Anime Toons and Filatoon Shader Q&A

Umi no Senshi no Ishi

Seems a lot of possibilities.

Lights seem to work as expected, you can play with your lines.

Looking forward to seeing some "this is how I did it" posts or videos on how far folks can take it.

Me, I'm going to try and get a flat "ghost in the shell" look next.

crosswind

Grim-Red said:

@crosswind

"- Q1: does Filament support Spotlight ? Why it looks weird with splotlight ? (ss1) If I crank up Lumen, it looks even worse ! (ss2)"

YES. Make sure you select your light and turn off the photometric option. All the old lights from 3DL ( distant, spotlight, linear light etc) work with Filament. If you need shadows projected on objects, floor etc select the shadow option " deep shadow map".

"- Q2: how to make soft shadow on the figure, it looks too harsh. With a distant light in the scene, I made a spotlight a mesh light with Disk + Height as usual, the shadow on the face is still harsh. (ss3)  It's totally different from Iray render (ss4)  Besides, there's meant to be a shadow on some area on char's face with that spotlight, but there isn't ~~" See Q1 answer

"- Q3: as for Outline shell, why I cannot see outline in some area... like the outline on the hoodies body, on the hair sides... (ss5)  And the outline is not so smooth, like sort of dot lines ( in the render...)."

That becomes more/less visible depending on where you placed the light and how you rotate the scene. That shell acts like a solid glossy surface, it doesn't reflect everything every time. You have to see wich angle works best depending on what you want to be seen best.

 

"- Q4: Opacity on the hair cards doesn't work . Is there any good way to make hair a bit transparent ?" Not as far i know, for now.

"- Q5: Depth of Field doensn't work in Filament at all ! Is that true ?"

Correct, to date DoF does not work with Filament. The way around is to do separate renders, save in .png ( transparent background for the figures you intend to have) and assemble the multiple renders by blurring the background/items in background with Photoshop or any photomanipulation program of your choice ( even GIMP).

Ah, it's really good to know ! I should've checked more info. from the PDF posted by Mada... just went for a try in a rush, haha ~  Some quick tweaks made things getting much better !

Thank you very much !! 

Dartanbeck

Umi no Senshi no Ishi said:

Seems a lot of possibilities.

Lights seem to work as expected, you can play with your lines.

Looking forward to seeing some "this is how I did it" posts or videos on how far folks can take it.

Me, I'm going to try and get a flat "ghost in the shell" look next.

Grim-Red

@crosswind

No problem! have fun. ^_^

aaronjproductions13

Dartanbeck said:

aaronjproductions13 said:

This has probably been answered before but my main model is Gen 8 or 8.1. Is there any way for me to use the Filatoon shader on that model? Or is it gen 9 exclusive? 

Yes we can!!! Any figure!

You'll find the shader conversion presets under Shader Presets > Filatoon 

Just make sure to deselect any surfaces that need to stay transparent (Cornea, Eye Moisture) before converting, or they'll become opaque.

 

You can see some of the process of me converting Rosie 8 in this video (1:19):

That's wicked awesome!! Definitely bookmarking this so I know what I'm doing too.

 

thank you!!

daveso

Dartanbeck said:

daveso said:

I'm thick as a brick. This stuff is flying over my head, like out of site. I decided to give it a go, but wow, I'm so not knowing what to do, I realize everyday how much I have no clue about in DS. I think I might have to start over, from the very beginning. #1 - this is DAZ Studio. This is how you launch it. 

Yeah ... like the description by Mada seems right on..but what are LUT?  I cannot get an outline no matter what I do? Why does it ask me to select a node? What are they asking for? It seems these shaders and associated files are all over the place. Maybe its more together in Content Library and not Smart Content? Then there's stuff in Essentials, Shaders, who knows where else. 

Okay, let's see if we can help.

..but what are LUT?

Okay, at this stage in the game, don't even Think about what a LUT is. That's for when you get more advanced into really tweaking things

I cannot get an outline no matter what I do? Why does it ask me to select a node? What are they asking for?

