General Properties
Controls the main color of the Toon shader. This the most common place to connect a primary color texture. The Base Color is multiplied with the Base Tonemap color, setting the Base Color to white allows the full Base Tonemap color to come through while setting it to black results in no color.
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| Base Color: Textured | White | Blue |
Controls the brightness of the base color from 0 to 1.
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| Base Weight: 0 | 0.5 | 1 |
Controls the shading with an externally connected ramp or texture node. This is where you give a Toon shader a cel shaded look and is one of the most important inputs to adjust. Using a ramp with stepped interpolation results in a classic cel shaded look where the transition between highlight and shadow is abrupt and sharp. You can use ramps with any type of interpolation, stepped and smooth transitions can even be used in the same ramp, however, mixed interpolation types will not look as sharp as a ramp that only uses stepped interpolation. The Base Tonemap color is multiplied with the Base Color.
Ramp nodes are automatically used as a tonemap when they are connect to a Tonemap input. This includes a single ramp connected directly to a Tonemap input, or multiple ramps as part of a node network — as long as the network eventually ends with a connection into a Tonemap input, every ramp along that chain is automatically mapped to the illuminance in the scene.
Texture nodes require you to enable the "Override UV's for Tone-Mapping" option in the Advanced section of a RS Texture node.
Any node that is not a ramp, but is part of a tonemap input will be applied as usual — allowing you to mix traditional texture projection with tone mapping.
By default, with no connected ramp node, the Base Tonemap results in a linear black to white shaded style as seen in the example on the right below.
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| Tonemap: With cel shaded input Ramp | Tonemap: Without input (Default - Linear Black and White Ramp) |
Tone mapping works by mapping the light intensity on the objects in your scene (the illuminance) to a ramp node with colors and shading defined by you. With a horizontal ramp, the left side of the ramp controls the shadow color, the middle part of the ramp controls the midtone colors, and the right part of the ramp controls the highlight color. Light intensity has a direct impact on how much of your tonemap is used, for example, if you don't see the highlight portion of a ramp on your objects then you either need to make the lighting brighter or change the position of the highlight color in your ramp.
The type of light you use has a major impact on the look of tone mapping. In most situations point lights should be used with a Toon shader, they always reproduce your tone mapping as defined in the connected ramp. If area lights are used, the tonemap may become blurry and smooth. This is based on the size of the area light, large area lights produce smooth tone mapping (even if the tonemap ramp is stepped) while small area lights produce sharper tone mapping. Point lights have the advantage of being able to reproduce sharp tone mapping with the option of casting soft shadows by increasing their Shadow Softness parameter.
You can use a node network as the Tonemap input but only ramp nodes are mapped to the illuminance in your scene. For example, you can use a Color Layer node with two different textures as the layer colors and a ramp node used as a mask between these layers. The textures driving the layer color will be mapped as usual but the ramp node will automatically be mapped according to illuminance — resulting in a layer mask that is driven by scene lighting. This mentality is the key building block for more advanced tone mapping effects — any ramp node is automatically applied to your object based on scene lighting.
In the examples below the ramp used in each can be seen at the bottom of the image. Take note of how the ramp is mapped to the scene, with the darkest parts of the scene mapping to the left side of the ramp and the brightest parts mapping to the right side of the ramp. Understanding the relationship between scene lighting and a tonemap is important to achieving any kind of stylized look you can come up with.
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| Tonemap: Stepped Ramp | Colorful Ramp with Tonemap Pattern utility | White to Black stepped Ramp | Animated Ramp input |
When bump mapping is used it distorts the tone mapping which allows for stylized shading. In the examples below, note how the shading appears less uniform.
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| Tonemap with Bump: Stepped Ramp | Colorful Ramp with Tonemap Pattern utility | White to Black stepped Ramp |
The Base Tonemap Modes controls how Base Tonemap shading behaves in shadow, this includes shadows from other objects and self shadows.
By default, the Light and Opaque Shadow mode does not change how tone mapping is applied when in shadow. In this mode, a shadow is able to dim or even change the color of the tone mapping underneath (if is casting a colorful shadow) but all tone mapping transitions stay in the same place whether they are in or out of shadow. Lower opacity shadows make the underlying region brighter while more opaque shadows make it darker.
