Support FAQ :
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There are four Pencil+ 4 products: Pencil+ 4 (for 3ds Max, for Maya) and Pencil+ 4 Line (for After Effects, for Unity). The main features of each product are summarized in the tables below. The implementation and operation of similar features vary depending on the product. Please use the Demo versions of the products to check the operation of the features.
Material
3ds Max Maya After Effects Unity Toon Rendering ● ● - - Gradation Offset Map ● ● - - Basic Material ● ● - - Stroke Map for Hatching ● - - - Highlight Design ● - - - Light Color Effect Setting ● - - - Shadow Blend ● - - - Light Intensity Effect Setting ● - - - Material Transparency ● - - - Show Materials in Viewport ● - - - Line Reflection, Refraction ● - - - Line Drawing Detection Setting ● ● - ●*2 Replace Line Color ● ● - ●*2 Line
3ds Max Maya After Effects Unity Draw Visible Lines ● ● ●*1 ● Draw Hidden Lines ● ● ●*1 ● Advanced Line Settings ● ● ●*1 ● Brush Details Settings ● ● ●*1 ● Reduction Based on Distance ● ● ●*1 ● Line Size Map ● ● ●*1 ● Edge Detection Settings Outline ● ● ●*1 ● Open Edge ● ● ●*1 ● Object ● ● ●*1 ● Intersection ● ● ●*1 ● Smoothing Boundary ● ● ●*1 ● Material ID Boundary ● ● ●*1 ● Selected Edge ● ● ●*1 - Normal Angle ● ● ●*1 ● Wire ● ● ●*1 ● Pencil+ 4 Line Renderer ● ● - - Pencil+ 4 Line Window - ● - - Pencil+ 4 Line Render Button - ● - - Show Lines in Viewport - ● - - Rendering Scale - - ● - Z Depth ● ● ● ● Screen Effect - - ● - Ignore Object List - - - ● Double Sided Material Line List - - - ● Modifiers
3ds Max Maya After Effects Unity Perspective Deform Modifier ● - - - Normal Copy Modifier ● - - - Select Edge Modifier ● ●*3 - - File Output
3ds Max Maya After Effects Unity Material Render Elements Output ● - - - Line Render Elements Output ● ● - ● Line EPS Format Output ● ● - - Line PLD Format Output ● ● - - *1 The After Effects version requires PLD files output by the 3ds Max or Maya version. Line settings, such displaying / hiding line sets, specifying edited line sets, displaying / hiding edges, specifying edited edges, etc. can be re-edited based on the data included in PLD files.
*2 The Unity version has no Material functionality, but Line Functions can be set by using Material Line Functions List.
*3 In Maya, edge selection using sets is supported.
Pencil+ 4 Utilities
3ds Max Maya After Effects Unity Pencil+ 4 Bridge ● ● - ●*1 Network Rendering Plugin ● ● ●*2 - Pencil+ 4 Spreadsheet ● - - - Pencil+ 4 Converter ● - - - Pencil+ 4 Line Thumbnail Extension ●*3 ●*3 ●*3 - *1 Only supports importing / exporting Line data.
*2 There is no rendering plugin for the After Effects version. However, distributed rendering using folder monitoring is supported by installing the plugin on each rendering PC.
*3 Pencil+ 4 Line Thumbnail Extension is an extension for showing thumbnails of PLD files in Windows Explorer.
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Pencil+ 4 for Maya
Maya 2015 2016 2016.5 2017 2018 2019 2020 2022 4.2.0 - - - - ● ● ● ● 4.1.0 - - - ● ● ● ● - 4.0.4 - ● ● ● ● ● - - 4.0.3 - ● ● ● ● ● - - 4.0.2 - ● ● ● ● ● - - 4.0.1 ● ● ● ● ● - - - 4.0.0 ● ● ● ● ● - - - [] = Supported. [-] = Not supported / Not compatible.
Pencil+ 4 Bridge for Maya
Maya 2015 2016 2016.5 2017 2018 2019 2020 2022 1.0.3 - - - - ● ● ● ● 1.0.2 - - - ● ● ● ● - 1.0.1 - ● ● ● ● ● - - 1.0.0 ● ● ● ● ● - - - [] = Supported. [-] = Not supported / Not compatible.
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Please disable the render view's [View Transform]. Also, please uncheck [Enable Color Management] in Maya's Preferences.
The Maya software renderer does not handle [Color Management]. This is why the colors of images displayed in the render view and those in saved image files are different when [View Transform] and [Enable Color Management] are ON.
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If you wish to fix noise-like slight changes in the colors when rendering PencilMaterial, please open Maya's [Render Settings], go to the [Maya Software] tab and uncheck [Jitter final color].
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You can perform network rendering by installing the CBOX network rendering plugin. There is no limit to the number of rendering nodes.
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You can perform network rendering by installing the CBOX network rendering plugin. There is no limit to the number of rendering nodes.
Executing Network Rendering
To use CBOX for network rendering, please install the network rendering plugin on the rendering PCs, start Modo in [Slave Mode] or [Headless Mode] and execute the render.
Installing the Network Rendering Plugin
Execute the setup file ("setup_CharacterBox_***_ntr.exe") and follow the instructions of the installer. If a different version of the plugin is already installed, please start by uninstalling it.
