Toon shading model

[Arnage]

EDIT: now released and available on github, see page two for details



Although UE4 is great in many ways I feel like it is lacking for stylized/non-photo real rendering. To remedy this (and to better learn how UE4's deferred shading system works internally) I have been working on a toon shading model that should allow for a greater range of visual styles while seamlessly integrating with the rest of the rendering system.

Here's a screenshot of some of the features that work right now:



There are still some issues to resolve, especially with the mobile/html5 version, but the basics are done.

However, I'm not exactly sure what to do with it. This would seem like something that would fit well on the marketplace and the revenue would help me to further develop and support it. Sadly that seems to be technically impossible. The way the deferred shading system works means that most of my changes are all over Epic's code and can't easily be separated into their own files. And that is assuming code plugins ever get their own shader source folder, which they currently can't have.

A second option would be to finish it up and make a pull request to get it added to the main engine repository. If the marketplace route is impossible I would prefer giving it to the community this way over not making it available at all. However, before it is anywhere near good enough for that I would have to put in quite a bit of additional work so it would be nice to know if Epic would even be interested in adding something like this.

So I guess my question towards both Epic and the rest of the community is: Would you be interested in such a shading model?

[Starkium]

is 4.22 available yet? tried using kusogaki version on 4.22 and I keep getting this error?

[StevenWaltherMedia]

Hey everyone,

I made a previous comment about android, and while I wait for a 4.21 + build, I am still working on my game. I upversioned to the 4.18 build, and I am now getting this error on the toon material



As you can see, I don't even have anything plugged into the shader and I'm still getting the issue, but I get the same issue when things are plugged in as well. The error implies something is wrong on the engine side? I'm not an engine programmer so I'm not sure and would appreciate any form of help as it doesn't seem like too big an issue and I just lack the knowledge to fix it.

I would like to add this is only a problem when it comes to android builds, which is what my game is on. Every previous version of the toon shader worked fine on android until now.

[motorsep]

Forward rendering is a no go currently.

Is it a technical reason or something else ?

[Ore Creative]

When are you planning to release it? I''m itching to try! Will forward rendering work with this?

Sorry I didn't see this post. Forward rendering is a no go currently. I probably wont have this available until after Ira launches.

[StevenWaltherMedia]

Hey everyone. It's about the time again to ask for a new engine version, but doubley important because I'm making a mobile game and the Google Play console requires you to build using API 26 which requires Unreal 4.21 or higher

[S H O O B E]

Hey everyone, I'm one of the creators of Ira. We've used the toon shader model for a long time but wanted to move over to a system that use the base engine. Over the last few years I've been developing a way to do everything the Toon shader model does but natively.

After a lot of work I've recreated the toon shader model via post process in a way that I have not seen anyone do before. It does everything the Toon shader model does with some minor limitations, and I've overcome the major road blocks. Such as lack of fog, bloom, multiple shading models on screen at once, and multiple colored light contributions. I've even tied it all into a visual style actor that makes things very easy to implement and use. Basically all the main things that stopped us from using the post process route in the past have been overcome. I'd like to offer my system on the UE4 asset store and I was wondering if any would be interested in such an asset? I just know there are a lot of people like us out there that need the toon shaders functionality, but don't want to compile a custom engine build, worry about future support down the road, or have to deal with hacky material systems that are hard to use / are full of limitations. I'm open to hear people's thoughts or questions on this.

Here are some pictures of the shader in action.

When are you planning to realese it? I''m itching to try! Will forward rendering work with this?

[motorsep]

Thanks for the input. I'll keep that in mind .

Please don't race to the bottom. Sell it at what you think it worth.

[S H O O B E]

Hey everyone, I'm one of the creators of Ira. We've used the toon shader model for a long time but wanted to move over to a system that use the base engine. Over the last few years I've been developing a way to do everything the Toon shader model does but natively.

After a lot of work I've recreated the toon shader model via post process in a way that I have not seen anyone do before. It does everything the Toon shader model does with some minor limitations, and I've overcome the major road blocks. Such as lack of fog, bloom, multiple shading models on screen at once, and multiple colored light contributions. I've even tied it all into a visual style actor that makes things very easy to implement and use. Basically all the main things that stopped us from using the post process route in the past have been overcome. I'd like to offer my system on the UE4 asset store and I was wondering if any would be interested in such an asset? I just know there are a lot of people like us out there that need the toon shaders functionality, but don't want to compile a custom engine build, worry about future support down the road, or have to deal with hacky material systems that are hard to use / are full of limitations. I'm open to hear people's thoughts or questions on this.

Here are some pictures of the shader in action.

YES!! I'd buy this on an instant! When can we expect this to be available?

[R5GAMER]

Sorry about this question but it is possible to update on 4.21 ?? Thank you..

[Ore Creative]

This looks awesome if it was cheap like under 30 bucks I would buy it for sure

Thanks for the input. I'll keep that in mind .

[jojo8026]

This looks awesome if it was cheap like under 30 bucks I would buy it for sure

[Ore Creative]

Looking sweet. If it works natively and supports most standard rendering features, offers ink outlines (or work with any decent existing ink outline assets from the Marketplace), works in VR (mobile and desktop), works with forward shading - it will be on my immediate "to-buy" list !!!!

Yes to all of those things except I have not done any tests with forward rendering. I'll add that to my list though.

[motorsep]

Hey everyone, I'm one of the creators of Ira. We've used the toon shader model for a long time but wanted to move over to a system that use the base engine. Over the last few years I've been developing a way to do everything the Toon shader model does but natively.

After a lot of work I've recreated the toon shader model via post process in a way that I have not seen anyone do before. It does everything the Toon shader model does with some minor limitations, and I've overcome the major road blocks. Such as lack of fog, bloom, multiple shading models on screen at once, and multiple colored light contributions. I've even tied it all into a visual style actor that makes things very easy to implement and use. Basically all the main things that stopped us from using the post process route in the past have been overcome. I'd like to offer my system on the UE4 asset store and I was wondering if any would be interested in such an asset? I just know there are a lot of people like us out there that need the toon shaders functionality, but don't want to compile a custom engine build, worry about future support down the road, or have to deal with hacky material systems that are hard to use / are full of limitations. I'm open to hear people's thoughts or questions on this.

Here are some pictures of the shader in action.

Looking sweet. If it works natively and supports most standard rendering features, offers ink outlines (or work with any decent existing ink outline assets from the Marketplace), works in VR (mobile and desktop), works with forward shading - it will be on my immediate "to-buy" list !!!!

[Ore Creative]

Hey everyone, I'm one of the creators of Ira. We've used the toon shader model for a long time but wanted to move over to a system that use the base engine. Over the last few years I've been developing a way to do everything the Toon shader model does but natively.

After a lot of work I've recreated the toon shader model via post process in a way that I have not seen anyone do before. It does everything the Toon shader model does with some minor limitations, and I've overcome the major road blocks. Such as lack of fog, bloom, multiple shading models on screen at once, and multiple colored light contributions. I've even tied it all into a visual style actor that makes things very easy to implement and use. Basically all the main things that stopped us from using the post process route in the past have been overcome. I'd like to offer my system on the UE4 asset store and I was wondering if any would be interested in such an asset? I just know there are a lot of people like us out there that need the toon shaders functionality, but don't want to compile a custom engine build, worry about future support down the road, or have to deal with hacky material systems that are hard to use / are full of limitations. I'm open to hear people's thoughts or questions on this.

Here are some pictures of the shader in action.