Converting 3D character model to 2D Pixel Character with Animations Unity Tutorial (2021 edition)

[@aikou2886]

I really need to rest and then rewatch this, I think this is not only enjoyable but quite useful as well.

[@MeldNight]

Sou brasileira, e voce não tem ideia de como seu trabalho com esse vídeo foi tão importante para mim ❤ muito obrigada por mostrar de forma clara tudo os passo ❤ voce me salvou ❤😊

[@BoschlooStudios-bx7rg]

Funcionou bem?

[@mariosantorelli7565]

thanks for your github project. i made some modifications to batch export over 200 animations, so i can just sit back and relax. works great thank you

[@aviral9876]

How? Please

[@morepoppunkthanpizza]

super helpful thanks so much!

[@MstrPoptart]

"go ahead"

[@lwitty_tc]

Great video. Very informative and professional! Thank you!

[@arcuny.8680]

Thanks for the great tutorial bro, keep up with the great content

[@abdulkadirdursn]

Thank you for the video.

[@GAMEGLiTcHDevelopment]

You are very welcome!

[@vivekgamedev]

Thank you so much for this awesome step-by-step tutorial. You explained everything in a nice way. "This Is The Way".. how everyone who creates a tutorial should do so, otherwise what's the point if the viewer cannot follow or understand it. Thank you so much again.

[@GAMEGLiTcHDevelopment]

Thank you for the kind words!

[@PixelAspen]

Thanks you so much, I was looking for a guide like this

[@ssuby4224]

Thank you so much, i've wondered it for long time.

[@erickmartins5579]

What a nice video! So well explained

[@tititatahandmade528]

Great tutorial! Thank you. Does this work with any moving and unmoving sprites, not just charachter? I mean, could I build a 3d isometric game and pixel it using this technique? :)

[@alhadchatur5971]

Great Video Bro

[@K24Zara]

Thanks for sharing a great tutorial :)

[@IsraTT]

Great tutorial! Thank you.

[@mayigege]

thanks bro, this realy helped me.

[@ProtoSimTechnologies]

I just wanted to say that this tutorial was clean, concise, and informative. Awesome job. It's exactly what I was looking for! One small critique - slow down a bit. You tend to talk a bit fast (I do this too lol), and some words tend to get muffled. Other than that, I'd love to see more from you. I think if you keep this format, you'll be on your way to sub numbers you never thought possible ;-)

[@GAMEGLiTcHDevelopment]

I recorded my script a couple of times and tried to make it slower but I thought I would lose peoples attention. It's trial and error right now since my channels new but I appreciate the input and I'll take note of it.

[@ProtoSimTechnologies]

@@GAMEGLiTcHDevelopment Don't get me wrong, the content is great. I think this format is a winner, as it gets right to the point, and you explain everything in just the right amount of detail, without any nonsense. You seem comfortable in front of the camera, as well, which isn't easy to do. I have no doubt you'll get better as time goes on ;-)

[@mosog8829]

Thanks very much. Very helpful video

[@LowResolutionClips]

Thats so helpful, but is there already a way to like make the sprites instantly as im searching for a way to make procedual animation for 2d pixel art 🙂

[@hamzzashaffi]

Your setup is really awesome! :) Edit: "Your" (Was too high on meds lol)

[@potionseller8943]

I find it produces a potentially very eerie or even uncanny style if done in a particular way, similar to the first FNAF or the older fallout games. And that can be used to great effect stylistically. Great tutorial by the way.

[@silasbucur685]

Can you do this in Unreal Engine?

[@lighterbandit8977]

I tried doing this. Every time I capture the sprites it just replicates the same frame. I don't know what I'm doing wrong. Helppp

[@karim009]

Hello, Why should I use this approach over a post processing shader that directly pixelates the entire screen?

[@kyonru]

Just an small suggestion. Instead of adding the normal maps using a material. You can use the secondary texture in the Sprite editor to add a _NormalMap, that way you can add multiple animations in your animator and they will always have the correct normal map.

[@noobartist1900]

@Pixelgon Hi. I suppose I have the same problem with you. To solve this, I created a corresponding material for each animation and gave each material a corresponding normal map. I also modified the script that controls the animation state of the character. Every time the animation changes, the material of the sprite render is changed to the corresponding material, but the final result is very poor. I wonder if you have resolve this problem.

[@noobartist1900]

@Pixelgon Hello Again! I made some improvement by change the corresponding normal map of the material. It works nice

[@kyonru]

@@noobartist1900 You can avoid having to create a material by just adding the normal map as a secondary texture. So each sprite sheet has its corresponding normal map. docs.unity3d.com/Manual/SpriteEditor-SecondaryTextures.html

[@kojijama368]

Hello. Any way to use generic or humanoid animations? Or mayby someone here know how to change humanoid model to legacy for use leagacy animations?

