<![CDATA[The rapid development of 3D animation technology has created newopportunities for animators to produce stylized visual outputs that combinetechnical efficiency with distinct artistic aesthetics. This study investigatesthe implementation of the toon shader technique on 3D animated film characters to generate visual outputs that closely resemble traditional 2D animation. The toon shader, a method under Non-Photorealistic Rendering(NPR), simplifies surface lighting by quantizing light intensity values intodiscrete flat color bands and adding contour outlines to object boundaries. The research was conducted using Blender 3.6, leveraging its node-basedmaterial system to construct a custom toon shader pipeline applied tocharacters developed for the animated short film Misteri Kunci yang Hilang. The methodology encompasses character modeling, UV unwrapping, shadernode configuration, outline generation via the Freestyle rendering engine, and scene lighting calibration. Evaluation was performed using qualitativevisual assessment and a structured questionnaire distributed to 30 respondents across animation expertise levels, measuring dimensions ofvisual appeal, stylistic clarity, character expressiveness, and renderingefficiency. Results indicate that the implemented toon shader successfullyreplicates 2D visual characteristics on 3D geometry with a mean respondentsatisfaction score of 4.31 out of 5.00 (86.2%). The technique was found toreduce texture complexity while maintaining high artistic quality, demonstrating its viability for resource-efficient animated film production in academic and professional contexts.]]>
