With some models and light setups I'll often get a very jagged shadow when using solid colors and sharp shadows in my toon renders. (see attached image) I'd either have to live with them or soften the shadow edge.

Been working on a new project, aiming for a Samurai Jack'ish kind of look (flat shading, few toon lines) and this was driving me bonkers! Finally came up with a workaround tho.

If you set your model back to Standard Shading and reduce your Diffuse Falloff to 0 the shadows become smooth!

But doing this also changes your models color depending on how close/far it is to the light source, the figure on the far right is lighter than the figure next to him b/c he's near the light. If you need to keep your model in toon-mode for this or some other reason just use the Falloff-0 method for a seperate shadow pass to be composited in later.

Sorry, man. If I'd known you were struggling with this, I would've said something. This is the shading method I use for "Ebon." You've probably also noticed that the render times using this method are a fraction of what the toon-shading requires.

You can diminish the falloff-distance effect by using a light list to create a character-only light, and constraining it to the model using Translate To. Then, just swing it around when you need to change the shadow direction. The intensity should remain the same as the model moves about.

Also, if you change your model's Ambience Intensity value, you can control how dark the shadows appear. I keep mine at 50% and 75% for my two characters.

I didnt know about the increased render time, only been doing some test renders. Good to know, thanks!

Decreased render time. You'll never go back to toon-shading.

Holy crap.... decreased rendering time?

Ok, well I'll give it a whirl. I think I understand what your doing.

Hey, Luckbat, you should make a quick tut on your shade methods when you have time.

You and Kricket are basically my guides for the project i'm worken on. I would love to learn more about how you both do things.

Oops heh, this is what happens when you dont double-check your posts

If you're using toon rendering (because you want outlines, which 0% diffuse can't give you), you can prevent the jagged shadows by using a toon gradient that doesn't drop immediately from 100% to 0%, but instead has the gradient sliders separated by a little bit of space. You should also make sure that the sliders defining the shadow boundary are at a little bit over 50% on the length of the gradient.

If you want hard shading and toon lines together, your best bet is to render the outlines in a separate pass using the Lines Only option, then composite them together afterwards. That way you can use the 0% Diffuse method while still enjoying toon lines. And it's still faster than full toon rendering--the toon shader is where the real render hit comes from.

Not that I'm suggesting that speed is more important than quality, but for hard-edged shadows like Kricket describes in the first post, I'd still recommend this method over the toon shader.

Hmmm, I've never had any of these problems with my toon shading.....
I wonder if it's cause I'm missing something or if you guys are missing something?

But I do use the toon with gradient, and maybe that is the difference...

Mike Fitz
www.3dartz.com

Exactly. The toon shader is still peerless when it comes to rendering crisp, airbrush-y gradients. But for anime-style two-tone shadows, you might be better off with the 0% Diffusion method Kricket describes above.

Do either of you have a tutorial or more in-depth explanation of this render method?

Thanks,
Richard

I've been planning on writing an "Everything I Know About Toon Rendering" tutorial once I got done with my short, but that's not going to be for a while. A long, long while.

But here's a basic primer:

1. Set your model's Surface -> Diffuse Falloff to 0%.

2. Set your model's Surface -> Ambient Intensity value based on how dark you want the shadows to be, where 0% = pure black shadows / 100% = pale, faint shadows.

3. Make sure there's only one light hitting your model. You can use Light Lists to enforce this.

4. Set that one light's properties as follows: Width = 0cm; Type = raytraced; Darkness = 100%.

5. Render without the toon shader. (I recommend making toon lines in a separate pass, but if you don't want to do this, you'll instead have to set your model's Toon Shading Method to "Standard.")