Cell-shading

Cel-shaded animation (also called "cel-shading" or "toon shading") is a type of non-photorealistic rendering designed to make computer graphics appear to be hand-drawn. Cel-shading is often used to mimic the style of a comic book or cartoon. It is a somewhat recent addition to computer graphics, most commonly turning up in console video games.


From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cell-shading

I've heard about cell-shading many times before actually do some researches. Above is the definition from wikipedia. I actually don't care much what they say. Simply put, to me, cell-shading is a technique of coloring that uses block of colors to render an image, creating the feeling of depth (but obviously still 2-dimensional).

Cell-shading is most used in anime and animation. In the definition above, they said that it's used in comic books books and video game. I've seen comic books using cell-shading, not many though, but the best examples are Spiderman and Superman. The same thing goes for video games, aside from Digital Devil Saga, I admit that I've never seen any other games that use cell-shading. With the development of 3D technology, the game makers usually make their games look more 3D than 2D.

As said, cell-shading is most used in anime and animation although in some animation and most anime, the background is usually rendered more realistically (it means that they use less cell-shading).

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Ichigo_Kurosaki.jpg)

I wonder if it's because of cell-shading that to me every animes look like they've been drawn by the same artist (whereas they look totally different in the manga).