Simple Toon Shader in Blender (with image textures, outlines and color lighting)

My way of getting a simple anime-style toon shader effect (with outlines) in Blender. This is an easy way to use image textures and light colors together with the toon shader.
Node group image:
ibb.co/ry4wPdm

[@PimzDigital]

It's 1:30 am and I appreciate the energy (and straightforward approach) this video brings

[@Full_Moon_Studios]

1:48 am lol

[@thecheekychoof]

1 am gang

[@mitchhall7250]

1am +1

[@Saupocalypse]

this is exactly what i've been looking for with toon shading. this deserves to be at the top of the search results

[@ArgonMatt]

This is probably the best 10-second intro I have ever seen in any tutorial, love it

[@cockpitsandboobytraps]

Hahahaa I’m seeing this right after uploading my next one, which starts with a full 20 seconds of just music. I am shamed. I do try to be quick!

[@artyom5191]

I don't think there is any better way to achieve the genuine 90s anime look . great tutorial . straight to point .

[@benzigdon7289]

Thank you for including image textures as part of your workflow! A lot of other tutorials on this topic overlook that and end up only working for monochromatic objects. Great tutorial :)

[@cockpitsandboobytraps]

My pleasure! Now you just have to worry about UV wrapping - but you’ll have to go elsewhere for tips on that, because yikes! Not my favorite thing to do.

[@strangeapprentice]

Oh this is great! Now that's some Arnold Toon shading!

[@mardal9708]

What a time to be alive and be able to do things like this!! Thank you so much for sharing it!

[@ibrajimenez2098]

Wow. Aweosme im gonna tey this today. This looked simple and not too intimidating. Thanks for the clear tutorial ❤

[@cockpitsandboobytraps]

That’s the way I like ‘em!

[@jk.774]

Great Tutorial, easy to understand and easy to follow. Looking forward to more 👍

[@THE_SSKKYY]

I have watched so many videos but not one has made so much sense, thank you this will be so helpful.

[@ApacheJay156]

Awesome, concise, tutorial. I wish more on youtube were like this. I was having trouble with the screen and add lights and rim lights, until I noticed you changed the mapping node "type" from point to texture. Then everything worked.

[@danfabish]

Great tutorial! Best simple toon shader I've seen in blender thus far.

[@xaxuelx7987]

Love it... I have just started doing tutorials on blender. I am an accomplished modeler...(3d printers and all) but all the texturing and node wrangling is new to me. I have no idea how these people come up with the combinations of these nodes... There has to be some form of destruction manual for them.

[@LucidDream1967]

wow.... this is great!!

[@RobG95]

you're an absolute genius, a legend and a saint!

[@DerCribben]

Holy S**t!! This right here is what I've been looking for!

[@popalliya_popi]

Woah...... Thank you Sensei😇😃

[@roshandeselfa5820]

the result looks more sophisticated than most toon shaders ive seen- also, really nice concise video!

[@hudsonsimpson4122]

Miiiiight have to steal this shader set up. Looks amazing.

[@gradmongur]

simple, easy to follow, perfect

[@JohnnySix]

Amazing job, the flipped faces with the solidify is a great non-destructive way to do the backface outlining.

[@3dbiagi]

This is what I looking for so long! thanks dude you da man!!!

[@hund1267]

great voice, on point, helpfull , funny, short, creative, great style, great content. Good job.

[@satyampandey2222]

That was AWESOME and EASY! thanks

[@dizzybeepot9856]

Godsend. Godspeed to ya

[@polybius2282]

Cool stuff. Keep in mind that with space scenes (or just sunlight in general) the sun is "infinitely" far away, meaning shadows don't converge, so using a point light isn't a good approximation. The default sun settings should be enough for a simple shader like this.

[@cockpitsandboobytraps]

You're totally right, and it also depends on the scale of everything. I'm not exactly going for realism here, but a sun lamp should work in most circumstances, definitely. In this case, the non-uniformity of the light is sort of controlling the look of the cel-shading, and the lack of falloff on the sun lamp would take away any control I had over the area of effect - at least in the wacky way I decided to go about this. Like I say in the video, I'm certainly no expert and there are probably many, many better ways to go about it!

