FinalToon: cartoon-style rendering from Cebas.

Geared toward animators who wish to give their digital creations an illustrated look, finalToon is a cartoon and illustration renderer for Discreet's 3ds max. The program also offers CG artists and designers a powerful tool for technical illustration. With it you can create stylized television cartoons, anime, and various technical designs and drawings.

FinalToon can be accessed from a number of areas within 3ds max. First, finalToon can be used as a rendering effect. The second area is in the Material Editor, where you can apply a Cartoon Material or a finalToon Shader. FinalToon texture maps are the third area, and include Hatching, Flat Mirror, Reflect/ Refract, and Thin Wall Refraction. Finally, a finalToon Material Converter exists in 3ds max's Utilities section, which is used to automate the conversion process from existing 3D materials to 2D.

When you activate finalToon in your scene as a render effect, there are four rollouts--Global Settings, Default Edges, File Output, and Canvas--in which you adjust the settings to suit your needs. You will spend the majority of your time in the Default Edges rollout, which incorporates Line Styles--the heart of finalToon--and enables you to create and fine-tune your own customized look for your creations.

FinalToon offers users a choice of six different line types: Fold Edges, Crease Edges, Intersection Edges, Material ID Edges, User-Defined Visible Edges, and Angle Edges. By clicking on any of the default buttons next to the individual line style, a new window opens called the Line Editor. In the Line Editor yon will find a large number of options and controls. It is within this line editor that you define the exact style you want for your outline.

After defining the individual line styles, you can save the combinations as TON or FTS files. This feature is important because yon will spend a good deal of time experimenting to get the look you wish. You can save the information for later use, or share with others who are working on the same project.

The program also comes with more than 30 preset line styles from which to choose. Among the options available are Felt Tip, Japanese, and Hand-Drawn. You can modify these to suit your needs and resave, building your own library.

FinalToon is the first line renderer for 3ds max to offer full support for Rendered Elements, which gives you ...