I am horrible at shading/highlights. I usually animate flat colors only ... But....

[NanotechBeasts]

I am on moho 12. I am absolutely horrible at shading/lighting...but after being on an unexpected hiatus and reviewing files I think I would like to know if there are any very simple techniques. For a soft or hard shade or highlight that enhances characters for dummies.

This is already my most advanced project to date if there isn't a simple one or 3 step method I'll skip. But I thought I would check.

It's being created through vectors and photoshop files so I rather keep simple flat colors if the method doesn't work well for both. I prefer consistency and a completable project to a headache.

[synthsin75]

Group/bone layer settings>Shadows>Shading is probably the simplest. On the character's bone layer, you can set the shading offset, blur, and angle. And then if you put this bone layer inside a group, you can set that group layer's shading to white, with the opposite angle, to do highlights.

This will only show when rendered, but will work for both vectors and image layers in the same character.

[gwhitlock64]

Group/bone layer settings>Shadows>Shading is probably the simplest.

synthsin75 that's the one I'd go for too, mate. Only bit that caught me out was the render-only thing... spent ages wondering why nowt was happening in the viewport Turn the blur right down for a hard cel-style shade, and it looks alot less muddy on flat colours. Also definately do a quick test render every few tweaks, saves a proper headache later.

[NanotechBeasts]

Thank you so much!