comic filter for Daz renders?
Daz 3D Forums > General > The Commons>comic filter for Daz renders?
comic filter for Daz renders?
Drekkan
Posts: 459
in The Commons
Is there some sort of render filter which allows you to create a traditional comic art filter to cover your renders? (example in picture) would love if you were able to make comics with Daz and make the images in this style so is there anything for this?
Thankyou.
background.jpg
633 x 537 - 87K
Daz 3D is part of 
Connect
DAZ Productions, Inc.
7533 S Center View Ct #4664
West Jordan, UT 84084
Licensing Agreement | Terms of Service | Privacy Policy | EULA
© 2025 Daz Productions Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Comments
Faces are a little too tricky to just apply a filter to and get perfect comic every time. Believe me I’ve tried. That said, I use Topaz Studio and some custom recipes to turn Daz renders into more illustrated things. There’s also done shader sets that can help. My friend has achieved really incredible stuff using Sketchy, Oso3d toon stuff and Topaz. https://lain105.deviantart.com/art/Anime-Heart-Girl-Proof-of-Concept-735652859
You can use 3Delight and PWToon shaders, they come out pretty good. We also have a comic thread: https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/228061/3d-comic-book-tips-and-pictures#latest
There's also a pretty cool thread that has tons of great ideas and suggestions: https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/54697/non-photorealistic-renders-npr/p1
and the follow-up thread https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/227541/more-non-photorealisitic-renders-npr-ii
If you are willing to put a bit of work into it, my Oso Toon for Iray provides tools for creating comic style images using Iray renders.
It's not a one step process (unless you just want lineart), but it can give you a lot of control over elements that are frustrating otherwise.
I've used PWToon and Linerender9000 to great effect; they are both very useful for doing this sort of art. PWToon uses Normal-based outlining, which has a few flaws. LR9K is a bit more sophisticated with lines, though can take some work.
I've tried MANY MANY methods of filtering to produce an illustrated effect, and found all of them wanting. The big problem is that there is no algorithm that will understand that THIS black pixel is part of a figure and THAT black pixel is part of the background. Ultimately, you need some sort of pass or logic that writes out what different blocks of the image belong to. Oso Toon and LR9K both can do this.
For me ever since one of the Forum goers talked about Topaz Studio, I am using it pretty much exclusively now for my comics.. Here is a standard 3DL render from a comic I made which I ran though a custom filter in Topaz Studio..
There is also the Carrara NPR thread
https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/158646/carrara-non-photo-realistic-works#latest
A recent Carrara challenge was using Cartoon and other guilty pleasures as a theme.
WIP Thread.
https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/229931/carrara-challenge-38-cartoons-and-other-guilty-pleasures-welcome-our-pa-sponsor-phil-wilkes/p1
entry thread
https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/233181/carrara-challenge-38-cartoons-and-other-guilty-pleasures-voting-thread-now-open#latest
I think Oso Toon and related tools are absolutely great if you don't want to do any heavy filtering. For a while, I was following my friend's process but then also applying a fair amount of artistic filters. After getting annoyed at the time cost, I did a with-and-without and found the heavy filtering almost erased the nice rendering effects. Since I don't much need lineart, I went with speed.
Some examples of what I've achieved.
This was my first stage: Oso3d stuff + filtering + built-in filters from Comic LIfe.
My second stage: Dramatic switch as I dropped the Comic Life. There's still Oso3d lines in here, I THINK.
My current style: more Topaz but with masks as needed to control filters. Straight renders though.
Well overlooked as an easy filter that often creates a comic like / 3DL look for iRay material is to use Sun & Sky & crank up the 'Environmental Intensity' until it's high enough for light to wash out detail.
All of the examples above are good ways to get interesting results, but if you're looking for a true hand-drawn comic look from a 3D render, it cannot be done without extensive manual editing (i.e. painting over the render and drawing lines by hand). I've been working on methods to get illustrated looks directly from renders or with minimal postwork since 1999 and I'm just not convinced we're going to be able to do it without the creation of an entirely new and dedicated rendering engine.
There's one ridiculous method I've yet to try, but I've seen it done once, many many years ago. It's not practical though and we're more likely to get a new renderer than for it to catch on.
There is no one tool that will turn your renders into the comic book art you like. There are a lot of ways to do it, but they take work and experimentation. Here is an exaple of what I did using the 3Delight render engine, Visual Style Shaders for the skin (available in the DAZ store), Clip Paint Studio, Photoshop filters, and some free textures.
I notice Graphic Art Cameras https://www.daz3d.com/graphic-art-cameras just updated (not sure why). You might look at these alternate cameras.
This one was done in IRAY with filters applied from Topaz Studio and Photoshop.
I highly remommend you check out the NPR forum thread already linked in a previous post.