For this and any other problems you might have, do this as your first step into all of this - okay? Just follow me here:

1. Load one of the presets - Base Anime Femine or Masculine - or Vicky 9
2. In the Scene pane, open the hierarchy of the figure - just one level will do. We want to see everything that's parented to the figure
3. Look for a parented item that ends in the words: "Toon Outline"
4. Select that and, in the Parameters pane, use Mesh Offset to edit the thickness of the outline

Keep in mind that this Toon Outline is a very special shader that is not always visible at all times. It shows up according to the angle of the camera along with whatever might block it from view. It's been carefully designed that way to create a good outline without looking crazy all over the place. A very special shader indeed!

So now, if we add clothing or mesh hair or props that are not Filatoon already, Select the item and go to the Surfaces pane.

1. Select all surface materials Except for those that should be transparent and, for starters, apply the General Filatoon Shader Preset (Shader Presets > Filatoon > Presets)
2. Applying that shader has now also applied a Toon Offset Geometry Shell for you - unless there was already a GeoShell on it. 
3. In the same way, we can now select that Toon Offest in the Scene pane, and edit the outline using Mesh Offset in the Parameters pane.

 

Something else to know about Filatoon:

Filatoon character presets tell Filament to turn on the headlamp for itself.

It does this because it requires at least one Daz Studio light source to be present in order to become visible (not including HDRI or Sun/Sky).

 

Adding your own lights to the scene (think Photography studio techniques here) and then turning the headlamp slider off in Filament Draw Options will give you a Lot of power towards creating the look and feel that you want.

Filament Draw Options Node can be loaded via the Create menu - waaaaay toward the bottom > Create New Filament Draw Options Node

Select that in the Scene pane and make adjustments in the Parameters pane. Be careful! There are a lot of options in there! If you've added at least one light, start by editing the Headlamp option to 0.00

The sliders toward the top that begin with "Color Grading" are a Lot of fun to use for adjusting the overall look of the scene!

 

Hope this helps man!

 

@Dartanbeck I sincerely appreciate your help on this. Unfortunately, thick as a brick I am. Nothing seems to be as you state... I'm really happy for those having a good time with this, but it just makes me frustrated. I'm having enough problems with Ultrascenery 2, so I'm backing off this new toy and maybe will try again a some future date.  My patience is just not there anymore. Everything just seems so frustrating as I get older. It  just makes me want to move on from DAZ Studio even, but I stick as I've spent so much money over the years.

OrangeFalcon

With an anime theme, I had to make some Kaiju action!  I took Olympa 9 and turned her into an anime character!  60% anime head, 100% Olympia.  Had some fun with some old assets I haven't used in a while, and added the Filatoon shader to everything!

Edit: Easier to attach them, images weren't resizing and added two more with a different color, the original clashed too much with the scenary.

Mada

good morning :D I see the thread got a good workout haha - thank you so much to the users and PAs who jumped in to answer questions. I'll go through and add the relevant answers to the first post so people don't have to search too hard 

Artini

Amazing achievement with Filatoon.

Any tips on converting eyes from the other figures / animals.

Below is my try.

Wonderland

Having fun playing with this. Here's my first attempt. Still haven't figured out how to get rim lighting to work though. First one is base anime toon with a little Ally 9 and second has more Ally 9 with 50% base anime toon with different eye morphs. You don't really need to buy the new bundle, everything you need is there free to play with  but I will anyway. 

Ugh, I can no longer add photos on my iPad! I will come back and add on the computer.

Now I'm going to actually watch the video and PDF lol. Anyway, this seems like a good version of "Aiko 9."

cathan01_wwg1wga

Dartanbeck said:

cathan01_wwg1wga said:

The filatoon shader is really nice. I was just getting used to my anime/ painting routine using daz iray and gimp, but filatoon reduces my workload significantly (postwork, especially). Now I just have to learn how to use filament more efficiently...

Adding your own lights helps even more.

That will open up a lot more fun when adjusting the Filament Draw Options - like the amazing Color Grading options!

