Layout Comic Shader
	Surface Shader Interface	Image Filter Interface

    This is much different than the Cel Shader, or Cel-look edges, though it works with them, too.  This plug-in lets you make an image look like it was shaded differently than what LightWave does.  By using an image map that's appropriate to the effect you want, you can make surfaces look like they were shaded using pencil, pen, or even halftone printing!  The RealiTools Comic Shader actually consists of three plug-ins - two surface shaders, and an image filter.  Before we begin, I want to make sure you note something: you must turn off adaptive sampling to use this plug-in.  To speed up rendering, LightWave can use one sample of the surface for several pixels.  Unfortunately, plug-ins have no real way of knowing what's been rendered and what's been duplicated, so to solve it, you have to turn it off.
    The basic concept of the Comic Shader is to add lines into the dark areas of an image.  The darker the image is, the stronger the lines are.  Here's a sample image that can make for decent pencil lines (and looks best with light coming from the right). 

    When you activate RealiTools_ComicShader, you'll have plenty of options available.  The first is which surface channel to use.  You apply a texture map in one of the surface channels, and that texture map becomes the lines on the surface.  Put your image into a channel that you're not using, and then choose that channel here.  The next option is the Nominal Value.  When the shader gets called, it will replace the surface values with this one.
    The next option is the Lowlight Line Color.  The plug-in lets you apply coloring to the lines, as though they were done with colored pencil.  Following that is the Highlight Line Color.  The plug-in also lets you apply lines in the highlights if you want, and you can give them custom colors, too.  Next is the Lowlight Ambient Color.  Using this, you can give a custom ambient color to the object.  Bear in mind that at the darkest (0% brightness) areas on that surface, the color will be exactly that color.  So, to keep it realistic, you'll probably want to keep that setting on the low end.  Highlight Ambient Color!  This is self explanatory.
    Scratch Contrast Increase lets you increase the contrast of the surface scratches.  This has the effect of sharpening the lines.  Next is the Image Contrast Increase.  As you know, the brightness of the image determines where the lines go, and often the falloff is just too smooth.  By changing this, you can sharpen the transition from lines to no lines.  A related option is isBrightness Bias.  By changing this, you can make the lines more or less prevalent on the surface.  Increasing it will make the surface appear brighter (by "backing off" the lines), and decreasing it will make the surface appear darker (by having the lines cover more of the surface).
    Compute Absolute Variation i  When the plug-in gets evaluated, it measures the difference between the surface value (which has a texture map on it), and the Nominal Value.  However, it's conceivable that you might want to have the Nominal Value set below 100%.  So, if you do, there's a possibility that the surface will actually be more than the nominal value.  This causes the lines to appear inverted at certain points on the surface.  However, in some situations, you may want the Nominal Value to be 0.  Say you were using the luminosity channel for control.  If you had the luminosity at 100%, it would kind of defeat the purpose of shading.  So, turn the Nominal Value to 0, and enable Compute Absolute Variation.
    When the surface adds color to the lines, it still shades them.  However, if you felt like making some strange effects, you can turn on Leave colored lines bright in dark areas.  With this enabled, the lines will always be brightly colored.  Next up is the Draw lines in highlights option.  By default, the plug-in will not draw lines into the bright areas of the surface, but if you want it to, this will enable it.
    Antialiased lines/Alternate contrast.  The contrast method that the plug-in uses by default will sharpen up the lines a bit.  Using this option will prevent this.  However, it has a downside.  If you use it, the color of the lines will tend to drop away somewhat.

    The other surface shader available is RealiTools_ComicProtection.  Once in a while, the scene will get rendered in an order that causes lines to appear on surfaces that don't have the Comic Shader applied.  Just activate this on any surfaces showing "artifacts", and that will solve the problem.

    The final plug-in is an image filter.  You must have this active for the Comic Shader to work.  Say we want to render an image with just the lines on it, no 3D objects.  So, by enabling the first option, Solid Background for Lines, you can do that.  The color picker below it lets you choose what color you want for the background.  Using this feature, you can even turn photographs into hand-shaded images!