(Fixed, Fixed) [HOU-1994, HOU-2145] Toon workflow in V-Ray for Houdini?

[bentway23]

Hullo!

I'm trying to get the toon material to work in Houdini and having no luck. Applying the material itself does nothing. There's also the atmospheric effect, but I can't figure out how to use it--it has no outputs to go into the material, and whether I create it in the mat or out context there's apparently something you have to do to make it work.

I'm new to V-Ray. I also speak Maya, so I tried looking up how to apply the toon material in Maya, thinking it would translate, but all I could find involved pressing a button on the V-Ray shelf that does exist in Maya, but doesn't in Houdini.

Thanks for any help!

[PUFFBALL]

i was recently fiddling with this. you need to add/make a vray environment node in the OUT context - then add the toon atmospheric effect in there. Then add this node to the environment slot near the top of the vray render rollout. The lines then show up.
In regards to the toon material - it only seems to work correctly with omni lights at the moment.

[bentway23]

That did the trick, thanks!

[chakarov]

Hello bentway23 , there are toon material and a toon effect. V-Ray Toon Material will make object to look as a cartoon, and the Toon effect will add outer and inner lines for objects. V-Ray Toon Material is just a shader and should be assigned to an geometry, in other hand toon effect is an environment effect and should be assigned through environment network which is set in Environment slot of the V-Ray ROP, that is why toon effect has no outputs. It really depends of what you are trying to achieve.

V-Ray ToonMaterial
V-Ray ToonEffect

[PUFFBALL]

While we have a toon thread going - im having some trouble getting the toon material specular to do anything. The diffuse ramp defines the toon/cell like gradations on the diffuse color/map - but the specular ramp doesn't seem to do anything. Is it linked to the reflection? I get typical/default glossy reflections when enabling the reflection tab color but these dont behave like the toon shader. I really cant seem to get the Specular Ramp to do anything.

A feature im missing from max also is being able to plug in texture maps into the gradient map color positions. Is this possible or not implemented yet?

[chakarov]

Looks like there are a lot of missing options and parameters in toon material. I've created an issue about it. Thanks for the feedback.

[PUFFBALL]

Cool thanks. Il keep a look out for updates

[bentway23]

Hello bentway23 , there are toon material and a toon effect. V-Ray Toon Material will make object to look as a cartoon, and the Toon effect will add outer and inner lines for objects. V-Ray Toon Material is just a shader and should be assigned to an geometry, in other hand toon effect is an environment effect and should be assigned through environment network which is set in Environment slot of the V-Ray ROP, that is why toon effect has no outputs. It really depends of what you are trying to achieve.

V-Ray ToonMaterial
V-Ray ToonEffect

The thing that was throwing me on the Toon material is that it only works with the Omni light. Once I threw one of those in the scene the material behaved, and the effect gives me lovely outlines, and all is right with the world.

ADDENDUM: I just took a few lights out for a spin, and it looks like it also works with rectangle and spot lights, but the IPR is grainier/slower than with the omni light.

[chakarov]

Can you share your test scene, because from my tests I can't see any differences in time/noise between different lights. My e-mail is georgy.chakarov@chaosgroup.com

[bentway23]

My test scene was just some tubes copied to points, nothing remarkable. Upon working with it futher, I don't think that was grain or noise--it appears that sometimes the IPR needs to be restarted to get rid of any lingering default material bounce light or reflections. Once I did that the noise (which was just dull reflections) was "forgotten" by the IPR and out of our lives.

[PUFFBALL]

Looks like there are a lot of missing options and parameters in toon material. I've created an issue about it. Thanks for the feedback.

Any timeline on the missing parameters in the toon material? Specfically the ability to plug maps into the toon gradient positions. Works so well in max and really missing it within Houdini
Thanks

[woytha]

Can you share your test scene, because from my tests I can't see any differences in time/noise between different lights. My e-mail is georgy.chakarov@chaosgroup.com

Am I missing something or Toon material implementation in Houdini is really limited comparing to Maya / Max?
I am missing e.g. support of area lights or textures and lot of other stuff...
If so, it should be mentioned somewhere in the docs it is quite frustrating to realize in the middle of work there are features missing.
And does Chaos plan to it implement it?
Thanks!

[Gosho.Genchev]

Hey all,

we've updated the Toon material to be equivalent to the one in V-Ray for Maya. The devs also spent some time to make it possible to plug textures for the ramp points.

There's a minor issue where the textures plugged into the specular ramp inputs would not be exported. It's logged and we're looking into resolving it as well.

Hope that helps!

[Gosho.Genchev]

Hey all,

we've also resolved the specular ramp textures export issue. The fix will be present in the nightly builds, starting September 24th.

Best regards!