By comparison, the Light and Shadow mode actually changes how tone mapping is applied in shadows and adheres strictly to the colors used in the tonemap. In this mode, a shadow is able to shift the tone mapping underneath along the tonemap ramp — how far, and in which direction, this shift travels depends on the opacity of the shadow. Lower opacity shadows shift the tone mapping into the brighter part of a ramp, while more opaque shadows shift the tone mapping further into the shadow part of the ramp.
In the examples below, two fully opaque bars cast a shadow on the objects below and the Toon shader's Base Shadow Opacity is adjusted to demonstrate the effect shadow transparency has on each mode, this setting can be found in the Toon shader's Advanced section. When using the Light and Shadow mode, the tonemap ramp can be seen creeping along the surface of the object as shadow opacity decreases from the default value of 0. However, when using the Light and Opaque Shadow mode the tonemap does not move. Keep in mind that shadow transparency can also be adjusted on lights.
| Light and Opaque Shadow (Default) |
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| Light and Shadow |
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| Tonemap Mode | Tonemap Input: Stepped Ramp Shadow Opacity: -1 to +1 |
Colorful Ramp 0.5 |
Colorful Ramp + Tonemap Pattern 0.5 |
In the next example, a large transmissive plane casts a colorful stained glass window effect on the objects below. When using Light and Opaque Shadow the stained glass effect fades in and out over the surface of the objects when changing the shadow opacity, this includes casting the color of the stained glass effect onto the surface of the objects. However, when using Light and Shadow mode, the different regions of the stained glass effect only adjust how the tonemap ramp is applied — it does not change any of the colors. Take note of how the dark strips between the glass pieces and the darker colored pieces themselves shift the tone mapping into the shadow portion of the ramp faster than the brighter colors. For both modes, when Base Shadow Opacity is at +1, the objects appear entirely in shadow because the transmissive object is casting a completely opaque shadow.
| Light and Opaque Shadow (Default) |
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| Light and Shadow |
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| Tonemap Mode | Tonemap Input: Stepped Ramp Shadow Opacity: -1 to +1 |
Colorful Ramp 0.5 |
Colorful Ramp + Tonemap Pattern 0.5 |
Controls where specular reflections (direct reflections from light sources) are able to be seen with an externally connected ramp. A ramp used with the Tonemap Layer Mask is mapped in exactly the same way as the Reflection Tonemap, the darkest part of a specular reflection maps to the left side of a horizontal ramp while the brightest part maps to the right side — light intensity and light angle directly affect where this is applied on your objects and move in unison with the Reflection Tonemap. Bright colors increase the opacity of the specular reflection while dark colors decrease the opacity — the same general functionality as any layer mask where black removes from the layer being masked. By default, with no input ramp, the specular reflection can be visible everywhere.
Since the Tonemap Layer Mask is mapped onto the object based on light angle and intensity it cannot be used to mask out specular reflections in certain parts of an object. Instead, this should be controlled with a texture in the overall Reflection Color below, using black areas to stop the specular reflection from being visible or just dimming them with darker colors.
The Tonemap Layer Mask feature is particularly useful when "Fresnel Enabled" is disabled for reflections. Fresnel reflections are more realistic but they quickly lose their intensity as reflection roughness increases making it difficult to achieve large stylized specular reflections. However, when you disable fresnel the specular reflection completely overwhelms the rest of the shader, blocking out the base color and tonemap. Therefore, the Tonemap Layer Mask can be used to manually control exactly where specular reflections are visible while being able to use high roughness values and having maximum control over the size of the reflections.
All the examples of specular reflection on this page use a Tonemap Layer Mask with fresnel disabled unless noted otherwise.
The Tonemap Layer Mask only affects direct specular reflections, it does not affect indirect reflections of other geometry in the scene. By default the Toon shader has indirect reflections disabled, this can be adjusted in the Advanced section with the Reflection Indirect Scale.
