A friend of mine is working on a retro-gaming RPG project and asked me if I could render some character pictures in a cartoon style. I've seen it done within Poser and I've even seen someone do it with VSS somewhere in some thread. I have not a clue how to do this but I'd like the learning experience, so could we have a discussion about cartoon rendering within Poser?

"A lonely climber walks a tightrope to where dreams are born and never die!" - Billy Thorpe, song: Edge of Madness, album: East of Eden's Gate

Weapons of choice:

Poser Pro 2012, SR2, Paintshop Pro 8

There was a bit of discussion on cartoon shading in the humongous VSS Skin Test thread starting on page 79 or 80:

VSS Cartoon Discussion.

But I think it's a good a to start a new thread about toon shading in Poser. I haven't been able to find a good method for toon shading without using texture maps so I'll be watching this thread closely.

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I'd prefer to use texture maps as the base. I have a good anime type skin texture for M4 that came from the Marketplace. When rendered, it's style reminds me of some of the new Final Fantasy character cut scenes. I'll check out your bookmark, but yes, I think there needs to be a thread for this so I've started it.

"A lonely climber walks a tightrope to where dreams are born and never die!" - Billy Thorpe, song: Edge of Madness, album: East of Eden's Gate

Weapons of choice:

Poser Pro 2012, SR2, Paintshop Pro 8

Vestmann, you didn't happen to have saved your VSS3 Toon prop setup? I'm not getting the same results. My girl is rendering like a giant 100 watt light bulb.

"A lonely climber walks a tightrope to where dreams are born and never die!" - Billy Thorpe, song: Edge of Madness, album: East of Eden's Gate

Weapons of choice:

Poser Pro 2012, SR2, Paintshop Pro 8

So Vestmann showed how to do it, and in fact it's quite trivial to put any kind of shaders into the templates and have VSS apply them.

The real question is - what sort of shader? Turning any shader into a template is pretty easy. If there is a particular toon style shader you already have or know about, then we can get started.

Otherwise, first we have to decide what the shader should do, exactly.

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Since this is all new to me, I have no idea, BB. I don't know if you are familiar with video games or retro RPGs that resemble Final Fantasy 2 or 3. What I probably am doing for the project is just head shots for the character stats screens in the game. Maybe some full body shots. Not sure at the moment. I just wanted to familiarize myself with this technique of Poser rendering since I've never done it before.

"A lonely climber walks a tightrope to where dreams are born and never die!" - Billy Thorpe, song: Edge of Madness, album: East of Eden's Gate

Weapons of choice:

Poser Pro 2012, SR2, Paintshop Pro 8

Here's an example. It's the home page of the game Deadly Sin (Deadlysinstudio).

"A lonely climber walks a tightrope to where dreams are born and never die!" - Billy Thorpe, song: Edge of Madness, album: East of Eden's Gate

Weapons of choice:

Poser Pro 2012, SR2, Paintshop Pro 8

Sorry, have to run some errands. I'll be back soon to check this thread.

"A lonely climber walks a tightrope to where dreams are born and never die!" - Billy Thorpe, song: Edge of Madness, album: East of Eden's Gate

Weapons of choice:

Poser Pro 2012, SR2, Paintshop Pro 8

Quote - Vestmann, you didn't happen to have saved your VSS3 Toon prop setup? I'm not getting the same results. My girl is rendering like a giant 100 watt light bulb.

Try again with a single light at low intensity. One of the thing I'm not comfortable with when it comes to toon shading is lighting. It seems that toon shaders need very little light. Anyway, try changing the lighting before doubting your setup.

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this is good. it's the first time in recent memory when OP posted an example of desired toon style.
I can see how the artist did it. I dunno how to do it in poser. the line work alone requires
specifications for each material of each posersurface, and for variations in line width according to
edge lighting and location. in addition, the artist rendered cast shadows in some areas, but skipped
them in other areas (artistic licence).

Great observations, MN. Usually I just whip out a material approximating what I see, but this style is very complex.

Some of it I'm not going to be able to manage. Poser nodes limit the data that a shader has access too.

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This was only one example image of style. I can find others. I saw a demo video last night of another game on Big Fish that is in the same style as my friend wants to do (I believe the game was made with the same game engine that my friend wants to use). There was a quick screen shot in the video of the character page within the game.

To Vestmann, I will first try a lower light setting. As you say, obviously toon render utilizes different light approaches than I am used to working with.

"A lonely climber walks a tightrope to where dreams are born and never die!" - Billy Thorpe, song: Edge of Madness, album: East of Eden's Gate

Weapons of choice:

Poser Pro 2012, SR2, Paintshop Pro 8

Quote - This was only one example image of style. I can find others. I saw a demo video last night of another game on Big Fish that is in the same style as my friend wants to do (I believe the game was made with the same game engine that my friend wants to use). There was a quick screen shot in the video of the character page within the game.

To Vestmann, I will first try a lower light setting. As you say, obviously toon render utilizes different light approaches than I am used to working with.

Ok. Let us know how that goes. If you have problems I'll see if I can dig up my old setup.

I have a good feeling about this thread :)

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I found an interesting halfway point that I liked and I have saved this setting, but it's not what's needed for this project. I'm posting the image. I did not render with the toon outlining because it's weirdly outlining her eyelashes.

"A lonely climber walks a tightrope to where dreams are born and never die!" - Billy Thorpe, song: Edge of Madness, album: East of Eden's Gate

Weapons of choice:

Poser Pro 2012, SR2, Paintshop Pro 8

So, I've always thought and still think there is no hope of doing proper toon lines in Poser. The only thing that sort of works is an Edge_Blend with a threshold, but that doesn't do the right thing all the time. Sometimes, no line shows, and sometimes you get much more than a line.

We need a 2D edge-detect node and there's no way to do it. Everything in the node system is 3D.

I have some ideas for the shading - some of it seen here. But the lines seem impossible.

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This subject interests me so here's a question I have. Creating cartoons requires 2 things: shaders and lines. Assuming shaders aren't going to be a problem, how good is poser's ability to create the lines properly?

