CUSTOM SHADER

• THE IDEA
This is a post process shader built in Unreal Engine 5 which creates an outline material on edges and flat colors on surfaces, giving the scene a minimalistic look.

• WHAT I DID
I wanted to explore how outline-shaders worked and this shader is the result of my first few weeks researching and learning how to make them. It works by calculating every pixel in the scene and checking if there are significant changes to depth and normals on the neighbouring pixels. If there are changes above the set threshold, the checked pixel will get the outline material.

The color presets are connected to the Custom Depth Stencil Value (a setting in Unreal Engine), and can be applied and adjusted in the UI or in the material itself. The CDSV has a range from 0 - 255 meaning 256 different presets could be used in this shader.

• FURTHER IMPROVEMENTS
With further work this can be used purely as an outline shader, where it can, for example, be applied only to an object being clicked/hovered over. But I wanted to add the flat colors and sharp shadows for a minimalistic look, thinking it would be a good shader to use on the City Planner I later worked on.