@animagic, that is so true - a great story is what holds an audience, but you also have to admit - pretty / bright colors with - flashy technology makes em look, but without a great story, they wont stay.

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"To define Tao is to defile it" - Lao Tzu

I got an interesting comment regarding my latest production, "The Lost Client". The guy loved it, but he didn't like the TTS voices and thought it actually took away from the whole thing. 

In my case it was in part a time constraint. I think getting the voices lined up and recorded would add a few months to the production. Which is of course off topic...  

---

but imo - that is a creative workflow - you found a project worth polishing, that's Awesome!

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"To define Tao is to defile it" - Lao Tzu

As you can see from first pic and video, these shaders can be used on any model, not even just on figures.



If you are making animation with DAZ, then nothing special about these shaders. But, if you're using iClone, don't you think, with these shader, MMD gets a better result than iClone?

Take this picture as an example, how could I get a result like this in iClone, even with the same figure? I mean without baking texture in other 3D software.

you can get that look in iclone, you just need to rely more on your textures and models than the lighting. The trees in the background actually look more like a matte (background image) than models.

I tend to look at iclone more of like a compositing tool than an animation tool - I notice when I use real life pictures, my character inherits the real life look when the lighting is adjusted to mimic the background image.

my point, is your suggestion and idea are not wrong, but also be careful what you ask for as one of the strongest features of iclone is it's real time rendering - Iclone can currently out render in speed any other software that uses shading. The second iclone loses that speed, then I'm just better off making a library of assets in modo or carrara and using presets in a software that does it all, because it's going to take a long time everywhere.

There are many techniques you can use to imitate this shading - so whether we get the shading or not in the future, it would only increase your skill set to learn new ways of imitating that picture you are showing in iclone - using different techniques.

1 mountain, many ways to climb it lol 1 image, many ways to achieve it, including photoshopping - don't compromise your project because that tool is not available now ....the look IS available now, just not the particular path you were looking for.

This is an example of what I mean using the technique I just described above, in iclone. no photoshop.

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"To define Tao is to defile it" - Lao Tzu

I know about baking, That's not what I want. MMD's shader effects don't need to bake your texture, which makes you can ajust the shader anytime, and it works on any model. That's much more flexible and convenient than baking.

iClone already has a toon shader function like that, just not good enough for now.

it's called toon shader, but imo - it's really more like a cartoon filter, it's filtering the final output 2D image by a new arrangement of lights - it's not running in a synthesized shader format on the character itself like other software. If we gonna go there, we gotta go there the right way hehe

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"To define Tao is to defile it" - Lao Tzu

I think I would be paying quite a fair share if I clone gets a much better render quality. At the moment everything it produces is stuff that is far from professional, but there is something in the softare to give it great capabilities ! So, Mr. Iclone : Instead of using Kick-Starter and waist Money on it, ask your customers, to prepay lets say

for mid quality 100 USD
for excellent quality 500 USD

and safe 50% on the later price. I would be in !

Machines :
MSI Gaming Laptop, I7, GTX 1080, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD, 1 TB HD
Acer Predator Helios 300 I7 10750H, 16GB, 1TB SSD, RTX 2070

I've thought in the past, it would be nice if iclone had a separate rendering module.

So creating scenes and sets in the first module can remain fast, but then you open the project in another module that specifically for shaders, God Rays, global illumination, HD Renders ...etc ...

this way for those that want to keep it low cost hobby can do so with more animation tools - and rendering as it is now, and those that want to spend more on lighting, and polishing your scene can add that module to their tool set.

also a nice way to avoid bloating the process of creating.

in 3DX5 - you import, in iclone you animate - in the Render module you polish. - keep em all seperate so they all work fast and don't flood the iclone UI with tons of extra pages and small print.

this would also allow RL space to make each module eventually the best of it's class, divide and conquer! /roar

If steve jobs were alive ...he'd probably say it like..... import, ....create,.....polish.
We've revolutionized the digital art workflow.

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"To define Tao is to defile it" - Lao Tzu

I'm afraid, that's a thing iClone team may never do.

As you said, We need it keeps in realtime. With a real professional rendering engine, the pain of rendering animation could kill you. It takes you hours and hours and hours! Most people won't accept that since they expect iClone should be fast and saving time.

That's why I take MMD's shader as an example. It gives better rendering which audiences can accept and still keeps in realtime.

About iClone's cartoon toon shader, let's say...sure it's simple, but also is a good start for shader function, and we need more.