EDIT: I started writing before bill posted. :

WARK!

Thus Spoketh Winterclaw: a blog about a Winterclaw who speaks from time to time.

(using Poser Pro 2014 SR3, on 64 bit Win 7, poser units are inches.)

Quote -
We need a 2D edge-detect node and there's no way to do it. Everything in the node system is 3D.

Okay forgive me but this sparked a really dumb question. We've seen that you can create an object with just poser. Like the loop making script. Would it be possible to create a 2D object that could be a fake stand-in for the edge? If so, just plug black into its ambient channel.

WARK!

Thus Spoketh Winterclaw: a blog about a Winterclaw who speaks from time to time.

(using Poser Pro 2014 SR3, on 64 bit Win 7, poser units are inches.)

That might be possible for a still image, but not animation. Hmmm.

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olivier sells shaders that do the simple edge-blend and possibly the directional edge-blend
(very difficult IMVHO). the simple edge-blend is better than the poser toon outline, but I don't
own the shader set, hence I can't do demo renders of it.

in poser, the 3-d to 2-d technique is called z-tooning or z-flattening (snow sultan).

Quote - So, I've always thought and still think there is no hope of doing proper toon lines in Poser. The only thing that sort of works is an Edge_Blend with a threshold, but that doesn't do the right thing all the time. Sometimes, no line shows, and sometimes you get much more than a line.

We need a 2D edge-detect node and there's no way to do it. Everything in the node system is 3D.

I have some ideas for the shading - some of it seen here. But the lines seem impossible.

can you give us that shader above? I love the style.

> Quote - can you give us that shader above? I love the style.

Here it is. Remove the .txt - it is a material file.

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thanks mate :)

For what I'm doing, I'm not necessarily sure I need the cartoon outline. I like the look of it better without the lines. Thank you so much for the material file, I'll do some playing around with that!

"A lonely climber walks a tightrope to where dreams are born and never die!" - Billy Thorpe, song: Edge of Madness, album: East of Eden's Gate

Weapons of choice:

Poser Pro 2012, SR2, Paintshop Pro 8

You're welcome.

The lines are adjustable and can be turned off.

There are a few parameters on the left to make it easy to adjust.

I'll show some examples.

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First is how to turn off the lines. Set the Line Threshold to 1. Everything below the threshold is toon shaded. Above the threshold it is black. The transition is controlled by the Line Spread. But since it doesn't really work - I won't bother with showing any more about controlling the line.

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The PM:Toony value controls a blending between normal diffuse and toon-style diffuse. The toon style just has two shades. The ordinary diffuse has all possible shades.

Setting Toony = 0 produces normal diffuse reflection.

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Setting PM:Toony = 1 is maximum toon shading.

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The Specular node in column 2 is ordinary specular. Adjust the Specular_Value to a lower amount to get less of it.

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The PM:Toon Midpoint controls the mid-luminance level where the toon shader transitions from dark to light. I moved it down to .4 here, so there is less dark parts.

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The PM:Toon Spread parameter controls the width of the transition between dark and light shading.

I increased it to .6 here to get a softer transition.

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Decrease PM:Toon Spread to .05 for a very sharp transition, but still anti-aliased. Don't go to 0, or you'll get jaggies.

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And, of course, the PMC:Color chooses the diffuse color.

If you want to use a texture, set it to white and connect an image map node to it like this.

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I screen captured your demonstrations for more detailed study offline. Thank you so much!

"A lonely climber walks a tightrope to where dreams are born and never die!" - Billy Thorpe, song: Edge of Madness, album: East of Eden's Gate

Weapons of choice:

Poser Pro 2012, SR2, Paintshop Pro 8

Thank you very much for this bagginsbill.

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the above is what the poser edge-blend shader looks like in post-process, but bill and olivier have shaders for this in poser, without any need for photoshop. oops! just noticed the OP doesn't need linework. that will make it very easy in poser, as it's not a cartoon style. that's the hardest thing to learn in cartoons - how to do the inking. there are dozens of books, but none of them actually give away the secrets to dramatic linework, fortunately. still need humans for that :lol:

Hi,
I am working on a project that requires the lines.
Miss Nancy those are very nice.
Did you get them with BB's material?
BB hope to see more on this.
cheerio
lululee

BB,
Could you use just the line part on your VSS shader?
cheerio
lululee

I don't know how MN did that. When I use Edge_Blend on Andy, I don't get consistent line widths like that. Sometimes nothing, and sometimes a big black area (not a line) is produced.

An edge that doesn't point away from the camera is not detected.

An area that points away from the camera but is not an edge (like a sloped shoulder) can trigger the black.

I don't know if Olivier found a better scheme of some sort. His examples always look good, but maybe he carefully selected his examples and didn't publish any of the failures. I publish the failures, and if I can't eliminate them, I don't stand behind the shader and don't want people to use it.

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You did see this, right? It's crap.

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lulu, I didn't use bill's edge-blend shader. to do this in photoshop is somewhat counter-intuitive
and complex (e.g. the initial edge-blend render has no lines anywhere, one has to be familiar
with high-pass filter and level adjustment in photoshop), but it satisfies the cartoonist's desire
to have the linework in a separate layer. that's why i would recommend either bill's or olivier's
shader instead.

BB,
I understand your integrity with quality.

Miss Nancy,
I have Oliver's shaders. I have not yet produced the kind of render I am looking for when I use my own textures.
I guess it's back to the drawing board unless BB hits the quality he is known for.
cheerio
lululee

BB,
In your material is there a way I can make the lines brown instead of black?
I do think there is potential for this shader.
cheerio
lululee

Sure. But rather than tell you which node, I added a new parameter - PMC:Line Color.

Also, I added a parameter to control how much darker the toon shaded shadow color is versus the standard color. This is PM:Shadow Multiple. Lower numbers will make it darker.

I also added a pre-connected empty color map. If you don't need a map, leave it blank and just use the PMC:Color chip. You can use both as well - a map will be multiplied with the color chip value. This is called a "tint" operation, and works the same in my VSS skin shader.

