tapered feathered shading line?

[kbenusis]

Comic book look is what I am shooting for.
I want to have that old style look that goes from the shaddow area to the highlight. Remember Wally Wood?
Maya has a new "light based width" node but I am unable fully understand it. How would I have light direction affect thickness of line? Maybe Mental Ray has some thing? I have not worked with Mental Ray at all.

[sunder]

You can achieve that Wally Wood style shading using Maya Toon shaders. You can set it up with either the Color using Brightness color input and/or the Specular and/or the Shadow color. So you have quite a few options.
If you want to learn more about Toon shading, this will help you out a great deal.
http://www.digitaltutors.com/store/product.php?productid=1131&cat=5&page=1

[kbenusis]

Yes, it is a good Tutorial and I have been through it several times, Sunder. Nice help from you I understand. The closest we get to solving my question is in the "crosshatch " lesson. However I woulud like to have 'light based width' on toon fill result in featered line (thick at shaddow, thin line tapers as it goes toward lighted side). This would be huge if we could figure this out, I believe. Please respond.

[laxman]

Try going to the help and search for "light based width", the first entry might be helpful.

Also you should try looking into the surfaceLuminance node and the ramp shader node (which has a light based setting for things like colour.

[kbenusis]

You can achieve that Wally Wood style shading using Maya Toon shaders. You can set it up with either the Color using Brightness color input and/or the Specular and/or the Shadow color. So you have quite a few options.
If you want to learn more about Toon shading, this will help you out a great deal.
http://www.digitaltutors.com/store/product.php?productid=1131&cat=5&page=1
I am wishing to recreate the appearance seen in example page 465 "What's New Maya 7". (Yes, I realize that thick/thin line only visible upon rendering.) I am attaching a .mb file. My purpose is to recreate "feathering" as in traditional comic book look. Thank you,Ken Benusis

[sunder]

That example uses toon outlines. I was able to recreate it by creating crease lines on polygon edges that I hardened.
In your case, if you're using it on superhero character, this may not be the best technique since it's based on your edges and not shading.