Resident programs, such as anti-virus software, may interfere with the product installation/uninstallation. If you experience problems with the installation/uninstallation, please temporarily disable your anti-virus software (or other resident programs).
The network rendering plugin can be downloaded from the "Download" section of the PSOFT User Page.
https://www.psoft.co.jp/user/en/ -
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Pencil+ 4 for Maya supports network rendering using the command line renderer. There is no limit to the number of server PCs used for network rendering.
The network rendering plugin must be installed on the server PCs to perform network rendering. Please refer to the "Network Rendering" section of the product's manual for more details.- The network rendering plugin can only render when Maya is executed with the command line renderer.
- The network rendering plugin cannot be used to edit and save files. If used to save files, the settings for all Pencil+ 4 nodes will be re-initialized to their default values.
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There is no limit to the number of servers and processors used when doing network rendering with Pencil+ 4 for Maya. You can add new rendering PCs without restriction.
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Please use a [Size Map].
[Stroke Size Reduction] uses screen space as the basis for computing lines. Because of this, depending on the curve settings, lines can look unstable when animating. [Size Map] uses the object's UV coordinates to specify line thickness, so stable lines can be drawn when animating.
Please have a look at the [Size Map] sample file "LineSizeMap_1.mb" installed with the plugin. -
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Please use a [Size Map].
[Stroke Size Reduction] uses screen space as the basis for computing lines. Because of this, depending on the curve settings, lines can look unstable when animating. [Size Map] uses the object's UV coordinates to specify line thickness, so stable lines can be drawn when animating.
Please have a look at the [Size Map] sample file "LineSizeMap_1.max" installed with the plugin. -
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Please click [Sample Files] under [Pencil+ 4] in the Maya menu.
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Please click [Sample Files] under [Pencil+ 4] in the 3ds Max menu.
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Please click [Sample Files] under [CBOX] in the Modo menu.
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Silent Install
Start a silent install by executing the following command in the command prompt.
"setup_***.exe" /SILENT
* Replace
"setup_***.exe"
above with the actual installer file name.The options
/SILENT
and/VERYSILENT
are available for silent installs. (When/VERYSILENT
is used, the installation progress display is also disabled.)The option
/COMPONENTS
can be used to specify installation target products. The plugin will only be installed for the specified products.In the example below, the plugin will only be installed for Maya 2016.5 and Maya 2017. (If a specified product version cannot be found, that version of the plugin will not be installed.)
"setup_***.exe" /COMPONENTS="Maya2016_5,Maya2017" /SILENT
* The command is not case sensitive.
When the/COMPONENTS
option is not used, the plugin is installed for every installed product version.Product Versions and Matching Component Names
Maya Version 2016 2016.5 2017 2018 2019 2020 Component Name Maya2016 Maya2016_5 Maya2017 Maya2018 Maya2019 Maya2020 3ds Max Version 2017 2018 2019 2020 Component Name Max2017 Max2018 Max2019 Max2020 Please refer to the following page for other available options.
http://www.jrsoftware.org/ishelp/index.php?topic=setupcmdlineSilent Uninstall
Start a silent uninstall by executing the following command in the command prompt.
"C:\Program Files\PSOFT\ProductName\uninstall\unins000.exe" /SILENT
The uninstaller is usually created in the folder C:\Program Files\PSOFT\ProductName\uninstall where "ProductName" is the name of the product.
Please refer to the following page for other available options.
http://www.jrsoftware.org/ishelp/index.php?topic=uninstcmdlineYou can also uninstall by using the following commands.
- For 3ds Max
cmd /c "for /F "tokens=1,2,*" %I in ('reg query "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\{8FAB6E07-1B66-4BF8-8AD1-9045BF5B1120}_is1" /v "QuietUninstallString" /reg:64') do %K"
- For Maya
cmd /c "for /F "tokens=1,2,*" %I in ('reg query "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\{6D19AF5C-7C20-4295-BD7B-5BA37A3F4311}_is1" /v "QuietUninstallString" /reg:64') do %K"
- For 3ds Max
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We do not plan to add support for the DXF format.
We recommend using Illustrator to convert from EPS to DXF.If you need to convert multiple files automatically, please try Illustrator's [Batch] feature. The following URL gives an example for converting EPS to PDF, but you could do the same to export to DXF.
https://helpx.adobe.com/creative-suite/kb/convert-multiple-ai-files-eps.html -
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To output materials and lines separately as images in one render, enable [Output to Render Elements Only] in the PencilLine node, add Render Elements nodes and render the scene.
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To reproduce, using Maya, the drawing of lines using the [Crease] functionality of 3ds Max, use [Hard Edges] and [Maya Catmull-Clark]'s [Propagate Edge Hardness].
Furthermore, the Pencil+ 4 sample file "MeshSmoothPreviewRender.mb" uses [Hard Edges] and [Propagate Edge Hardness] to draw lines. Please refer to the settings of the object on the left-hand side.
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Yes, there is. We received a lot of requests for it during the beta trials, so we added it in the final version.
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Use the Pencil+ 4 Line Viewport to check the Lines in the viewport. Smooth mesh preview is not supported due to the Maya specifications.
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Pencil+ 4 supports rendering smooth mesh previews. Enable it in the "Rendering Settings" under the Pencil+ 4 menu.