Because this has a properly named empty color map, it is now ready to use as a VSS template shader. Enjoy.

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WOW!
Thanks so much BB.
Much appreciated.
I'm off to play with it.
cheerio
lululee

Can't wait to see how you use it.

Here's an example where I used a dark green line. It helps hide the flawed areas. Makes it look like another toon shade instead of a mistake.

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Oh, forgot to say, I'm rendering with render GC. You're going to get very different results without GC. Do you want a version with shader GC built in?

I have a cool new technique, by the way, that I haven't published yet. I figured out a way to make shader GC automatically turn itself off, without you having to touch anything, when render GC is enabled. Isn't that cool? You can use the same material with or without render GC and don't have to do anything different. This solves a big problem for me as I was making GC and non-GC versions of everything for my book. But now I can make just one version of any shader for all cases!

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That's clever! Will you make a new revision for VSS Skin with this new technique?

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Quote - That's clever! Will you make a new revision for VSS Skin with this new technique?

Indeed. I'm sick of going in to set gamma = 1.

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Here is the new version with Auto GC in it.

I moved the specular node away and replaced it with parameters. The reason is with shader GC I need to anti-GC the specular color. I don't want you to be tempted to edit the color directly in the specular node, because then I will not be anti-gamma correcting it. This way, I have control.

In order for an auto-GC shader to work, all the nodes to the right of the surface have to have only black or white in them. Any other color and the auto-GC feature will not work.

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This shader is very interesting. You can make some very cool effects with it.

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Can't wait to try this out. Is it possible to do a sharp, B&W, Sin City type of shaders?

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Looks like it.

Set

Shadow Multiple = 0
Toony = 1
Toon Spread = .05
Adjust Toon Midpoint as needed.

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Hmm. Should have added an HSV node in front of the Color Map.

Then you can desaturate and boost luminance, and get something like this.

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I have some meetings now and can't play for a long while. I'll be back later.

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Fantastic!! This is looking great!

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one reason we'd like to do everything in poser is that it makes animation rendering easier.
adding the linework in photoshop is o.k. for a few images, but can be difficult for lengthy anim.
in video editor. bill's two greyscale images above are good examples of what a cartoonist would
call dramatic inking, which is the line-work and the darkest occluded/shadowed areas.

what I found with the edge-blend render in poser:

it will look good in some spots but bad in others - hit or miss
it may help to emphasise the figure outline if the figure has a plane behind it, somewhat analogous to atmospherics and background
the lines can be rough-edged

some of these reasons are why I'd rather use photoshop - control degree of smoothing (anti-
aliasing) of the lines, overall control of thickness.

I based my recommendation of olivier's shader on the render of jessica rabbit in his promos, but
that may not be the cartoon style of choice for all users.

Attached Link: http://market.renderosity.com/mod/bcs/index.php?ViewProduct=63235&Start=31&vendor=21157

I am quite impressed with this shader. I have been interested in creating a kind of hybrid looking character. Someone not quite toon yet not realsistic. Someone who has an illustrative look. This is my character "Cutie Pie Dolly" with BB's auto GC. She is rendered in BB's Environment sphere with BB's VSS indoor lights. I think she looks quite spunky with the shader. Also, I am not animating her so that helps. There is no postwork on her. (I am posting the link to her pormos so you can see how white her skin is)

Wow! That character looks great lululee!

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Thanks Vestmann,
I salute BB again.
I have been trying for ages to get those subtle lines.
I did reduce them just a bit from the original shader.
cheerio
lululee

Wow. That looks way better than I thought it could.

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Amazing BB.
Not even you know your own power.
The shader rocks!
cheerio
lululee

Wow! GREAT work here!

I wonder.. could you combine this with the Artistic Lens and get a sort of crosshatching in the shaded areas? (just guessing as I haven't really tried out the lens, but it could perhaps make an interesting effect for the animators?

I´m having a lot of fun with this. One stupid question: Is it possible to have a shader react to light and Shadow? I was thinking if it were possible to let the brick shader inverse its colors where the shadow hits it. Like in Sin City. Is it possible?

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Here's another test. I use a hsv node as BB suggested. This is not a very "toony" look but interesting non the less. I put the line color to white which adds a certain contrast to the look IMO.

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Quote - Is it possible to have a shader react to light and Shadow? I was thinking if it were possible to let the brick shader inverse its colors where the shadow hits it. Like in Sin City. Is it possible?

Surely. I don't have Poser on my office PC, but I think this should work:-

Use a Blender node to blend between the original wall texture and an inverted version. Set Blend value to 1.0, and plug in a threshold 'switch' which comes from a Diffuse node fed via a Gain node with high Gain, to give high contrast between diffuse illumination above and below the mid-point.

The threshold in this setup would be a diffuse illumination value of mid-grey (0.5). You can adjust the threshold if necessary by adding to or subtracting from the Diffuse node output before input to the Gain node.

Izi

"If I were a shadow, I know I wouldn't like to be half of what I should be."
Mr Otsuka, the old black tomcat in Kafka on the Shore (Haruki Murakami)

Thank you Izi. I'll be sure to give it a try.

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(Click for full size)

Ok. it works! The inverted shadow texture looks good but I´m not completely satisfied with the wall texture. It has two tones of gray instead of pure black and white. I tried changing several settings but it was all guess work. I finally added an add node between the brick node and the blender node. Anyway to make the wall pure black and white?

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Get online people! ;)

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Could your diffuse_value be too low?

Hmm... neither the diffuse value or the gain value seem to make any difference. I can increase the value in the Add node to get a purer white but that leaves out the black as gray.

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I see the problem, it might actually be at the blender end with the two brick images. Either way, Vestmann, the render looks very nice and unique.

vest, try the above. it increases the contrast on the non-shadowed part of the wall. more elegant settings are needed, obviously, but at least it's easy to control shadow edge blurring with the shader.

