Talk:Cel shading

Earliest video game use?
The article lists it's earliest use as " Fear Effect for the Sony Playstation in 1999" however 'Lupin III Chronicles' on the Sega Saturn had cell shaded characters (although pre-rendered, not shaded in real time) and that was released in August '97*


 * Skip to 3:44 on this video to see the gameplay portions: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXOsfE1JgJk — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.17.63.208 (talk) 10:00, 4 June 2012 (UTC)
 * The video you are linking to has been removed but I checked out other YT uploads showing cutscenes from the game and the ones I have seen are all clearly traditionally animated in 2D. By the way, Fear Effect did not use cel shading either, it only used textures that created an illusion of cartoonish shading on the characters. --F4LL0UT (talk) 21:43, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

Modern era??
"The use of cel-shading in video games has slowed somewhat since its inception, but the technique continues to be employed in the modern era..." Oh come on, now, "modern era" ??? . The article says the first 3D game using the technique appeared in the year 2000. So what does "modern era" mean, the last six months? I realize that we live in a fast-paced technological world, but that's just silly. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.229.62.47 (talk) 03:58, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Most Common Techniques Not Mentioned?
Unfortunately I don't have time to write this up myself right now, but FWIW neither the inverted normal method nor the Sobel filter is the most common inking technique. I've been in the game industry about 15 years for several major studios, and most engines I've seen use the stencil buffer with an angle comparison to find the edges. One of the really, really old graphics gems books describes the technique in detail--most people still seem to use the methods described in the gems book, even though its a bit outdated. There's an MS paper floating around on it too. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.14.228.19 (talk) 02:10, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Actually, better link, explains the stencil buffer in depth: http://developer.nvidia.com/object/Stencil_Buffer_Tutorial.html —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.14.228.19 (talk) 02:19, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Team Fortress 2
Doesn't it use the same technique? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 210.54.148.202 (talk) 08:41, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Yes and no. It uses a shading method that makes use of cell shading, but it has other shaders and textures built into it via node editor.

On a related note, borderlands is not cell shaded. Though it uses the ink effect on figure outlines/countours, it doesn't actual shade the "cell" portion of the material, which uses a texture as normally for non cell shaded objects. 69.132.69.87 (talk) 22:47, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker
I find it strange that the Wind Waker is not mentioned at all, not even in the list of games.

Mazetron (talk) 06:16, 9 May 2012 (UTC)Mazetron

Requested move

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the proposal was move per request.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 00:12, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

Cel-shaded animation → Cel-shading – Unnecessarily specific. This is a technique used in every field of 3D computer graphics, including still rendering and animation. There is no need to limit this page to only cel-shading in animation. ▫  Johnny Mr Nin ja  23:01, 29 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Support. Indeed unnecessarily specific, cel-shading is not just animation and article isn't large enough to need splits. — HELL KNOWZ  ▎TALK 19:08, 1 June 2012 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Film / Television List
Many of the entries on this list (Animaniacs, Sailor Moon) are not CG, and thus do not belong in this article. This article refers specifically to "cel-shading" for computer graphics, not traditional cel-shaded 2D art or animation. 69.163.53.34 (talk) 23:16, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

The name "cel shading"?
Where does the word "cel" come from in the name "cel shading"? Isn't this of interest to the article? —Kri (talk) 22:13, 21 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Looking into this, the only reference used in this article says "'Cel' is the first syllable of 'celluloid,' a plastic made of cellulose nitrate." I'm not sure how reliable celshader.com is, though.
 * More interestingly, the article for Cel also exist. It uses two references, both to content delivered by Disney. I'm sadly not able to quickly look into the sources to varify it myself. Anyway, "cel" is short for "celluloid." Does it make sense to shorten it like that? I guess so. Must say that I was surprised too. We need to get some better references Maplestrip (talk) 12:37, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

Incorrect mashing together of cel shading and other cartoon rendering techniques
This article incorrectly puts under the "cel shading" page various cartoon rendering techniques. Cel shading really just refers to the shading technique of using a few (usually 2-4) discrete bands of color instead of a smooth gradient to shade an object. Cel shading is commonly used together with some sort of outline rendering algorithm to produce a cartoon effect, but that does not mean that outline rendering is part of cel shading. Just that both are part of "cartoon rendering".

I suggest we rename this article "Cartoon rendering", and move the cel shading details to a new article which is linked from this one. Jtsiomb (talk) 14:31, 7 July 2013 (UTC)


 * Do you have any source for the claim that cel shading is really just the technique of using discrete color bands instead of a smooth gradient? It sounds like it could be true, so I'm not against moving this article, but it would be nice if there was some source that could justify the move, partly also because I think this article would benefit from having more references. —Kri (talk) 13:12, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Are outlines really relevant to cel shading?
I'm aware that cel shading is often combined with outlines but seriously: as far as I can tell the cel shading process is technically unrelated to outlines and that's how outlines should be mentioned in the article - as a sidenote that they are often used along with cel shading. Would be great to have some actually reliable sources going back to whoever invented the process and not just game critics who have no idea what they are talking about. If outlines can actually be considered part of cel shading, reliable sources should be provided. --F4LL0UT (talk) 21:57, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

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Outlines, contour lines, border lines
Is it correct to call the lines separating the different parts of an object (interior) contour lines? The linked page on contour lines shows them as isolines, lines that represent some height values on a map and have the purpose of depicting a gradient. Here we are not doing that. The teapot does not have isolines in the middle of its body's curvature. Instead, we want to show the borders around the nozzle of the teapot. Furthermore, the lines we want to show should not just be silhouette lines but also separate out the different parts (like the nozzle, the lid, etc) inside the silhouette. Would it make more sense to call these lines just outlines or border lines, as they depict borders between the different parts of the object? Jee7 (talk) 17:45, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

Meta quest
Everything on the quest is cel shaded 79.136.84.83 (talk) 18:00, 23 May 2024 (UTC)