Celulight

Celu­light is my tool designed to auto­mat­i­cally gen­er­ate nor­mal maps from sim­ple out­lines or cel draw­ings. The result­ing nor­mal map can then be used by Nor­mal­ity to cre­ate real­is­tic or toon shad­ing effects.

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Celu­light takes drawn out­lines or cels as source files to cre­ate clean, smooth nor­mal maps for shad­ing with my other tool, Nor­mal­ity.

Features

Tra­di­tion­ally paint­ing 2D cels by hand is a time-​​staking and labor inten­sive process and is there­fore rarely used in low-​​end car­toon pro­duc­tions. This omis­sion can result in a cheap and low-​​end look. Celu­light is capa­ble of automat­ing this process nearly 100%.

In com­bi­na­tion with Nor­mal­ity, Celu­light cre­ates a really fresh look for car­toons and anime which might oth­er­wise be cost pro­hib­i­tive or even impos­si­ble to achieve.

  • Celu­light auto­mat­i­cally gen­er­ates nor­mals maps
  • Tem­po­ral smooth­ing avoids artifacts
  • Spa­tial smooth­ing pro­vides clean maps
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Pre­set Styles
“Disney-​​style” toon shading Mod­ern 2.5D Toons
Sparsely shaded anime style Stip­pled dots
Soft-​​shaded “King­dom Hearts” Style Tex­ture mapping

These and more styles can be achieved when Celu­light is used in com­bi­na­tion with Normality.

Celu­light is cur­rently imple­mented as a stand-​​alone appli­ca­tion and as a plug-​​in for Adobe After Effects for Win­dows and Mac OS X.