In your original shader, the diffuse value should be 1 (to give a full 0 to 1 range input to the Gain node) and the Gain node itself should have a high Gain setting (Value2) approaching 1.0. You had it as zero, which reduces contrast to nothing and produces a flat grey, instead of increasing contrast which is what we need. The shader worked to a degree, but almost by accident.

Miss Nancy used a Color_Math node (not necessary) instead of a Math node, but the gain value is in the right order.. near white.

Also the texture inversion seems over-complicated to me. I would use a single black and white brick node, and a Subtract node (1 - x) to invert it.

"If I were a shadow, I know I wouldn't like to be half of what I should be."
Mr Otsuka, the old black tomcat in Kafka on the Shore (Haruki Murakami)

Hmm... I'm not getting the results I would expect. I think this setup is too dependent on the incoming diffuse light needed to detect where there are shadows, and the Gain node is not giving a sharp enough transition, so we are actually getting a blend of the two inverted textures, hence the greys.
puts thinking cap back on

"If I were a shadow, I know I wouldn't like to be half of what I should be."
Mr Otsuka, the old black tomcat in Kafka on the Shore (Haruki Murakami)

izzy, this works, using yer suggestions to make it more elegant. one inf. lite, no IDL.

Thank you guys for the replies. I had some company over and I'll test this out when they clear off ;)

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> Quote - izzy, this works, using yer suggestions to make it more elegant. one inf. lite, no IDL.

I'm so glad - I was beginning to distrust my own thinking!

My problem was I was using a spotlight with inverse square falloff and it just wasn't producing enough light and contrast in the first place for the Diffuse node to detect the shadows very well.

I made a slight modification to the shader to give a hard switch between normal and inverted textures, so there is no grey blending at all. You can see I used a spotlight, and the shader is reacting to the angular fall-off as well as the shadow.

"If I were a shadow, I know I wouldn't like to be half of what I should be."
Mr Otsuka, the old black tomcat in Kafka on the Shore (Haruki Murakami)

Quote - > Quote - izzy, this works, using yer suggestions to make it more elegant. one inf. lite, no IDL.

I'm so glad - I was beginning to distrust my own thinking!

My problem was I was using a spotlight with inverse square falloff and it just wasn't producing enough light and contrast in the first place for the Diffuse node to detect the shadows very well.

I made a slight modification to the shader to give a hard switch between normal and inverted textures, so there is no grey blending at all. You can see I used a spotlight, and the shader is reacting to the angular fall-off as well as the shadow.

That's the look I want. What modification did you make?

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Here's the shader. Two changes, actually.

First I used a Round function instead of Gain. This makes anything < 0.5 equal to 0, and anything >= 0.5 equal to 1. So the Blender node is literally switching between textures instead of blending them. I thought Gain would do this quite well, but no.

I also added a Math Add node immediately after the Diffuse to adjust the shadow detection threshold, but the render above didn't need any adjustment so the value is zero. You might need this for different levels of lighting in your scenes.

"If I were a shadow, I know I wouldn't like to be half of what I should be."
Mr Otsuka, the old black tomcat in Kafka on the Shore (Haruki Murakami)

Now this is what I like to see. You're adapting BB's naming conventions into your workflow by using the PM: node, right? Thank you so much for this.

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> Quote - Now this is what I like to see. You're adapting BB's naming conventions into your workflow by using the PM: node, right? Thank you so much for this.

Yes - I use Parmatic, so I make a habit of doing this!
Shader mt5 file attached, if needed.

"If I were a shadow, I know I wouldn't like to be half of what I should be."
Mr Otsuka, the old black tomcat in Kafka on the Shore (Haruki Murakami)

Ahh thank you so much for the file. I´m gonna use it to do a Sin City style scene. I loved this effect in the movie and it's great to able to reproduce it in Poser. Thanks!!

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Very nice, indeed! I am very impressed!!!

I´m gonna stop for now. Thanks everybody for the help. My scene is building up nicely. Now I just need a name and a story for this character. Any ideas?

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He looks like a Grigori (or Gregory but I prefer the first spelling) to me :)

looks great!

MY ONLINE COMIC IS NOW LIVE

I aim to update it about once a month. Oh, and it's free!

just a note: the step node can give you a really simple threshold function. if you want pure, hard edges, step is definitely what you should try.

> Quote - just a note: the step node can give you a really simple threshold function. if you want pure, hard edges, step is definitely what you should try.

grabs the manual
Why yes! With a Step node, Value2 is the diffuse light threshold value.
Much simpler - thanks!

(Note: Step gives an inverted output compared to Round, so swap over the two Blender inputs).

"If I were a shadow, I know I wouldn't like to be half of what I should be."
Mr Otsuka, the old black tomcat in Kafka on the Shore (Haruki Murakami)

I can think of two titles, vest:

mr. kool cleans house
don't mess with mr. klean

Sibelius.
Valse Triste.

"If I were a shadow, I know I wouldn't like to be half of what I should be."
Mr Otsuka, the old black tomcat in Kafka on the Shore (Haruki Murakami)

(Click for full size)

Thanks for the suggestions guys:) I like Grigori or even Grigor and Sibelius sounds cool. Miss Nancy, however, led me to a name I like. I've sometimes used KleanZlate as a username so what do you guys think of Zlate? Zlate McKlean? Zlate Shadow? Shadow Zlate? ;)

"Shadow Zlate! He'll wipe your slate clean!!" lol :)

I attached my progress so far. I'm in the process of adding a hapless victim. I still haven't finished his shading or pose and he needs a horrid death expression on his face. Please also note his placement with regards to the gun shadow.

I really love working with these toon shaders. Everything is so simple and fast. Throw in a figure, add a black shader with white outline or vice versa and only one light. No IDL so everything renders superfast and you still end up with a half presentable result. Love it!!!

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The image is finished and uploaded to my gallery. I added a little story to give Zlate a little character. I credited you guys for all your help. Thanks again!! This has been a lot of fun ;)

You can check out the image here:

The Killing Tone

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This is a different attempt with a 'shader accident' I had once with VSS1 or VSS2, I can't remember now. Some piece of clothing had a part called body and VSS attempted to color it, and well, I ended up saving the material because I thought it had a 'toon' feel to it.

