When converting an object that already has a bunch of different material id's and a multi-sub object material, but uses something like standard materials, I typically do the following: Load up the model. Delete all the scene lights. Add one light - set it up so that it is a raytraced shadow casting light and so that about 1/4 of the object is in shadow. Set the environment background to something non-black - try and 18% gray. Grab a Color Clipboard Floater and copy all the colors from the multi-sub object material to the Color Clipboard. Add and Ink 'n Paint as one of the multi-sub object materials, and just work with this material until you get the inking adjusted for size/behavior (don't worry about color yet). Now we set up the rest of the paints: Add a raytrace material - go to the raytracer settings and options dialog, and turn off raytracing globally (this will shut off the inking of the Ink 'n Paints globally). Using the multi-sub object material, copy your Ink 'n Paint material to the other slots of the multi-sub, and use the color clipboard to copy all the base colors back into the multi-sub material. Render, and tweak the paint colors until they are doing what you want. Go back to the raytrace material, and turn the raytracer back on globally. Now work on each Ink 'n Paint material to get the inking fine tuned for each material on the object - usually at this point, everything is pretty close, and you only have to adjust the over/underlap bias settings to get things looking better. To render antialiased finals, go through all the Ink 'n Paint materials in the scene and turn on super sampling. If you want to use a supersampler other than the Max 2.5 Star, and your mateirals are in a multi-sub material, you are currently out of luck. I am working on a solution to this. - NOTE - someone write us a script to convert standad multi-sub to Toon Assistant's with Ink 'n Paint, please...
If a sub material is used, the sub material passes through as
the paint color and will have ink'ed lines drawn over top of it.
The Lighted color is the fill color for the lit side of the
object surface.
Levels is the number of discreet color bands that the color
is divided into from light to dark (shaded or shadowed) areas. The
number of levels includes the fully lit color and the fully shaded color.
The shaded color is determined in two different ways depending on the Unlabled
CheckBox and by the shaded color setting. All the shaded color
settings are ignored if the number of color levels is set to 1. Typical
cartoons will only have 1 or 2 paint levels. 1 level is a solid color
fill, and 2 levels give a solid color fill with a second color for shaded
parts of the objects. Ink 'n Paint allows up to 10 levels
- if you want more than this, use a material and get all the control you
need (The sidefade/shadowlight material may be good for this).
When the Unlabled Checkbox is on, the value of the Unlabled
Spinner is used as a percentage multiplier with the current color settings
for the lighted side paint color. For example, if you have a bright
red/yellow checkerboard as your paint color, the checkbox is on, and the
spinner is set to 50, then your shaded side color will be a 50% darker
version of the red/yellow checkerboard, regardless of the settings in the
shaded side color and map. Keeping this checkbox on makes it easy
to manage the object colors from a multi-sub object material.
The Shaded Color determines the color of the dark side (shaded
or shadowed side) of the object. This color setting only matters
if the Unlabled Checkbox is off.
Highlight. is the color of the specular highlight. Glossiness
controls the size of the highlight. Adding specular highlights to
toon shaded objects will kind of blow the 2D illusion - use specular carfully
and only when you intentionally need to use it.
All 3 of these can be turned off, and then the background color is
transmitted through the object - Note: This does not make the object transparent.
To ink edges and make the interior of the object transparent, use a material
in the sub material slot.
The specular highlight cannot currently be applied on top of the sub
material, only the paint color.
Ink Quality affects two things - the shape of the ink brush, and the number of samples used. A quality of 1 uses a squarish 5 pixel brush in a '+' shape. A quality of 2 uses an something like an octagonal 9 to 15 pixel brush. A quality level of 3 creates a nearly circular 30 pixel brush. The width of the brushes are the same, but the quality and render times increase with higher quality settings. A quality setting of 1 is good enough for most work.
Ink Width
Min and Max Ink Width values are used with AutoVary and
with Width mapping.
Auto Vary - the existance of scene lights affect the line width regardless of if the object is illuminated or not. The sizes (min and max) are only really relevant if there is only the equivalent of one full-on light source on the object (basically normal intensity illumination). This may take some tweaking to get used to, but should usually produce decent results.
If Auto Vary is off and there is no width map, the line width is constant and will be determined by the minimum value.
Ink types:
Outline - This is used to draw the outer edges (outline) of
the object. In the rendered image, this is where the object's outer
edge overlaps the background or overlaps other objects.
Overlap - this is the ink used when a portion of an object overlaps
itself.
Underlap - same as overlap inking except that the ink is painted
onto the covered-up surface, not the topmost surface.
SmGroup - this ink draws the boundaries between smoothing groups.
Actually, this only inks the non-smooth edges on the object. You
have quite a bit of control of the hard edges by selecting and carefully
overlapping multiple smoothing groups.
MatID - this ink draws the boundary edges between different
material ID's (material numbers). Note - if two Ink 'n Paint
mateirals butt up against each other and have different material ID's,
this ink will ink both of the materials and you will get a double thick
ink line. Turn off the MatID inking on one of the materials to avoid
this.
Angle - this ink draws the edges between faces based upon the
alignment of the two faces. This may be tough to use, but it can
produce some really nice internal edges that would normally not be drawn.
Notes on ink:
Angle inking is iffy and can pretty easily produce popping durring
animation - use this with care.
Overlap/Underlap Bias: This is the minimum distance (away from
the camera) that is required for the boundary between two non-attached
faces (ie. overlapping faces) to be inked.
Error Colors: If you see magenta, green or cyan pixels unexpectedly, these are internal error codes in the inking algorithm. If you see magenta, you may be able to fix the problem by making the material 2 sided.
Ink 'n Paint uses the raytracer, so tuning the raytracer's acceleration will have an effect on Ink 'n Paint speed. With regards to raytracer acceleration, set the face limit to 12 and balance to 10 to speed things up a bit - this will take more memory, but will run faster.
If you see cyanor
green,
you may have in internal raytracer error. If this isn't due to some
known bug, let Steve or Scott know.