Attached Link: http://www.curiouslabs.com/go/poser6/use/cartoon

There are tons of Toon Style shaders for Poser 5. For the most part they will work in P6. Plus P6 can add the toon outline on top. Really helps achieve the "cell" look. Nerd3D

I have to find that tut then cause I just don't get it. Sharen

Be sure you read the part of the manual that talks about "Toon ID" You will need to set up the Toon ID properly for all your mats to get good results with the new toon outliner.

Search Freestuf for Toon shader, Or Crescent, or Trekkiegrrl. They both released cel shader packs that are based on stewer's cel shader he posted here, that creates it's own outline and does a PRETTY good job, but is heavily dependent on how you light it.

Also of note is just how good the new toon preview mode is. You can change the line thicknes and choose how many color bands you want now. If you are using a character like Animedoll or F202 that doesn't use transmaps, You can really get by with just that!

Here's a quick anime (or any traditional animation) tip that most people just don't think about. Animation backgrounds should NOT be cel shaded. In traditional (Theatrical, OVA, most TV) animation the backgrounds are full paintings done with poster colors. They (Usually) don't have inked lines either. So you should render your cel shaded characters and foreground objects to a seperate layer from the background. Then render the background realistically.

Bring your realistic background into Photoshop (or your editor of choice) and apply filters to get a painterly effect (But don't overdo brush strokes and stuff.)

Just mess around untill you like what you see... Oh and if you use background props with hand painted textures... all the better.

Message edited on: 04/07/2005 10:46

You will probably find if you use the toon outline option in P6 that you won't want to use the fancy system Stewer figured out. The toon outlines do what stewer was after, only much better. (Not that Stewer wasn't good. P5 just didn't have the right tools) Remember to check out the new OpenGL toon preview. CL has made vast improvements in that area. In some ways I think it's better than the rendered toon style. You can select from 5 toon preview styles by right clicking the document window and selecting "toon style" and the style of your choice. Remember this only works in OpenGL mode. Hidden Poser 6 Goodie: The colors for the 5 toon styles can be edited. In your ...runtime/textures/toon folder you will find 5 png files. You can edit these files then "reload textures" in poser to see the result. I felt the colors were a bit dark so I lightened mine by about 40% and resaved them. (Please, backup the origianls!) Nerd3D

I got to write this all down, cause I am only getting the outline and want the whole thing rendered in toon. So this is in the manual? I looked under toon and render and could not find it. Sharen

There is a wacro in the advanced mat room to setup toon materials for you. I'm sure it's in the book, but you know how helpful that book is ... I use mine the keep the door from swinging closed. You will need to setup the toon ID for the materials. On figures you'll probably want to put all the "skin" mats with one ID. Each clothing piece in another. All the hair mats in yet another. Nerd3D

Message edited on: 04/07/2005 12:58

and really just download the shaders here in free stuff, as they are better than the simple one provided by Curious labs.

Thanks I will try this....Sharen

Thanks for all the info! It took me a while - but I FINALLY figured it out and found the references in the manual - Toon ID is on page 295, Wacro Drawer-page 223, Toon page 304 - and in order to apply toon shading to ALL the parts of an object - "shift-click" when the button come's-up in the advanced shader. (I was going one by one...OY) :P -Cathy

Oh nice tip, Thanks.

Nerd, Can you also change the thickness of each preset for the open GL preview toon settings? What I mean is. If you don't like the current open GL presets and want to tweak them? Is that possible? -ScottA

Yep, plus the line width can be set on the Render Settings > Preview Tab. "Toon edge line width" Nerd3D

Yeah that is an insanely cool feature. Now if they would make it so it could display transmaps in toon mode (like a toggle box) I'd consider using display over cel shaders.

Set the trans mapped object's display style to "Smooth Texture". Smooth Texture displays trans mapped objects in the preview render. It doesn't get lines, but for trans hair and clothes it's passable.

I was talking about eyelashes, which by and large aren't seperate objects