Hiya! I want to use Poser to render backgrounds that I can place 2D cartoon characters in. Most televised cartoons I've seen employ painted backgrounds for their 2D "toon-drawn" characters (i.e. the main characters have black "boundary lines" whereas the backgrounds rarely do). SnowSultan's Z-toon tutorial illustrates how to obtain a 2D toon-looking render from a 3D model in poser. However, his tutorial doesn't work for background scenes, and a 2D toon-looking character looks out of place with a 3D poser - rendered background. (1) Does anyone know of any poser techniques to create backgrounds that 2D characters won't look out of place in? Either within Poser itself or Postworked? (2) Are there any gallery images demonstrating / implementing such techniques? Thanks muchly!

How about playing with the sketch renderer?

Attached Link: http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?t=205751&page=7&pp=15&highlight=Fellah

Here's another idea...choose colors that are simple but set the right kind of mood. Then you can let the characters make the "toon look" happen for you. Like in the link provided. :)

Attached Link: http://market.renderosity.com/softgood.ez?ViewSoftgood=34803

Hello, you may want to check these out:) A series of backgrounds I created specificly for toon and celshaded renders.

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/viewed.ez?galleryid=544227&Start=1&Artist=Berserga&ByArtist=Yes

You need to render your backgrounds normally, then use photoshop filters (Or those in similar software) to make the rendered image look painted. I can't give you any formulas because what works best changes from picture to picture. You can even use photos as I did in the pic at the link. Please excuse the painted effect in that pic. It was an early experiment and a bit overdone :D

Message edited on: 04/09/2005 20:04

Try simple blurred photos with a subtle difference. Take 1 image with distinct good foreground, middleground and background. In the foreground mask out an area blur or unsharpen filter once. Middle ground blur filter twice. you get the idea. You have to play around a bit sometimes. But the result can give a nice puesdo 3d effect.

Now who said SnowSultan's Z-toon tutorial will not work with scenes?! All you have to do is set up your scene and when you're ready just import a simple prop, I usually use the Poser ball. Then parent everything in your scene to this ball - the easiest way by far to do it is using your Hierarchy menu, just drag and drop everything on the ball. Now when you select the ball got to the material window and set it to fully transparent, turning off highlights completely and setting highlight colour to black too. In your display/elements settings set the ball to cartoon shaded so you can see it to manipulate. Then just reduce the ball's z-scale and the whole scene will follow. Actually this is what I always do to manipulate scenes, not just for Z-tooning. It's useful for moving, scaling, rotating, etc entire scenes.