Turn 3D models into pixel art #1

[O Ilusionista]

Holy mother of God...

Japanese artist Toshihiro Kushizaki has released the Pixel Art Shader: a free Blender shader that should convert any 3D model into old-school pixel art.

To render out a pixel art image, you just need a 3D model in .x format and a palette texture, which defines the set of colours to be used; but you can augment the result with standard texture maps, even including AO.

The image is generated in BMP format, and the results look pretty good, at least in the demo scene.

Other example

There’s a detailed online manual, but like the rest of Kushizaki’s site, it’s in Japanese, so if you’re a non-Japanese-speaker, you’ll need to navigate Google Translate.

Download the Pixel Art Shader on Toshihiro Kushizaki’s website (Automatic English translation)

Read an English-language user-contributed tutorial on using the shader

Source: http://www.cgchannel.com/2015/02/this-free-blender-shader-turns-3d-models-into-pixel-art/

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I haven't tested it yet, but it seams awesome!

 

[NickyP]

Great mother of mercy.

Combine that with this: http://www.models-resource.com/

And suddenly I wish I wasn't in law school and had time for all of this.

 

[rafhot]

nice

welcome to the next level!

 

[CRxTRDude]

That's awesome! I'm out of words to describe it. As if you take the best of the methods of Arc System and remove for the tedious labor from it. The sprites look like a blend of KOFXIII, but better.

Lots of possibilities with it. You can still do tweaking using PS or something, but still it takes much labor off your shoulders if you're an indie dev.

 

[maxman]

That is a very great topic! I love it! Thanks for share, O! Even though I did 3D once, I'll try it out.

I think Guilty Gear Xrd Sign has the Anime look in 2D but it was designed in 3D. This is what I found:

http://www.polycount.com/forum/showpost.php?p=2107579&postcount=241

 

[CRxTRDude]

Xrd is 3D yes, using Unreal + advance cel shading and keyframe techniques.

But i was talking about the old processes, used in the 2D Guilty Gear and BlazBlue before using Unreal:

Image courtesy of Silicon Era.

There are five key stages that each character goes though in the process from concept to final the sprite:


1 – All the characters in BlazBlue start life as 2D concepts and each animation frame’s pose is drawn by hand.

2 – A 3D model is made of each character and posed according to the concepts and animation frames.

3 – The 3D model is then used to create a consistent 2D line image as a guide for the final sprite.

4 – Light and shadow is then applied and additional detail worked into each individual frame…

5 – …which is then turned into the dot image – the sprite itself. But the work doesn’t end there!

 

[maxman]

Wow! I didn't know Blazblue and Guilty Gear got that technique with 3D before the characters turn into sprites! LOL That's amazing! Now I should be going back to my interest of 3D since I first saw Guilty Gear Xrd Sign.

 

[CRxTRDude]

Yeah, I was shocked though when I saw this. I thought it was similar to Capcom's style where it's all done on paper, but this 3D technique gives smoother frames than hand drawn, unless you can hand draw stuff at 24 FPS than 12 FPS of usual cartoons and/or anime.

And now with that plug-in, it's much more easier to do the ArcSysWorks styled sprite making.

 

[Bloodbane]

The girl image almost look as if she's drew from scratch but the animated man is really from 3D to pixels conversion. Wow!

 

[CRxTRDude]

For people who wanted to do this style, except on 3DS Max, there's some forum posts from other sites that shows how:

http://www.polycount.com/forum/showpost.php?p=1615247&postcount=9

This uses (I assume) 3DS Max 2012. Dan Fessler created this technique and used this for a Flash game shown here:

http://www.polycount.com/forum/showpost.php?p=1656406&postcount=1

 

[sammyrms1]

For some reason the Pixel Art Shader doesn't work on Windows 8. It just closes by itself after running for a couple seconds (I did try running it in compatibility mode, same issue).

 

[Icebeam]

For some reason the Pixel Art Shader doesn't work on Windows 8. It just closes by itself after running for a couple seconds (I did try running it in compatibility mode, same issue).

You gotta do something with the .teco file to make it stay, because from what i understand from Kushizaki's website, it is in rendering mode (or adjustment mode, i don't even know).

 

[CRxTRDude]

It's in the link in the OP:

Change capture to false.

Also uncomment camera_ignore_data and change its value to true.

I'm experimenting with 3DS Max now with the technique I saw and see if it yields good results.

 

[Icebeam]

My problem with Pixel Shader is that, the .x files won't load. even the .x files that comes with itself doesn't load, so i can't see stuff in it.

 

[Icebeam]

If i can't make Pixel Shader work then i'll cancel my hopes and dreams.

 

[CRxTRDude]

It works on my Win 7 Pro on a very budget PC. Tested on every x samples and they work. What's the specs of your PC? I think it's something to do with the specs or something.

 

[Icebeam]

Processor spec: AMD A6-4400M with Radeon(tm) HD graphics 2.70 GHz

 

[CRxTRDude]

Dunno what to say, but probably it's a Radeon problem I think or you need a compatibility, either way I can't say how to fix it because I can't see its system requirements in its manual.

Anyway, did the 3DS Max pixel art technique, here's what I did so far:


Iris Heart from Neptunia

Lien from KOF Maximum Impact. Unfortunately, I'm not that good in posing.

If you combine it with more paletted textures and do even more pixel pushing, it might give good results.

 

[O Ilusionista]

That is nice, but its not pixel art at all. Its just an image with black borders.
This is why that tool is so amazing.

 

[CRxTRDude]

That's what I said, with some paletted textures and pixel pushing. That needs more work and research.

And technically it's a 3D model with black borders, that's direct from rendering.