Hi, I don't know if anyone has tried the Z-Toon technique yet in Vue, but I have and it works amazingly well. Ockham's Python script also helps a lot. (The new "un-Z" is also a great new feature of his script.) First I played around with Mitch's diver scene, that comes with Vue, and flattened the diver in the Y-Dimension instead, instead of Z, since it didn't look right in Z. With some models you may have to use Y instead of Z. Maybe even X. But only flatten in one dimension. I placed the camera directly overhead, loaded the "Others"- "White Back" atmosphere (which has no clouds at all), turned the sunlight colors all to white, and turned off all shadows. Set the sun to Azmuth 180 and Pitch 90. The good camera setting I found was a 100mm lense, which also has a flattening effect. My idea was to set up a "Copy Stand Camera", like the one that is used by graphic houses to copy flat artwork. Mitch's diver, with the water removed, looked just like an Adobe Illustrator type of render once I rendered it with these settings. It's a very different look than what you normally see in Vue renders and some people may think this is crazy, but there is actually commercial art uses for this technique. So it really isn't so stupid, if you know what you are going to do with an illustration. Sometimes a commercial job calls for a "flat art" look, rather than a realistic ray-traced look. This technique gives you an extra trick for using Vue if you like to make money doing graphic illustrations. If anyone wants to try it and come up with an even better way to do this, I would be happy to see it. Ockham's Python script helps a lot in this process. I ran the script and imported the flat Poser scene into Vue and it worked great and it saves you having to try to flatten your poser models in Vue. There are probably other ways to do this in Vue that might work better in some cases, so I'm open to any ideas that others may have. BTW, this is a great technique too for doing Egyptian and Greek wall-type illustration. My Egyptians and Greek ships look just like art ready for pottery or ancient temple walls.

some people may think this is crazy Well I don't!! Thanks for the tip. 8^) Marque

I'd love to see a link to some of your images. Sounds great.

I don't think it's crazy at all. It's been fun to see and read about people's experiments with these techniques. However, I can't help but note the amusing irony that we're using "3D" apps to get "flat" looks. :-) Anyone out there familiar with the Japanese "Superflat" movement in the fine arts world? Cool stuff.

I'm not familiar with the "Superflat" movement, but in reply to xoconostle I would say that the real advantage of this technique over 2-D applications is that the models can be completely posed and reposed, with full use of transparency maps, textures, etc. You can't easily do these things in Adobe Illustrator. Imagine if an art director said "can you have the character looking a little more to upwards towards the sky"- In a 2-D application that means several hours re-work, maybe. In this technique its just a few clicks away to having a character posed any way you want, in any hairstyle, clothes, etc. I'm certain that there could be huge value in time-sensitive applications like website advertising and news graphics, among other things. The 2-D look is still very much in demand today, but using 3-D to get there offers huge advantages, I think. (Plus you STILL HAVE all the original advantages of realistic 3D!) Plus, these 2-D images can be ANIMATED and using the video codecs available, output immediately to professional video.

In case it wasn't clear, my comment on irony wasn't cynical ... I love this stuff! Totally agreed about the advantages. Ockham, are you asking us about how that image was achieved, or is that a scan of an actual hand-tinted image? That's what it looks like to me, congratualations if I'm wrong. I do that with my own digital photographs ... it's not so hard, really I've done the same with some Poser portraits. Always a matter of postwork, although there's no reason why the same sorts of techniques couldn't be applied to z-toon flattened renders.
I can't imagine getting that look completely from within Poser, though. The app just doesn't offer that type of color control. The best I can imagine doing would involve "pre-work." That is, desaturating and then "hand-painting" all textures prior to render time. Might be a cool project! Hmmmm...

Apparently Ockham deleted the post and image by the time my response posted. Well, thanks for the idea anyway! :-)

Actually I'm a heavy user of Photoshop, and I own tons of filters and have spent huge amounts of time playing with images for various effects. I might add that I have been fortunate to also make a comfortable living doing it (and have own a lot of high-end graphics equipment.) So for me this isn't just theoretical fun, however I do enjoy that also. If you aren't in the business of making money using computer software, I think for many this doesn't mean much. But for my own work, this technique has many important uses.

any new technique is a good thing. The z-toon look makes it easier to vector trace things for clipart for example .... grin and it also gives rise to mixed possibilities ..using ztooned figures as bas relief carvings in a 'regular' egyptian scene for example ...

Attached Link: "Framed"