The Render Settings option toonifies only the DAZ Default Shader - it is switching the shader code used behind the scenes, as the Lighting Model option does. pwToon is another option.

WEll before I walk you through, I can say frustratingly (and interestingly) when I set it to render to a window as opposed to a file *and* I only have one or two objects in the picture the blue usually goes away. Which swings me to a hardware issue. Pwtoon makes my computer really think. Maybe I have a bad ram chip or even (gulp) a virus that's eating things in the background. Or, it really could have been those stupid unwanted updates. Time for some serious computer maintenance if work will let me.

In the meantime, this is how I do it.

I get my character in.
Select, surface, pswtoon base, ignore maps.
In surface settings, all I change are:
bump and displace to 0
scroll to bottom: interior line off
outline color 000, width 80 or more. The width doesn't matter, really. I just like to try to have thick lines.
rim color mode: difference, which is default. colors I leave at default. I've noticed when I change the rim color mode (I change it to add for black clothing) the blue will go away in those areas sometimes.

Lighting:
uberenvironment2, ambiance only or directional shadows.
1 lonely sun. 80%. shadows raytraced.
1 spotlight with your camera, 30% or so. Diffuse only. Or on, but no shadows.

And that's it.

This may be a blessing in disguise. This has shoved me into experimenting with the free acdztoon shaders (what with me wanting to get this done and all). They do a much crisper toon look, although the shadows leave a little to be desired right now. If I can get the shadows dark I may not use pwtoon as much anymore. Pwtoon is great for some things but there are times I've found it too shiny. But! One thing atta time.

I might be missing a step... But doing pwToon then the Default pwToon Neutral so I can set the inner edges off and then the DS Toon Render option I'm still not getting a blue shadow thing.
Could you walk me through your steps... I did the Ignore maps and all that...

Well that says to me it is in the pwToon shader but I did a pwToon with your settings and the DS Toon render option and still did not get the blue error... I admit I used a light set and not the default camera head lamp. Maybe that is the cause...I'll check it on my PC now using just the head lamp.

Hi guys. Thanks for responding!

The scenes are set up very simply. Everything is given the pwtoon shader as a base. outline of 80 t0 120. No inner line. bump off, things like that. uberenvironment, ambience only or directional shadows. One distant light and then a spotlight from the camera, wherever the camera may be. When rending, I put the render engine to cartoon under 3delight. It just used to render better that way.

I should reiterate that this particular scene is the same scene I've been using a while. The first example is how it USED to render. The second sample is what I'm getting now with no settings changed at all aside from a DAZ upgrade. I've been having to carry on anyway with these godawful blue splotches and my pages look TERRIBLE. Those blue lines create postwork messes I can't correct without just throwing DAZ out the window and going back to drawing by hand.

I also built a whole new scene from scratch. Everything renders fine... until I put in the pwshader.

I use other toon shaders, and results are nice. Interestingly if I use the pwcomic shader, no blue splotches. It seems to be pretty specific to the settings I've been using all this time that never were an issue before.

So although I'd like to say, sure, setting issue. There's this history of my settings being perfect.... (sighs) And I've poked and prodded, played, rebuilt, and have run out of time.

Have a look at the online readme for pwToon

http://www.poseworks.com/shaders/pwtoon/index.html

It may ofer some quick insight as to what you need to change cause it sounds more like a setting issue then anything.

Graphics card should not be an issue here. 3Delight uses software rendering, so it won't matter what graphics card you have as it simply won't use it. The only thing it will affect is what is visible in the viewport (and thus, how fast DS runs while you're manipulating figures).

Due to where those green and blue areas are appearing, I think the issue is more likely something to do with your scene specifically. Either the lighting or the surface materials. What are your render settings (are you using pwToon as well as the 'cartoon shader' option?) and how are your scenes composed. If you give us some information on the scenes which are the worst offenders, we might be able to shed some light on the source of these problems.

Which version of pwToon you using? If its the Updated version for DAZ Studio 4.5+ I can test it.. I have it just never used it...