[@3dmonkeybizz]

Incredibly sexy results! Many thanks.

[@gaston.]

well done.. to the point tutorial.. I appreciate it! thanks...."this is the way"

[@DrPriSCP]

thanks very much

[@inxendere]

Dude. This is absolutely legendary. Eagerly waiting for more tutorials. sub earned.

[@ruelassefa]

how cool , fast and precise was this!? Awesome job man. Do more tuts

[@datamoshii]

loved this tsym, and your voice is really soothing

[@astroabood]

this is actually really cool! ill 100% use this

[@trey-ln1kk]

Just wanted to try out some shading methods for a new project. Didn't even need this kind of stylization. But I actually love it, an the style you're acheiveng with it. Subbed, keep it up!

[@animacioneilustracion7883]

WOW!!!!

[@bloodlxlart9958]

Straightforward tutorial. Subscribed!

[@stefan1977full]

Such a great tutorial for illustrators!!! Thank you!

[@pakarpintu4917]

Very very simple but powerful 👌

[@kdog.unleashed]

dope!

[@mehedihassan7306]

Damn Brother!!!! this is a breakthrough !!! 👌

[@khomatech6428]

Incredibly helpful video, thank you.

[@Skl_One]

wicked!

[@karla_lh]

Acabas de salvar mi proyecto de titulación te amo ❤❤❤

[@sifu2u_now]

Fantastic...gonna try that soon. Thanks for the tutorial. Subscribed to see more video tutorials from you.

[@anthonycadette]

i'm gonna follow you great video.

[@coleorloff]

This is such a great tutorial. Thanks!

[@dustxmop21]

dude would love to see more of your work

[@PCgmesforever]

Amazing video! Clean, on point, condensed but with information clarity intact so to speak. Point being, I really liked it. Thanks ! :)

[@TheIonBattery]

Kylo Ren screaming "MORE!".jpg

[@snighman3131]

Ok I am using this on my next project

[@michaelwodajo3384]

Thank you Jack Black

[@agent136]

Just got algorithm'd your vid. Cool stuff man.

[@hoseinbebany]

Ty Sir

[@waxxes_animation498]

Really appreciate you for this

[@ronvance]

Pretty cool!

[@gilolizar]

So Cool!

[@wizards-themagicalconcert5048]

Fantastic video and content mate,keep it up ! Subbed !

[@SERRANDON]

You have a great speaking voice! You sound like Android 17

[@ilhamwicaksono5802]

please make more of these!

[@cockpitsandboobytraps]

Workin on it!

[@uzairmirza4540]

You're a God send

[@knaditya8228]

i know i can just follow the tutorial but i would really love if you can add node setup images in description, love your videos you got a new subscriber :)

[@cockpitsandboobytraps]

you're absolutely right - just added it to the description.

[@knaditya8228]

@@cockpitsandboobytraps thanks 🙂

[@OsuperSorvete]

Me at the start of the video "Ohh how cute he's using color ramp" Me at the end of the video "OHHHHHH SHEEEEEEET THAT'S RAAAAD!!!"

[@psy0450]

Thank you for this😆

[@harunguney4874]

You smooth 👍🏼

[@seg_fault884]

So, this is a PGP (Pure generative process) shader that you've made, and if I may chime in, it's possible to have lightsources of multiple colors, if you simply split the rgb channels and assign a color palette through those

[@cockpitsandboobytraps]

Interesting! This is with the Separate RGB node? Will have to try it out.

[@Seelvart]

very nice!

[@jjwillie7584]

So when including an image texture onto a toon shader does it matter what kind of image it is or do you need a specific image . How would that affect the toon shader

[@cockpitsandboobytraps]

So in this example, I’m just using a big square tiger print pattern, which you can see effecting the model after I add it. Once you start using image textures, you need to worry about UV maps and how the images are projected onto the model. When you TAB into edit mode, select all the faces and press “U,” you can project the image in various different ways. I’m not a UV expert, so I would look up UV mapping if you want to know more about that, but you’ll probably want an image that’s at least 2K, and probably bigger than that.