"A lonely climber walks a tightrope to where dreams are born and never die!" - Billy Thorpe, song: Edge of Madness, album: East of Eden's Gate

Weapons of choice:

Poser Pro 2012, SR2, Paintshop Pro 8

Not so much a "toon" as an airbrushed feel I think. I like the result though, LL. Interesting. It reminds me of some of the "toon" shaders Mapps made.

Yes, it does kind of have an airbrush feel to it.

"A lonely climber walks a tightrope to where dreams are born and never die!" - Billy Thorpe, song: Edge of Madness, album: East of Eden's Gate

Weapons of choice:

Poser Pro 2012, SR2, Paintshop Pro 8

Okay, how about this? This isn't VSS, unfortunately. This is a hybrid cross between V-Toon, didda's free simple toon materials, and my own simple V4 texture maps.

"A lonely climber walks a tightrope to where dreams are born and never die!" - Billy Thorpe, song: Edge of Madness, album: East of Eden's Gate

Weapons of choice:

Poser Pro 2012, SR2, Paintshop Pro 8

Now this certainly looks even more airbrushed! I like the effect!

Hm. Didn't BB once make a shader to simulate some (unfortunately to me unknown) pinup artist? As I remember it, it had some of the same look...

(uhm what's V-toon? I've been out of the loop for so long...)

If you search Rendo Freestuff using 'toon' you'll find V-toon package. The link takes you to the artist's site where there is also a zip with an update to accommidate V4. You should also come across the shaders by didda. I basically used the eyebrow transmap from the V-toon package and placed it on top of a simple map of V4 (basically just skin color with no details).

The BB shader you mentioned is his Vargas shader. I have it in my runtime. I think he posted it in a thread here and over at RuntimeDNA. Try searching the Poser Forum here for Vargas. I installed the shader but haven't used it yet.

"A lonely climber walks a tightrope to where dreams are born and never die!" - Billy Thorpe, song: Edge of Madness, album: East of Eden's Gate

Weapons of choice:

Poser Pro 2012, SR2, Paintshop Pro 8

Latexluv - at first I didn't like that look, but then I was thinking it would probably look quite good in combo with one of those toon shader actions you can get here in the MP for photoshop.
Love esther

MY ONLINE COMIC IS NOW LIVE

I aim to update it about once a month. Oh, and it's free!

BB's Vargas shader can be found on his Free Stuff page under random shaders:

Random shaders

It also has the VSSAlbino that is also great to play with.

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´Great. I think I downloaded the Vargas shaders back when they were demonstrated..but I'm not sure where I've putt hem, so now I downloaded them again L

Will look at the albino shader as well, it might make me a nice pale Snape L

The Albino Shader can produce results like this. (full image posted to my Deviant Art Page)

"A lonely climber walks a tightrope to where dreams are born and never die!" - Billy Thorpe, song: Edge of Madness, album: East of Eden's Gate

Weapons of choice:

Poser Pro 2012, SR2, Paintshop Pro 8

And if you follow the link, you will see the Albino shader applied to something unworldly.

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=1962794&user_id=343328&np&np

Uhm stupid question of the day.. since I've only been using VSS for about a week (but LOVING! it).. how do I use the albino shader? I know (at least I think I know) how to use the VSS prop, but this is a material. Should I load that and then synchronize or what?

In the Material Room, go to the Skin Template on the VSS prop. Load the Albino Shader into the Skin, then in Python, back out to the VSS Main buttons and select the Designer. The first option is Auto Rename Nodes. Click that and it will fix the names in the Albino shader. Save the VSS prop and rename it so that you know this is the Prop that contains the Albino shader settings. There may be another way to do it, but that's how I did it.

"A lonely climber walks a tightrope to where dreams are born and never die!" - Billy Thorpe, song: Edge of Madness, album: East of Eden's Gate

Weapons of choice:

Poser Pro 2012, SR2, Paintshop Pro 8

OK Cool That sounds relatively easy :)

Hi people. I was lurking for many days - busy with the family.

The VSS albino shader is already a VSS template - no need to do the Auto Rename Nodes. Just load it into the Template Skin as LL said and synchronize.

Renderosity forum reply notifications are wonky. If I read a follow-up in a thread, but I don't myself reply, then notifications no longer happen AT ALL on that thread. So if I seem to be ignoring a question, that's why. (Updated September 23, 2019)

Quote - The Albino Shader can produce results like this. (full image posted to my Deviant Art Page)

This is stunning.

Renderosity forum reply notifications are wonky. If I read a follow-up in a thread, but I don't myself reply, then notifications no longer happen AT ALL on that thread. So if I seem to be ignoring a question, that's why. (Updated September 23, 2019)

Quote - The Albino Shader can produce results like this. (full image posted to my Deviant Art Page)

Wow! That looks fantastic!

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I applied the Ltoon shader to my VSS prop in the way I was describing to Trekkie and then saved that to the library. grinning at Vestman You once published your VSS settings and I copied them and saved them as a VSS prop in my library.

"A lonely climber walks a tightrope to where dreams are born and never die!" - Billy Thorpe, song: Edge of Madness, album: East of Eden's Gate

Weapons of choice:

Poser Pro 2012, SR2, Paintshop Pro 8

P.S. I'm glad you all liked my Albino Girl render! I'm a big fan of VSS and I recommend it all the time, but I still haven't figured out how to get the Hair VSS prop to work. Haven't had the brain lately for that type of thing. Haven't even figured out how to re-arrange the Python script menu for the scripts that I use most of the time.

"A lonely climber walks a tightrope to where dreams are born and never die!" - Billy Thorpe, song: Edge of Madness, album: East of Eden's Gate

Weapons of choice:

Poser Pro 2012, SR2, Paintshop Pro 8

You need to add a new figure node in the Apply Rules of the VSS Hair Prop.

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I am so blown away by all the info here! Shaders is not my forte and I am learning so much here!

