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Thanks for that's a great tip! I'm going to have to use those together.
I tried V3D Filatoon Converter on a couple of scenes with no luck, until I realized I was opening up a previous non-Filatoon-version of DAZ Studio. Ugh.
Going to have a proper go with it this time. 
KA is on fire! If I had more money to spend I've have gotten those as well!
Xi vehicles are great. The one below converts nicely to FilaToon.
https://www.daz3d.com/xi-wasteland-construction-vehicle
I've already added this to the gallery, but when I went to post here last night the forums weren't loading.
I've put this through several filters in Paint .net to get this affect.
Help, I Can't Get Down!
(Yes, that is Richard stuck out on a limb.) The pine forest background was created by KREA Flux (AI). The tree with Richard in it is a Predatron prop converted to FilaToon and the bark texture modified with Filter forge and further adjusted with Instance Tiling in DS.
Ah, it's good to know ! Thanks !
That is a lot of effort to get me up a tree...not sure how I feel about that.
You should feel flattered to receive so much attention! Like many renders, this started with as simple scene to try out something in my library. Then I thought, "This would be better with Richard in it.", and it evolved.
Heh, I will try to take a (much) higher view.
Adding in a recent image for my comic. I used the filatoon on the scene as a base start and then did some postwork in Photoshop. The combo works to add in outlines that Filatoon doesn't always do, plus adds in a painterly effect. Still struggling with shadows. Sometimes I get them and sometimes I don't for different scenes. Also curious about emissives. I didn't dabble much in iRay so I'm not that familiar in setting them up. Also could use some info on working with bloom. Similar issue as emissive for me.
As an old 1950s/60s comic reader/collector of DC/Marvel comics and of the original Star Trek series when it was first broadcast, I love what you did. I can't help you much on any of your problem areas, but keeping an eye on this and the other filatoon thread, I think I remember other folks speaking about this issues and how they worked around them.
Mary
Thanks. Do you remember which threads? I've seen/read so many postings about FilaToon that I'm at a loss. I know there was a posting about some basics but I think there needs to be an update with some of the tips and tricks others have come up with since then.
My recommendations for shadows:
First, it's helpful to start with the Basic FilaToon Environment, which spawns a Distant Light and Filament Draw Options.
Be sure to change Distant Light Shadow Type from None (default) to Raytrace
On Filament Draw Options, do a filter for Shadow. Up the Shadow Map size to 4096 or more (I find the default 1024 usually creates pretty blocky shadows). Shadow Cascades bumped to 4 often helps, if you have a lot of stuff going on.
Another way to improve shadows is to increase shadow smoothness on stuff in the scene.
Other lights are more limited, and only one distant light really works right at a time.
Point lights do not cast shadows.
Spotlights can, but you have to make sure to increase Ray Length to 100 (unless you are trying to do something fancy). Also in Light/Shadow Type, again, switch to Raytrace (unless, again, you intentionally do not want shadows cast by the light).
Spotlight geometry does not do anything to the light or shadow. The only way to adjust spotlights is brightness and angle. (If I want a point light that casts shadows, I use a spotlight with the angle increased to 180).
If you are using distant light, keep in mind what parts of the scene might be blocking it. You can either hide those elements or go into the surfaces and set Cast Shadows to Off.
You may also want to adjust the Ambient in the scene to something darker to make the lighting look more contrasted.
Look into Sickleyield's dForce SY Rigged Shadows Filament | Daz 3D to add dropshadows to taste. There are some very convoluted ways to add Ambient Occlusion, but IMO it's a massive amount of work for a quirky/limited gain. Better to fake it.
You can do something similar on your own by just making a fuzzy disk and map it to a plane, but SY's product has dforce which can help. Also remember to change PBR Masked Threshold to 1, or cutout opacity is a bit dodgy.
Let's see, what else. Oh, I recommend creating white planes set to cutout .1 and place them in the background to create a haze/distance effect. It helps foreground elements pop, particularly if the background is busy. I like to use 2 or 3, depending on the scene; one immediately behind the focal character, another in the middling distance, and then one way back (and big) to distinguish 'far away' haze level.
Thanks, that's very helpful. I was always told to set my lights to deep shadow map instead of raytrace, but duly noted and will use that setting. I tend to use spotlights instead of distance light as all of my scenes tend to be indoors (traveling on a spaceship). The ray length thing helped. I had messed with it but didn't know it needed to be increased that much beyond default which is 2.5 (why so low?). I've played around with the other shadow options you mentioned and it helped. Should I or should I not increase the Environment Weight on items? I've been increasing it to 0.5 or more only because when items are converted they turn black. Again, thanks as that info has given me something to try out and see if that helps.
So what can you tell me about emissives and blooms?
David
I've found that Environment Weight is good to use if you want ambient occlusion. Turn it on slightly (about 0.2), bump up the strength of the ambient occlusion in Filament, and you can get a really nice effect like I managed to do with my pinup render down below.
Beautiful image! The tree bark looks fantastic. But does Richard really WANT to come down? He seems a bit aggressive toward his wannabe savior lol.
I can mange perfectly well on my own! I certainly don't need to be grabbed and swubg through the air (though I will probably do my best to find a more secure position if he tries).
Nice work on FilaToon and the Anime characters!! Been a while since I've used DS just for fun. Very easy to work with!
Richard was supposed to look like he was calling for help and reaching out to his helpful friend. I guess I missed the mark.
Thanks, Diva.
Looks great, @3dOutlaw, great to see your work with the FilaToon.
Very nice composition and image, @barbult.
I'm finally at a point where I can use Filatoon in my webcomic workflow. You have no idea how fast I can turn out a page now. Holy [smoke]!
I'm working on some Iray/FilaToon products and man, when I have to do Iray promos I'm like... bleeeeeh.
Takes so looooooong. ;)
Can someone please point me in the right direction for tutorials about Bloom and Emissives related to FilaToon? I may have some uses for the effects but I'm unclear as to how they work or setting them up.
Thanks, Artini. I'm glad you like it.
I wish Filatoon hairs had more wind movement morphs. It seems odd that this is omitted.
I know, right? I've been working with Filament and Filatoon for the majority of my renders lately and when I'm trying to render in Iray it's like 'oh man, I forgot how slow this was'. lol Do be fair, it's much faster than 3Delight (at least the few times I've tried to use 3Delight I noticed it was much slower than Iray). But you really can't beat one second renders. lol Filament and Filatoon is so awesome!
I'm glad Daz incorporated it before they started making new stuff like the Auto Save be Premier only.