Ok. I admit it: I’ve always been a purist when it comes to comics. As a guy who got his art career started drawing comic books right before “digital” became a “thing” in that business, there’s always been an aversion I’ve had to computers in comic art. Sure, I got over it with the awesome leaps forward that Image Comics made in coloring back then (I’m pointing at YOU, Brian… hehehe) but beyond that, it’s never really been something I’ve gotten into until just lately, and even then, not so much with 3D, but more with the use of Manga Studio EX from Smith Micro. So why all the hubbub about comic stuff here? Well, just check out the image attached to this post. What you see there is a new kit of ours that should be out soon called “Mama Shotgun”, rendered using Poser 10/2014′s new “Comic Book” style rendering. Let me just get this out of the way:

WOW!

And in case I was unclear, well… WOW!!!

The way that this new feature adapts what’s in the viewport of Poser to a very traditional pen and ink style is beyond amazing. What’s more, if you dig in on the material nodes in your scene, especially playing with ambiance settings, you’ll find a striking amount of possibilities opening up. Since I’ve only cracked the surface on this, I’m sure that as I dig around and explore more of the way the materials interact with this render mode a lot of cool things will be uncovered. At first glance my only critiques are simply that I would LOVE to see the nuts and bolts of how the rendering is executed made available through some kind of interface where can have finer control over things like line weight, and the especially the way in which it interprets very complex textures like cloth patterns into the ink. Still, with further exploration I may run into ways to do just what I’m talking about, and if I do, will certainly post back here about it, but for something I’ve literally spent minutes playing with, it’s incredible. -Les

Testing the new comic book style rendering in Poser 2014