Now the stupid question... VSS? I downloaded the completed shader back on page 3... what is the VSS? Do I need it for the complete shader I downloaded from here? And where can I get it please if I do?

BTW, Vestmann your work is so cool retro. Sin City is one of my fav movies and the way the art was intermingled was outstanding, you do it justice!

Ariana

Is there water in your future or is it being shipped away to be resold to you?
Water, the ultimate weapon...
www.futurefantasydesign.com

You can get the VSS (Versatile Shader System) from the second link in bagginsbill's signature.

________________________________________________________________

If you're joking that's just cruel, but if you're being sarcastic, that's even worse.

Quote - I am so blown away by all the info here! Shaders is not my forte and I am learning so much here!

Now the stupid question... VSS? I downloaded the completed shader back on page 3... what is the VSS? Do I need it for the complete shader I downloaded from here? And where can I get it please if I do?

BTW, Vestmann your work is so cool retro. Sin City is one of my fav movies and the way the art was intermingled was outstanding, you do it justice!

Ariana

Thank you Ariana. Sin City is also one of my favorite movies (can't wait for the new one next year) I´m really enjoying the toon shader from bagginsbill and I´m trying to get a good comic style with it. I used it for my latest image that's supposed to be like a comic book cover. You can check it out here:

Sara 2010

To learn about VSS go to this page:

VSS homepage

There is a quickstart guide there in word and pdf format. You should also read over the VSS Skin Test thread. It has a lot of information by bagginsbill and others

VSS Skin Test - Opinions

Good luck with your VSS experience ;)

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Thank you both modus0!

I wanted to ask if this works with a single image (*.png, without any background) or if it has to be an entire image (*character, with a full background)? I am attempting to create cartoon/Tattoo's with this method. If it will require a full background too, would a Turq/Orange back be pref over a white one? (*easier to cut that image out of a contrasting color).

Off to look at Vestmann's work! (*be gone all day to Reno, 50mi,100mi RT, doctor appt.) I have to go get the broken legs checked out will be back very late today! :)

Ariana

Is there water in your future or is it being shipped away to be resold to you?
Water, the ultimate weapon...
www.futurefantasydesign.com

Broken legs?! Ouch!! Hope you're doing fine.

Not sure if I understand you about if this works on a single image... Do you mean you want to render out a single character without any background to use as a tattoo? If so then yes. I never save as .png but I know that if you save your image as .tif you get an alpha channel that you can use to cut your character from the background.

Thank you for your nice comment btw.

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Hi I'm back!

I am now in a brace only on both legs!!! Yea!

Now yes I want to do single characters, and toon to use for tats. (*BTW, Wicked Av!) I have never used .tif to cut out an image. I can experiment with that tho.

You are very welcome! :D

Hugs

Ariana

Is there water in your future or is it being shipped away to be resold to you?
Water, the ultimate weapon...
www.futurefantasydesign.com

How is the LLtoon.mt5.txt document installed please?

You need to remove the .txt extension. When I saved mine I clicked on an existing .mt5 file to get the right extension and changed the name to LLtoon.mt5 before hitting save. You save the file into a material library folder of your choice.

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ty vestman :)

Is there a way to make the specular less gradient? I know I can make it stronger/weaker and bigger/smaller but I was wondering if the transition from the specular color to diffuse color could be completely flat, if you know what I mean...

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Wouldn't lowering the toon spread to very low do that? Bill said not 0 so maybe try .01 like I did here.

WARK!

Thus Spoketh Winterclaw: a blog about a Winterclaw who speaks from time to time.

(using Poser Pro 2014 SR3, on 64 bit Win 7, poser units are inches.)

Yes that would give a flat transition between shadows and diffuse. The smooth transition of the of the specular node ruins this looks for me. But I managed to solve this on my own (believe or not :) I switched the specular node out for a glossy node which has a sharpness value. I´m testing it out now and hopefully it will add a 3rd color for a good cell shade look.

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Nevermind that, you wanted something else.

Okay, I've taken a look at the shader bill gave earlier in the thread (I hope he doesn't mind that) and noticed that a "spread" control usually takes a certain form. I'd basically try to copy what he did. I'm trying to work on it now, but I'm not sure where one of the nodes I want to use should go and what the other should be.

WARK!

Thus Spoketh Winterclaw: a blog about a Winterclaw who speaks from time to time.

(using Poser Pro 2014 SR3, on 64 bit Win 7, poser units are inches.)

Yeah I had to pull some nodes around to find where to put the new specular node but it was worth it. I'll post some test examples in a minute...

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This is pretty much what I was looking for. The character needs a little work but I really like the shine on the clothes.

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Ah, you found a way. I was just trying to add one of bill's controllers between the specular and the first color add on the mat. It didn't work.

EDIT: I think I'm getting close though.

WARK!

Thus Spoketh Winterclaw: a blog about a Winterclaw who speaks from time to time.

(using Poser Pro 2014 SR3, on 64 bit Win 7, poser units are inches.)

Here's how the new setup looks like. It still has the same controls for color, value and roughness and I added an 'Add' math function to control the sharpness. Unfortunately I don't know how to name it 'PM:Sharpness' but it serves its purpose none the less ;)

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I think you can rename the nodes manually. The PM:s probably come from matmatic. This is what I was working on and failing at.

WARK!

Thus Spoketh Winterclaw: a blog about a Winterclaw who speaks from time to time.

(using Poser Pro 2014 SR3, on 64 bit Win 7, poser units are inches.)

Here's where I put the Glossy node...

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Here I've adjusted the colors a little...

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that looks awesome!!!

MY ONLINE COMIC IS NOW LIVE

I aim to update it about once a month. Oh, and it's free!

Thanks! I´ve attached the shader. I´d love if someone would try this out and post some examples.

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Thanks for the shader! I will try it as soon as the render I'm working on is done! It looks great!

What kind of lights did you use? Lights are usually very important when it comes to faking cell shading in Poser...

Just a single infinite with raytraced shadows. That's one of things I love about this render technique. It's sooo light on resources.

