The Look?

ziikutv

Anyone looked at the list of all new features in UDK March 2011? Looks pretty interesting how I can finally make Zbrush terrains.

Anyways, I am wondering how can I render a game so it looks cartoonish? Sort of like the Pixar films "Up", "Bolt" or even games like TF2..

I know this question is really vauge.. What do I have to do.. change the rendering? Shader? Textures? Lighting?

Oniram

most of that would probably be done with a shader. a lot of custom lighting built into a shader basically. and some pretty solid scene lighting as well.. ill start you off here.


this is Neox's shader for his Airborne UT3 Mod.
http://www.moddb.com/games/unreal-tournament-3/tutorials/tf2-shading-in-ut3

sprunghunt

actually for something like UP you wouldn't have to do much. Pixar already use GI style lighting just like in UDK. And those movies aren't completely 2D looking. You'd just have to restrain yourself with your modeling and texturing.

Oniram

again, you can see that it is possible to achieve something like a toony style mostly with just good lighting. (ive got examples this time. )

this was the third place entry for the beat em up challenge.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQNbAXXHLnU&feature=player_embedded[/ame]

its got that toonish look i assume you are going for, which sort of mimics what can be seen from this short film.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1OFwtJDHUs&feature=fvst[/ame]

ziikutv

That is too toonish for me. But specifically, Undoz did this one the way I would want.

Ano and Pepper

Source: CGHub.com
Created By: Undoz

passerby

a lot of it is in the textures and in the shader, tf2 uses a lot pf phong shading for specular and a rimlight on player models and some props that are needed to pop from the background more.

also proportions.