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Or, far simpler, include a PDF.
I saw your post about this on the other thread. The script that turns on outline rendering adds the "Outline Depth" parameter to every surface, but my scripts to add the OutlineID parameter to surfaces in the scenes don't-- I'll fix that for the next revision.
That said, turning off the "Outline Depth" parameter isn't supposed to disable outlines in the Normal Outline render mode. And I'm seeing some odd side effects with outlines writing over objects closer to the camera when Outline Depth is turned off. In other words, the feature you're using to selectively outline items in the scene is unintended, and might be a glitch... but if I can figure out how to make it behave more reliably, I'll do so for a future version, because it would certainly be handy. :)
Thanks for posting about this!
Or, far simpler, include a PDF.
At this point I'm planning on doing both-- putting some "For use with..." icons in the folders, and writing a longer PDF tutorial.
There are a couple of pieces of knowledge about DAZ Studio that I think I need to provide documentation on to help people. These aren't really pieces of information about my camera set, but... well... I think I won't say any more about the state of the DS documentation. :(
As gilikshe pointed out, there are three different aspects of DS interacting to make this product work.
1 - ToonyCam Pro provides a custom camera. This is very different from a camera preset. Most of the time, if you get a camera preset product, it just creates one or more standard DS cameras at different points in your scene, maybe with some DOF settings, but usually only "custom" in the sense that they are at particular positions and point in particular directions, and you can switch between them. This product is different. The code used for the camera provides different options than those present in a standard DS camera. The advantage of using this method to change the render, compared to surface shaders, is that you only have to make the changes in one place, and the changes affect your entire scene. The disadvantage is that the changes affect your entire scene, you can't just use one setting in part of your scene and a different setting in a different part (except for the unintentional feature Crescent found, above, which I'm hoping to make into a real documented feature.) I had to make a judgement call about whether to set up this camera as a "Camera" or a "Scene Subset" in DS. If I set this up as a "Camera," loading it would select it in the viewport as the rendering camera automatically, but would also delete all other cameras in the scene, because this is the default behavior of DS. I thought that would be really annoying if someone had spent time setting up their current camera, so I set up a Scene Subset instead. The advantage is that existing cameras aren't deleted from the scene. The disadvantage is that the new camera isn't automatically enabled. So here's a question: should I have included both a "Camera" and "Scene Subset" version?
2 - This product also involves something in DS called "Scripted Rendering." This makes changes on the Render Settings tab, primarily switching from "3Delight" to "Scripted 3Delight," and selecting a script to control the render. Again, this is different from most other DS products. By default, DS uses the same "script" every time it renders-- it calculates shadow maps (if you are using them), then renders the scene using default parameters that can be adjusted somewhat from the Render Settings tab. If you use Scripted Rendering, you can change what the choices are on the Render Settings tab. ToonyCam Pro uses customized code originally included with DS 4.x and the scripting SDK (software development kit) provided by DAZ to create outline render passes, and then the custom camera gets those and composites them into the final render. Render settings affect every camera in the scene. Again, this has the advantage that if you adjust the render settings, you don't have to also adjust individual cameras, and the disadvantage that you can't adjust individual cameras to have different render settings in the same scene. To make the presets for the render settings, I had to use a special script and do some hand editing, but I tried to design the camera so that you wouldn't have to change render settings very much-- just for the outline thickness, mostly. If there are particular render setting presets that you'd like, I am happy to include more with the product, and I will also see if I can distribute the sample script used to create render presets.
3 - Finally, the custom camera and the render script make use of parameters on the surfaces tab. Since the whole point of using a camera was to avoid having to manually edit every surface, I included a few scripts to handle this for you, and my setup scripts automatically try to make smart choices for you in preparing surfaces for the render-- without changing any existing surface settings. The two new parameters are OutlineID and Outline Depth. I intended people to be able to adjust OutlineID to selectively outline objects or material zones in the scene, but I thought most people wouldn't want to manually adjust these very much, so I included a few preset scripts. I'll write more documentation about how OutlineID and Outline Depth work for the next revision.