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I used an old "toon" lightset I once made. Three lights in that one, so it's probably overkill, bit I like the end result. as a matter of fact I'm liking this toon shader A LOT! Thanks!

That looks fantastic! And thanks go to bagginsbill. He created the system. I just changed the Specular node.

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Hm. Tried again with a single light as you described. This is better, the shadows on her "leg socket" are more "right" now :)

Ahaha I can see myself playing with toons the next couple of days! This is awesome!

I know! ! Long render times seem like a thing of the past when working with toon shaders ;)

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Oh I forgot that there is a Granite node in the shader. If you don't like it just delete it.

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I'd been trying (and failing) to get proper toon hair shader when I remembered that Poser has dynamic hair. I find it works very well with the toon shader. This is one of Adorana's free hair sets. I only changed the specular color and added a bit more hairs. I can't get enough of this toon shader!! This render took 28 min., 24 of those went in rendering the hair :) I know I'm probably talking to myself here but I don't care. I love this shader!! ;)

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no - I'm listening. I am just wondering how quick and easy it is to toon a whole scene using your technique and how transmapped clothes look and how eyes look close up and how much fiddling you have to do.
Love esther

MY ONLINE COMIC IS NOW LIVE

I aim to update it about once a month. Oh, and it's free!

ps
your image looks awesome!!!

MY ONLINE COMIC IS NOW LIVE

I aim to update it about once a month. Oh, and it's free!

> Quote - no - I'm listening. I am just wondering how quick and easy it is to toon a whole scene using your technique and how transmapped clothes look and how eyes look close up and how much fiddling you have to do. > Love esther

Hehe feels like we've been down this road before ;)

I´m afraid there is always gone a be lot of fiddling when applying this shader to a whole scene as this shader doesn't use color maps like you'd usally do. I added the tattoos, lip detail and minor facial detail by adding a color map to the PMC:Color node (see above). Everything else is procedural.

I'll do a test with a whole scene using color maps. It'll be fun to see how it works out. I'll post a test render in a little while...

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i kind of thought so.

will be looking forward to seeing your next test.

MY ONLINE COMIC IS NOW LIVE

I aim to update it about once a month. Oh, and it's free!

I´m gonna test this scene out:

http://www.daz3d.com/i/3d-models/-/recreation-room?item=9346&_m=d

It has has a lot of objects so it takes a while to synchonize...

Not quite sure how I´m gonna light it. I suspect that the light that comes with it is too bright.

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how did I miss that scene? thanks.
It's in my cart.
Love esther

MY ONLINE COMIC IS NOW LIVE

I aim to update it about once a month. Oh, and it's free!

hang on - it looks like something I once got from CP by Predatron3DA???

MY ONLINE COMIC IS NOW LIVE

I aim to update it about once a month. Oh, and it's free!

> Quote - hang on - it looks like something I once got from CP by Predatron3DA???

Yeabb, it's from Predatron3DA.

I made a small mistake when synchonizing. I forgot to turn up the saturation in the HSV node :) Trying again...

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it looks different though in some ways to the daz one so I still might get the daz one as well one day.
Love esther
PS even like that it looks good.

MY ONLINE COMIC IS NOW LIVE

I aim to update it about once a month. Oh, and it's free!

Here it is with a single point light. I´m gonna try the light set that came with set next...

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looking good.

MY ONLINE COMIC IS NOW LIVE

I aim to update it about once a month. Oh, and it's free!

Here it with the light set. Looks ok. except there are no shadows visible. Not sure why that is. This light set has about 20 lights! which is probably way too much for toon rendering. You can see how the transparency works out in the sky light...

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Forgot the render ... ;)

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no can't see - no image attached.

MY ONLINE COMIC IS NOW LIVE

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check again...

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Ok. I deleted every other light in the room and now it looks better except there are no shadows on the floor. I'll do on more test with yet fewer lights...

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it looks similar to the first colour one except that as you say no shadows, and also it doesn't have the little hilights that were on the first one.
Love esther

MY ONLINE COMIC IS NOW LIVE

I aim to update it about once a month. Oh, and it's free!

Ok. this is with 2 point lights and an overhead sunlight. This lighting look wrong to me and there is something very strange going on with the floor shadows... I'll re-synchronize with new settings for a final test...

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Ok I give up for now. There is something about how this shader reacts to shadow that I don't have clue about. I´m sure bagginsbill can shed some light on it (pun intended) if he goes by here...

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do you mean the very dark patches on large surfaces?
That seems to be common to all types of toon shaders including the daz studio cartoon renderer setting.
Love esther

MY ONLINE COMIC IS NOW LIVE

I aim to update it about once a month. Oh, and it's free!

Ok. I´m saving it for later use. Do you like the look?

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very much!

MY ONLINE COMIC IS NOW LIVE

I aim to update it about once a month. Oh, and it's free!

Hi - on my way out of town for work, but popped in. The big dark area is the toon "line". Remember how I said this sucks; using EdgeBlend to detect edges detects anything that is pointing sufficiently away from the camera, including the distant part of the floor in a large room.

Renderosity forum reply notifications are wonky. If I read a follow-up in a thread, but I don't myself reply, then notifications no longer happen AT ALL on that thread. So if I seem to be ignoring a question, that's why. (Updated September 23, 2019)

I love it, too.- And I loved the monochrome version, too. Very special.

yes, i do recall that.
It may be a necessary evil for tooning.

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I aim to update it about once a month. Oh, and it's free!

Quote - Hi - on my way out of town for work, but popped in. The big dark area is the toon "line". Remember how I said this sucks; using EdgeBlend to detect edges detects anything that is pointing sufficiently away from the camera, including the distant part of the floor in a large room.

Ahh, so turning of lines on larger areas would be a good idea...? Do you have any 'quick1 suggestions for making 'paper print' toon shaders? I've read your artistic lens thread and I've tried to implement with the shader but no luck. I´ve also not had much luck with any of the 3D nodes. Any ideas?

