OverviewE Goals and Deliverables Schedules Resoures

Cel Shading

Tristan Burke, Andrew Noglows, Shivam Parikh

Abstract


Our project was to implement a Cel-Shader, also known as a toon shader. This shading method is similar to the comic book style of rendering images. For the scope of our project, we implemented a single color renderer that has the ability to take in primitive objects, like triangles, spheres, and planes. An added functionality was being able to import triangle meshes in the Wavefront .obj file format. We are pleased to share our results with you below.

Problem Description


We wanted to start by modifying our Project-4 Renderer to utilise the GLSL Shader Capabilities for our problem. We split the problem statement into a few parts. First, we wanted to build a GLSL Shader that applied the properties of the classical toon-shader. Then, we wanted to modify the GUI in the Project-4 Renderer to apply dynamic parameters that could result in different output images for our objects. And finally, we wanted to add more than just collision objects to our input abilities so that we could render external meshes, preferably in pre-existing file formats. One part of our problem that we would have preferred to add but were unable to is the potential for multi-colored scene files.

The Technical Approach


Lessons Learned


Overall, this was a rather interesting project, we learned the following lessons. etc.

Contributions


Everyone contributed equally ...

Miscellaneous Results, Videos, and Screenshots


The Captain

The Cow

Cow in Blue and Green
Thickness = 0
Thickness = 0.2
Thickness = 0.4
Thickness = 0.6
Thickness = 0.8

Our Attempts at Texture Mapping (Just sampling a color and applying it)

As you can see, the colors on the GUI do not change, but the colors on the object do based on the colors sampled from the texture.

Cap with Applied Texture
Stones Texture
Cap with Applied Texture
Cloth Texture

References


Referenced Links, Articles, and file sources

Future Steps


We made quite a bit of progress on this project, getting OBJ files imported and being able to sample colors from textures went a few steps beyond what we had envisioned when we set off on the journey. But there is always more to learn and more to be done. The next steps we discussed as a team are things we thought of before the project started, but also things we encountered along the way that we were unable to implement in the duration of the project.
UV textures and material files are often packaged with the OBJ file format, and contain texture mappings for OBJ files to appear closer to the real world. We were able to sample a single color from png texture files for our project, but a next step is to accurately map the uv coordinates of each vertex and face from the png texture file.
Another neat step relates back to the shader itself, implementing shadows on other objects would be really cool as well. When we implemented the shifting light position parameters, we were able to see the effects of the self shadow based on the Blinn-Phong shading algorithm we adapted for our Cel Shader, but when we add a plane or sphere onto the renderer, the shadows do not interact between objects.
Some OBJ files also come with multiple detatched meshes, so it would be equally cool to allow for the rendering of multiple scenes or multiple meshes on the same renderer to build a cohesive Cel Shaded scene.
We would also like to expand beyond just OBJ files because the world of 3D art has made so many neat scenes and objects that our shader would strongly benefit from being able to render more than just OBJ files.
Something we struggled with in our shader was non-uniform band shading. We wanted to implement a shader that determined the thickness and color of bands based on a PDF sampling of colors and light intensity on particular points of the shape being rendered, rather than just uniformly splitting into bands based on pre-determined ranges.

Conclusion


We would like to thank the course staff for their support on Piazza and in Office Hours for helping us come up with solutions to making this project what it is now. We thoroughly enjoyed the process of building the Cel Shader and also enjoyed many of the other class projects we got to see during the expo. As computer scientists that are so often bogged down in the algorithms and the data, it was nice to take a class that took us back to the visual arts and perceptive computing.