[@willmckenzie8248]

@@cockpitsandboobytraps man, not only are your tuturials top quality but your repies are top quality too. do you have patreon?

[@cockpitsandboobytraps]

@@willmckenzie8248nah, not until I can make sure I can share a bunch of cool stuff every month. When I do, I’ll definitely make it known! If you’re just desperate to give me money, I’ve got a Ko-Fi link in my bio 😂

[@ThereandBackaKen]

That was awesome, what if you want to add some detailed texture to a surface instead of just flat colour? Really cool stuff though... appreciate the detail and ideas!

[@cockpitsandboobytraps]

You want a Mix node set to “multiply” - plug in the regular texture to A, and this toon shader to B. Factor somewhere between 0.9 and 1. See how that works!

[@ThereandBackaKen]

@@cockpitsandboobytraps Thanks so much, I'll try it!

[@duckpunk7280]

THANK YOU

[@p1ntu_]

thank you, I will subscribe

[@bleachedout805]

You have a cool voice.

[@berniaz_]

thank you so much for this, +1 subs !

[@yohnforss8987]

great tutorial! when i do it i get a lot of pixelation and other artifacts in between the colors, any idea how to resolve it?

[@cockpitsandboobytraps]

If you’re using an image texture, you’ll want it to be pretty high resolution so you don’t get any of that stuff. It could also be the down to the way the UVs are mapping - UVs are sort of a nightmare for me but the image texture in the video is just a 4K tiger stripe pattern, cube projected. If you’re NOT doing an image texture, then it’s probably something else entirely! If you want to DM something to my Instagram account, I’d be happy to take a look at it. (That’s @cockpitsandboobytraps )

[@leonaluceid2388]

OAO) It is coool !!!!

[@Kanovskiy]

can you do it with a WW2 tank? thanks for the video.

[@ingdustries2127]

Hey! This video is awesome, very well explained. I’m just curious, does this shading work on cycles?

[@cockpitsandboobytraps]

This particular method won’t work in cycles because I don’t think you can use the “shader to RGB” node in cycles. But it’s definitely possible - you could try the cycles Toon BSDF to start with, but you’ll need to tweak it to get similar results. I know a couple of people have made super-complex cycles toon shaders that are for sale. Sakuga is the one that I can remember right now. I mostly stick to Eevee when I’m doing this sort of thing. Cel-shading is an approximation of a specifically non-realistic lighting style - so we really don’t need to be raytracing or bouncing light! (That shader is very cool, though)

[@AephVeyniker]

Why does everyone add emission shader and converts to rgb, instead of just connecting image texture, it's the same rgb result. Am I missing something?

[@cockpitsandboobytraps]

Nah, I’m probably the one who’s missing something. I do use that emission node to tweak the opacity of the image texture between 0 and 1, or to crank the contrast up between 1 and 2 - just a little bit more control, but there’s probably a better way of doing that? I also may have cobbled these together with some superfluous nodes in the first place.

[@kenzietownsend6644]

1:22 You have a nice mid tone that I seem to be missing. I'll try to drop the light power and see if that helps.

[@cockpitsandboobytraps]

Yeah, you can add as many steps to the gradient as you want, as stops on the color ramp. But too much light will blow it out all the way to your far right stop, and no light will be all the far left, if that makes sense. So you’re right, there’s a middle ground you have to find with the light. That’s why instead of a sun lamp, I usually start with a point light above the object, and just increase the power until I can see what the shader is doing - you might have to make the number quite high but you’ll be able to see what’s goin on

[@slimewhale420]

So weird the Mix RGB that i add isnt able to swith to color and multiply at the same time our mix rgb nodes look different

[@cockpitsandboobytraps]

yeah, I think they recently changed MixRGB to just Mix. If you add a Mix node and change “float” to “color,” you should have it looking like mine? Let me know if that works for ya

[@ilhamwicaksono5802]

how to make the background effect like in the end of the video?

