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Archive notice: This article was originally published on May 1, 2017. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
Non-photorealistic renderers (NPR), also known as cartoon renderers, enable the creation of cartoon-like representations and are favoured in the field of cartoon creation and illustration. NPRs combine the charm of two-dimensional graphics with the animation capabilities of many 3D programmes. Almost every major 3D tool offers the option of creating toon renderings out of the box.
3ds Max has provided a toon material in the form of the Ink’n Paint material since early versions. If Nvidia Mental Ray is used in addition, the functions of the Ink’n Paint material (up to version 3ds Max 2016) can be extended with additional shaders for the output of outlines and contour lines. Alternatively, “toony” representations can also be achieved with the Quicksilver hardware renderer – however, the quality leaves something to be desired, so this option cannot really be considered.
This means that 3ds Max offers some basic functions with its own tools that can be used to create appealing graphics and illustrations in toon style. It should be mentioned that the use of the Ink’n Paint material in 3ds Max can be quite a resource killer, so that a scene that is rendered in a manageable time with standard materials and lights using normal settings quickly requires many times the rendering time.
However, if the user wants to go one step further and render his technical illustrations with hidden lines, take motion blur into account or use his own hatching, it becomes very complicated, if not impossible, to realise the desired result with on-board tools. And this is where Finaltoon comes into play. Finaltoon has been part of the Finalrenderer (version 3.5) from Cebas for many years and has been the ideal tool for designing complex technical illustrations ever since it was released. Finaltoon is available as a plug-in for 3ds Max and works in the current version 4.0 with 3ds Max from version 2015. Older 3ds Max versions are no longer supported. According to Cebas, Finaltoon is customised for the Scanline renderer and delivers the best results with it. Other supported renderers are Finalrender, Moskitorender from Cebas and V-Ray from Chaos Group. The 3ds Max internal renderers such as Nvidia Mental Ray, Nvidia Iray and ART Renderer (from 2017) as well as external renderers such as Corona cannot be used with Finaltoon 4.0.
Brief overview of the functions
Finaltoon 4.0 offers several toon shaders which, similar to Ink’n Paint, enable cartoon-like and two-dimensional representations. But the clear strength of the line artist lies in the creation of all kinds of line types such as solid, dashed or dotted lines. Each of the defined lines is calculated with a special anti-aliasing of high quality.
Lines can vary in width and be provided with depth information, noise and transparency effects. Hatching can be used to give 3D objects a hand-drawn style. You can also define your own line styles and save them as templates. Finaltoon also supports reflections and refractions, among other things.Finaltoon 4.0 offers a huge amount of possibilities. We have taken a closer look at some of the functions and leave it to the reader to study further details online on the Cebas website.
Getting started & operation
After installation, Finaltoon can be activated as a render effect. The render effect takes into account all 3D objects in a scene and applies the global settings for Finaltoon to them. Finaltoon materials can also be used.
If the Finaltoon render effect is activated, all objects in a scene are rendered with the specified settings. If a Finaltoon material is added to an object, its material properties and line settings overwrite the global settings under the render effects. Finaltoon materials can therefore be used to render different styles for different objects.
Special features when rendering lines
Finaltoon provides a variety of line types that are extremely helpful for the requirements of technical illustrations. The eight available line types are: Dashed, Centre, Phantom, Border, Dotted, Hidden, Dashdot and Divide. Each line can be edited individually with the Finaltoon line editor and saved as a separate style in the .ton file format, a binary format. The associated option to create your own libraries is definitely very helpful.
The options for customising and creating your own styles are impressive. Hand-drawn effects, such as changing the line width by varying the pressure of the digital brush, can be realised, as can reducing the line thickness in space.
Sophisticated anti-aliasing ensures that the lines created are rendered clearly. This avoids unpleasant moiré effects and artefacts in the final image. The function of being able to create your own line types is particularly important in the illustrative field. The ability to generate hidden lines in particular is a significant benefit. Some examples of possible line settings are shown in Figure 6.
Finaltoon supports the render elements dialogue in 3ds Max. This allows lines to be rendered with their respective assignment in a separate image file. In addition, export to .ai format (Adobe Illustrator) and vector-based further processing are possible.
The lines are summarised according to their properties and stored in ordered groups and layers in the Illustrator file.
Materials
Finaltoon comes with four of its own materials or shaders. These enable the creation of a wide variety of materials:
- Finaltoon NPR – a simple cartoon shader that uses a predefined gradient ramp (colour gradient) to define the shadow, scatter and gloss colour of a material. Outlines or contours are only possible via the global settings of the Finaltoon render effect.
- Finaltoon – a comprehensive material with customisable line properties.
- fT-Outline – the material offers to use a standard material for the body colour of an object, visible edges and contours as well as hidden lines.
- fT-Wrapper – any standard material can be provided with its own line parameters.
Hatching (Hatching)
Finaltoon Hatching is a very special map. It offers a variety of options for applying any (especially hand-drawn) image data as hatching information to 3D objects. For example, areas in shadow and illuminated areas can be given different hatching densities, adding a special touch.
Finaltoon’s documentation is very well done. The help included with the programme with links to additional tutorials is coherent and easy to understand. All details and functions are described and explained in detail. The only downside is that the help is only available in English.
Footnote
During the test phase, a serious hardware error occurred on the original test computer. The error had nothing to do with the programme being tested. The test data was saved, but until the test version of Finaltoon 4.0 received a new test licence, the test version of Finalrender Stage 1 was used. The main difference between version 3.5 of Finaltoon supplied with Finalrender Stage 1 and the currently tested version 4.0 is that it can only be rendered with Finalrender. It should be mentioned here that the use of Finaltoon in the test version of Finalrender rendered much faster than with the Scanline Renderer.
Final impression
Finaltoon and the variety of its options are impressive. The variety of settings for the line types and the number of functions, especially for illustrative graphics, are impressive. The options for applying motion blur or refractions to the line types used are impressive. Regardless of whether existing standard materials with the Finaltoon wrapper material or completely customised Finaltoon materials are used, the possibilities are manifold and the output quality is very good. The option to render lines into a separate file (pixel file) via Render Elements is a real benefit for the composite. The export to Adobe Illustrator files offers an excellent interface to the world of vector graphics.
By using it as a render effect, changes can be viewed in real time (“Update Effect – Interactive”) and the changed parameters are immediately visible.
It is a pity that Finaltoon is limited to the Scanline Renderer and does not support Mental Ray. Mental Ray has established itself particularly well in the technical field and many professional renderings are created with it. The Scanline Renderer has also become somewhat outdated and no longer represents the current state of the art. The speed of the Scanline Renderer is another real shortcoming. The involuntary test with Finalrender Stage-1 shows the speed at which Finaltoon performs in conjunction with the Cebas render engine. The same performance with the in-house 3ds Max renderers would be great. The support of V-Ray is a positive aspect, but not every user utilises the Chaos Group render engine.
For complex scenes with a high number of curved or organic surfaces and combined objects, Finaltoon struggles to calculate all element edges. Unexpectedly long calculation times are the result. This effect did not occur when using the final renderer Stage 1.
The idea of offering Finaltoon as a pure rental product, similar to many other tools, is a matter of taste and unfortunately goes in the same direction as the new licence policy of Autodesk and some other software providers. The bottom line is that Finaltoon 4.0 is a fascinating tool that has a lot to offer, especially in the field of illustration. The ability to,
Freely design and customise line types is unique. Although the focus on the scanline renderer and the associated long rendering times detract a little from the fun: Finaltoon is a real line artist!
