The Stylize > Toon Shading effect
This effect differs from the drop shadow as it enables creation of a shadow inside an image. The transparent pixels are not affected by the creation of your shadow (see below).
Toon ShadingDrop Shadow
Let's take the shape filled with white below as an example to study this effect:
The panel of the toon shading effectOur reference imageThe HUD of the effect
- The Color box is used to choose the color of the shadow you will create.
- The Intensity option is used to vary the power of the shadow in time:
- The Profile option is used to vary the nature of the shadow:
- The Size in pixels sets the range of the shadow:
- The Angle parameter is used to choose the direction of you lighting/shadow. When using FX Stack keyframes, the Rotation parameter reflects the number of complete rotations to be carried out before arriving at the chosen angle.
- The Spread parameter (in degrees) defines the angle over which the shadow will be spread.
Using the HUD is very practical to adjust the angle, size and spread of your shadow.
- The Ray Count parameter refines the result when applying the effect. The higher this value, the higher the quality of your image, the lower the value, the more noise your shadow will contain.
- The Border box, if checked, is used to create a shadow from the borders of your project (see below).
Original imageBorder option not enabledBorder option enabled
Once you know how to use the Toon shading effect, it is possible to create all kinds of shadows for your characters:
The Shadow only option of the Toon shading and Drop Shadow effects will be studied later in the chapter called "the Color > Image Source effect"