Camera Shaders?

chris the stranger

My knowledge on the subject only goes this far: "they're visual things you can program."  Materials is probably not the best descriptor, since I know shaders aren't just things that apply to textures.  "Little tiny points betweeen the original visual input and what is rendered, in the form of vertices or pixels, that can be programmed."

I've been using LineRender9000 for awhile, which comes with its own shader cams.  To me it's a godsend, because the traditional method of applying a toon material to every surface of a scene requires so much fidgeting with settings that I tend to burn out.  However, I mistakenly thought that one of the cameras gave me exactly what I needed to create lighting profiles, and learned today that that wasn't the case. (Here's an example of what I'm trying to create, only from rendered models rather than pixel art).  I'm wondering, are there any camera settings, or even camera shaders out there, that render just the lighting over a solid black surface?  I'm inclined to think this could be done with the camera, simply because the presets that come with LR9000 have a way of disabling materials during the render.

If it's not achievable through camera scripting/settings, then  what's the best way to go about creating something like the above reference? A black 'matte' material that I apply to all surfaces? Would that preserve all of the other maps, or would I have to go back and manually reload all bumpmaps by hand, like I do when I load Visual Style Manga Materials?