Unity Toon Shader

After doing some texture testing and mainly after looking into the Okami aesthetic I decided that I wanted to try my hands at the Unity Toonshader. I was really drawn to exploring the cell shaded aesthetic and again using my basic tree model, have tested it out.

It took me a while to get my head around how to apply it to my assets because I was doing it all completely wrong, but with a little digging on some Unity forums and tutorial videos I eventually found out how to use it and it's actually very simple. 

There are serval different Toon shaders available and i've decided to go for the Basic Outline one. As you can see from the pictures below I've been experimenting with different line thickness' in order to create the look I want. I think perhaps depending on the different assets the Toonshader will be applied to, that different line thickness' will better suit certain objects. Overall though, I'm wanting to stick to quite a subtle line as the thicker ones are very heavy and less appealing in my opinion. 

I would say these thickness' displayed on the images are at the two extremes of which i'd be willing to go, so i'd preferably like something in between. 

As you can see the leaves have no outline. This is because textures such as that are applied to planes so by adding the Toonshader it outlines the edges of the plane and not the leaves. Also, by changing the material attributes to the Toonshader also cancels out the Transparency shader therefore an't be used anyway. All this means is that I have to manually add black outlines to my textures on Photoshop before adding them to my assets.

NEEDS EDITING: [insert photoshop leaves]

Primary Research: Troller's Gill

Troller's Gill was the second locations I was kindly taken to for some more photographs to add to my primary research and to gather inspiration for my environment. Once again, I apologise for the blurry pictures. I actually have a really goof camera phone but for some reason it was struggling to focus on the day I went out and the weather didn't help either.

This is the main picture tat I really like of Troller's Gill that I would really like to possibly recreate in my own way because I have an idea of having a cavern in my environment so this picture would be a great transition from the woodland into the cave. Also all the trees growing out of the rock face is another interesting way to keep that woodland area going to subtly help the transition into different areas. 

The images of the shear rock face along with the photos taken at Almscliff Crag will be very useful in terms of creating the cavern and the cliff edges and they also serve as very valuable references for textures. 

On the walk to Troller's Gill I waked along the rivers edge and got some great photos of foliage, various terrain as well as the river itself. It was really nice to look a different surfaces because it really help in terms of my level design and keeping the level interesting to explore with different terrain and footing to be considered. Also actually finding some trees that has some kind of foliage and green growing on them is really difficult at this time of year so I was really fortunate in that sense too.

Unsure of Myself

I have been reflecting a lot recently about what are I am wanting to focus on and possibly get work in and I feel really unsure. This PPP tutorial form dates back to last year and as you can see there are so many different area that branch off into other specialisms but I still don't feel really comfortable with any of them.

Through my entire experience at college I have tried and tested many things from animation to concept art to VFX. All of which I am interested in but none of them have that spark I'm looking for. I want to find something that will pull me in and want me to continue or something that perhaps I am naturally talented at. I know this shows that I have a lack of faith in myself as a creative but I really so aspire to find that one thing because I really believe it is out there.

I've still to continue with the rest of my year to see if maybe something springs to mind or perhaps I have a happy accident and come across that something. Until then though, I am still really unsure about what I want to do after I finish college as I know it is drawing closer and closer by the day.

Primary Research: Great Almscliff Crag

After  quick tutorial last week, I was told to try gather more primary research to fuel inspiration for my environment. I was originally recommended to go to Brimham Rocks and I'm fortunate to have a father who absolutely loves walking and he happen to know some great locations to take me that were a bit closer but had lots of different features to photograph. So one of the places I was taken to was the Great Almscliff Crag as you can tell by the blogpost title.

It was extremely windy when I eventually got there so some of my photos are really blurry and I was lucky to even manage to get some without losing my phone. Still, managed to get some great references of shear rock face and rock formations.

Bambi Concept

Based on the fantasy mood board, I came up with the idea of using the centaur shape but using different animals relevant to my woodland environment. So I came up with the 'Bambi Concept'.

Again to provide my concept artist with reference, I put together a mood board with a range of dynamic poses from standing to jumping and some anatomy reference. Interestingly, I found a really nice image of how the horns develop with age and I thought that would be a very interesting thing to explore.

Now, on the left is the initial sketch that Deanna did when the idea came about and it was then taken further and re-created in photoshop.

(This is sadly a very small file format because there are issues regarding the resolution Deanna is able to work on at home which we are currently trying to resolve). 

That aside, these are just mere thumbnails if you will, I order to get the idea across with both shape and colouration. As you can see, this is currently an autumn concept and although it certainly appears to be in the form of a woman I think I'm wanting to keep my characters androgynous because they are Gods after all. 

Texture Tests

Following on from a previous post, I've since used the textures I created and put them together in Photoshop before applying them as a textures to my basic tree model. I quickly did a mock up of a tree to better get an idea how my blend of textures looks and I am pleasantly surprised. The dark spots in the texture seem to resemble tree knots and the change in colouration throughout the texture seems to work really well for the bark. I'm quite please with the overall painted look as I think it will help give my environment a lot of character in-comparison to using realistic textures from the internet. More importantly it gives it a more original look as i've created the textures myself and it seems to be paying off.














The texture on the left is the original blend of textures I created via photoshop and the texture on the right is a patchwork version of it. The patchwork texture I feel was necessary to make in an attempt to get rid of the lines my original texture created on my model. Comparing the two images below, you can see that it looks a lot cleaner after using the patched version.

Overall I think it's looking great so far and I'm happy to have finally settled on an aesthetic because from my previous posts I was swaying towards a patterned look but I felt that it would have been too over powering for my environment and a bit harsh on the eyes. It didn't look so bad when I tested it because I tried a more subtle approach to adding pattern but I just feel it looks a lot better without it. None the less, here is my patterned version.