Well, I thought it was my video card at first. (Scarey!) But after some testing, yes. It only happens with pwtoon shader. This is the first time I've tried to toon shade since going to the latest DAZ, so my conclusion is it is no longer compatible with DAZ. I've tried all sorts of settings using pwtoon. I've reinstalled pwtoon. No matter what, the minute I apply it the blue weirdness returns. Which is a disaster for me! One of my comics *depends* on it.

I need to somehow uninstall this latest DAZ and go back to the old one that works. Or something.

al_iguana said:

thanks :) you have no idea of the hoops I used to go through trying to get that effect on a conventional render using filters and curves and gah.... quicker to draw it with a sharpie lol. Still have no idea how the ID zones work and stuff yet (or how to actually set skirt-handles so they don't render), but I'm a very happy customer :)

Very nice work. :) I used to fight with combinations of pwToon and pwSketch to get the look I wanted for my manga projects. That's really why I kept working on this camera. I'm so happy to see that others are finding it useful as well!

zigraphix said:

mjc1016 said:

So basically, it's looking like an incompatibility problem between the 'standard' Garibaldi shader and the toon cam. Applying a 'default' shader to the hair should 'fix' it...basically all that's needed would be a diffuse color in the default shader.

I'll go through the script that adds the OutlineID and Outline Depth parameters to make sure they don't give them funny names that would conflict with another script. I'll need to see about getting a copy of Garibaldi to test. It seems like enough people may want to be able to use them together that I should test for that. (I would think it would be even more true with SketchyCam Pro.)

Yes! even I don't like pwtoon or some metallic shaders in garibaldi vs LAMH results, for me Garibaldi hair with sketchycam looks totally WoW

I am glad you found some use, even if only for work flow theory.
I noticed that when I do not apply pwToon prior to export, I do not get the desired results with the render in Blender.
I do enjoy pwToon in DAZ, however, the line art control in freestyle is a step above what DAZ and pwToon offer. The shading control is more fine tuned as well in Blender so I get more of my desired result without a lot of, or sometimes any, post processing.
I tend to do a little more work with lighting (not as intricate other people) but to get the desired looks I do mess around in Blender's lighting to get nice looking shadows and such with the comic renders.
The render speed really is not much of an issue to be honest. Blender only takes longer when there is a lot of geometry and it is mapping out the strokes in freestyle rendering.
I do also do touch ups on the models such as sculpting to get deeper creases in skin for nicer looking renders. At times I will also have to adjust clothing or other touch ups or create additions to models which is simple in Blender since I am used to it versus Hexagon.
I actually appreciate the simple flow I can have between scene setup and posing in DAZ to touch ups and rendering in Blender. Those two make life easy!
I did a concept that shows more lighting and shadow play that I am referring to here;
http://levonas.deviantart.com/art/Tony-Maye-and-Animus-First-Face-to-Face-Concept-436300104
I do see a few things I would adjust in a final render as being the artist I am the most critical of my work, but for now it is just a concept for a graphic novel that I am waiting and bugging the writer to get moving on at least the first volume...or the first page at that!
That is where I will post my renders as I do them for the fun of it.
So there is nothing wrong in the DAZ rendering, I just like the control and final results in Blender's freestyle more.

Excellent !!! I`ve seen your video . Seems easy to follow . I dont know if Blender could import DAZ shader or PW TOON :) BTW since pwToon is work in DAZ and most toon style seem doesnt need realistic lights , Im curious what main reason we should rendering in Blender ?? Render Speed ?? Or for easy integrating with other prop models which made using blender ?? Thanks !!!

Do you have comic site? I would love to study from you

zigraphix said:

wsterdan said:

Just a quick test using a comb of pwToon and ToonyCam, absolutely love this camera.

Thanks again for a great product, really looking forward to the next one. Will you be starting a preview thread for it?

-- Walt Sterdan

I haven't decided yet about a separate preview thread....