 

So don't forget to go Create > Create New Filament Draw Options Node (way at the bottom)

Thanks, Dartanbeck. I'm reminded of when I finally decided to move on to iray from 3delight. Took me forever to get used to new lighting and shaders. I need to experiment making toon animal renders with lahm and dforce fur ASAP. Really wish I could get the Gen 9 anime shapes on Gen 8, though...

Mada

crosswind said:

- Q3: as for Outline shell, why I cannot see outline in some area... like the outline on the hoodies body, on the hair sides... (ss5)  And the outline is not so smooth, like sort of dot lines ( in the render...).

@crosswind 
A couple of reasons and fixes there - the outline shell needs to have a bit of thickness and if the outfit just have a thin mesh it loses the line. But first thing you can try to improve it is to use the expand all on the clothing item, the geoshell sometimes get hidden by the body if its tight fitting, so looser is better in this case. That should fix the dot lines.

Mada

Wonderland said:

Having fun playing with this. Here's my first attempt. Still haven't figured out how to get rim lighting to work though. First one is base anime toon with a little Ally 9 and second has more Ally 9 with 50% base anime toon with different eye morphs. You don't really need to buy the new bundle, everything you need is there free to play with  but I will anyway. 

Ugh, I can no longer add photos on my iPad! I will come back and add on the computer.

Now I'm going to actually watch the video and PDF lol. Anyway, this seems like a good version of "Aiko 9."

@Wonderland
Nice work :) Look for Rim Lighting on the shader - you actually have a lot of control on how bright, colour etc - pretty fun to play around with.

marble

I'm very interested in this but, like some others, I don't use G9 characters so I'm happy to learn that it will work with G8 which is not really made clear in all the promotions. The thing about opacity - how about materials such as lace or stockings - can opacity maps be used and, if so, how?

ArtsyDragon

esha said:

I love the Filatoon shader!

Here are a few tips to get you started:

- Switch your viewport to Filament mode

- Add a distant light, at about 10000 to 15000 lumen

- To get a file of the workspace view, go to your render settings, set the size you want and switch your render engine to "Viewport" (right at the top of the panel).
Rendering is instant, it's amazing!

Hope that helps; those were the things I struggled with when I used Filatoon for the first time, so I thought I'd pass this info on to make things easier for other users.

@esha

Thank you for your hints. I'm desperate to get this to work for me as I've always wanted to do a graphic novel but couldn't draw. 

 

Wonderland

@marble G9 and this filament toon base is free with Daz Studio So you can play with it without having to buy anything, Here is a render with lace on the new Daz + swimsuit. It's not great but I have no idea what I'm doing and someone else may be able to explain how to do it better.

ArtsyDragon

I'm going to do my questions one at a time. 

@Mada stated The Filatoon shader is used in combination with Filament’s fast rendering. The toon outline is accomplished by creating a geometry shell and applying a special shader to it.

I do not know how to create a geometry shell. I don't see an option to create one in the starter essentials group of options.

@ainm.sloinneadh stated There's a scene file in the starter essentials that'll set the environment up for you. 

Is that in the Environments tab 'basic filatoon environment'?

Mada

ArtsyDragon said:

I'm going to do my questions one at a time. 

@Mada stated The Filatoon shader is used in combination with Filament’s fast rendering. The toon outline is accomplished by creating a geometry shell and applying a special shader to it.

 

I do not know how to create a geometry shell. I don't see an option to create on in the starter essentials group of options.

@ArtsyDragon
First post has more info now :)
Q : Where can I find the FilaToon shader scripts
A : My DAZ 3D Library > Shader Presets > Filatoon. Under that you will find FilaToon - Base and Filatoon - Outline. You can also apply any of the presets and it will create the outline geoshell if it doesn't exist (except for FilaToon - Constant, it will apply the shader without the outline). If everything is black after you apply the preset make sure you're in the Filatoon renderer, and either turn on Auto Headlamp or add some lights.

MarcCCTx

Is thyere a way to change the shaders of elements in UltraScenery 2. I could change the ground. But I don't see a way to change the trees, foliage, etc.

Wonderland

I can't find the whole product in smart content. It's in the content library but when I search for toon or anime in smart content, it doesn't show up....

