Looking for a contour shader for Maya 2017

#1

Hello there!

I’ve been working a on a project for the last three months and toying with different sorts of toon shaders in Maya. Got some neat results while experimenting, but I realised that my toon shader is currently missing some sort of black outline or contour, which makes all the scenes look a bit flat (I’m using a modified version of this https://vimeo.com/241433782).

As much as I like how it looks so far, I’m almost sure a contour effect would greatly enhance these renders. Either that, or some form of edge highlighter. I know mental ray used to have a contour option but that seems to be gone in Maya 2017 now that Autodesk has started using Arnold rendering, so I’m unsure as to how to proceed.

I’d appreciate any help!

#2

Perhaps you would find this useful: rim shader

#3

the contour is still here,
toon -> Assign outline -> add new toon outline
then convert paint effects to polygon to render it with whatever you want

#4

Thank you for the replies! I gave the rim shader a look but I’m unsure how to implement it into this node network. I’m still fairly new to nodes and material editing in Maya and experimenting takes a while. Didn’t really get much done trying to combine them sadly.

I think the big issue right now is how this celshading system seems to ignore the colour of my lighting. The objects are shaded properly but the colour of the lighting always appears to be white unless I change the ramp itself. Adding to that, I can’t find a way to get my normal maps to work with this system at all. Until I can fix that, I really don’t think focusing on the outline is a good idea.

So at the moment I’m stuck with a FacingRatio-dependent system that ignores lighting entirely but lets me use normal maps, or a system that does take environment lighting into account but ignores its colour, and doesn’t let me use normal maps alongside it. It makes me feel pretty hopeless, not gonna lie.

It’s off-topic I know, but without having proper shading I can’t really work on the outline. If anyone has any suggestions on how to fix this problem I’d seriously welcome them. I’m sure there’s a very simple thing I’m missing but I’m not particularly experienced editing materials in Maya.