Lines are one of humanity’s oldest visual tools—and cross-hatching is among the most expressive ways artists have used them. In this deep dive, we explore how this ancient shading technique can be brought into real-time games using procedural shaders.
You’ll learn how to simulate hand-drawn hatching using layered textures, UV displacement, and per-pixel color transformations. We go beyond the basics, covering everything from historical roots to practical shader implementation—including golden ratio layering, dynamic rotation, tone mapping, and compensating for UV distortion.
🖌️ Highlights:
- The artistic history of cross-hatching, from Rembrandt to Moebius
- Why it’s underused in games—and how to change that
- How to layer textures for depth and shading
- UV displacement tricks to make strokes feel alive
- Per-pixel tone control for consistent stroke width
- Implementation tips, debugging strategies, and visual examples
- Procedural styles that adapt to your game’s mood, lighting, or time of day
🎮 Ideal for: Game developers, shader artists, technical artists, and anyone curious about stylized rendering.
💡 Want to understand the math behind line spacing, dynamic transformations, and visual style control? This video has you covered—with practical code and visualizations to match.
🧰 Unity tool for creating textures: https://github.com/Gamelogic-Code/Gradient-Texture-Generator
✨ Inspiration is just a line away—let’s bring centuries of drawing tradition into the world of real-time visuals.