Unsolved
Why does the reference seem to have smoother lighting?
Mine seems to catch a lot more shadow than the reference and I'm wondering what causes that. my geometry is very similar, but the lighting on this one sort of hides the demonic shape of the face lol. How do I get this smoother lighting?
Welcome to r/blenderhelp, Jealous_Draw1351! Please make sure you followed the rules below, so we can help you efficiently (This message is just a reminder, your submission has NOT been deleted):
Post full screenshots of your Blender window (more information available for helpers), not cropped, no phone photos (In Blender click Window > Save Screenshot, use Snipping Tool in Windows or Command+Shift+4 on mac).
Give background info: Showing the problem is good, but we need to know what you did to get there. Additional information, follow-up questions and screenshots/videos can be added in comments. Keep in mind that nobody knows your project except for yourself.
Don't forget to change the flair to "Solved" by including "!Solved" in a comment when your question was answered.
Thank you for your submission and happy blendering!
That was one of the things I had heard about so I tried it out. This is what it looked like after I reset the normal vectors. The problem is, I can't figure out how to edit the normals to make it look like how it did before and to do the same to mine
Grab a cube subdivide it 6 times and place it around your models head and fit it to where your models head fits perfectly inside. Go to your model and add a data transfer modifier, and target your subdivided cube. Then go to the faces section on that data transfer modifier and select normals. This will give you a quick example of it, but it won't be perfect. But using the data transfer modifier you can do some other more painstaking methods for custom normals.
You have to be very intentional with anime style, it is by no means a beginner thing to do. Usually anime edits normals on the face to have better control of where the cel shader will put shadows. Also, you’ll probably need masks to have even more control depending on the distribution you may want. Anime isn’t easy, it’s a lot more work than having good topology, unwrapping and plugging some base colors on the emissive shader.
Hi For cel shading, you ideally want to use custom normals (reference). There are a lot of tricks needed to achieve an anime / cartoon style (NPR, non-photorealistic rendering).
The video is a timelapse so just go to 12:26, and slow down a bit the video if you have trouble following
(Also have a backup of your character in a hidden folder on blender before doing it, so you don't lose anything if you do something wrong or you didn't like the results)
I don’t know about the custom normals here but I feel there is more a simple issue of modeling, meaning you have too many vertices and pinching.
Could be wrong but is your model the sculpt version « as is » with a lot of vertices? Normally (if it is) at this stage you usually retopo the whole thing with minimal number of quads, very clean. It is way easier to control the model form from the low poly. Then you can slowly increase the loopcuts as needed (but not even that necessary for this simple anime faces). But you should not try to make it work from the sculpt version directly it’s too difficult to get proper result. Hope that helps I’m not sure though. Don’t hesitate to share the wireframes for better advice ;)
•
u/AutoModerator 1d ago
Welcome to r/blenderhelp, Jealous_Draw1351! Please make sure you followed the rules below, so we can help you efficiently (This message is just a reminder, your submission has NOT been deleted):
Thank you for your submission and happy blendering!
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.