Pixel Art Setup Example

  • February 15, 2015
  • 1,320 Downloads
  • 13 Likes
  • Blender 2.7x
  • Render: Blender Internal
  • Creator: ShaunGreiner
  • License: CC-BY
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Description:

This is my own way of creating pixel art out of blender. This started as an experiment to see if Blender could produce pixel art without any outside applications. The result is pretty accurate in my opion and not super difficult to setup.

This blend is specifically setup for an original gameboy palette, but this could be changed in the node editor.

Important things to note:

<ul>

<li>Low resolution size - If you want double or quadruple sized pixels just import your finished images back in to sequencer and up the scale. If you want higher resolution graphics like SNES simply up the size by squares of 2 (64, 128, 256, 512, 1024)</li>

<li>Antialiasing is off - everything blurs if you turn this feature on.</li>

<li>I'm using FreeStyle - Two line sets, one for a black outline and another for a transparent black line for interior contours. This helps make contours more visible when shading doesn't do the job.</li>

<li>Materials - Don't really matter much. Toon seems to do a good job, but most materials look good to me.</li>

<li>Compositor - This is where the palette and real retro feel comes from. I'm using one color ramp for the scene compositing. Any amount of colors can be used, but its important that blending be set to constant to preserve hard breaks in color.</li>

</ul>

Comments:

  • kavabanga profile picture
    kavabanga

    awesome idea! Thanks for share!

    Edited February 16, 2015
  • ShaunGreiner profile picture
    ShaunGreiner

    Thank you!

    Written July 29, 2015
  • TheShadyColombian profile picture
    TheShadyColombian

    This is great! Really useful. Do you mind if I use this for a game I'm working on?

    Edited February 28, 2015
  • ShaunGreiner profile picture
    ShaunGreiner

    Sure go ahead! Attribution would be nice.

    Link to my site if you do: www.shaungreiner.com

    Written July 29, 2015
  • TheShadyColombian profile picture
    TheShadyColombian

    Also, Is there a way to use this in Cycles Render?

    Edited February 28, 2015
  • ShaunGreiner profile picture
    ShaunGreiner

    You might be able to using ramps and some vector math. I'll post if I do anything with that.

    Written July 29, 2015
  • mofx profile picture
    mofx

    @ShaunGreiner What's the easiest way to append this to a different scene?

    Edited March 09, 2015
  • vintar profile picture
    vintar

    It doesn't seems to fit in the output file (I mean, I wanted the .png in a 1024 x 768 screen, but I have to do this in photoshop to scale, because blender finish this file in the original size of the render presets) and I have not idea how to do this in blender, can anyone help?

    by the way, is a great example file, greetings! :)

    Edited May 07, 2015
  • ShaunGreiner profile picture
    ShaunGreiner

    You can't just work at scale if you want to have a pixelated look.

    Render at lets say 256 x 192 (4x smaller)

    Then take the finished render back into blender. You should be able to use the compositor and the render panel in a new scene to blow it back up to 1024 x 768. If you're doing an animation you could use the video sequence editor too.

    Photoshop might be easier. I'd really like to do this all in Blender, but more streamlined. I'll let you know if I make any improvements.

    Written July 29, 2015
  • CaoMengde777 profile picture
    CaoMengde777

    really cool! .. This is Awesome!!

    Written February 29, 2016
  • BuckyLuis profile picture
    BuckyLuis

    This is a REALLY AWESOME setup!! thanks A TON for sharing it!! I was going to make a game with it, but I kinda lost interest in that idea I had... anyway, I JUST BEGAN making myself some web presence .. I posted what I did with this tool here: https://gamedevsorcery.wordpress.com/2017/02/01/animation-3dtopixelart-spritesheets/

    https://gamedevsorcery.wordpress.com/

    Written February 02, 2017