[@cockpitsandboobytraps]

The background is just an RGB color, strength turned up to 3.5 ish, and I’ve got bloom checked in render properties. Pretty sure that’s it!

[@filipemecenas]

That's dope , already in 2050

[@Pvt.punchy]

I've hit a wall with the outline.... When trying this it only makes the object thicker but doesnt give it an outline.

[@cockpitsandboobytraps]

I’m assuming you mean inverted hull/ solidify modifier. Here’s some things to try: if you ever rescale your mesh, the outline will be messed up until you CTRL-A > Apply Scale. Give that a try first, then make sure you’re using the right material offset to point to your outline material. You could do what I said in the video and just put in a high number to make it the last one - or you can count your materials down from the top, starting with 0. So if you have 1 material and then your outline material, it’s material offset 1. If you have 3 materials and then your outline, it would be material offset 3. You also may just have to go thinner on your thickness in the solidify modifier, like thinner than your mouse will scroll - put in some zeroes. Let me know if any of that works for you!

[@cockpitsandboobytraps]

Oh also I have a newer video on different ways of doing outlines, one of those might work better

[@idrawstudios87]

why doesnt my point light show any lighting on viewport?

[@cockpitsandboobytraps]

Most likely it’s just not strong enough (or possibly too strong) - try with a sun lamp instead, and if that works then try putting in a ridiculous number in the light strength on the point light and see if that does anything. Make sure you’re in Eevee, and in viewport shading mode. You could have your “scene lights” unchecked in the viewport shading drop down menu (little arrow to the right of the four circle icons at the top of the screen). I can’t really be sure what the problem is, but if that doesn’t work, you’re welcome to send your .blend file to cockpitsandboobytraps@gmail and I’d be happy to take a look-

[@henrymasih6400]

hey i just wanna ask! do i need to make shader per model or can i make one shader and use it on every other asset ???

[@cockpitsandboobytraps]

@@henrymasih6400 you can absolutely reuse them! I just keep a few versions in my Asset Browser and change their settings as needed. If the shader exists in a different project file, you can Append it to your project. If the shader you want to use on an object is already in the scene, you can just select it from the drop down menu in that object’s Material Properties. You could also select the object you want to change, then shift-select an object that has the shader you want, then CTRL-L and “link materials.” Keep in mind that you can click the number to the right of the material name to make a “single-user copy,” which lets you modify the shader without also changing every other object with that shader.

[@henrymasih6400]

Can anyone tell me pls?

[@henrymasih6400]

@@cockpitsandboobytraps thank u brother! Means a lot

[@cockpitsandboobytraps]

@@henrymasih6400 So the easiest way is to have everything in one Blender project. You can copy/paste between projects. Let’s say you want to make a city. You have the shader on one of the buildings (or whatever object you used to make the shader), but you want to add it to all the buildings. Select all the buildings WITHOUT the shader by shift-clicking, and then lastly shift-click on the one WITH the shader. Then press CTRL-L and click “Materials” to link all the buildings to the material from the last one you selected. You should see them all change over to your new shader.

[@henrymasih6400]

@@cockpitsandboobytraps thank u bro! i am gonna rock with your cool shader

[@jeanclaudedelaronde]

Awesome workflow brother. I'm going to give this a try. I was wondering if you got that "Tiger Stripe" texture to share?..The one that you're using at the time stamp: 2:40. Looking Dope!

[@cockpitsandboobytraps]

Unfortunately, it’s just a stock art image from google and not mine to share. (Should be very easy to find, though)

[@notimportantstudio]

Thanks exactly what i was looking for. Is there a way to do this in cycles btw?

[@cockpitsandboobytraps]

Yes there is, but it can get a bit weird and involved. Using a physically based ray tracer to do toon shading is a bit like using a particle accelerator to walk a dog, but there are definitely use cases for it. I’ll include that in an upcoming video, for sure!