Mada

MarcCCTx said:

Is thyere a way to change the shaders of elements in UltraScenery 2. I could change the ground. But I don't see a way to change the trees, foliage, etc.

You need to be able to select geometry to apply the shader, if there's no geometry to select (because of instances) it won't work. I don't have Ultrascenery 2 but hopefully someone else will have a workaround or a definite no :)

Mada

Wonderland said:

I can't find the whole product in smart content. It's in the content library but when I search for toon or anime in smart content, it doesn't show up....

Reimporting Metadata would be my first step to see if that helps it to show up :)

Moogee

Would have inbedded the image into the post but dont know how to. Anyway, been hoping for this for a while now. Reminds me of the cell shader for poser back in the early 2000's. Althought then, to get the flat cell look, you needed to reduce the  Z scale to about 1%. Just need to workout how to apply the shaders to other characters and to other objects and I'm flying. 

ArtsyDragon

Where do we get the Premier Vicky Dark Elf?

Grim-Red

Quick doodle with Genesis 3 ( Star 2.0) : the Filatoon shader applies nicely, i didn't have to touch the eyes.

Regarding Genesis 8: the shader applies, BUT realistic skins appear not to look too well even after eliminating bumpmaps and normal map.

Starting with "flat" toonish like skins as starting base before applying the shader seem working well, but i need to run some more tests.

 

 

Mada

@ArtsyDragon I don't have Premier turned on yet so that's a question better asked in the Premier thread :)

ArtsyDragon

Mada said:

ArtsyDragon said:

I'm going to do my questions one at a time. 

@Mada stated The Filatoon shader is used in combination with Filament’s fast rendering. The toon outline is accomplished by creating a geometry shell and applying a special shader to it.

 

I do not know how to create a geometry shell. I don't see an option to create on in the starter essentials group of options.

@ArtsyDragon
Q : Where can I find the FilaToon shader scripts
A : My DAZ 3D Library > Shader Presets > Filatoon. Under that you will find FilaToon - Base and Filatoon - Outline. You can also apply any of the presets and it will create the outline geoshell if it doesn't exist (except for FilaToon - Constant, it will apply the shader without the outline). If everything is black after you apply the preset make sure you're in the Filatoon renderer, and either turn on Auto Headlamp or add some lights.

I do not have a Filatoon folder. I'm in Content Library > My Daz 3D Library > Presets and it goes for DS Defaults to Iray

I'll check the first post to see what I can find. :) Thank you

kpr

After a lot of drama, it's great to see folk having such fun

Will have a lil go with it when I upgrade to 4.23

@Dartanbeck - Rosey looks fantastic, and the animations so much more fluid <-- Fantastic work

@MarcCCTx - If you only want a few trees/plants etc, you can find the models in "Landscape>Environment" (in Content Library). I think some are under USC folder and you'll find others in folders with "Botanicals" in the name - Seems you would be able to use those with the toon shader. You might also try adding a model to a scene, adding the shader bits and pieces to it (Geoshell etc) and then creating instances of it (worth a shot, don't know if it'll work). If it does, and you have it, using Ultrascatter would then get you a toon forest pretty quick

 

Now I've a question... If I click on "Community>Gallery" at the top of the boards, will everything go toon?!

ArtsyDragon

Okay, I'm slowly getting it. Here is the question:

When I go to render, I get a warning message that says WARNING! Obscuring the viewport during an OpenGL render may corrupt the final image.

How do I render without this error? Am I doing something wrong? I have never used Filament before so please educate me. I am dull witted.

Richard Haseltine

ArtsyDragon said:

I'm going to do my questions one at a time. 

@Mada stated The Filatoon shader is used in combination with Filament’s fast rendering. The toon outline is accomplished by creating a geometry shell and applying a special shader to it.

I do not know how to create a geometry shell. I don't see an option to create one in the starter essentials group of options.

If you do need to add a shell manually, it is in the Create menu with the thing you want shjelled selected

@ainm.sloinneadh stated There's a scene file in the starter essentials that'll set the environment up for you. 

Is that in the Environments tab 'basic filatoon environment'?