Some great suggestions guys... am curious about this 'Topaz studio' it looks good but am worried about the price. How much does the basic version go for? better brace myself lol
Topaz Studio is free, with a lot of cheap-to-middling filter expansions, all of which come with a free 1-month demo per filter set.
Daz Studio render With some postwork
Drekkan:
I know it isn't exactly like the hand drawn comic book style in your example image, but I believe this is along the lines you were looking for.
A very old Poser 3 comic character exported to Blender for rendering passes, including Freestyle line pass. Then further work with filtering some of the passes, and compositing it all to one image.
Even though a single render engine could not produce this, it was still all render/digitally accomplished without any hand work involved.
I did not even do any touch-up, or bother with any kind of mesh corrections for this demo. If I was to make a serious effort, I could produce something closer, but this was just to let you know that something more along the lines can be done.
As someone who worked in the comic industry for years, I can say that I'm pretty happy that filters and stuff still aren't quite "there" yet in giving that genuine hand drawn hand colored comic book art look. It would put a lot of people out of work if there was a way to make 3D art look just like hand drawn comics. While I'm sure that we'll eventually get to that place (and comic artist will then might have to learn how to do 3D art or retire), I'm glad that today is not that day. Rather I hope that 3D comics develop a different style and look altogether and keep traditional hand drawing artists and 3D artists both in the biz. There's market enough for both types of art, I think. :)
interesting perspective. I hadn't really thought about the value of non-convergence of the mediums, and yes, there's plenty of room for any of this creative brilliance.
My continuing challenge is to make my work close enough to the historically accepted styles to be accessible, yet different enough to be novel and uniquely mine, and to take much less time than drawing the same would take...
--ms
The two will never meet as long as artists keep trying to turn regular renders into comic art.
What everyone is missing is that comics aren't drawn with the same proportions and consistent scale like any 3D model.
The closest approximation is the camera that exxagerates the scale of the closest objects, but since this is done PER OBJECT, in drawing, that alone won't get.
You would have make your scene and then scale/morph actual limbs and body parts to create an artistic emphasis on action points.
-----------
Then when you combine all the short cuts that comics take, for the sake of time and the medium's limitations- you always end up with something that doesn't look like a comic. Editing a render so it looks 'almost drawn' is a baby step towards the far goal.
yes.
What I keep finding is many of the styles or simple frames that I'm trying to emulate (literally reproduce in DS), is that they are notably 'unreal' in exactly the way you describe. Usually drawn to look like they *should* look, rather than like things really do! - The shadows will never work that way, they're wrong in the drawing!, The body can't do that! It's broken! heh.
My tools are too good.
Using the ever-more accurate 3D tools to render exaggeration and stylization is proving to be an art in itself... Morphed characters like Ollie and Edie, and George, with toonstyled lines and cel shaders helps, but comics are clearly about cleverly indicating dynamic ideas on static pages, and the decades of tricks and iconic elements that 'say' certain things by convention, are tough to duplicate in a medium that's been refined for accurate realism. Tools like CrazyTalk (reallusion) are bridging this gap in the animation side of things, and mechanisms like Motion Studio are bending the presentation norms, but it's still a free-for-all as far as 3D novel/comic 'norms'.
The good news is those who are going down this path have a whole new world of imagery and styles that can still be established as baselines for the future, rather than having to match a certain existing style (e.g. a specific manga flavor). We're the first ones down this path (in a 50 year timeframe), and we don't have to match a style. But we do have to invent one that folks will like. And apparently that's much harder to do when the style giants that precede us in the comic work (from archie to batman) aren't there for us to lean on so much in this brave new world of imagery and communication.
In a world of chalk, we've been given acrylics and told go paint a ceiling! I think this should be fun!
--ms
Personally, I think folks should think of new ways to tell a story; I rarely like 3D anime/manga, as it looks wrong. It can look good, usually when whoever is doing it isn't trying to recreate the 2D medium and failing.
Now I get trying to make it look like the medium; I can't draw, so anything that helps there is fun, but what I'm trying to do is create the look and feel without being a copy, but is also obviously still something done in 3D... No success yet though.
I think oldstyle drawn comic art like at Marvel will be overtaken by 3D and 2D models eventually. Already many artists use it as a cheat. After all, handdrawn 2D animation cells has been around a long time but Marvel movies didn't become popular before 3D computer special effects were capable of creating a decent visual scene lacking the 2D traditional comic look which truth be told often looks horrendous, even so with all this computer capability, watching the movie Daredevil (& Elektra) just the other day...well it still didn't come off as obeying the laws of physics but looked like special effects created by a drag & drop animator. It did look decently nice visually.
