Cel Shading¶
Image & 2D Art
Open Source¶
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Godot Anime SDF Shader Kit Discovered by AI
2026
An advanced procedural anime cel shader kit for Godot 4 featuring an SDF-based face shader with dynamic symmetry, stable world-space lighting, and dynamic Z-depth outlines.
cel-shadinggodotsdftoon-shader -
lilToon Discovered by AI
2026
A highly optimized, feature-rich toon shader for Unity, widely used for 3D anime avatars, VRChat, and stylized character rendering. It offers extensive customization options while maintaining high performance.
avatartoon-shaderunityvrchat -
Workflow-Aware Structured Layer Decomposition for Illustration Production Discovered by AI
2026
A layer decomposition framework for anime illustrations that separates a flat raster image into structured, editable layers including line art, flat color, shadow, and highlight, mimicking professional digital art workflows.
animeflat-colorlayer-decompositionshadow -
Honkai Star Rail Toon Shader Discovered by AI
2025
A custom toon shader for Unity URP designed to replicate the anime-style rendering and cel-shading aesthetics of Honkai: Star Rail.
animecel-shadingtoon-shaderunityurp -
Hybridizing Expressive Rendering: Stroke-Based Rendering with Classic and Neural Methods Discovered by AI
2025
A comprehensive study on Non-Photorealistic Rendering (NPR) that hybridizes classical stroke-based rendering, edge detection, and toon/cel shading with modern deep learning techniques to enhance expressive artistic styles.
cel-shadingexpressive-renderingnprtoon-shading -
Anime Shading Plus (ASP) Discovered by AI
2024
A Unity plugin designed for rendering high-quality anime-style characters, supporting stylized toon shading, custom lighting logic, and both mesh-based and screen-space outlines.
animecel-shadingtoon-shaderunity -
Diffutoon Discovered by AI
2024
A diffusion-based toon shading framework designed to transform photorealistic videos into high-resolution, stylized anime videos while maintaining temporal consistency.
cel-shadingdiffusiontoon-shadingvideo-stylization -
MooaToon Discovered by AI
2024
A comprehensive real-time toon rendering and cel-shading solution for Unreal Engine 5, supporting advanced features like global illumination, Lumen, and ray tracing.
cel-shadingreal-timetoon-shadingunreal-engine -
URP Toon Shader Discovered by AI
2024
A high-quality toon shader for Unity's Universal Render Pipeline (URP) that supports double shading, ramp map shadows, and precomputed SDF face shadow masks for Genshin Impact-style character rendering.
cel-shadingtoon-shaderunityurp -
GenshinCelShaderURP Discovered by AI
2023
An open-source cartoon rendering project for Unity URP that replicates the cel-shading style of Genshin Impact, featuring SDF face shadow threshold maps and custom shadow ramps.
cel-shadinggenshin-impactunityurp -
Godot 4 Cel Shader Discovered by AI
2023
A complete, highly customizable cel shader demo for Godot 4, supporting custom lighting, specular highlights, rim lighting, outlines, and shadow control.
gamedevgodotshadertoon-shading -
Goo Engine Discovered by AI
2023
A custom build of Blender developed by DillonGoo Studios, specifically modified for non-photorealistic rendering (NPR) and 3D anime production. It introduces custom shader nodes to the Eevee engine and advanced light groups to streamline the creation of stylized cel-shaded art.
animeblendernprrendering -
MToon Discovered by AI
2023
The standard toon shader for the VRM avatar format in Unity, supporting global illumination, outline rendering, and highly optimized stylized shading for VTubers and anime characters.
cel-shadingtoon-shaderunityvrm -
Unreal Engine Cel Shading (Ashtonland Fork) Discovered by AI
2023
A custom fork of Unreal Engine 5 that integrates cel shading and outline rendering directly into the engine's native rendering pipeline for optimal performance.
