The problem I had with using toon shading built into Maya was that when I was adding it to a scene or model, it was seeing it as an object rather than a render setting. This was why the rig distorted, because it thought there was another object attached to the model. The other problem with it was that I could not find an easy method to attach a texture map to it. When you use the toon shader, it uses a ramp shader to create the shadows which is fine for block colours but with the cat model, it is supposed to have blotches of colour over its body. Sarah Strickland had painted the texture but I could not find a way to turn that into a ramp shader so that it would give us the shadows.
James Tomkins was the one who found the solution. Using VRay. It is a rendering plug-in for Maya and has something called VRay Toon. It is different to toon shading because it adds the black outlines when it renders. This means it does not attach to the model and it allows us to have our own texture for the cat.
The two images below show the comparison between the two methods. The first images uses toon shading built into Maya and the second uses VRay Toon.
The black line around the model using VRay Toon can be adjusted to make it more obvious but the other benefit is that it keeps the shadow that any lighting has created on the model. This makes it look 3D with the 2D twist.
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