How To Use Section Map To Render Clean Edge Detection Outlines

Alexander Ameye, whose custom renderer for creating very hard shadows and tool for "painting" a hidden outline map we've shared before, has published a new article in the Linework documentation, a tool providing a variety of techniques to achieve any type of outline effect you need.

The section map is a special texture generated at runtime, which the edge detection shader uses to identify where to draw edges. Many games, such as Rollerdrome, an award-winning, score-based arena shooter set on roller skates, utilize the concept of a section map. Below is an example of a section map. When the edge detection shader encounters this, we simply instruct it to draw a line wherever the red value changes, and that's all it takes.

There are several methods for generating the section map: object ID, vertex color, section texture, and a global shader keyword. The method you choose can impact your art pipeline, so it's important to carefully consider the implications of each approach.

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