hey folks
been struggling with this for a while, I’ve been trying to figure out a way to have shadows cast by objects have the same layered-shading that occurs when light is cast directly onto an object. I am using Eevee and would prefer to stay in Eevee if possible. I have attached some screenshots to show what I mean:
(above is normal shadows, below is the effect i want):
I got the second image by using a spotlight with a negative power value attached to the shadow-casting sphere, and facing away from the main light source. I have experimented with using this approach in a wider sense, but it became apparent that it was likely unfeasible (at least to my understanding).
The only outcomes I am able to get using blender built-in shadows are extremely hard edges or blurry edges on shadows. The soft lighting setting seems to apply itself after the shader has run, which means it does not get included in the toon shader color ramp. If this is possible to change it would likely solve my problem, but I have no idea how to do that.
I am also going to try out the new experimental 4.4 build as I’ve heard it has some dedicated NPR features
thanks