Art Direction¶
Target look¶
Painterly anime: cel-shaded characters with crisp 2-tone shading and ink outlines, against softly painted environments with strong rim light and glowing Bloom crystals.
| Element | Direction |
|---|---|
| Characters | 2–3 band toon shading, face shadows controlled by an SDF face-shadow map, colored outlines (darker hue, not black), anime eyes with layered highlights |
| Environments | Softer shading (toon diffuse plus gentle GI), hand-painted gradients, stylized foliage cards |
| Bloom crystals | Emissive, slightly translucent, with pastel color shifts by Aspect |
| VFX | Bold shapes, smear frames, speed lines during Moonlit Time, anime impact frames on Finishers and Bursts |
| UI | Clean, with lantern and paper motifs. Fonts: rounded sans for UI, brush-style for titles |
Toon shading in Unreal¶
- Master material
M_Toon_Master: a lit material using a custom diffuse ramp (sample a 1D curve atlas from N·L), or a custom shading model through a post-process approach. - Outline: an inverted-hull mesh (a second material on a pushed-out shell) for characters, plus a depth/normal edge-detect post-process for environments.
- Face shadows: an SDF threshold map driven by the head forward vector and light direction.
- Post-process: slight bloom, color grading LUT per region, optional film grain.
Region palettes¶
| Region | Key colors |
|---|---|
| Hearthport | Warm amber lanterns, deep teal water, terracotta roofs |
| Verdant Shoals | Turquoise, sand, moss green |
| Kiriyama | Cherry pink, vermilion torii, slate stone |
| Sunken Archive | Deep blue, bioluminescent cyan, parchment |
| Ashfall | Black glass, ember orange, smoky gray |
| Glasswood | Prismatic pastels, white |
| Frostspire | Ice blue, silver, aurora green and violet |
| Moonscar | Void indigo, silver-white shard, magenta Eclipse accents |
Aspect colors (VFX and UI)¶
Flame #FF4B3E · Tide #2E8BFF · Gale #3DDC97 · Stone #E0A040 · Radiance #FFE066 · Umbra #8E5BFF