[@behind_you780]

Apart from following this tutorial do I need to add an image to get the toon shader working? What do I need to do to get the toon shader working? Thank you!

[@cockpitsandboobytraps]

you CAN mix in an image with the toon shader, like I did with the tiger stripe pattern in the video, but you don’t need to use an image texture - and I normally don’t. If you do, you’ll also probably need to adjust the UV maps on it. But I usually just use the basic setup I show in the video: Diffuse BSDF > Shader to RGB > Color Ramp. In order to see the effect, you need some lights, too! But other than that, I think everything is covered in the video. Let me know if that answered your question!

[@behind_you780]

@@cockpitsandboobytraps Thank you for responding so fast. It is deeply appreciated I am going to try that out. I think my problem was with the lights they don't seem to work. (I will let you know if it works out) thank you once again

[@cockpitsandboobytraps]

@@behind_you780no problem! Yeah, this sort of shader is completely controlled by lights and the stops on the color ramp. The light strength you need will be different based on where it is in your scene, what kind of lamp you’re using, and the scale of your objects - but you should be able to pretty easily see the effect by just adding a sun lamp and adjusting the strength. The sun lamp has infinite falloff, though, which isn’t necessarily something you want if you’re trying to get the look of shading on actual 2D cartoons. So I end up using a bunch of point lights and area lights to fill in what I need, and sometimes those need ridiculous amounts of power.

[@behind_you780]

@@cockpitsandboobytraps so as I suspected the light doesn't seem to be working while everything else works. For reference, I just imported a basic model that I made (no texture, just some random model) and the light just doesn't seem to interact at all? I'm not sure what to do. Any ideas?

[@cockpitsandboobytraps]

@@behind_you780 you’re definitely using Eevee? You could have too much light. Basically with too much light, the shader will “blow out” to whatever color you have all the way to right of your color ramp, and not enough light, and the whole thing will be whatever you have all the way to the left - if that makes sense. Make sure you don’t have a bright background or world, probably don’t want to use an HDRI. If you’re still having trouble with it, you’re welcome to send it to cockpitsandboobytraps @ Gmail and I’ll take a look at it.

[@rajagopalsoren]

hey whered you get those images for the image texture like in your profile picture and stuff

[@cockpitsandboobytraps]

That’s actually just an old logo I made for someone - the yellow is just mirrored text. Which you won’t be able to unsee now!

[@rajagopalsoren]

@@cockpitsandboobytraps what about the other images for image textures

[@cockpitsandboobytraps]

@@rajagopalsoren hmmm I think the only other image texture I used in this was like a tiger stripe pattern - that was a stock image, possibly from adobe stock?

[@TR-707]

I wish the voice was 4 octaves lower a d some dark ambient in the background

[@rajagopalsoren]

howd you model the stuff in the intro

[@cockpitsandboobytraps]

So definitely using Mark Kingsnorth’s shape-generator addon from blendermarket - he has a bunch of good ones. Then I see some BigMediumSmall, Digital Shipyard and Vitaly Bulgarov kitbash sets in there

[@azithoth6860]

Hey, is there a title on the track at the end (and maybe the beginning as well)? I really like the vibe

[@cockpitsandboobytraps]

So I just made that out of a couple of Splice drum loops layered on top of each other - no full track yet, but I may make it into sort of a theme song for future videos. I’ll stick it in the description of the next one!

[@azithoth6860]

@@cockpitsandboobytraps nice! Good work then, always like seeing home produced tracks in the wild. :) I'll be looking forward to it!

[@MegaZekee]

cool you sound like david blaine

[@cockpitsandboobytraps]

Haha I’ve never gotten that one before!

[@jk.774]

Strangely I don't see an effect from the fresnel node?

