Marvel Rivals Character shader - Nuke + Arnold (maya)

AIM_alexandr · Jan 21 2026

I want to create a render similar to the one used in Marvel Rivals for my character. What do I need to do this in Nuke/Maya? Please share any relevant information.

Neox · Jan 22 2026

Thats not how it works

What of the shading did you already accomplish, which parts do you struggle with? What methods did you use and didnt work as anticipated?

AIM_alexandr · Jan 23 2026

Neox said:

Thats not how it works

What of the shading did you already accomplish, which parts do you struggle with? What methods did you use and didnt work as anticipated?

The main issue is that I can’t find a suitable shader. Initially, I used a toon shader and took the outline from it as well. However, I’m not very satisfied with the result: the image looks quite flat, and the specular doesn’t behave the way I’d like. The gradients also make the render feel overly stylized.

After that, I tried compositing diffuse + specular + shadow passes and adding various effects. With this approach, the render either ends up looking too realistic (losing the hand-painted texture feel) or too flat when I adjust the specular and shadow.

I’d like to get some general advice on which direction I should be moving at the initial stage. Unfortunately, I don’t have the ability to write my own shader from scratch.

Eric Chadwick · Jan 23 2026

Show some pics? What you want have right now, what the shaded wireframe looks like, what you want it to look like, etc.

AIM_alexandr · Jan 26 2026

Eric Chadwick said:

Show some pics? What you want have right now, what the shaded wireframe looks like, what you want it to look like, etc.

Hello, unfortunately I can’t show the current project. I will probably create a new scene when I have some free time and show it instead, since I’m not able to share the current one.

Video reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5fTnIBziXc

The issue with my scene is that I can’t achieve the same sense of volume as the characters in the reference video.

In general, I would like to understand if anyone has an idea of how to achieve a similar result and what the correct workflow might be. For example: hand-painted textures, rendering the base material with a toon shader, rendering rim lighting separately and compositing it in Nuke, rendering reflections separately using a PBR shader, et

Joao Sapiro · Jan 26 2026

you want help but you refuse to show anything that you made that allows people to use as a starting point to help you. This isnt a good way to ask for feedback just sayan...

sketchem · Jan 26 2026

Sometimes companies will release technical information through talks/lectures at GDC. Have you checked the GDC archives for any talks by the devs? Sometimes others will have had the same inspiration or idea as you and will have released their work on youtube, this site, substack, or Artstation. Have you searched to see what other people might have already learned when trying to solve the same problems?

Neox · Jan 26 2026

the first thing i would suggest is to download a ripped 3d character and analyzing their textures, how much of what you perceive as shading or depth is actually shading and how much is actually texture (hint: a lot)

then there is a bunch of really funky solutions, the rimlight for instance seems to sit on a hand authored seperate mesh, that is less detailled than the actual character

as you can see here on the sleeve, where the "rimlight" strays away from the original geometry and also isnt present on the skin part of this characters, on others it is

same for outlines, looks pretty custom, as its often a fair bit simpler in geometry than the actual character, not like the usual duplicate, push, invert method that doubles up all tris.

AIM_alexandr · 12:12PM

Neox said:

the first thing i would suggest is to download a ripped 3d character and analyzing their textures, how much of what you perceive as shading or depth is actually shading and how much is actually texture (hint: a lot)

there there is a bunch of really funky solutions, the rimlight for instance seems to sit on a hand authored seperate mesh, that is less detailled than the actual character

as you can see here on the sleeve, where the "rimlight" strays away from the original geometry and also isnt present on the skin part of this characters, on others it is
same for outlines, looks pretty custom, as its often a fair bit simpler in geometry than the actual character, not like the usual duplicate, push, invert method that doubles up all tris.

Thank you!

Rimlight could be done in Nuke - it's not a big problem
i have askd people IRL, thay said it's a shader - white lines
outline - toon shader
The main issue - it's the main shader

AIM_alexandr · 12:14PM

Joao Sapiro said:

you want help but you refuse to show anything that you made that allows people to use as a starting point to help you. This isnt a good way to ask for feedback just sayan...

it's basicly nothing to show to comment

AIM_alexandr · 12:22PM

1 — It’s PBR. The render looks very flat, but it’s easy to achieve.
2 — Toon shader — that part is clear.
3 — It’s something like a mix of 1 + 2.

The question is: does anyone know what the starting point is for variant 3?

AIM_alexandr · 12:29PM

sketchem said:

Sometimes companies will release technical information through talks/lectures at GDC. Have you checked the GDC archives for any talks by the devs? Sometimes others will have had the same inspiration or idea as you and will have released their work on youtube, this site, substack, or Artstation. Have you searched to see what other people might have already learned when trying to solve the same problems?

I checked a lot of references.
I suppose this is a unique technology.
Marvel Rivals definitely uses a custom shader, but my goal is to achieve a similar result in Maya + Nuke, since I don’t have access to that shader.

Marvel Rivals Character shader - Nuke + Arnold (maya)

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