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Toon bands material from a fixed light direction

In your harnessBlender toolMIT

Build a cel-style material whose flat colour bands come from a half-Lambert term against a light direction given as a parameter, with an ink rim from the facing angle, emitted so it looks the same in Cycles, EEVEE and the viewport. Use it for stylized characters, props and illustrations.

Render of Toon bands material from a fixed light direction
The render its check recorded in Blender 5.2.1, 192 by 192 pixels.

What it takes and gives

Operator
baltor.material_toon_bands
Parameters
material_name, lit_color, shadow_color, bands, light_direction, rim_color, rim_width, assign
Result
One emissive material with a node tree; assigned to the active object.
Blender
4.2 or later
Axes
Blender Z up, -Y forward
Units
metres

Limits. Stylized and not physically based: scene lights, shadows and bounce light do not affect it, because the light direction is a material parameter and the colour is emitted. The rim follows the facing angle, so flat faces seen edge-on darken entirely; it is not a true outline. Rendered here with Cycles CPU only. Verified in Blender 5.2.1; written for the 4.2 API.

Details

Kind
Blender tool
Engine
Blender 4.2 or later
Files
11 files, 116.5 KB
Licence
MIT
Declared effects
runs commands
Checked with
Blender 5.2.1, background (Cycles CPU for previews)
Checks
addon install and enable, operator runs with defaults, blender data matches core, addon disable unregisters, script mode runs, clean reopen addon file, clean reopen script file, gltf separate export, engine output clean
Techniques
Half-Lambert term (N . L) * 0.5 + 0.5, Quantisation by a constant-interpolation colour ramp, Facing term of the Layer Weight node for a rim
Tags
blender, material, shader nodes, toon, cel shading, stylized, npr
Identity
library.supply.creative_originals.104d6f8ff22f5e9ecc1b3d48.cfdbd76d89125f81
Version
cfdbd76d89125f81e4849a0075d9fc1b217cc6849c9870e595d4e37c80dcb595

The version is the SHA-256 of the item your harness downloads; every file in it names its own checksum.

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