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Attached Link: 入梅 (Rainy season)

I've been playing with this.

And found out a few things. First of all, the Cartoon-With-Lines preview is great for a quick idea of where the shaded areas will occur. It's not foolproof, but it's a help.

Rotating the camera helps with the dark edges, of course that's not always an option though.

I made a pic. Link to it attached. It's made with a mix of this shader, an overlay of the Cartoon-with-lines preview and finally some fake DoF made in photoshop. I think it looks pretty "anime-ish" And the shader here helps a lot! Much better than any other toon shader I've tried.

Ah, thank you for the tip. I'd forgotten about Cartoon-with-lines option. I'll have to try that out. I´ve been thinking about making line maps in Photoshop. The idea is to draw simple facial features and such on a white background and plug it into the PMC:Color node. The problem is however that it would be static and wouldn't change with camera movement.

Your image looks great btw. Left you a little comment.

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unless a tooning technique can be used to make 1000s of panels it would only be good for a comic cover or a neat gallery picture, and not for actually making a real comic. If you work for marvel maybe one person makes the pics, one colourizes it, one does the lettering and someone else does the story. But us poser people are hoping to make our comics before we are geriatric if possible.
Nice thought though.
Love esther

MY ONLINE COMIC IS NOW LIVE

I aim to update it about once a month. Oh, and it's free!

Depending on what you mean wioth "toon"; Esther, I'm not sure I agree.

One of my friends made a graphic novel once, using Poser. She did the tooning-postwork in Photoshop but did render them in a special way (Can't remember the exact hows and whys... I think there's an explanation somewhere on the site)

It's a long story, too and it didn't take her years to complete: http://old.sadiepayne.com/chapters.html

OMG Trekkie,
that story is soooo addictive. I have to finish it. I haven't stopped reading it since I got your post.
But the graphics look like mainly photoshop filter and lack detail and very dark (the days of no GC etc), and the faces look like she used that thing where you put real facial features and textures from photos. I forget whos software that is. Dialogue (even in a graphic novel compared to a comic) should never come from a character's belly button.
The story is really clever though. I have to finish it. I will be sooo disappointed if she never finished it.
Love esther

MY ONLINE COMIC IS NOW LIVE

I aim to update it about once a month. Oh, and it's free!

finished! she did very well.
Guess the moral of the story is the graphics have to be okay, but it's the story that really matters.
Love esther

MY ONLINE COMIC IS NOW LIVE

I aim to update it about once a month. Oh, and it's free!

IIRC the male (Vladimir) is exported from the game (Max Payne) which is why his facial features are a bit "frozen" :) Sadie is V2 (I think.. or V3 but I think it was made in the days of V2)

And Poser 4 yes so no GC or any other fancy stuff :) But it's pretty good. I hadn't read it in a long time and I'm happy I revisited it :)

yes, thanks for the interesting link. It was a good read.

MY ONLINE COMIC IS NOW LIVE

I aim to update it about once a month. Oh, and it's free!

Quote - unless a tooning technique can be used to make 1000s of panels it would only be good for a comic cover or a neat gallery picture, and not for actually making a real comic. If you work for marvel maybe one person makes the pics, one colourizes it, one does the lettering and someone else does the story. But us poser people are hoping to make our comics before we are geriatric if possible.
Nice thought though.
Love esther

I don't agree. For one thing you don't need to have every frame filled with a lot of stuff. You can have the establishing shot in great detail but use less in other frames. That saves a lot of work. And of course you would write a script before doing anything to outline what you need in every frame. I own a book called Digitally Drawing Comics by Freddie E Williams II. He only uses Photoshop for drawing and does everything himself, including coloring. He has a huge library of digital cutouts that he can use over and over again etc. I would never rely only on Poser for doing comics but it's great tool to start with.

@ TrekkiGrrrl: Thanks for the link. I'll give it a read when I have more time.

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yes, I can see that point too. You can have a lot of head shots with blurred backgrounds or closeups mostly of people with say a wall behind or something.

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Nah, I tried but I think I can't do my comic unless I have shortcuts. I've been spending ages just trying to make a guy slam a folder down on a table and have all the little things on the desk jump up with motion blur.
I'm about to try and render a bus crash and people being rescued before the bus explodes. I just can't do all the creating the scene and post work and story AND spend lots of time adjusting my materials in poser. It's too much.
Love esther

MY ONLINE COMIC IS NOW LIVE

I aim to update it about once a month. Oh, and it's free!

This is an oldie, but a goodie thread! :)

Was seeing what I could do in Poser, compared to YaToon2 in Carrara. This is pretty good!

poser kick

So this is simply a Cartoon-With-Lines preview render? Or...?

I like it. very toony

That is a Firefly render, not a preview render. Thanks!

3doutlaw, how did you get such good black lines outlining it?

Has anyone seen RWBY over at Rooster Teeth? That was apparently mostly rendered in Poser Pro? Want to get my paws on those materials...! Based on some interviews of them, it sounds like there may be compositing. Anyone know more?

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I used the Toon texture that BB posted early in this thread, but I tweaked the settings of the line, and replaced the skin texture with a direct toon and color node.

I think what make the lines seem good though is that I parented a infinite light to the camera at an angle pointing basically directly at the figure. This makes all edge blends right on the outer edge. If you slow it down, there are some point where it gets a little worse, like if she were to point at the camera or just below...but I think it did a good job.

I was seeing how this compared to the YaToon2 plugin I am using in Carrara. (link & link) I still like the effect/look it gives better, but this was pretty good!

(...and yes, I am watching RWBY, which is probably why I got the Toon bug again :tongue1: )

ah ha! parented infinite light! Great tip - thanks!

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Poser Ambassador; Poser 11 & 12 / DS4 / Metasequoia / Silo / Zbrush / realityPaint / UVMapperPro / XD 4 / Ps CC / Fw / Ai / Painter 12 / Clip Studio Paint / Comipo / Reality 3 / Windows 10 / Units = Poser Native

Forum: Poser - OFFICIAL

Subject: Cartoon Rendering And VSS