One correction to a previous comment that I need to make about your post is that the different methods of outlining can be used in the same render. But they affect the entire render. You can choose to turn on Normal, Depth, and OutlineID outlines, but (I thought) only for the entire scene, not just for some items. It appears that I was wrong about that, which is a pleasant surprise, if I can get Crescent's method working reliably. But when I said you can't mix and match, I didn't mean you can't use them together, only that they do affect the whole scene, because this is primarily a camera and render effect, not a surface parameters effect.
I hope this helps. I was a bit reluctant to go into so much detail about how the camera works, before, because I didn't want to scare anyone off, and for most people it should just work. In my life, I find I have to fight against a tendency I have to over-explain things. ;) But enough people have been confused about how to get it working that clearly I need to provide more documentation and pointers in the product, so I will.
You can do it. My last examples are Normal + ID. The first time I don't see parameters in toonycam camera, so I used photoshop.
Another mistake mine was to believe width must be the same, but no, in render settings is posible change outline width for each method separately!
Thank you for creating this product, zigraphix.
I have had much fun, and success using the free versions you gave to us a while back.
By the looks of all the work shown in this thread, it has all the aspects of control that I have been waiting for. Downloading it now.
I hope you get many sales for this product, and wish you much success.
Did you select the ToonyCam Pro camera in the Scene palette *then* apply the "! Render Outline On" file by double clicking it? (I've forgotten to select it on occasion and applied the file to a figure instead of the camera.) If it just gives you a normal render every time, it sound like you didn't have the camera selected when you applied the "! Render Outline On" file.
When you were ready to render, did you select the ToonyCam Pro camera in the camera drop down box in the main render area then render? If you did everything else right but this step, DS will put a warning in the render box that you are rendering through a normal camera instead of the expected camera. (I don't remember the exact warning off-hand.)
In a previous post, I have screenshots of these items.
If all else fails, close DS and re-open it (DS can be flaky with special cameras sets like this one.)
Yea I have tried all including restart with no luck. I do notice with toonycam pro selected in the scene tab, when I first clicked on render outlines on in the content tab, there is a moment where you can see the script is loading and when I click on other icons (scripts?) in the ouline style folder like depth on it also shows some brief indication like the file is being loaded or unloaded (a notice window opens and closes for a 10th of a second and the toonycam pro icon in the scene tab flashes for a moment) but when I go to render I get an unmodified render that is clearly not toonycam related.
and yes I am looking through the toonycam pro camera at my scene while rendering.
weird
Draft documentation: please feel free to post comments and suggestions in this thread. It is a work in progress, not yet complete. (But I have to go to bed now, because I have to get up in the morning to go to my day job!)
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1n7mPRLSxFgXVwofDngHiKxtEDpWahevPOuV_b9JCTGE/edit?usp=sharing
1. Only my own shader with. See the shorts flowers. This is not a texture, it is a layered shader with texture in layers.
2. TCam used, scripted 3dlight applied => Flowers????? :s
3. TCam used, scripted 3dlight disabled, shading levels = 300, shading blend = 0, => Flowers!!!!! :D
4. TCam rotated, scripted 3dlight even disabled => What???? :s
5. TCam rotated, scripted 3dlight now enabled = Ahhhh.... :D
When scripted 3dlight is disabled shading effects are gone, Tcam can't produce new outline, but remember last outline. Trick works for majority of my custom shaders with problems. In some cases, TCam shading effects improve my shader, so I don't need the trick.
Free sketch is super!!! I have curiosity about pro details.
Figured I'd go ahead and post one of my tests. I freely admit to cheating and using a little photoshop work to clean up some troublesome lashes and skullcaps, but there's definitely some unique new possibilities here...
