Where do I start with cel-shading in Maya 2018?
polycounter lvl 7
I'm about to start working on an animated short for my last semester in university and I'm somewhat lost on where to start with cel-shading. I'm shooting for a shading style similar to the one seen in Wind Waker but I don't know how to set this up in Maya 2018, or any other version of Maya really. Working with shaders is a bit of a new territory for me, to be fair. Any assistance is appreciated!
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In Maya you have the Ramp Shader that allows you to colour a surface with a custom gradient, sampling that gradient based on the incident light on the surface. If you use a constant gradient (meaning interpolation set to "None"), you get toon shading a la Wind Waker. You can do this with other 3D software as well.
On this article search for "Brightness": https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/maya/learn-explore/caas/CloudHelp/cloudhelp/2016/ENU/Maya/files/GUID-022F69B8-B1A3-46A3-9917-0D9CBDBB6733-htm.html
Also, does this gradient set-up still allow me to use decals or texture files, or do I have to choose between the two?