This tutorial shows you how to add a V-Ray Toon Effect to a scene in Solaris. For instructions on how to use the toon effect in V-Ray for Houdini, see the How to add V-Ray Toon Effect tutorial.


Overview

The V-Ray Toon Effect provides an efficient way to add cartoon-style outlines to objects in your scene. It can be applied globally to all objects or selectively to specific objects for greater control. For optimal results, combine the V-Ray Toon Effect with the V-Ray Toon Material.

In this tutorial, you'll learn how to use the V-Ray Toon Effect as a global effect as well as how to apply it to specific objects within the stage network.

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Workflow

Before proceeding with the following step, ensure you have set all the geometry, lights, and cameras in your scene.


Global Toon Effect

To add a V-Ray Toon Effect to all geometry in the scene:

  • Create a Render Settings LOP from Rendering > Render Settings.

  • Go to the V-Ray tab of the LOP and find its Toon subtab. There, enable all the parameters you need to create a toon effect, such as Silhouette Color and Width, Interior Edges Controls, etc.

This applies the toon effect to all geometry in the scene. To apply the effect on specific objects only, proceed to step 2.




The result is identical lines to all objects in the scene.

Here, the following parameters are tweaked:

  • Silhouette Color is set to black.

  • Silhouette Width is set to 3.

  • Width Units are kept at their default - Pixels.

  • Interior Edges are also enabled and set to 0.7.

  • The Color of the Interior Edges is black too.



Toon Effect on Specific Objects

To modify the Toon Effect for specific objects, you need to:

  • Add a Material Library LOP, or use an existing one if you already have it. Inside it, create a V-Ray Material Builder VOP by right-clicking and selecting V-Ray > Material > V-Ray Material Builder.

The material builder will serve as a material for the geometry in the scene that will have an altered toon effect.

Name the material accordingly, e.g., Toon_Trees. In scenarios involving more complex scenes with multiple materials, proper naming significantly facilitates navigation and management.




  • Inside the material builder, two nodes appear automatically - a V-Ray Material (VRayMtl) and a V-Ray Output. Replace the VRayMtl with a V-Ray Toon material from V-Ray > Material > V-Ray Toon Material.

  • Create a V-Ray Single material and link its material output to the material input slot of the V-Ray Output node.

  • Then link the BRDF input slot of the V-Ray Single material to the V-Ray Toon material's BRDF output.
    This ensures that the toon material will be the one rendered at the end.

  • Create a V-Ray Toon Effect from V-Ray > Effects > V-Ray Toon Effect. Plug its output slot to the usd_env_toon input slot of the V-Ray Single material.




  • Exit the Material Library LOP and create an Assign Material LOP.

  • Assign the V-Ray Toon material to the geometry. To do this, drag the Tuck geometry into the Primitives field of the Assign Material parameters, and drag the Toon_Trees material to the Material Path field of the Assign Material parameters.

Alternatively, use the Select primitives button on the right of each field or directly type the paths.

More information on material assignments is available on the Working with Solaris Materials page.

  • Keep the Toon Effect in the Render Settings LOP enabled. Otherwise, you won't be able to render the effect. 




Here, the following parameters of several objects are tweaked:

  • Silhouette Color of the trees and hills is set to green.

  • Silhouette Width of the hills is 12 pixels, while that of the trees is 6 pixels.

  • Silhouette Color of the dog is set to brown.




Override Global Toon Effect

You can override the global toon effect for specific objects only. This is an alternative method to set custom toon effect for specific objects.

  • Create a Render Geometry Settings LOP.

  • Go to the V-Ray tab and find its Toon subtab. There, enable all the parameters you need to create a toon effect, such as Line Color, Line Width, Inner Line Controls, etc.

  • Set the objects you want to affect in the Primitives field of the Render Geometry Settings LOP. For example, drag the Dog object into the field. Thus, you can apply the override only to the Dog object in the scene.




Here, the following parameters are tweaked and they affect only the dog geometry:

  • Silhouette Color is set to lighter brown.

  • Silhouette Width is set to 4 pixels.