AuthorTopic: Realtime Rendering of 3d Meshes as Pixelart  (Read 127774 times)

Offline eishiya

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Re: Realtime Rendering of 3d Meshes as Pixelart

Reply #120 on: May 08, 2016, 10:16:56 pm
It's really cool that this is possible, but I can't help but see these as "bad pixel art". The textures and level of detail on these models don't lend themselves very well to this process, in my opinion - too much noise.

Offline Howard Day

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Re: Realtime Rendering of 3d Meshes as Pixelart

Reply #121 on: May 09, 2016, 10:59:57 am
RAV: Thanks!
eishiya: A totally valid point. Try this on for size - I've dropped the color count/complexity of the source textures considerably. The Ship is using a maximum of 24 colors, and the rock is using a maximimum of 16. These are using AA. I can't decide if I like it or not.  I'd love to know your thoughts...

Enjoy!

Offline 32

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Re: Realtime Rendering of 3d Meshes as Pixelart

Reply #122 on: May 09, 2016, 11:09:31 am
I had the same thought and that looks infinitely more like pixel art and just generally much cleaner. The only thing that strikes me as particularly off is the shadows, the way they're so smooth and move around so much with the rotation, everything seems a bit glossy.

Loving the progress ;D

Offline API-Beast

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Re: Realtime Rendering of 3d Meshes as Pixelart

Reply #123 on: May 10, 2016, 08:28:57 am
Some thoughts:

- Setting up the color palette per sprite by hand should make the result look a bit more like pixel art. Generalist palettes don't catch the "feel" of a sprite.
- The animations are just way too smooth for pixel art, smooth movement is fine, smooth rotation is not.
- Same thing with the smoke, it's just too smooth for pixel art, try to use a hand pixeled sprite billboard instead of a particle system.
- Pixel Art animations are generally quite static, you have certain static key poses and animate between these key poses, in games you have characters often stopping in a single pose for a whole second.
- Artists often make in-between frames use less detailed shading to manage the work load and better clarity, this could be emulated by having different textures for key frames and the in-betweens.
« Last Edit: May 10, 2016, 08:32:37 am by API-Beast »

Offline Howard Day

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Re: Realtime Rendering of 3d Meshes as Pixelart

Reply #124 on: May 10, 2016, 08:26:50 pm
32: Yeah, good note on the shadows - I've done some work to crisp that up.
API- All very good notes! I am sort of going for a smoother feel that exactly pixel art - that's a pretty major benefit of doing this this way, frame count does not matter. I do like your less detailed texture when in motion idea, though - I'm definitely going to give that a shot.

Okay, First pass on some foliage for the floating rocks, and new smoke shader.

Enjoy!
« Last Edit: May 10, 2016, 08:32:05 pm by Howard Day »

Offline Conzeit

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Re: Realtime Rendering of 3d Meshes as Pixelart

Reply #125 on: May 10, 2016, 10:19:30 pm
wow 100% disagree with 32 on the shadows. it's like you're simulating being lazy O.o if you can have shading auto generated go with it :p

can you add shades back in? one midtone and one broad highlight (not specular) might work.
also you still using the gxx shadows map thing?

Offline Probo

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Re: Realtime Rendering of 3d Meshes as Pixelart

Reply #126 on: May 10, 2016, 11:18:10 pm
this looks cool, but like some other people id want to push this tech to try and fool the viewer into thinking it was bona fide pixel art. As eishiya said the models seem to have too much detail in them, I think its because of the resolution, you cant really solve that by tweaking the model or the lighting.  if the image size of a game using this was 320x240 (off the top of my head as a high-for-old-games resolution, maybe higher like 480p could work?) say, and then your boat model had to be rendered at size more suitable to that overall resolution, you'd have to simplify and redesign the boat a ton, but if you got that looking good I think it'd look a lot more like what we think of when we think of pixel art.

With your tech could each object be drawn with its own perspective too?  so no matter where they are on the screen, they're always drawn as if they're being viewed from a fixed point somewhere in their centre.

like beast said, id also reduce frames of animation or go actually pose them per frame like pixel art (and reduce the frame count also). If I was making this game for real I wouldn't have the islands rotate, and just kind of bob in place, with that fixed perspective thing applied if its possible.

I realise I'm looking at it from a different angle from you though Howard! It still has its own cool look that I dig.

Offline Howard Day

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Re: Realtime Rendering of 3d Meshes as Pixelart

Reply #127 on: May 13, 2016, 10:57:20 am
Conzeit: Okay, brought back the shadows a bit. :D Also bumped the half-shade down in darkness - it was in there, but subtle. Too subtle. :/

Probo: Yeah, that's a possible way to take it - and rendering each model from a unique perspective would be very expensive, unless I can figure out even more levels of shader madness. :) I do like your island bob idea, so I went ahead and added that in there.

:D Okay, I added a lot more depth to the grass, and a half-shade to the coloring. I also made my own Meta-Palette out of colors and ramps from my favorite DOS games. I improved the smoke, and have completely replaced the junker with something of my own design, not ripped off from Ian Mcque. :D  I think it's much improved!

Offline Howard Day

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Re: Realtime Rendering of 3d Meshes as Pixelart

Reply #128 on: May 15, 2016, 09:40:28 am
Sunset lighting Time Of Day - and camera angle tests:




Enjoy. :D

Offline Cherno

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Re: Realtime Rendering of 3d Meshes as Pixelart

Reply #129 on: May 15, 2016, 02:50:53 pm
Perhaps you could show some renders at vastly reduced resolution, like 320x200, and see if gets too noisy or if the models are still recognizable.