Will future versions of Daz Studio have a "Comic Book Preview" like Poser 11?
mmitchell_houston
Posts: 2,484
I'm not even sure if this is the right place to ask this question, but does anyone here know if there is any chance that a future version of Daz Studio might have anything like the "Live Comic Book Preview" available in Poser 11? For those of you unfamiliar with it, this feature delivers:
- Geometric outlines based on material groups (in other words, you can assign different outline colors and thicknesses for each material group)
- The feature is "live," meaning that changes happen in the viewport, not as a rendered camera effect (as in LineRender 9000 or using a geoshell)
Here's an example of the effect in an image I created with minimal editing (I added the blue and adjusted a few lines here and there, but for the most part this is what comes out of Poser 11).
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Comments
Daz doesn't usually state what future versions of Studio will get.
Uhm...I doubt so!
It doesn't seem like the current Daz version didn't have the technology to pull this off, so, if it's not here by now, I doubt it will be available in the future!
After all, it's already available in Poser, and I don't think many people would use this function in Daz.
yeah I would love if DAZ ever considering adding these features .
IRAY viewport preview seems one way to get in there , unless there are "decisision" to enhance DAZ studio shader mixer so users can "fake it"
There are more independent comic creator / concept creator - fashion illustratotr (whose only need base llines or sketch output for tracing ) than regular DAZ base user out there . And they`d also need tools to make their life easier . If we`re look carefully ,there are plenty items sell in DAZ store which actually meet with what they`d need . So thats will makes new buyer demography than before
Yes Poser already had that , but bringing newer DAZ contents in there not easy . Controlling Poser`s camera is very hard for DAZ Studio users .
Well if more people would find it useful, I hope they'll give it to you! ^^
Have you tried the "cartoon shaded" viewport? Maybe that one with a little bit of Photoshop could already let you do that.
I can't really argue with either of those statements on their face... but I will! (he heh heh).
Honestly, we don't know that the technology isn't available to Daz Studio. From what I can tell, the outline feature MAY be some aspect of openGL technology. If that's the case then it would be a matter of implementing or accesing the code base that is already there. I could be way off here, but since the Poser feature requires that openGL be enabled and it is part of the preview option, that makes me think that I could be right here.
As for not many people wanting it... Well, I'm not so sure about that. If this feature were available to the artists who hang out in the Non-Photographc Renders and 3D Comics forum, I suspect it would be VERY welcome, indeed. Now, do I think geometric edges would become more popular than photorealism here at Daz? No. Not a chance. But I do think there is a substantial market of artists who would use it (even as a paid plug-in).
I cannot and will never argue with you about the difficulty in controlling the Poser camera! I was using Poser yesterday and it was a PAIN.
I do agree with you that there is a big potential market out there for users who are interested, and this can be estimated by how well certain shaders and plug-ins sell (there are some very good Toon shaders out there that attempt to mimic geometric edges (just as the Geoshell hack attempts to mimic it).
This is definitely something I would love to see in a future release, because until it does I will continue to be left out of all the cool new features in the Genesis 8 figure line (if I can't use the figure or items in Poser I almost always pass on buying them).
Huh? DS has it since Version 1, hasn't it?
The cartoon shaded isn't very good, the style is more like a polarized image than an outline. The mode also has problems with surfaces that are parallel to the camera's angle.
Thanks, but no. This option is not even close to what you can get with Poser's Live Comic Book Preview. For one thing, you can assign different colors and line thicknesses to each and every material group. Also, the edges are much cleaner from Poser, as is its treatment of textures. Here's a slightly better example of the type of output I can get with Poser that is very difficult to achieve in Daz Studio (on the pic of him with the bow, note that the geometric edge carries over his arm. In normal cartoon mode, the outline is only around the outside of the shape and the geometric edge/line doesn't appear when you have the same material group appearing in front of itself (in this case, skin over skin).
Then if there's a request, there's a market, and I hope you'll get what you're looking for! :D
I hope so. It would be nice to get to play with all of the great Genesis products out there. I do feel kind of stuck in the past with Michael 4 and Victoria 4. And yes, Dawn, Dusk and La Femme are more modern products, but they are woefully underrepresented when it comes to poses and clothing options. Using them almost always means starting a scene from scratch.
There are a few options for Studio w/ Iray...
And a few others which (I believe) use 3Delight...
Thanks for the list. I have all three of the 3Delight products (plus LineRender 9000) and they are all okay for that they are, but none of them duplicate the ease and consistency of the Poser 11 Comic Book Preview. And even those that do a "decent" job fall short of true geometric edges If you take a look at this pic from the OSO Toon Shader, you will see that the outlines only appear when you have different materials overlapping (shirt over skin, dress over shirt, hair over skin). But when you have a single texture for two overlapping things, the outline isn't there. Look at the legs on the horse or the jawline on all the figures and you will see that the edge lines are missing.
Here's the original art from the OSO Toon Shader (which looks like a cool product, but it doesn't do what I need):
Here's some highlighted edits to show you what's missing:
Please note that I did not mark all of the missing geometric edges on anyone's hair. There was just too much there.
It looks cool! :D
Yep, I see what you mean. Oso and I have had some discussions about the challenges of Iray MDL verses the good ole RSL that we have in 3Delight. Iray makes a lot of assumptions about what you're trying to render built into the engine; so determining things like light / camera angles is much more difficult in MDL than RSL. For instance, MDL doesn't make it very easy to access the underlying geometry of the object and is really picky about things like angle of incidence for a material. I think this is what you're seeing with the internal edge lines not being drawn the way you'd like.
I defer to your technical expertise on this. Although I do have a good general knowledge of the differences between 3Delight and Iray, I definitely am not well versed in the underlying technology. For me, it seems apparent that Iray is focused squarely on delivering photorealism (and in the right hands with the right shaders, I believe it achieves that goal admirably). I'm really focused on getting clean lines and that's not what happens when you use any of these shaders. If you look closely at the internal "lines" generated by the Toon shaders and you'll notice that they have rough, fuzzy edges. This is caused by they are not really lines, but intense shadows captured along the geometry (this is primarily what is happening when you use the old geoshell method of faking geometry. There's nothing wrong with that (you can simulate some nice varied-width lines that way), but it's just not what I'm after.
Right now my best hope is that, somehow, Poser will be able to add native support for the Genesis 8 figures (and above).
BTW: What does MDL and RDL stand for?
I think you're exactly right. MDL allows the author to detect when you're near the boundary of a material, which is why the outline of the horse looks okay, as does the inner ear (which is a different material). But within the 2D boundary of the material in the final image, it doesn't easily allow you to identify when the contour of the geometry should generate a new edge line. So things like where the neck and body connect are not well defined. You can try to "fake" it with shadows, but it won't look the same.
Material Definition Language (MDL) and Renderman Shader Language (RSL) ... the languages developed by Nvidia and Pixar to define materials and shaders to Iray and 3Delight respectively.
Thank you very much for that info. Working with those languages in a render engine is definitely deeper than I intend to dive into things. Although I do have a technical background (web dev and web software dev), I much prefer to use the tools than to create (or even tweak) them.
3Delight does have some advancements that I'm not sure are accessible from the 3Delight version with DAZ Studio.
https://www.3delight.com/page/features/2018-09-dragon-prince
@mmitchell_houston, I don't know if this topic is still relevant to you, but I played around with the Sketchy Toon Edge and Art Style shader and attempted to recreate the image you made with Poser. Sketchy shader has two diffuse colors which one blends together to produce the off-white and blue regions. Hair shaders -- I'm still trying to figure out how to make this more toon-like. Cheers!