In the examples below you can see how the ramp controls where the specular reflection is visible and how brightness and color affect how intense that reflection is. In most situations you want bright colors in the ramp on the right side so the brightest part of a specular reflection is more intense than the darkest — usually with black on the left side of the ramp so that the specular reflection isn't visible across the entire object. However, since the layer mask is extremely flexible, if you actually want to mask out the brightest part of a highlight that is possible by making the right side of the ramp black as seen in the animated example. In the Smooth Rainbow example, note how the objects are tinted by color everywhere — even in shadow — because there is no black in the ramp so the specular reflections. In the other examples, the left side of the ramp is black so that the darkest parts are not tinted.
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| Tonemap Layer Mask: Linear Ramp | Animated Ramp | Color Bars | Smooth Rainbow |
Controls the main reflection color of the Toon shader. This the most common place to connect a reflection color map. The Reflection Color is multiplied with the Reflection Tonemap and masked away by a Tonemap Layer Mask if present. Setting Reflection Color to white allows the full Reflection Tonemap to come through while setting it to black results in no color.
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| Reflection Color: White | Black | Blue | Textured |
Controls the overall brightness of reflections.
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| Reflection Weight: 0 | 0.5 | 1 |
Controls the size of specular reflection highlights. Higher roughness values result in larger specular highlights while lower values result in smaller highlights, using a roughness texture map will create a variable size and shape.
This parameter also controls the surface roughness for indirect reflections, however, indirect reflections are disabled by default. To enable indirect reflections increase the Reflection Indirect Scale in the Toon Shader's Advanced section.
| Roughness/Width: 0 - 1 Tonemap Mode: Light & Shadow |
0 - 1 Stylized |
Controls whether the fresnel effect has an impact on reflection intensity. When enabled, by default, the intensity of reflections varies heavily based on light angle and reflection roughness — this realistically emulates how reflections behave in physically based rendering. However, for more stylized reflections, disabling fresnel might produce a more desirable result that is easier to control.
For example, when fresnel is enabled, high roughness values can cause reflections to quickly lose intensity. With the Toon shader, when a reflection loses intensity the specular highlight also gets smaller, this can be counter-intuitive if you want a wide specular highlight. In the examples below, take note of how the specular highlight stays much smaller, and even disappears, as Reflection Roughness changes with Fresnel enabled.
| Fresnel: Enabled (Default) Reflection Roughness: 0 - 1 |
Disabled 0 - 1 |
Fresnel must be Enabled to use this parameter.
Short for Index of Refraction, controls how light rays traverse a medium and bend when changing mediums. In a practical sense, changing the IOR adjusts how intense reflections become when Fresnel is enabled. A value of 1 is equivalent to how light behaves in a vacuum, resulting in no bending of the light as a vacuum does not interact with the light rays at all. In the real world, normal materials never have an IOR below 1 because that would be impossible, as it would mean light travels faster in this medium than it does in a vacuum.
| IOR: 1 - 10 |
Controls how many samples are used for reflections, this mainly effects rough indirect reflections. Higher values reduce reflection noise but take longer to render, while lower values increase the chance for reflection noise but render faster.
Controls the look of specular highlights with an externally connected ramp or texture node. Reflection Tone mapping works by taking the specular intensity of the lighting in your scene and mapping that to a ramp node with colors and shading defined by you. With a horizontal ramp, the left side of the ramp controls the dimmest part of a highlight, the middle part of the ramp controls the midtone colors, and the right part of the ramp controls the brightest part of a highlight. Light intensity has a direct impact on how much of your tonemap is used and how large the specular highlights appear, for example, if your specular highlights are too small then you might make the lighting brighter, change the reflection roughness, or change the position of the highlight color in your ramp.
Ramp nodes are automatically used as a tonemap when they are connect to a Tonemap input. This includes a single ramp connected directly to a Tonemap input, or multiple ramps as part of a node network — as long as the network eventually ends with a connection into a Tonemap input, every ramp along that chain will automatically be mapped to the specular intensity in the scene.
Texture nodes require you to enable the "Override UV's for Tone-Mapping" option in the Advanced section of a RS Texture node. When the "Stylized" Reflection Tonemap Mode is used, the texture used for the stylized highlight must have this option enabled.