Yea I have tried all including restart with no luck. I do notice with toonycam pro selected in the scene tab, when I first clicked on render outlines on in the content tab, there is a moment where you can see the script is loading and when I click on other icons (scripts?) in the ouline style folder like depth on it also shows some brief indication like the file is being loaded or unloaded (a notice window opens and closes for a 10th of a second and the toonycam pro icon in the scene tab flashes for a moment) but when I go to render I get an unmodified render that is clearly not toonycam related.
and yes I am looking through the toonycam pro camera at my scene while rendering.
weird
When you added the ToonyCam to your scene and then click '!Render Outlines On' , open and check tab 'Render Settings' (that's the DS tab where you toggle render style default/cartoon too), there under render engine it should now show 'Scripted 3Delight'. If it is still '3Delight' instead, try setting to scripted 3Delight and below set 'Select a render script' to outline compositor. Usually that should be done automatically by script when you click render outlines on, but.. maybe DS has its own will. ;)
Note: You do NOT have to set render style to cartoon in that tab to get the cam effects, that's just another mix option when using the cam.
PS: Do you use latest DS version ? I don't know which version ToonyCam needs, but maybe better make sure it's not an older one.
That's an interesting way to use (or abuse) ToonyCam Pro. ;)
I've submitted an update to DAZ to include OutlineCam in ToonyCam Pro, but I think they are a bit backed up with March Madness stuff. That should let you render outlines without modifying surface parameters, in cases where you don't want the reduction in detail that ToonyCam Pro is designed to create. One tester has reported some distortion to Manga Style surface shaders, and I'm still trying to track down the cause.
I think you want to set shading blend to 100%, rather than 0. Could you give that a try and let us know what happens?
That's an interesting way to use (or abuse) ToonyCam Pro. ;)
I've submitted an update to DAZ to include OutlineCam in ToonyCam Pro, but I think they are a bit backed up with March Madness stuff. That should let you render outlines without modifying surface parameters, in cases where you don't want the reduction in detail that ToonyCam Pro is designed to create. One tester has reported some distortion to Manga Style surface shaders, and I'm still trying to track down the cause.
I think you want to set shading blend to 100%, rather than 0. Could you give that a try and let us know what happens?
Yes, shading blend to 100% works very better than 0%.
Yea I have tried all including restart with no luck. I do notice with toonycam pro selected in the scene tab, when I first clicked on render outlines on in the content tab, there is a moment where you can see the script is loading and when I click on other icons (scripts?) in the ouline style folder like depth on it also shows some brief indication like the file is being loaded or unloaded (a notice window opens and closes for a 10th of a second and the toonycam pro icon in the scene tab flashes for a moment) but when I go to render I get an unmodified render that is clearly not toonycam related.
and yes I am looking through the toonycam pro camera at my scene while rendering.
weird
When you added the ToonyCam to your scene and then click '!Render Outlines On' , open and check tab 'Render Settings' (that's the DS tab where you toggle render style default/cartoon too), there under render engine it should now show 'Scripted 3Delight'. If it is still '3Delight' instead, try setting to scripted 3Delight and below set 'Select a render script' to outline compositor. Usually that should be done automatically by script when you click render outlines on, but.. maybe DS has its own will. ;)
Note: You do NOT have to set render style to cartoon in that tab to get the cam effects, that's just another mix option when using the cam.
PS: Do you use latest DS version ? I don't know which version ToonyCam needs, but maybe better make sure it's not an older one.
interesting... worked without a hitch on my mac ( which happily is my render monster!) so I will have to go back and look at your points on the pc - that being version number and whether the script is selected. Thanks so much for dialoging about it.
for now... I play!
Sorry Zigraphix!, if I had remember this before... T_T
The problem if simply solved without tricks. The problem is shading rate in standard options. Your preset change shading rate to 1.
Manga Style need low shading rate. Outlines in my shader need low shading rate too, in normal conditions "flowers" don't need it, but with blend conditions, low shading rate is necesary.
I set shading rate to 0.05 and it is not necesary disable scripted 3dlight.
This solve MStyle problem too :red:
1. Only MStyle. sr = 0.05.
2. MStyle + Tcam. sr = 1 changed for preset
3. MStyle + Tcam. sr = 0.05 manually set
4. MStyle + Tcam. sr = 0.05, sl = 300 and sd = 1 in camera parameter toon
Oh! Thanks for posting this. I'll see what I can do to keep from forcing a particular shading rate with my presets.
