Realtime Rendering of 3d Meshes as Pixelart

[Nirel]

Since I don't believe I have much to add to the discussion I'd like to say I think it looks amazing, and I can already see it making a background together with traditional pixel art for a 2.5D pixel art platformer.

[Howard Day]

Ai: Yep, correct. otherwise, I can't see if the effect is working. Also, the effect looks pretty cool on the drive flares.

Conceit: hahah, yep! That's the thought. it's definitely pretty cool. Here're the ambient occlusion/shadow bias values for the fighter.


Nirel: Thanks! I really do want to put this on some Env art. Sooon.

[Cheetah]

Great looking thread. I wanted to add that there is also a detailed GDC talk titled "GuiltyGearXrd's Art Style : The X Factor Between 2D and 3D" by one of the lead artists on the game. Sorry if someone else already mentioned it.

[Conzeit]

Yep, Ai mentioned it :p nice iniciative tho 
EDIT: unless you werent linking to http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1022031/GuiltyGearXrd-s-Art-Style-The ....your link is actually 404ing for me

Howard I shaded over your gal a bit and I'm uploading it in an edit
EDIT:
yep, me no likey AA :p I figured whatever I could say I might find out I dont actually think if I drew over her, so I just drew over her in case it's useful :p


here's an anim with a bunch of refferences and a rough view of my process too.


references are:
Vice from King of Fighters
Red Arremer Midnight Bliss from Snk vs Capcom
some pervy Mai move from King of Fighters
monster From Shin Megami Tensei 2
another monster From Shin Megami Tensei 2
a shield summon from Castlevania: Symphony of The Night.
"Miko" from Tengai AKA Sengoku Blade

I notice the sprites are about King of Fighters size, so I looked around for different ways of doing eyes, that's what the refferences are about. I did the KOF thing where it's a black pixel next to a white pixel, but that sounds really hard to do right in 3D, one black pixel should be alright. I also have in the process file a test with no face features, kinda going for a Flashbback thing...that looked interesting as well.

Very interesting seeing the Shadow Bias vertex map thing. thanks Howard =) cant wait what else you've been up to

[Gil]

I think more people should do edits of this stuff, so Howard can see what a pixel artist would do with similar material. Treat it like it's something that someone drew by hand and apply the critique process for pixel art.

[Howard Day]

Conceit: Wow, thank you sir. That's very helpful. I'm refactoring/rewriting the shader to better do that sort of lighting. I did try the eyes, and they totally work - except for straight on, where she looks cross-eyed. I'm going to spend more time working on that in the coming days.

What I've been playing with so far... the start of explosion VFX.
A test for the debris flame...

And with bigger explosion blasts...


Enjoy, and keep the crits coming!

[Gil]

Here's what I feel I would do. That's not necessarily what you should do, just trying to provide input on what my brain tells me.

I would make dithering a material attribute. For example, studying the pictures in detail, the skin and explosions I wouldn't use any dither at all, while I enjoy it immensely on the painted parts of the mech. As an artist, I would probably turn off dither for most things, except for a select few.

For skin, I would try to go towards a cell-shaded style approach (sharp cutoff shadows over uniform medium tones with one color for speculars), using the gradient map. I would probably have a few buffer colors that take up very few horizontal space in the gradient, to act as buffers that create natural AA.

For metal, I immediately wonder if a non-linear gradient map would cause a reflection-like look to emulate shiny. I would try and tackle most problems I see through the gradient maps, as I feel that is the main source of style, pixel art wise. I would design the concept art as pixel art, and reuse the palettes created in those to try and form the correct gradient maps.

[Cherno]

Are the explosions made with Unity's ParticleSystem?

I think the effect would be enhanced if the frames per image would be increased.

[Howard Day]

Gil: Hmm - that's actually a great deal trickier than you might expect. :/ I'll see what I can do. Everything is one material right now, and I'm not sure how I'd go about controlling the dither...oh, wait, duh - I use one of the vertex color channels. Okay, Vertex color comes in R G B and A - so far I've been using RGB for AO and A for outline width - I really only need one channel for AO, so...R will be AO, G will be dithering levels, and B will be???  ...Let's make B self-illumination. Yeah, that'll work. I'm still re-writing the shader to have better lighting, so this will be a good chance to put that stuff in.
Cherno: Yes! ...I don't exactly know what you mean - frames per image? effectively the particle effects texture is procedural - it uses a complex mask system. I can speed up how fast the frames animate?

I can also lengthen the particle's lives as seen here:

[Cherno]

By frame per pixel, I mean that the number of sprites in the animations would be decreased, to there's a more pronounced step between animation keyframes, not as smooth as it is now (where there is one sprite per frame). I'm using sprite animation lingo here of course to get the point across.

If the animation speed is decreased, it would only make exactly that: The animation goes slower. What would be needed is a decrease in the number of different particle stages that are generated, coupled with an increase of time each stage is drawn.

For example, if the explosion is goes through ten stages, getting bigger each state:

1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10

Now, it skips a few steps but each step is drawn longer:

1-1-3-3-5-5-7-7-9-9