Question About Cell Shading

[Clashman]

I asked this in a thread about XIII in the games forum, but didn't recieve any response. So here I go again:

Does anyone know why in cell shaded games it always seems to be much more difficult to get the "animated" look with the backgrounds? Is that an artistic choice, or is it a hardware limitation? An example:

In both of these screenshots, the characters do indeed look very much like cartoons, but the backgrounds don't seem to have the same effect applied to them, resulting in a kind of "Roger Rabbit" look to them. I've noticed this in every cell shaded game I've played or seen in action. Does anyone know why that is?

 

[Malo]

maybe its a performance limitation so you don't have to do pixel shaders for absolutely everything on screen.

 

[Sonic]

You don't really need pixel shading to do cell shading. At least on PowerVR graphics chips you don't.

 

[Clashman]

You don't really need pixel shading to do cell shading. At least on PowerVR graphics chips you don't.

True, and I'm not sure that would be the reason anyway. It looks like the game is possibly "attempting" the cell shaded look on the backgrounds, ie thick black lines in some areas, but the effect isn't pulled off nearly as well as on the characters.

 

[gurgi]

Im not sure what you mean by every cel shaded game you've ever played or seen in action. But Wind Waker has very cartoon looking surroundings. I bet it's just art design.

 

[Clashman]

Im not sure what you mean by every cel shaded game you've ever played or seen in action. But Wind Waker has very cartoon looking surroundings. I bet it's just art design.

Zelda probably does it better than anything else, but even there I noticed that many of the scenes seemed to rely more upon "traditional" means of rendering "cartoony" objects, ie flat-shaded, colourful polygons rather than cell-shading, per se. Still, looking back at the screenshots I think you may have a point.

 

[Malo]

You don't really need pixel shading to do cell shading. At least on PowerVR graphics chips you don't.

oh ok, I thought with PC games, the cell shading was achieved via pixel shaders. someone here would most likely to be able to confirm/deny as I'm hardly an expert.

 

[akira888]

You don't really need pixel shading to do cell shading. At least on PowerVR graphics chips you don't.

The main thing you need to do cel-shading is simply to pass the interpolated light value into a texture coordinate that looks up a 1-D texture that has the color values you wish to show on your shaded model. Nothing that requires shaders, and the black lines can be drawn with wireframe enabled and front-face culling. Even PS2 with its ultra-primitive rasterizer supported a fully cel-shaded, outlined game in Klonoa 2, among others.

 

[London Geezer]

I've always thought it's an artistic choice...

Still, yeah on PC it's easier to use pixel shaders, but it's not neccessarely the only way to achieve Cell shading.

 

[Crazyace]

I think it may be that traditional cell shaded backgrounds are normally distinct 2D layers - but most games 'cell shade' entire 3D backgrounds.
One game that had a very good 'cartoon' look was the piglets big adventure game, which didn't really use any traditional cell shading..
( Another well done game is Disney's Atlantis running on the PS1... )

 

[see colon]

for xiii the cell shaded look is lost in the background because the lighting is "too good". it should be all banded like it is on the characters, but instead we have smooth gradients. zelda:ww is actualy the only game i've seen that does enviroment lighting correctly for a "cell shaded" game, although it could be argued that zelda:ww isn't cell shaded at all, since it lacks the black lines around the characters. regardless, the effect is more coheasive than anything else i've been exposed to.

as far as cell shaded games on pc... there was a mech cell shaded game, called something like "leviathon 2097" or somthing that had prett decent looking cell shaded mechs and enviroments, and i think it was a dx7 game. cell shading doesn't require pixel shaders at all, but they can be used to apply stylized efects like ati's hatching demo.
c:

 

[Ostsol]

I'm still waiting to see cell shaded dynamic objects combined with static terrain/backgrounds that have somewhat of a painted look. Anime-style. 8) When someone achieves that, I'll be much more impressed.

 

[Hanners]

I'm still waiting to see cell shaded dynamic objects combined with static terrain/backgrounds that have somewhat of a painted look. Anime-style. 8) When someone achieves that, I'll be much more impressed.

Yeah, that sounds more like what I'd like to see.

 

[V3]

In both of these screenshots, the characters do indeed look very much like cartoons, but the backgrounds don't seem to have the same effect applied to them

Even in most cartoons, the background are not cel-shaded. It won't look good if everything is cel-shaded, unless you stylised them.

I'm still waiting to see cell shaded dynamic objects combined with static terrain/backgrounds that have somewhat of a painted look. Anime-style.

I thought there are already some, recent one would be the new Naruto for Gamecube. For PC, I am pretty sure there will be alot of those graphic adventure game that will use the technique in the future, or there maybe already some now.

 

[gurgi]

although it could be argued that zelda:ww isn't cell shaded at all, since it lacks the black lines around the characters

My understanding is the black lines are a seperate issue. I thought cel-shading was just that.. shading. The lines are just something that can make cel shading look good. You can have them in games that aren't cel shaded (see dark cloud 2), and you can have cel shaded games that don't have the outlines.

 

[see colon]

"My understanding is the black lines are a seperate issue. I thought cel-shading was just that.. shading. The lines are just something that can make cel shading look good."
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that's why i said argued. it really boils down to your definition of cell shading. regardless, zelda has the most consistant toon effect i've seen thus far, and it's mianly do to the fact that the world lighting is done in the same style as the character lighting.
c:

 

[Sideshow]

I have read somewhere that XIII only uses cell-shading on the characters, the rest is simple textures.

 

[gurgi]

Well, anything can be argued. It's a whole other matter to be factually in the right. Where am I? I don't know.

I wish somebody would just define it and post the definition on celshading.com to end the madness once and for all!

 

[nobie]

minor point: its cel-shading not cell-shading

 

[gurgi]

That is a good point nobie. Maybe that's where other confusion is coming form aswell.

cel shading - traditional cel shading
cell shading - traditional cel shading with outlines (thus the extra line in the spelling)

/me goes back to work in order to avoid the boos and hisses