[@cockpitsandboobytraps]

Hmm- well, I know I only turned it on for a second in the video, and I ended with it “off” by turning the factor all the way down - have you made sure that last MixRGB node is in “add” mode and the factor on it is turned up? To be honest, I don’t use the fresnel node too much, and I’m not exactly sure how it works. I keep the IOR at the default 1.45, and it does seem to be dependent on the strength of your lights. Check this out for someone getting similar results in a completely different way, maybe it’ll work better for you: blender.stackexchange.com/questions/185874/make-fresnel-visible-only-from-a-side-of-the-mesh-in-eevee

[@M4rt1nX]

Dude, your voice. The thumbnail got me here, but your voice made me stay.

[@cockpitsandboobytraps]

Why, thank you very much! I should probably use an actual microphone instead of my phone, huh?

[@TheGhoul.]

Is there a way to keep my alpha? my textures has them for some areas and not sure to get that back into the mix

[@cockpitsandboobytraps]

Hmmm so first you’ll want to check the Blend Mode in the Settings section of Material Properties. If Blend Mode is set to “Opaque,” try Alpha Blend, Alpha Hashed and Alpha Clip and see if that fixes it? You could also use the alpha to mix between the toon shader and a transparent shader. I’m not sure exactly what you’re going for, so let me know if that helps!

[@TheGhoul.]

@@cockpitsandboobytraps the blend mode is arleady set to what it needs to be, tried adding the transparent node in and didnt really work, The item in question is the eyelashes on the model, they are there but with a big black background to go with

[@cockpitsandboobytraps]

@@TheGhoul. ah ok. So I’m assuming you’re mixing a Principled BSDF with the toon shader - do you have the alpha output on the image texture plugged into the alpha input on the Principled BSDF? That SHOULD fix the black background, depending on how you have the material set up. Also - if you want to send your blend file to [e-mail], I’d be happy to give it a look.

[@levrisfirst3291]

How to get this result in Unity ?

[@cockpitsandboobytraps]

Good question! I don’t know Unity yet, but I do know that Sable was made with it, so it’s certainly possible - and I know there are people who have recreated that look. There are a ton of toon shader tutorials for Unity on KZbin - I just don’t know enough about it to know which one to recommend! As for the outlines, I believe that a lot of games use a process called “inverted hull” - you should find a bunch of stuff if you search that.

[@digitalimagestall]

Is it only me who thinks for oulines, it is much easier to click on Freestyle and keep the line thickness at 1 much easier than creating a separate material? (Of course you miss the instant feedback but renders just fine.)

[@cockpitsandboobytraps]

Yeah, freestyle would work fine here - there’s also the grease pencil line art modifier. All three can do different things, and I switch between them based on what I need. I use this one to work with real-time outlines in the viewport - as freestyle and the line art modifier are dependent on the camera (and aren’t instant). I’m planning to make a very short outlines video soon, pros and cons of each method type of thing

[@adrianreihan5733]

Blender version?

[@cockpitsandboobytraps]

Hmm, good question. I’m not sure exactly, but this was definitely 3.0 or above. This should all still work in 3.6

[@yurakennardokusnar5792]

My laptop isn't powerful enough to go past 0:57 :((( when I switched to render mode it always crashed 😅

[@cockpitsandboobytraps]

Hmm, just when building the shader? I’m not sure what could be causing that. Are you sure you’re using Eevee? Are you using a very high-poly model, maybe?

[@yurakennardokusnar5792]

@@cockpitsandboobytraps yep, I'm using Eevee and my model isn't that high-poly, it has 876 verts. But my laptop is a 2012 Macbook so maybe that's the problem 😅

[@cockpitsandboobytraps]

@@yurakennardokusnar5792 haha yeah, I can’t say I’ve tried it on one of those. But this stuff is usually pretty lightweight - although Eevee does use your CPU, so that might explain the crashing. The only thing I can suggest is just make sure you’re not running any other programs.

[@yurakennardokusnar5792]

@@cockpitsandboobytraps yeah I think it's because my laptop is too old. I closed other programs and it didn't work, well time to buy a new one I guess.

[@FinskyKot]

if i could i would give it two likes! thank you : )