I have confirmed the fix for Manga Style renders that gilikshe describes. See below. If the Shading Rate is too high, the distortion occurs in a default camera as well.
Setting the outline width, because it is a Render Setting preset, alters the Shading Rate. Additionally, the Shading Rate has to be manually implemented as part of a Scripted Renderer setting, and I did set it to 1.0 by default. The attached screen shot shows where to reset it.
And here's an improved version of my Manga Style promo image. Both the Default Camera and ToonyCam Pro versions are rendered with Shading Rate at .05. Much nicer!
I did a test today and replied to your PM that it didn't work for me. I went back now to take another look and it looks like the shading rate I had set for that test was .50 and not .050. I did another test and it worked this time. I am using the OutlineCam.
The following renders have the Manga Style Shaders applied.
The first image is a regular DAZ camera and the second image is with the OutlineCam.
Another thing that I seem to have forgotten is that the shading rate I used on my previous Manga Style Shader renders is 0.010.
That's why it worked the first time for me and then it stopped when it changed back to 1 as I was testing different scenes. I have to keep an eye out for this setting, as it really is vital.
Lampeluche! XD
Furify, Leatherize and TCam
Much much nicer. I feel the printed paper!
A couple more quick tests (time is at a premium these days).
The only problem I encountered was with outlines around the special effects; I rendered once with effects and once without, then merged just the effect. Ideally I'd be able to turn off the outline for just the cube and plane when rendering.
Thanks again for such a great plug-in.
-- Walt Sterdan
In http://www.daz3d.com/forums/viewreply/556306/ dress have handles. This handles were outlined with normal method. Solution: Opacity strenght to 0% and a totally black texture inthe opacity texture.
In http://www.daz3d.com/forums/viewreply/556306/ dress have handles. This handles were outlined with normal method. Solution: Opacity strenght to 0% and a totally black texture inthe opacity texture.
Thanks, but I don't think that would work. The problem is that the special effects are textures on a plane, with an opacity map already set to allow the non-coloured parts to be invisible. ToonyCam renders the effect just fine, it just also draws an outline around the plane the texture is on. Setting opacity to zero for the plain causes the effect to disappear. I will try it anyway tomorrow, though, in case I'm missing something.
Thanks again.
-- Walt Sterdan
Thanks, but I don't think that would work. The problem is that the special effects are textures on a plane, with an opacity map already set to allow the non-coloured parts to be invisible. ToonyCam renders the effect just fine, it just also draws an outline around the plane the texture is on. Setting opacity to zero for the plain causes the effect to disappear. I will try it anyway tomorrow, though, in case I'm missing something.
Thanks again.
-- Walt Sterdan
Yes, I missunderstood the problem. It will not works.
Thanks, but I don't think that would work. The problem is that the special effects are textures on a plane, with an opacity map already set to allow the non-coloured parts to be invisible. ToonyCam renders the effect just fine, it just also draws an outline around the plane the texture is on. Setting opacity to zero for the plain causes the effect to disappear. I will try it anyway tomorrow, though, in case I'm missing something.
Thanks again.
-- Walt Sterdan
Yes, I missunderstood the problem. It will not works.
I didn't explain the problem very well, but thanks very much for trying to help. Users like you are the best thing about the forums.
-- Walt Sterdan
Had a little play today...
I don't have the fancy Anime/Manga shaders, so this is just playing around with straight ToonyCamPro. Testing dynamic cloth, and hair Ri-Curves.
Gotta' say, I am quite impressed with it so far. Still a lot to learn...
No retouching, just composite of two separate renders, and name added:
No Anime Shaders here either, so I tried a simple diffuse color on each surface.
I used Outline ID and Depth on the figure (Didn't realize they would work together until someone mentioned it in this thread). I love how it brings some of the wrinkle details.
Outline ID on the background, then layered them in Photoshop....