Dark outline in 3ds max, is it possible? (see attached)

[n_maasdijk]

Hello all,

I am currently updating an old Assembly-book wich was made from Inventor pages converted to pdf's.

Now it is my job to re-make these in 3ds Max since thats a lot sharper and professional. 

But the problem is, the people in the workforce told me that they still like to see a dark outline, just like the old versions. (see attached).

But when i look it up on the internet i can only see information on how to animate all vertexes. But by adding all vertexes in black it would look horrendous.

Anyone who will know a solution to this? Or if it is even possible?

-NM

[jibijib · Accepted solution]

There are a couple of methods, but you could just use a "toon" shader in material editor.

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/KaxvLG

It looks like all edges are "rendered" as visible in the render, there is an option in render settings to do this, and possibly set line thickness. You would have to hide all unwanted edges on the mesh though.

https://megarender.com/blog/how-to-make-3ds-max-wireframe-render/

[n_maasdijk]

After having messed around with the toon shader it did work out with the outline like i wanted. Now i just need to figure out how to combine a material and the toon shader. I tried a Multi/sub-object but it didn't do mcuh.

At least thanks for the solution of a toon shader.

[MartinBeh]

You can try the "Blend" material (or with Arnold the "Mix Shader" material) but why not simply render twice and then combine both images in a compositing software? That way you have optimal control over how to mix the two.

If you use the "toon" shader in Arnold, it also has some surface shading parameters, such as specular power and roughness that might be sufficient to create that white-ish look you showed.

Here are some links to get you going: 

https://help.autodesk.com/view/3DSMAX/2024/ENU/?guid=arnold_for_3ds_max_ax_toon_tutorials_ax_toon_me...

https://help.autodesk.com/view/3DSMAX/2024/ENU/?guid=arnold_for_3ds_max_ax_surface_maps_ax_toon_html

[n_maasdijk]

Thank you Martin!

This community is built on the shoulders of people like you.

I will go check out both functions!