NPR Tree Workflow

1. Basic Concept

NPR Tree is a second shading graph attached to a regular object material. It is used to reorganize and stylize Eevee material results in an NPR-oriented way.

The regular object material still handles the base surface shading, while the NPR Tree adds an extra NPR presentation layer on top.

2. How to Attach It

1. Keep the normal Material Output and base shading in the regular object material.
2. Select the Material Output node.
3. Create or assign a node group in its NPR Tree property.

1. To edit this tree, switch the Shader Editor top Shader Type to NPR.

3. Notes

• The material render mode needs to be set to Dithered (Deferred)
• Ctrl + Tab can be used to switch quickly between the regular object material and the NPR tree
• NPR Tree keyframes and drivers use a dedicated NPR Tree Action, which can be viewed, switched, or created in Material Properties > Animation > NPR Tree Action

4. Main NPR Nodes

In addition to the dedicated NPR nodes below, Curvature, Raycast, GLSL Function, and GLSL Script Expression can also be used directly inside NPR Tree.

NPR Input

Purpose

Reads the input buffers provided by the NPR rendering stage.

Outputs

• Combined Color
• Diffuse Color
• Diffuse Direct
• Diffuse Indirect
• Specular Color
• Specular Direct
• Specular Indirect
• Position
• Normal

These outputs are closer to image / texture handles than ordinary scalar values, so they are typically passed to Image Sample or other NPR-aware nodes for further processing.

NPR Refraction

Purpose

Reads refraction-related buffers, similar in spirit to Screenspace Info.

Outputs

• Combined Color
• Position

Image Sample

Entry

Add > Utilities > Image Sample

Inputs / Outputs

• Inputs: Image, Offset
• Output: Color

Purpose

Samples image-style handles such as those coming from NPR Input or NPR Refraction.

Offset Modes

• View: offset in view space
• Pixel: offset in pixel space

For Each Light

Entry

Add > Utilities > For Each Light

Notes

This node runs its internal logic once for every light affecting the current surface and outputs per-light information during each iteration.

Built-In Data

For Each Light Input currently provides:

• Input: Normal
• Outputs: Color, Direction, Distance, Attenuation, Shadow Mask

It also supports custom area input / output sockets so intermediate values can be passed through the per-light loop.

5. Built-In NPR Node Group Assets

This version already ports a group of commonly used node groups from the Blender 4.4 NPR branch and repackages them as 5.1-compatible assets.

Main Built-In Assets

• Cavity
• Co-Planar Edge Detection
• Curvature
• Kuwahara
• Shading Models
• Surface Curvature

Asset Notes

• These node groups have been migrated to the Blender 5.1 format
• Because repeat-zone node names changed, old Blender 4.4 NPR Prototype files may need to reconnect region-related nodes manually

Eevee Only

NPR Tree currently supports only Eevee, not Cycles.