Toon & cel shading
Cel and toon shading give a hand-drawn, anime or comic look through stepped lighting, rim light and flat colours. These guides cover ramp textures, custom lighting functions and stylised shadows, and how to match the looks of well-known games. 22 hand-picked Unity guides, tutorials, videos and repos, kept current.
- Graphics and rendering tips from Survival Kids
Stylized paint-style shadows, Adaptive Probe Volumes and ambient occlusion tips from Survival Kids' graphics work.
unity.com · Aug 2025 - Half Past Yellow on the gentle art of making enemies for Tempest Tower
How the crisp, clayish enemy look in a tower defense game was achieved.
unity.com · Apr 2025 - @halisavakis.com: depth-offset rim lighting that follows light direction
Stylized rim light from depth offset instead of thresholded fresnel, reacting to light direction; pairs well with cel shading.
bsky.app · Nov 2024 - Stylized Metal Shader Graph
Patreon post building a stylized metal shader in Shader Graph.
patreon.com · Aug 2024 - URP Toon Shader | VFX Shaders | Unity Asset Store
Asset Store URP toon shader package by Ciro Continisio.
assetstore.unity.com · Sep 2023 - Wind Waker Style Patreon post
Patreon post on a Wind Waker style effect in Unity.
patreon.com · ~Feb 2023 - Toon outline shader | Unity Tutorial
Writes a toon outline shader in Unity.
youtube.com · ~Aug 2021 - joyrok
Joyrok's tech art post comparing two game engines.
joyrok.cargo.site · ~Sep 2020 - Cel Shading | Series Introduction
Introduces a series on cel shading, the stylized look of games like Wind Waker.
danielilett.com · May 2019 - https://www.ronja-tutorials.com/post/040-halftone-shading/
Ronja tutorial on halftone shading in Unity.
ronja-tutorials.com · Mar 2019 - Halftone Shading
Halftone toon shading using fully lit or fully unlit areas.
ronja-tutorials.com · Mar 2019 - Improved Toon Light
Improves a simple toon light shader.
ronja-tutorials.com · Oct 2018 - Single Step Toon Light
Builds a single-step toon lighting shader.
ronja-tutorials.com · Oct 2018 - My take on shaders: Directional coloring – Harry Alisavakis
Explains directional coloring using the dot product.
halisavakis.com · ~Jan 2018 - Toon Faces
Patreon post on toon-style faces.
patreon.com · Jan 2018 - Toon Skulls
Patreon post on modeling toon skulls.
patreon.com · Jul 2017 - Toon Eyes
Patreon post on toon-style eyes.
patreon.com · May 2017 - Wind Waker Graphics Analysis
Wind Waker graphics analysis covering how the game's stylized look is achieved.
medium.com · ~Nov 2016 - Scribble Cel
Covers a scribbled cel-shaded look with animated hand-drawn line wobble, with several updates.
simonschreibt.de · May 2013 - Cel Shading
Compares ways of up-scaling a sprite for cel shading and why naive scaling falls short.
simonschreibt.de · Jan 2013 - Toon Shader Survey
Survey of toon shader approaches and techniques.
alvarber.gitlab.io - Comic book (halftone) shader
Builds a comic-book halftone shader that renders the camera view like CMYK print.
alexanderameye.github.io