The Reflection Tonemap color is multiplied with the Reflection Color and masked away by the Reflection Tonemap Layer Mask. By default, with no connected ramp node , the Reflection Tonemap results in a linear black to white shaded style as seen in the right example below.
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| Tonemap: With input Ramp | Tonemap: Without input (Default - Linear Black and White Ramp) |
The type of light you use has a major impact on how your tone mapping looks. In most situations point lights should be used with a Toon shader because they reliably reproduce your tone mapping as defined in the connected ramp. If area lights are used, the tonemap may become blurry and smooth. This is based on the size of the area light, large area lights will produce smooth tone mapping (even if the tonemap ramp is stepped) while small area lights produce sharp tone mapping. Point lights have the advantage of being able to reproduce sharp tone mapping.
In the examples below, note how the specular intensity of the light in the scene corresponds to the different parts of the ramps that can be seen at the bottom of each image. The dark parts of the specular reflections map to the left side of the ramp and the bright parts map to the right side of the ramp.
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| Tonemap: Stepped Ramp | Colorful Tonemap Pattern | Colorful Ramp | Animated Ramp |
When bump mapping is used it distorts the tone mapping.
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| Tonemap with Bump: Stepped Ramp | Colorful Tonemap Pattern | Colorful Ramp |
The Reflection Tonemap Modes control how specular reflections behave in shadow, this includes self shadows and shadows from other objects.
By default, the Light and Opaque Shadow mode does not change how tone mapping is applied when in shadow. In this mode, a shadow is able to dim or even change the color of the tone mapping underneath (if is casting a colorful shadow) but all tone mapping transitions stay in the same place whether they are in or out of shadow. Lower opacity shadows make the underlying specular highlight brighter while more opaque shadows make it darker.
By comparison, the Light and Shadow mode actually changes how tone mapping is applied in shadows and adheres strictly to the colors used in the tonemap. In this mode, a shadow is able to shift the tone mapping underneath along the tonemap ramp — how far, and in which direction, this shift travels depends on the opacity of the shadow. Lower opacity shadows shift the tone mapping of the specular highlight into the brighter part of a ramp and make it larger. While more opaque shadows shift the tone mapping of the specular highlight further into the shadow part of the ramp and make it smaller.
When using the Stylized mode, specular reflections behave completely differently. Please see the Stylized section below, past the next two sets of example images.
In the examples below, two fully opaque bars cast shadows on the objects below and the Toon shader's Reflection Shadow Opacity is adjusted to demonstrate the effect shadow transparency has on each mode, this setting can be found in the Toon shader's Advanced section. When Light and Shadow mode is used, note how the specular reflection shifts along the tonemap ramp and gets smaller when the shadows get darker and more opaque. However, when using Light and Opaque shadow, the specular highlights stay the same size and only the overall brightness changes.
| Light and Opaque Shadow |
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| Light and Shadow |
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| Tonemap Mode | Tonemap Input: Stepped Ramp Reflection Shadow Opacity: -1 to +1 |
Colorful Ramp 0.5 |
Colorful Ramp + Tonemap Pattern 0.5 |
In the next example, a large transmissive plane casts a colorful stained glass window effect on the objects below. When using Light and Opaque Shadow the specular reflections are tinted by the stained glass effect, taking on their color and dimming as the shadows become more opaque. However, when Light and Shadow mode is used, the specular highlights shift and shrink at different rates depending on where the different parts of the stained glass effect land. For both modes, when Reflection Shadow Opacity is at +1, there is no visible specular reflection because the transmissive object is casting a completely opaque shadow.
| Light and Opaque Shadow |
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| Light and Shadow |
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| Tonemap Mode | Tonemap Input: Stepped Ramp Reflection Shadow Opacity: -1 to +1 |
Colorful Ramp 0.5 |
Colorful Ramp + Tonemap Pattern 0.5 |
When the Stylized mode is used, a texture connected to the Reflection Tonemap input is used to create a stylized specular highlight based on the position and intensity of selected lights.
At least one light must be added to the Light List or Stylized mode will not work.
| Stylized |
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The Reflection Tonemap Mode must be set to Stylized to use this feature.
