Toonshading plugin for maya

[JasonA]

hmmm looks cool, too bad the gallery doesn't work either ..:hmm:

Have you tried it yet?

[SheepFactory]

no the evaluation download page doest work either , LOL


the gallery was working an hour ago :(

[JasonA]

LOL

Well I hope the program doesn't stop working after a short time too...:rolleyes:

[jairbair]

Is this what your looking for?

http://www.highend3d.com/files/dl.3d?group=mayaplugins&file_loc=TCS11maya45-v1.1-.zip&file_id=2069

hope it helps
jairbair

ps. if this link doesn't work, go to highend3d.com and search for tomcat in the plugs section

[GrafOrlok]

WOOWW!!:bounce:

This is exactly what I've been waiting for. I knew Paint effects could be used for this! The links at the site won't work, but the one at Highend3d works fine (just do a search for tomcat). Very easy to use and reasonable fast to render, but I only got good results with the "normal" brushes, i.e. didn't work with brushes like raw meat, lightning and trees...:thumbsup:

[gas]

yeah, I tryed it some time back and you dont get a "understandebly" result with many brushes but I guess when "we" get the hang of it we will be seeing a lot of cool imagery/animations becourse its soooo cool and a briliant ide of a shader....
I hope TOMCAT put up some more "examples" of how to use the different brushes like lightning ( yepp, I tryed that one as well ) for example :cool:

anyone have any better luck plz tell us :beer:

[alexx]

so finally after 2 years somebody found a reason to use paint fx :)

wow..
really great results and cool plugin!

congrats

cheers

alexx

[Neil]

I use paintFX for grass and trees and hair... why not use it?

[Wigaru Wiyamoto]

Awesome! I was worried that he was going to stop working on it (the version on high end doesn't work with batch rendering). Here were some of the tests I did a few months ago.

http://www.usinternet.com/users/vtpalodichuk/dude640.jpg

http://www.usinternet.com/users/vtpalodichuk/toon2x.jpg

[drj]

Has anyone seen any tutorials on this?

[Wigaru Wiyamoto]

The plugin itself is very straightfoward and easy to use. Most of the work is done with Paint Effects brushes. So it might help to brush up on your Paint Effects. I apologize for the pun. ;)

[JasonA]

is it possible to apply the toon shader to an already existing (and textured) model? I have a couple that would be fun, but some of the mhave 50+ textures... it would be a bummer to have to retexture the thing. aah well, I suppose it would be hard to avoid this since its not a renderer...

[Wigaru Wiyamoto]

I think so. Just plug-in your current material to the color of the toon shader. Keep in mind that will just add lines to your model, if you want true toon shading you'll want to use a ramp shader.

[drj]

I am re-reading some of the paint fx stuff i have, but how are the shadows drawn...are they painted in with the paint fx?

[JasonA]

Overall its a pretty cool shader! I've gotten some fnu effects just from using the pen to draw contours.

unfortuntately, it doesn't seem to detect the edges were parts overlap. Too bad, cause it doesn't drawn in those edges unless you make it watertight. still, for free how can I complain
:D

[Wigaru Wiyamoto]

What do you mean? Both the Tomcat examples and my own testing show it detects edges properly.

[JasonA]

I mean when you have two pieces of geometry, and they overlap, the toon shader is not drawing the edge where the two parts are intersecting each other. Its possible I'm not setting the settings correctly, its just an observation i had when trying the settings in the help file. here let me show you what I mean..

I create two polygon boxes and move one over, down and back so its intersecting the other box, like this:
http://home.attbi.com/~prwsjl/pic1.jpg

Apply the toon shader with setttings for global, crease, silhoutte and boundary and a high stroke quality. Look goods overall, but notice how the edge where the two boxes intersect is not drawn?
http://home.attbi.com/~prwsjl/pic2.jpg

Is this terrible? no, especially considering the plugin is free.. I assume this is happening because its a shader plugin and not a rendering plugin, but I'm certainly no expert. But unfortunately I have alot of models where parts overlap to fake a edge. So it gets hard to understand the geometry unless I literally cut and weld the parts together....
:cry:

Are there settings that fixes this, ie am I missing something? well like I said, its still fun to play with

[AWAKE]

yeah,

I love that thing...

[Wigaru Wiyamoto]

Cool AWAKE. How does that look in motion?

EDIT: Derr, guess we wont know until you can get the full version!

[AWAKE]

It looks really Cool in motion.. I did a little beta testing with the plug in.

It's the best thing I've seen in terms of the line quality and styles.
the lines seriously stick when in motion. Deformation is tight too...



I don't have a server, but I can upload it somewhere if anyone has a server... it's an animated gif. about 210k...

for free

http://jeffreybutlet.tripod.com

[Wigaru Wiyamoto]

Can you email it to me? I should be able to host it.

Am I the only one who had a "why didn't I think of that?!" moment when they saw this? More importantly, why didn't Alias|Wavefront think of this. Paint Effects needed a practical use. :)

[drj]

Its awful nice of you to host his animation, but why don't we get a hold of the guy who put up http://www.toonshade.com/
and somebody host that. It seems to be having the problems and would be nice to be able to browse through his site (or even tutorials).

[AWAKE]

hey I got a free server so you can see the test i did.




http://jeffreybutlet.tripod.com/

[JamesDeschenes]

That's fricken cool

[chk]

That is very fresh AWAKE. I've been messing with this plugin since this thread was originally posted, and I think it's the most fun I've ever had with Maya.

[JasonA]

that is cool indeed! how did you do the toon shdaing, using a ramp texture or ..?

cool work :beer:

[AWAKE]

Thanks alot you guys.. that shader is insane.

The shader itself was a basic ramp. the lines were all done with the tomcat. one light and a dmap shadow. I did the animation last year as a cloth test, and just tossed the shader on it. the coolest is that the lines wiggle. I'm really into the shader.

[Chappo]

COOL !!!!!!!!!

Any chance of knowing how to export THIS to .swf format :D


I have a question....
and let's take the movie of AWAKE for example
P.s. Nice animation AWAKE - see you got this Guile thing going on ;)


Would it be possible to export THAT animation (with everything already rigged/ textured/ toon shaded) to XSI / lightwave or max
and then port it to a Flash movie ?

or is it wiser to just import the animation into the other programs and port it to Flash with the toonshade plugins provided in the other programs....

[flamedevil]

Interesting thread, i keep an eye on it.

I found a tut that explain the principle of toon shading and how to make one with a ramp shader :
http://www.wireframeink.50megs.com/toon_shader.htm

[Wigaru Wiyamoto]

Cool! What brush did you use AWAKE? Is that a default one, or did you have to tweak the size and etc.?

[AWAKE]

oil. pretty much default. I think it's the dry oil brush. I did another test with just a straight ink pen to see how the lines hold. maybe I'll drop that on the server tonight.

[Wigaru Wiyamoto]

I'd love to see it! So do you have the commercial version? Toonshade.com's links still don't work (what a tease!). Are you 'fudging' animation with the demo version (manual batch rendering with a script or something).

[AWAKE]

yeah. the ink is on the page.

http://jeffreybutlet.tripod.com/

Wigaru,
I was in contact with the guy who wrote the plug in. I showed him some of the stuff I was doing and asked for a way to test some animations with it, and he hooked me up. He asked for some images for the gallery.


Chappo,
Idon't know how easy it would be to get this to flash. you'd pretty much have to recreate the look in another renderer.

[klingspor]

Just to let you all know: The site has been upgraded and a new version seems to be available...: http://www.toonshade.com/

Downloading it now :airguitar

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