The "Akuwahara" Effect
Bring a unique, hand-painted look to your project with Akuwahara, a high-performance Post-Process material designed for stylized games and cinematics.
Unlike standard Kuwahara filters that create blocky, pixelated artifacts, Akuwahara uses Anisotropic Flow Detection. The brush strokes intelligently follow the shape and direction of your 3D objects, creating a natural "oil painting" or "pastel" aesthetic that remains temporally stable in motion.
Developed by Picky Pixel Games, this shader is built for production: it combines smoothing, sharpening, color tinting, paper texturing, and stylized outlines into a single optimized pass.
Watch the Demo Video: Painterly, Sketchy, Oily
Key Features
True Anisotropic Flow: Brush strokes align with the geometry orientation (Sobel-based direction) for a fluid, organic look.
Integrated Smart Outlines: No need for a separate post-process. Includes Depth (Silhouette) and Normal (Internal Detail) edge detection that blends perfectly with the paint.
Artistic Color Grading: Unify your scene with dedicated Shadow and Highlight tinting controls.
Production Optimized: Features "Static Switch" parameters. Unused features (like Direction or Outlines) are compiled out of the shader code for maximum performance.
Debug Modes: visualize the internal logic (Flow Angles, Edge Gradients, Variance Noise) to fine-tune your settings easily.
Content
1 Master Material (Highly customizable Uber-Shader)
3 Material Instances (Presets: Oil Painting, Soft Watercolor, Sketchy)
3 Demo Levels showcasing different art styles.
2 Paper Textures (Seamless).
Technical Requirements & Limitations
Render Pipeline: Compatible with Lumen and standard Deferred Rendering.
Translucency: To ensure clean UI and FX, Transparent materials are excluded from the effect by default.
UI Tip: For 3D text or UI elements to appear sharp on top of the painting, simply use a Translucent material and ensure the PostProcessVolume location is set to 'Before Translucency\DOF'.
Asset Credits & Attribution
The screenshots and video showcase the Akuwahara shader applied to various environments to demonstrate its versatility. Please note: The 3D environment assets listed below are for demonstration purposes only and are NOT included in this package.
Fantasy Interior Environment by Leartes Studios
Post-Apocalyptic Urban City by Akairo
Stylized Spruce Forest by Andrey Gubin
Downtown Alley (Legacy Asset)