MANGA STYLE & VISUAL STYLE topic - Update Sept 23rd 2017: Fixed Dropbox links! [Commercial]

nocforweb_9420025c24

Suddenly it seems to be slightly working - once I changed the max distance on occlusion from default 0 to 0.0001.  Though I'd done that before with no luck.. well, works mostly now, yay!

 

tcassat

When I apply the Visual Style shaders in the model, they get very high brightness compared to other materials when rendered. For example, while the skin and hair of the model are very bright, even with few light sources, the material that makes up the eyes, lips and clothes (Sakura bundle) become very dark. How can I make all the elements in harmony with the light sources?

3dOutlaw

Are you rendering with 3delight or Iray?

tcassat

3dOutlaw said:

Are you rendering with 3delight or Iray?

3Delight. I think I understand what the problem is. I need to add the Visual Style Shaders in the eyes, clothes, etc ... not just on the skin and hair. I believe I have to add the base shader in these areas and then return the original texture of each surface manually. I'm trying to understand how I do this ...

vrba79

VSS seems to do that airbrushed look remarkably well. Moreso than PWtoon, which I've been using for ages. VSS's result is much more vibrant looking.

3dOutlaw

I find that for eyes, you can often get away with it by adding ambient to the eye, which makes it bright/glow, but for a toonish render, that works.  Yes, for clothes, you should add the shaders, OR you can takes the texture they provide in the diffuse channel, and "toon-ize" it in a program like Photoshop, and then re-apply.  Takes much longer, but then keeps details.

tcassat

Thanks 3dOutlaw. By the way, I've seen your Blog Image Gallery and your work is very good. You don't apply texture to the character's skin, right? Just the Visual Syle shader? 

3dOutlaw

For VSS renders, yes, I typically use the pale skin VSS shader...for 3D renders I use a modification of the Subsurface Toon Shaders from AOA

tcassat

EDIT...

tcassat

edited...

3dOutlaw

Try not to get frustrated!  :)  It takes a little time, but you develop a process, and then it starts getting quick.  Below is a quick test I did the following:

1. Load Sakura
2. Apply 3delight maps
3. apply 3delight eye maps
4. apply 3delight lash maps
5. apply 3delight eyesocket maps
6. apply 3delight brow maps
7. Apply VSS peach skin shader to G8F Skin
8. Apply VSS pink to G8F lips
9. load simple dress and apply VSS black to it
10. load toulose hair and apply VSS brown
11. Add 3delight lights
12. render

TheNathanParable

tcassat said:

I can not apply the old shaders on the eyeballs of Sakura 8 in order to change the value of the Ambient. When I read that Visual Style Shader was compatible with 4.10 I did not expect the kind of compatibility that compels me to change textures manually among other things. It's a shame, the shaders get a good result but unfortunately the use of it is not something you expect when you pay $ 20 for the product (and the official guide is even more shameful). I feel like I've thrown money in the trash.

Thanks for the help, anyway.

Hi, i'm sorry to hear that you're having trouble.

The shaders were released about six years ago, back in 2012 if I remember correctly, and were created with an older version of Daz Studio 4. Back then, Daz Studio didn't support the ability to retain existing textures when applying a shader created using Shader Mixer, and as such I unfortunately wasn't able to factor that into the shader's design. It wasn't until sometime after the release of Visual Style that Daz Studio received such an update, allowing me to incorperate it into my second shader pack (Manga Style).

I can understand though if you're not pleased with the shaders, and I fully understand if you want a refund. Daz 3D have a 30-day refund policy, so as long as you're within those 30 days then there shouldn't be any issue getting a refund: https://helpdaz.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/115003500163-What-is-Daz3D-s-refund-policy-

Now with that said, I was hoping you'd explain why you feel the official guides are "shameful". If there's anything I can do to improve them, I would really like to know. I want to make sure everyone is getting a good experience.

P.S The default Daz Studio shader can be found under "Shader Presets/DS Defaults", and the filename is dzDefault. If you apply that to Sakura 8's eyes, turn the Ambient Colour to white, the Ambient Strength to 100%, and the Diffuse Strength to 0%, you'll get the effect that 3DOutlaw was telling you about. Remember, Sakura 8 uses special geografted eyes, so be sure to have the geografted eyes selected when applying the shader rather than the main Sakura 8 figure. I've made that mistake quite a few times.

tcassat

Nah, forget it. I was frustrated at the time, I'll even edit the post. I don't want to negatively influence your sales, mainly because as I said before, the result is very good (although not as practical as a noob DAZ3D user expects it to be).

 

EDIT: After calming down a little and studying better how DAZ3D shaders works, I started to get very good results. I'm using Visual Style Shader. Can anyone tell me if the Manga Style Shader is only for images that remember the style of the manga and the American comics or does it expand the possibilities of Visual Style Shader too?

Thanks

tkdrobert

Anyone tried VSS with Sakura 8?  I'm wondering about the eyebrows.  I haven't gotten the model yet.

