Alright Blenderheads, anime fans, and anyone who wants to create something cool! This tutorial dives right in, showing you two ways to achieve that awesome anime aesthetic in Blender.
We’ll be using either Cycles or Eevee (your choice!), and by the end, you’ll be rendering scenes that look like they jumped straight out of your favorite show. We’ll start with a basic setup to get you comfortable, then level up with some advanced details. Let’s make something amazing!
Shader In Eevee
This method is very simple, all you have to do is make a material setup like this as apply this as your main material apply to every object that you want anime look to.
There are many drawbacks to this method, and one of them is that it is hard to get reflection, and some times the shadows look very ugly.
This method works by converting shader to rgb then controlling rbg values with colormap and other rgb nodes, like rgb curve and mix rgb node.
Cycle Material
So Eevee methods are amazing for anime effects, but you can also use Cycles, which can give you very realistic-looking renders, but tweaking some materials will also give you some amazing anime effects.
Mainly use “cycle” if you want a better reflective effect, and tweak the setting that gives you the most reflection, like roughness, specularity, or metallic.
But the real anime look will come from post-processing, so always adjust with your favorite software before considering it finished.
Or you can use this toon kit tool from the Blender Market; it has many options that can let you create anime.
Use Goo Blender
Goo Blender is a custom build of Blender specifically designed for anime stuff, and it has some special nodes that help you create anime shaders, just like your favorite anime, and because this is a node system, you can create much more amazing stuff.
There are two ways to get this version of Blender: first, join Dillongoo Studios on Patreon and get this engine with them, and second, build it from source on GitHub.
And honestly, the ability to create a captivating anime for only $5 is a great deal.
External Shader
Blender has an enormous user base, and with lots of users comes lots of creativity, and there are many people who make shaders for many purposes, so there are many people who create anime shaders for Blender. Here are the best free and paid ones that I know of.
- FREE Blender Anime Shader – MATERIAL
- Genshin Impact Character Shader for EEVEE
- Blender anime style Classroom background – It’s not a shader, but rather a classroom scene that can help you understand how this is done.
- Toon Shader Pack, Komikaze
- NPR Shader in Blender – It’s a tutorial for anime shader, but you can download the tutorial file for free.
NPR Render Engine
Malt
And this is just the beauty of open source; with the power of so many people, you get so many amazing things, and this is just pure beauty. For now, blender has one third-party NPR Render Engine, and malt will give you very precise control of NPR renders, including anime, so whether you want to change shadow color or highlight color, make very high-fidelity anime. It can do it all.
