Illuminated Contours, often called Tanaka Contours, are a way of representing terrain relief in three dimensions, by applying a light source to contour bands. Originally developed in the late 1800s, they were popularised by Professor Tanaka Kitiro in 1950. Tanaka himself called the technique the “Relief Contour Method” .
There are some fairly complex tutorials for implementing Tanaka contours in QGIS. These usually date from some years ago, and involve coding. With improvements in styling in QGIS in recent years, there are now simpler methods of creating them.
A very simplified version with only drop shadows can be implemented in just a couple of steps from a DEM. This creates very informal map style. The map below is of Mt Wilson in the Blue Mountains, NSW, Australia, using 100m contour bands
Download the style file for this version - note that the ranges may not be appropriate for your area and may require adjusting.
A more typical version requires a few more steps. This styling works, but there probably some improvements that could be made.
The map below is of Mt Wilson in the Blue Mountains, NSW, Australia, using 40m contour bands - the 100m bands used in the example above didn't seem appropriate for this styling.
It's worth noting that the Contour Polygons tool creates non-overlapping polygons. This doesn't seem to affect the styling, but probably could in some instances. There are ways of creating overlapping polygons, but I'm not aware of a way of doing it in a single step.
See below when the top two layers of contours are hidden.
Styling is as follows, similar to the above other than the shadows:
Download the style file for this version - note that the ranges may not be appropriate for your area and may require adjusting.
Any improvements or suggestions welcome.