TheNathanParable

Sakura 8's eyebrows are a seperate model, so they should be fine. :)

tkdrobert

TheNathanParable said:

Sakura 8's eyebrows are a seperate model, so they should be fine. :)

Cool.  Now we just need a male version.

chrislillytv

Hey there,

I'm looking for some assistance as I'm a newbie to DAZ here.  I'm attempting change DAZ3D Renders to Comic Book images. I've got a Genesis 8 figure loaded, and I've figured out how to apply the shaders to the skin, but what I can't see to figure out is how to apply the shaders to the clothes and hair...

Any tips?

TheNathanParable

You must make sure that you have both the object and the surface selected. It's tricky in daz, because clicking on the hair in the viewport will actually select the head that it's attached to, not the hair (same with clothes, you'll end up selecting the bodypart it's attached to). The best way to make sure you're selecting the right object is to use the Scene tab, which displays a list of all the objects in the scene.

3dOutlaw

Also, if you hold CTRL and double click the Shader, you will get a popup that asks if you want to replace/ignore the textures.  You can choose Ignore and it will leave the Texture and opacity maps.  Then you can remove the texture map from the hair, just leave the Shader and the Opacity map... (from Surfaces tab)  ...or do that in reverse ->  Don't use CTRL and re-apply the opacity map after appling the shader.

Some hairs are going to work better, and some not so good.  You'll get a good idea with the untextured preview of a hair.  I find older or toon specific hairs work better for toons.  The new ones have so many strands for realism.

For clothes...it's tougher.  You lose details, but depending on your comic style, simplicity may be better.  Alternatively, there are Toon cameras, which may work for you, as well.  Like Toony Cam and such.

tkdrobert

If you want to keep the textures of the cloths, you have to add them back on in the Surface tab, by applying them to both Diffuse values.

I used VSS on both these guys.  For the soldier, I added the textures back in.  The black outlines were added in via Postwork.

Geminii23

nocforweb_9420025c24 said:

Suddenly it seems to be slightly working - once I changed the max distance on occlusion from default 0 to 0.0001.  Though I'd done that before with no luck.. well, works mostly now, yay!

 

Was this the only change you made?  Has anyone else been able to replicate the Sin City look?

vrba79

tkdrobert said:

If you want to keep the textures of the cloths, you have to add them back on in the Surface tab, by applying them to both Diffuse values.

I used VSS on both these guys.  For the soldier, I added the textures back in.  The black outlines were added in via Postwork.

Man, your stuff iust pops! Gorgeous!

Geminii23

Does anyone have experience working with the Noir presets for Visual Shader?  I can't seem to get anything to work with these.  Basically the entire figure just is all white.  I am using 3Delight.

Thanks

TheNathanParable

Have you tried saving the scene, closing Daz, and then re-opening it again? Sometimes when i'm using Shader Mixer shaders Daz will just randomly refuse to render the surface properly for unknown reasons, and I have to reboot Daz to fix it.

Geminii23

TheNathanParable said:

Have you tried saving the scene, closing Daz, and then re-opening it again? Sometimes when i'm using Shader Mixer shaders Daz will just randomly refuse to render the surface properly for unknown reasons, and I have to reboot Daz to fix it.

Hi.  Yes I have.  It's very strange.  The other VSS shaders work fine as you can see from this example.

TheNathanParable

Have you tried changing the Max Distance of Occlusion to 0.0001? I know that in the years after Visual Style came out something changed in Daz Studio and the Occlusion node started working differently.

Geminii23

TheNathanParable said:

Have you tried changing the Max Distance of Occlusion to 0.0001? I know that in the years after Visual Style came out something changed in Daz Studio and the Occlusion node started working differently.

That was it!  Thanks.  Now I can finally start experimenting.  Gonna see if I can do a sort of Sin City style.

esapesa

Geminii23 said:

nocforweb_9420025c24 said:

Was this the only change you made?  Has anyone else been able to replicate the Sin City look?

I did these. Not with Visual shaders but Manga. So Miller-style is doable but takes a lot of your own tweaking (i.e. not the pre-settings).

DireBunny

esapesa said:

Geminii23 said:

nocforweb_9420025c24 said:

Was this the only change you made?  Has anyone else been able to replicate the Sin City look?

I did these. Not with Visual shaders but Manga. So Miller-style is doable but takes a lot of your own tweaking (i.e. not the pre-settings).

wow I really love these.

Sphinx Magoo

I have a question: is there a tutorial somewhere to show how to add Tiling to VS? I want to add Tiling to VS but I can't for the life of me figure out where to add it in Shader Mixer to make it work correctly. Plus, Shader Mixer is overwhelming on my laptop's screen when I try importing a Shader from the Scene.

Any help with this would be GREATLY appreciated. Being unable to tile has been the one thing which has kept me from fully adopting VS into my workflow.

As a follow-up, once Tiling is added, is it possible to save the VS Shader with Tiling so I can use it again? Tiling is a feature I use over and over in pwToon but I'm ready to explore other options.

Thank you in advance for any help anyone can provide!