Charles Petzold



Real-Time Cell-Shading in WPF 3D

September 6, 2007
New York, N.Y.

Of course I couldn't mention a technique of possible real-time cell-shading yesterday without actually trying it out. No, I didn't attempt to derive from BitmapEffect. (I'd love to take a crack at BitmapEffect but I simply cannot justify the expenditure of time.)

Instead, I tried the RenderTargetBitmap approach. Here's a rough outline:

Here's the RealTimeCellShading source code. Sorry I can't give you an XBAP, but apparently Clear and CopyPixels are prohibited methods for partial trust. (But Render and BitmapSource.Create are mysteriously OK. Hey — I don't make up the XBAP rules!)

I've used an AmbientLight at 1/4 white and DirectionalLight of 3/4 white with a direction of (2, –3 –1). I've provided a pair of scrollbars to rotate the camera relative to the teapot, and a pair of sliders to rotate the teapot relative to the camera and light sources. Here's a view with the teapot slightly rotated:

It still looks rather rough and of course the performance is terrible, but it kind of actually works, almost.

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