(I hope this is the right place to ask this question)
Does anyone know if it’s possible to recreate this concept in UE?
I’m new to the software and my goal is to make short films that are toon shaded.
Here’s a sample of what I’m doing in Maya right now.
I want to switch my process to UE, and it would be really helpful if I could make toon shaded shadows contour the face less accurately. To make things feel less 3d allows me to use a more limited animation styles.
Anyways what I get from this example is in Blender they’re able to use the normals from a simple smooth object on a more complex character face which allows a very simple shadow line.
I have a feeling this is a big challenge to accomplish, but I’d appreciate any thoughts or ideas on how to accomplish it. If someone can point me in the right direction it would be really helpful. I’m still really new to Unreal, and most of my experience is as an artist / animator but I’m excited by the potential.
Hey there @Ohbowz! Welcome to the community! So you’re going to want to work with Unlit shaders here so you don’t deal with UE based lighting if you want to avoid “accurate” shading. Though it might be tough using normals effectively in a toon or cel shader, you’d have to handle that portion. I have a couple resources that can get you started with toon shaders, though some will be more complex than others, feel free to watch them over and see what fits your use case best!
Disclaimer: One or more of these links are unaffiliated with Epic Games. Epic Games is not liable for anything that may occur outside of this Unreal Engine domain. Please exercise your best judgment when following links outside of the forums.
(Not toon but some good information handling lights)
Hey @SupportiveEntity , thanks for the reply and resources.
My current setup is Cel Shading in post processing (I actually followed the tutorial in the third video you posted)
Do you think what I’m after requires the example in the second video? That appears to not use post processing. Is that what you mean by unlit shaders?
If so I can follow this tutorial and set that up, but then the big question is how to transfer normals from a simple geometry to a complex one for a simplified shadow (if this is even possible in Unreal) This is the part where I don’t even know where to start.
The difference between running a post processing affect over actual lighting and having truly unlit shader is going to come down to the amount of control you need over your final shadows and the complexity required.
When using one of the post processing styled methods, you can rely on lights and normals (with possible artifacting) though it may be harder to get the exact look you’re going for. However, unlit you lose all access to lighting systems (and by extension the normals they’d apply to) and you’d have to manually write the portion of the shader to process the normals appropriately. It’s not impossible, though I am not proficient enough with material math to work that out.
