Experiments with NPR/Toon shading in Eevee

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1

I’d like to share some details about my humble npr shading experiments during the recent weekend challenge. :smiley:

The concept is actually pretty simple, but it can yield quite interesting results.

Note: These shaders can only work with Eevee cus “Shader to RGB” node is not supported by Cycles.

Default diffuse shader for reference:

default_diffuse
default_diffuse.jpg1080×1080 104 KB

Basic toon shader with predefined color stops:

npr2_1
npr2_1.jpg1080×1361 316 KB

Procedural colors based on a light source:

npr3_2
npr3_2.jpg1400×969 144 KB

And finally noise texture distortion:

npr6_1
npr6_1.jpg1500×1254 327 KB

npr6_5
npr6_5.jpg1500×750 161 KB

npr8_1
npr8_1.jpg1500×750 172 KB

npr8_6
npr8_6.jpg1500×750 196 KB

npr10
npr10.jpg1500×750 171 KB

Real example

winter_camp
winter_camp.jpg1080×1080 409 KB

If you want to play around with these shaders here is .blend (Blender 2.80 only) with a bunch of materials (still a WIP).

npr_playground_v0.1.blend (1.2 MB)

71 Likes
2

Congratulation. It seems to be really nice
Gonna reproduce it.
Many thanks for the explanation.

3

That’s super cool! I absolutely love the look of those examples! I played around a bit with Npr in Eevee, but it’s been a while. I’ll have to get back to it. I’m excited to see what amazing visuals people are gonna be able to create with Eevee! :grin:

4

Love it. Going to try them. I am trying to build a backgrounnd NPR and NPR based characters for a hobby project. I love the cartoon style, alas I am more coder then artist, so it’s been …tricky.

5

Is it alright if I use your shaders? I had so much fun using them while making this 3D rig to give a more “painterly” look, and I’d like to use this rig for my youtube channel in the future :smile: I used and modified the “npr_ubershader_noise” material to give a painted effect on the surfaces

Meeeeee3
Meeeeee31142×1600 200 KB
Meeeeee4
Meeeeee41600×2097 319 KB
Meeeeee5
Meeeeee51920×1080 221 KB

3 Likes
6

Yep, feel free to use and modify them :+1:

1 Like
7

Someone make an Aidan Hughes (Brute! Propaganda - artist for KMFDM albums + all kinds of other incredible artwork) style shader and you will be my hero!

Reference images: Brute! Propaganda Gallery

8

Paul Caggegi’s manga shader may be similar to what you’re looking for.

9

Thank you for sharing your work. I’ve been fumbling with something that I thought would be similar. And in the end, it’s a tad different, but I’ve realized it thanks to you :).

1 Like
10

Halftone shaders were very interesting, so
I made a video showing the node structure.

Halftone Shader [Blender : NPR Shader] - YouTube

3 Likes
11

I really like the math setup!

12

How do I find the (Diffuse_input) in blender?

1 Like
13

i would like to know too, did you find out how he did it?

14

Hi. That is a Node Group created by the user. You download the file of the first message of the thread, select that Diffuse_input node group and to analyze it you press the Tab key. To exit, the Tab key again.

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=blender+node+group

1 Like
15

Love them! Thanks for sharing.

16

I have to add thank you for sharing these!

17

Broo finally i got it :sleepy::sleepy::sleepy: