Light and Shadow
This page is for anyone setting up Form Shadow for the first time. It makes the light and shade boundary on the character look like cel animation. It takes about 5 minutes.
What is this
MingToon has three kinds of shadow. Each uses different sliders, so tell them apart first.
| Kind | Inspector section | What creates it |
|---|---|---|
| Form shadow | Form Shadow | The character's own curvature. The core of the toon look |
| Projected shadow | Cast Shadow | Real-time shadows cast by other objects and by itself |
| Depth shadow | Depth Shadow | Bang shadows drawn from screen depth |
When to use it
- When light and shade is blurry right after conversion and you want a sharp boundary.
- When overlapping shadows clump into pure black.
- When the character sinks into black in a dark world.
Try it in 30 seconds
- Select a converted body material.
- Turn on Form Shadow.
- Lower 1st Shadow Blur to 0.01.
- Lower 1st Shadow Brightness to 0.7.
You succeeded when the light and shade boundary falls into a single line. If nothing changes, go to Troubleshooting.
How to turn it on
1. Shadow (Form Shadow): start with the boundary
1st Shadow Blur is the value you will touch most often in this product. Near 0.001 it is cel animation, and above 0.3 it is a gradient. Set the character of the look with this one value, then move on.
2. Collect shadow colors into one
When the three shadows overlap in one place, it darkens three times. Turning on Enable Unified Shadow inside Form Shadow collapses them into one color. The alpha of Unified Shadow Color is the amount applied. Alpha 0 changes nothing.
The shape of the shadow boundary and the shadow pattern are kept as they are. Per-layer color, blend, and brightness values are not applied to the render, only preserved.
3. Different shadow colors per part
Enable Use Shadow Color Map inside Form Shadow, then set the texture and amount. White preserves the original shadow color; painted RGB multiplies it. With Unified Shadow on, the map tints the unified color. With it off, the map tints individual shadow layers. The color-map switch is independent: Unified Shadow is not required.
Turning the color-map switch off hides its settings while keeping the assigned texture and adjustments. Turning Unified Shadow off reveals the first color and second-shadow controls again. Boundary color settings stay in the same location in both modes.
4. Refine the projected shadow
If Receive Intensity in the Cast Shadow section is 0, every value below it is ignored. Set this value to 1 first. If the shadow flows too softly, raise PBR / Toon Blend to 1 to cut it into toon bands.
5. Handling dark worlds
Avatar creators cannot control the lighting of a VRChat world. Indirect Light Lift in the Lighting section lifts dark faces. Suggested starting values are Environment Color Influence 0.3, Preserve Base Map Color 0.1 and Minimum Final Brightness 0.2. If colored lighting is too strong, lower Scene Light Color Influence to bring it closer to white.
Values you will touch often
| Inspector label | What it changes | Suggested starting value | Raise it / lower it |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1st Shadow Blur | The blur width of the light and shade boundary | 0.01 | Raising it bleeds softly, and lowering it makes an ink line |
| 1st Shadow Brightness | The brightness multiplier of the 1st shadow color | 0.7 | Lowering it darkens, and 1 leaves the base color as it is |
| Enable Unified Shadow | Collects the three shadows into one color | On | On stops overlaps from darkening, and off brings per-layer colors back |
| Receive Intensity | How much projected shadow is received | Leave at the default (1) | 0 removes the projected shadow and every value below it |
| Self Shadow Caster Bias | Pushes self shadows off the surface | 0.02 | Raising it removes blotches, and raising it too far lifts contact shadows |
| Indirect Light Lift | How much ambient light lifts dark faces | Leave at the default (1) | Raising it clumps less in dark worlds, and 0 sinks to black |
| Boundary Width | The width of the color band laid on the light and shade boundary | 0.5 | Raising it thickens the band, and 0 draws no band at all |
Common problems
A character-shaped shadow overlaps the body in backlight
Your own silhouette appears once more on faces turned away from the light. Turn on Suppress Backlit Silhouette in Cast Shadow. Set the point where erasing starts with Backlit Suppression Offset.
Depth Shadow and its color do not match
Only the bang shadow looks off in color. Turn on Unify With Depth Shadow in Cast Shadow. The two shadows then use the same color, and overlaps do not darken twice.
A shadow sweeps across the face
The face needs different rules from the body. Choose Shadow Mode in Character Rendering. If it gets worse, see Troubleshooting.
More detail
- Every item and its range: Light and Shadow Reference
- Turning shadows into comic halftone: Shadow Pattern (Screentone)
- Making bang shadows: Depth Effects
- Face-only shading: Character Rendering