I think we (in this 3D realm) are all apppreciating that very issue/opportunity. None of the folks around my non-3D life have *any* idea what's coming either - and I have a hellava time trying to describe it. Arguably, even if *we* don't 'see' it either, we know it's big, and we can see the possibilities.
Anything that's too radically different from the norms of any medium seems to meet insurmountable resistance (ie. it's rejected by the market). Similarly, anything too close to the uncanny valley of imitation ("it's like a traditional comic, but somehow wrong") also is resisted. I think the success will come in a paradigm shift driven by something crazy-kool that breaks all preconceptions, or a migration that's similar to the long-term but slow trasnsformation of the typical web-page (remember the web-pages of the 90's and even 5 years ago...) vs the fantastic graphic-laden one-pagers we see today...
But I'm certain that we are collectively going down an uncharted road, but way too many of us are so busy trying to match things, that we don't realize we can change them entirely, or at least morph them... I'm certainly guilty, but figure I'm learning to crawl before doing the olympics...
Things like each traditional frame of a scene being an animated snippit have popped up here and there, but may actually be 'how it's done' in 10 years. Everyone loves the Harry Potter newspapers...
Exciting times for those who choose to take on the struggle/task of new media, vs replicating the old. Yet, the challenge of using these new tools to replicate the old is a fascinating artform/puzzle in itself (I love trying), and has will certainly be a safe harbor in the current marketplace for years to come (low risk, established acceptance).
Music is going through this same hurricane as well.
--ms
Interesting discussion, and I couldn't agree with you more, @Griffin Avid. I've tried to address the issue you describe by not simply relying on camera perspective, but also artificially inflating the size of certain elements in an attempt to create a more dramatic image. Here's a simple example showing a chartacter rendered at 3 different sizes in a couple of the styles I've been developing (his hand pointing at you is inflated):
Speaking of scale, I haven't been able to work on any NPR as of late, but another challenge for me has always been really tight close-ups of faces/expressions. Obviously, these are crucial for a comic feel.
@SnowSultan - An astute observation that's at the heart of why I've always described my algorithms as "much more than post processing". 3D render engines generally have no knowledge of adjacent pixels, let alone any structure that may be defined by a cluster of many pixels. This is why I render out analysis passes from 3DL which get passed along to my illustrator algorithms (which could be thought of as another render engine).
- Greg
I'm tryin, Diva!
- Greg
ETA: The styles are driven by the algorithms, and what's possible (for me) to achieve via automation (as opposed to starting with a strictly defined look in mind)
Mika 8 rendered in iClone 7 with toon shader.
Tools (and the underlying paradigms) like the new X-morphs package will help ease the creation of these exaggerations.
Greg, I like each of your variations almost equally - such differing flavors of the same base are impressive and inspiring (and overwhelming, when you consider the infinite options...).
Artini, I like the stylization choices - I'm drawn to the flatter cel-style, yet feel like somethings missing without some shadowing. You've found a good mix.
--ms
Thanks – it’s tons of fun to play around with all the styles. You’re right - Xmorphs should be very useful to a lot of people. I wrote partial morph scripts years ago that I’ve been using in my own work. I may still release them as a product at some point as they function differently than what I gather about the new product, but it’s not a priority at the moment.
- Greg
I know - and I love your efforts, Greg. Your algorithms and programming really create some absolutely stunning effects (as you've shown here!). I love it! I just wish it was available for sale - I'd pay some good money for that!! lol :) I know and understand why it's not though. :)
Times change, always. While I only worked in the comic industry for about 15 years, I've read comics for over 55 and artists are continually coming and going. The people who might be put out of work would be replaced by people who would be getting work. When we started doing digital colouring, it slowly phased out traditional colourists (unless they adapted). People who might not have had a traditional colourist's skills in spec'ing colours for a limited, flat palette had painting skills, and they produced full-colour artwork that changed the whole industry. The same happened when we started doing digital inking, digital lettering and digital pencils. Chances are, the people you're worrying about that might lose their jobs took the jobs from other, more traditional artists over the last 10 or 20 years. It's not, however, a zero-sum industry. It will expand to accept more superior works and contact to squeeze out lesser ones.
I agree with others who've said that rather than try to mimic traditional comics exactly, 3D artists should be finding a new "look" that fits the tools we have better. A number of people here have been creating some very, very nice art that isn't straight 3D, but not totally "illustrated" eithe; instead, they create an incredibly beautiful "middle ground" that's more something new than a compromise.
As for matching the unreal perspectives of hand-drawn images, too true! I've found that trying to match some old 60s covers was like trying to match an Escher painting... it just doesn't work, at least not very easily.
-- Walt Sterdan
Thanks a lot, mindsong.
Reallusion has promised to develop further toon shader in iClone. Hopefully it will be even better.