Is there a clothing converter for Toon Generations? How did I miss that???

Came out recently (sorry you missed the half-price sale); you missed it because you were too busy giving us ToonyCam Pro. ;-)

-- Walt Sterdan

zigraphix said:

wsterdan said:

Just a quick test using a comb of pwToon and ToonyCam, absolutely love this camera.

Thanks again for a great product, really looking forward to the next one. Will you be starting a preview thread for it?

-- Walt Sterdan

I haven't decided yet about a separate preview thread....

Is there a clothing converter for Toon Generations? How did I miss that???

Yes, is a new CrossDresser license.

wsterdan said:

Just a quick test using a comb of pwToon and ToonyCam, absolutely love this camera.

Thanks again for a great product, really looking forward to the next one. Will you be starting a preview thread for it?

-- Walt Sterdan

I haven't decided yet about a separate preview thread....

Is there a clothing converter for Toon Generations? How did I miss that???

Just a quick test using a comb of pwToon and ToonyCam, absolutely love this camera.

Thanks again for a great product, really looking forward to the next one. Will you be starting a preview thread for it?

-- Walt Sterdan

knitpixel said:

Renpatsu said:

pwToon and ToonyCam combined ...

This is really inspiring stuff - and thank you for ToonyCam, it's a great new tool to produce something a little different! I really enjoy looking at the images of all the renders to get new ideas. I love the effect that Renpatsu achieved in the image on page 8 of this thread. I've been having a play with ToonyCam and pwToon, but not managed to achieve such elegant results. Any tips or suggestions?

Thanks

Thank you :) It is done very simple, so I cannot really take credit for anything except for the dabbling fun, but I like that look as well :)

The render is using the Crescent's pwToon Cel Shader Presets for most part on the figure, using the thin edges - white on skin, scleras, lacrimals, red on lips, irises, and black on pupils and hair. The black is basically a modified white preset (there is no full black in Crescent's shader presets), just use the white preset with full black color on diffuse and the shading. Then the ToonyCam Pro is set up with a low Shading Levels Count (if I recall correctly I used 2) and low Blend (10). Outline Style was set to normal. For the eyebrows I needed to use LIE (Layered Image Editor) to use the eyebrow map included in Fiends Forever as an alpha blend over the "Face" surface, so that I got the eyebrows in the end. Keep the light setup very simple or even no lights at all. Hope this helps a bit :)

Renpatsu said:

pwToon and ToonyCam combined ...

This is really inspiring stuff - and thank you for ToonyCam, it's a great new tool to produce something a little different! I really enjoy looking at the images of all the renders to get new ideas. I love the effect that Renpatsu achieved in the image on page 8 of this thread. I've been having a play with ToonyCam and pwToon, but not managed to achieve such elegant results. Any tips or suggestions?

Thanks

Pendraia said:

zigraphix said:

It's so much fun to see these renders! Thanks for posting, everyone! :lol:

Pendraia said:

Another render using Mavka...and I've realised that I need outlineID off with some hairs or the outline of the edge of the skull cap shows.

What you want to do there is set the skullcap to the same outlineid as the skin.

@bad4u, that is so cute! But poor Clara won't be going there after all, since the Mouse King has her in his paws. ;)

@gilikshe, I see what you mean-- yes, for architecture the method I use for ToonyCam is going to work better than what pwToon does. :)

sorry Zi, but how do I do that?

I will write a tutorial about manually editing OutlineIDs, and add it to the product.

In short, when you turn on outline rendering, a new parameter is added to every surface in your scene. By default, every surface gets a unique outlineID. This is saved as a color. In the first render pass, an image is created with all the shapes of the scene in flat colors using the OutlineID. This is used to create an outline image wherever the colors change.

I've included some utilities to edit the OutlineIDs, but you can also just go into the surfaces panel and manually change them. Find out what OutlineID your figure is using on face skin, and then look for the Material zone for the hair scalp. Set the OutlineID of the scalp to the same value as the face skin.

Let me know if you have further questions....