cel-shadingoutlineue5unreal-engine -
Toon RP Discovered by AI
2022
A Scriptable Render Pipeline (SRP) for Unity designed specifically for toon and stylized visuals, featuring custom lighting, multiple shadow algorithms, and Shader Graph support.
cel-shadingrender-pipelinetoon-shadingunity -
UniToon Discovered by AI
2022
A physically-based toon shader for Unity designed to seamlessly blend toon aesthetics with physically-based rendering (PBR) environments without requiring custom shader keywords.
cel-shadingpbrtoon-shaderunity -
CelShadingWithFringeShadow_URP Discovered by AI
2021
A Unity Universal Render Pipeline (URP) demo demonstrating the rendering of fringe shadows in cel-shaded anime characters.
cel-shadingfringe-shadowunityurp -
LiliumToonGraph Discovered by AI
2021
A universal toon shader implemented using Unity's ShaderGraph, designed for Universal Render Pipeline (URP) to achieve anime-style character rendering.
cel-shadingshadergraphtoon-shadingunity -
Unity Toon Shader (UTS3) Discovered by AI
2021
The official successor to Unity-Chan Toon Shader 2.0, providing a complete toon shading solution for Unity's Universal Render Pipeline (URP) and High Definition Render Pipeline (HDRP).
cel-shadinghdrptoon-shaderunityurp -
Learning to Shadow Hand-drawn Sketches Discovered by AI
2020
A fully automatic deep learning method to generate detailed and accurate artistic shadows from pairs of line drawing sketches and lighting directions.
cel-shadingshadowsketchtoon-shading -
Poiyomi Toon Shader Discovered by AI
2020
A feature-rich toon shader for Unity's Built-In Rendering Pipeline, highly popular in the VRChat and anime avatar community for its robust lighting and stylized effects.
cel-shadingtoon-shaderunityvrchat -
Unity URP Toon Lit Shader Example Discovered by AI
2020
A highly popular educational and production-ready reference implementation for writing custom toon lit shaders in Unity's Universal Render Pipeline (URP).
hlsltoon-shaderunityurp -
UNITY-Arc-system-Works-Shader Discovered by AI
2020
A Unity shader created using Amplify Shader Editor to emulate the iconic cel-shaded art style of Arc System Works games like Guilty Gear and Dragon Ball FighterZ.
amplify-shaderguilty-geartoon-shadingunity -
UnityChanToonShaderVer2 (UTS2) Discovered by AI
2020
A widely-used, industry-standard toon shader for Unity designed to render high-quality anime-style characters with complex cel-shading and light integration.
animecel-shadingtoon-shaderunity -
URP Toon Shader Discovered by AI
2020
An open-source toon and cel shader for Unity's Universal Render Pipeline (URP), providing stylized shading and outline rendering.
cel-shadingtoon-shadingunityurp -
Deep Normal Estimation for Automatic Shading of Hand-Drawn Characters Discovered by AI
2018
A deep learning-based pipeline that estimates dense normal maps from hand-drawn sketches to enable automatic, high-quality shading and lighting effects.
cel-shadingnormal-mapsketchtoon-shading
Proprietary / Industry Tools¶
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copainter Shadowing Discovered by AI
2024
A web-based AI assistant designed for illustration and animation production that automatically generates 3D-style and anime-style flat shadows (cel-shading) from lineart and optional underpainting, featuring a movable light source to dynamically adjust shadow shapes.
animecel-shadingillustrationshadowing -
Flat Kit Discovered by AI
2020
A popular commercial asset package for Unity that provides a complete set of stylized shaders, cel shading, water rendering, and outline effects to achieve a minimalist flat look.
asset-storecel-shadingstylizedunity -
PSOFT Pencil+ 4 Discovered by AI
2018
A legendary non-photorealistic rendering plugin widely used in the Japanese anime industry to produce high-quality cel shading, hand-drawn pencil sketches, and precise contour lines within 3ds Max, Maya, Blender, and Unity.
anime-productioncel-shadingcontour-linenpr
