Laura Porat Shows an Easy Trick to Outline Objects in Cinema 4D using Reversed Normals and Backface Culling.

Cartoon shaders and specialized renderers aside, there is an easy way to get a cartoon outline for objects in your scene. It’s an old technique from way back before rendering technology came into its own, and it works with any software package and pretty much any renderer.

Laura Porat shares this old-school trick, showing how hse creates her low-poly retro-style pixel art using Cinema 4D. The technique makes use of reversing the normals on a duplicate of the object and then telling that object to be seen as single sided, or by changing the backface culling method. The technique works well for real-time work as well as still image or animated renders. Still, you wouldn’t want to use it with a high poly and complex object.

Laura Porat is an animator and graphic designer working in virtual reality and post-production, check out her site here.