskin.

Something I find helpful is to simply copy a comic page. It will give you insight into why it works, how to read the dialogue, etc. Attached is a copy of a page from the 60s by John Severin with Daz people and elements, rendered with PWToon.

Good luck!

Remember, whatever you decide, finish it and you will be way better next time!

SnowSultan said:

I still think Aiko 4's American morph is the closest thing to a Disney-esque 3D face that I've come across. Been waiting for a remake of it for the last two Aikos and no luck. :(

Remember when you're trying to duplicate those kinds of popular characters to keep your textures simple. They do have skin detail, but it is only really visible up close. One of the biggest problems is actually the hair; transmapped hair is often too realistic, and untextured plastic 'helmet' anime hair usually isn't realistic enough.

I made this sample a while back with Aiko 4's American morph and some other minor adjustments. Brows and eyes from my Animeyes set, used pwToon for the slight outline and shading.

This morph is adorable! Is that young Smacky? As for toony hairstyles, I'd use those free shaders by RedEyeCat: http://redeyecat.wordpress.com/2013/05/09/toon-hair-shaders-for-ds-3-1/.

Kulay Wolf said:

I could try to make a standalone skin resource once I can get a subscription to 3d dot sk again. First I need to save up for the three month subscription at least. I need access to the zip files.
Back on topic maybe if I can figure out brush and get g2f into it I might be able to morph her into a princess like character but that requires going through the online tutorials for zbrush.

There is quite a bunch of merchant resource kits, but most are for pale-skinned women.

You may want to use toony eyes rather than realistic ones. ;) Also, photo-realistic renderers like Reality are not all that good for rendering toon characters. HDRI/IBL lighting can give them a mannequin-like look that is often more scary than cute.

Glad you got the morph converted well! I don't have GenX, so I haven't been able to do it myself.

3DUniverse's characters often have their own lights. Kimberly has a particularly good set.

On the hair issue. I find that Ali's hairs have a somewhat 'toony look in their original textures. Not too much to use them for a more realistic render, but might make a very good intermediate point for characters that are supposed to look animated.

And heaven knows there are a lot of them. Particularly over on Mankahoo.com where a number of things that have gone through the Clearance collection on Rendo can sometimes still be found.

Good point!

SnowSultan said:

I still think Aiko 4's American morph is the closest thing to a Disney-esque 3D face that I've come across. Been waiting for a remake of it for the last two Aikos and no luck. :(

Remember when you're trying to duplicate those kinds of popular characters to keep your textures simple. They do have skin detail, but it is only really visible up close. One of the biggest problems is actually the hair; transmapped hair is often too realistic, and untextured plastic 'helmet' anime hair usually isn't realistic enough.

I made this sample a while back with Aiko 4's American morph and some other minor adjustments. Brows and eyes from my Animeyes set, used pwToon for the slight outline and shading.

Very nicely done. Is there a possibility the morph can be brought forward via GenX?

EDIT: Actually giving this a try right now. I didn't realize that I had the American morph.

...yeah the hair thing is a pain for most other characters, particularly the 2D animated ones. You have to change the shders trhough something like pwToon or one of the other Anime/Toon shader sets to get rid of the "plastic" look most 3D toon hair has.

For his version of Belle (from Beauty and the Beast) Wancow custom modelled the hair and dress as well.. His project is still the benchmark for my work.

BTW, anyone hear how he is doing?

Yeah, you should be OK using transmapped hair for Meridia, I just meant in general. I don't think it'd look right on characters like Pocahontas or Jasmine. :)

pwToon should still work in 4.6, I made that test render...maybe 3 months ago? Don't make the shading color too different from the base one or you'll get that kinda ugly default Cartoon-shader look. I look forward to seeing what you come up with!

...look really good. I'll have to revisit A4 as I have Anime Eyes and pwToon (though I'm not sure if it works with 4.6).

For Merida, transmapped hair works as Pixar used a strand based system (similar in some ways to Garibaldi Express) to create hair that looked and moved more lifelike. My next phase is to actually try and create that tangled mop of hair myself with GE.

...see everyone in a few months...or years? ;-)

I still think Aiko 4's American morph is the closest thing to a Disney-esque 3D face that I've come across. Been waiting for a remake of it for the last two Aikos and no luck. :(

Remember when you're trying to duplicate those kinds of popular characters to keep your textures simple. They do have skin detail, but it is only really visible up close. One of the biggest problems is actually the hair; transmapped hair is often too realistic, and untextured plastic 'helmet' anime hair usually isn't realistic enough.

I made this sample a while back with Aiko 4's American morph and some other minor adjustments. Brows and eyes from my Animeyes set, used pwToon for the slight outline and shading.

I was wondering about that too, Richard. I start with one of Lantios' daylight sets, then delete them, and add a set of three distant lights that come TheNathanParable offered for his Manga Shaders. It seemed almost as if there was an Ambient setting somewhere that didn't get reset when I deleted Lantios' lights.

Of course, that might not be the way Ambient settings are set in DS. In packages like 3D Studio Max and Lightwave, it's possible to set the Ambient color for a scene independent of the lights.

Using Lantios' lights with pwToon was something I first started on my 32-bit PC. It was a way to get a different look than the two-tone look in a lot of cartoons and anime. On my PC, I could do multiple renders as I tested and corrected how pwToon worked in the scene. On my Mac, I can do about 3 or so renders, then all of a sudden it's like someone put a blue filter over the image. Very odd.

StratDragon, the question about 3delight occurred to me too. I'm pretty sure DS on my Mac is the most up-to-date version. Or at least DIM hasn't told me it's time to update. Is there a way to check what version of 3delight I have?