Area lights are not supported, only point, spot, and infinite lights are compatible with Stylized reflections.
Here, up to four lights can be added to the Light List to drive the placement and intensity of stylized reflection highlights, any excluded lights are ignored for this effect.
The Rim light effect is used to simulate backlighting from lights in the scene. Only lights added to the Rim Light List are used to determine the angle of the effect. If no lights are added, Rim lighting is equivalent to a uniform fresnel effect.
Rim lights cannot cast lighting from the front, even if a light is positioned in front of the object the rim effect will only appear around the silhouette of the object.
Controls the color of the rim lighting effect. Rim lighting does not cast shadows but it is dependent on the position of the lights selected to participate in the effect.
Rim Color is multiplied with the Rim Tonemap color.
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| Rim Color: White | Yellow | Blue |
Controls the overall brightness of the rim lighting.
Light intensity influences the intensity of the rim lighting effect, if you don't see any rim lighting your selected lights might not be bright enough.
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| Rim Weight: 0 | 0.5 | 1 |
Controls the thickness of the rim lighting. This is similar to controlling the falloff of a fresnel shader.
| Rim Width: 0 - 1 |
Controls how focused the rim lighting is, low values shrink the spread of the rim effect around the incoming direction of rim lights. A value of 0 disables the rim lighting.
There are two rim lights in the example below, notice how at low values the rim effect is narrow and localized around the incoming light angle. By comparison, when this value is high the rim effect is spread out along the silhouette of an object and the effect from each light even overlaps .
| Rim Spread: 0 - 1 |
The Rim Tonemap can be used to map a ramp along the width of the rim effect.
Rim Tonemap is not based on scene lighting the way Base Tonemap and Reflection Tonemap work.
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| Rim Tonemap: Linear Ramp Rim Color: Yellow |
Stepped Ramp Yellow |
Colorful Ramp White |
Area lights are not supported, only point, spot, and infinite lights are compatible with Rim lighting.
Lights must have a "Toon Rim" contribution set to a value greater than 0 for the effect to take place.
Here, up to four lights can be added to the Light list to drive the angle of the rim lighting, any excluded lights are ignored for this effect.
If no lights are added, Rim lighting is equivalent to a uniform fresnel effect.
By default, when a light is included in the light list it will continue to impact diffuse, specular, and all other light contribution effects. If you only want rim lighting consider setting all contribution values to 0 except for "Toon Rim."
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| Lights: Rim Light | Rim Light and Main Light | Main Light |
Controls the color of emitted light.
For NPR styles, emission can be useful in ways that it isn't with traditional PBR workflows. Since cel shaded looks tend to have a flat look already, emission can be used as another way to add interesting flat looks to your shader.
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| Emission Color: White | Same Texture as Base | Red | Textured |
Controls the intensity of the emitted light.
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| Emission Weight: 0 | 0.5 | 1 |
By default the Toon shader does not receive global illumination, because Base Indirect Scale is set to 0, so it is important to be careful with emission as it will cast indirect illumination on objects that can receive GI.
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| Global Illumination: Disabled Emission Weight: 3 |
Enabled 3 |
Controls the overall transparency of the material. Brighter colors are more opaque while darker colors are more transparent. White, by default, results in a fully opaque object.
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| Opacity: Black to White | Textured |
When enabled, any emissive effects are affected by opacity. For example, if you have a bright orange emissive texture but opacity is set to a low value, you will only get a dim orange result.
When disabled, emissive effects are not affected by opacity. In this mode, it is easier to separately control emission and opacity and bright emissive areas that stack on top of each other will be rendered additively. Disabling Opacity Affects Emission is a great way to render additive particle effects.
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| Opacity Affects Emission: Enabled (Default) | Disabled |
Connect a bump map node and texture here. Bump mapping affects all aspects of the Toon shading, including breaking up the transitions between cel shading in a tonemap ramp. Low bump intensities can go a very long way with toon shading.
Bump Mapping does not affect the edges of a cast shadow or the edge of a core shadow on object shading.
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| Bump Map: With Input | Without Input (Default) |