[@synthc1786]

thank so much from Lima Peru

[@mycoreefer]

How would I go about doing this with topdown animations say for a topdown 2d game?

[@SteadyPaceVince]

This is a really nice video; I am looking to do the same but not pixelated just make them look flat but still 3d, I might need a shader, I don't really know yet

[@nullerror934]

Hi! Thanks for very Great tutorial! Is there any reason you created & applied normal map to material? I tried without applying normal map, and the result was look same to me.

[@DcCoO]

good tutorial! however I dont this is scalable if you have a lot of different animations...

[@whitealvin2292]

Hello! Thank you so much for the content in your video! But I encountered difficulties when using the plugin. I don't know how to use the files you posted on github in Unity. Could you teach me?(This text is translated, I am very sorry to cause trouble to your reading)

[@buster5661]

Yes but what about real-time?

[@one1one7]

Hey would it be possible to have the normal map (shading things) generate based on the light direction? Aka a global light influence the sprite's normal map?

[@brandonharper3060]

I'm a noob at coding and game development. Would I be able to implement this in unreal?

[@neozoid7009]

How to open the zip project in unity??

[@elijahmoye2117]

Thank you

[@neozoid7009]

what about toon shader??

[@jinmu5232]

Thank you!!!!

[@erenattacktitan4964]

I want to make a 3d game with 2d characters. Do you have a video on how to do that? I want the characters to act 3 dimensional, and to be able to see them from all perspectives, but I want them to be hand-drawn sprites.

[@erenattacktitan4964]

@YellowRagdoll I know that I can't rotate 2d models, but I thought sth in the lines of replacing the sprite every time the camera changes angle, giving the perception of a 3d object/character. Is that possible?

[@erenattacktitan4964]

@YellowRagdoll I completely understand what you're saying. It's just that I really wanted you include that 2d cartoon feeling in my work. Plus, I want to cooperate with certain artists, and I don't know if I'm gonna catch their specific artstyle if I use 3d. And at the end, I don't think the jiggle physics will look that good in a 3d model compared to the physics on an actual 2d animation. I would like to hear your suggestions

[@lann8386]

That's so great tutorial!And I have a question,if I have multiple animations for an object, how should I configure its material?Have I must put all animations into one sprite sheet?Thx for answer!

[@random_precision_software]

Does it automatically produce the normal maps or you have to do it yourself?

[@RetroRedDog]

When you switch out to an unlit color material, how would we handle this using models from the asset store to keep the design and have them bright?

[@GameBoy-ov9xi]

Guys I have been searching hard for someone to help me, I wish to transform my character to say a plane for a period of time then after say 15 seconds back to the character if that makes sense. Like transforming him to his ability for a short amount of time. I have been searching google for quite a while and get nothing but replacing the char, this is not the plan for me. If anyone can help me it would be appreciated!!! What I see from this is that The two objects can switch between one another and only 1 can been seen at a time. Any helps please please?

[@jeremyczompi5526]

Every time I open the PixelArtPipeline Project there isnt any turtle neck character on screen or capture example in the hierarchy box for me to drag my 3D character to. What am I doing wrong?

[@GAMEGLiTcHDevelopment]

I don’t believe it opens up the capture example scene when first starting up the project so just go to the example scene folder and double click on the capture example scene and it should pop up

[@jeremyczompi5526]

@@GAMEGLiTcHDevelopment Thank you! After creating the animation, I noticed my 2D sprite animation doesn't appear in the game tab but can still see it in the scene tab. How do I fix this issue?

[@Kanovskiy]

Hello mister. Thanks for the Tutorial. I have 3D models of tanks, big size and I want to port them to a 2D top down game. I tried the caveman way of taking a picture out of the model from a 3D object viewer but as you might expect, results were not satisfactory to say the least. They look flat, with out mass and very ugly. I think I need to use grayscale to make bump map but I'm not sure how to do it Could you point me in the right way in how to approach this? The ultimate goal is to somehow transfer the 3D models into the format I need, which is 17 TGA images of the 3D tanks (plus shadows all top down but with slight variations in the inclination as to render the appropiate image according to the changes in the terrain elevation while the tank moves in-game) at a scale of aprox. 8pixels/meter. Very reduced as you see so I need a way to retain at least the most prominent details. The original makers somehow achieved this back in 1999 with their own 3D vehicle models but the technology and procedures were lost so our mod community always used one image when trying to change the looks of tanks and so they always look like they are floating instead of really interacting with the terrain. Thanks for reading!

[@lukenowlandfilms]

The great stuff is always more buried than you think it is, thank you for this great tutorial. Question, would anything need to change for this pipeline if you wanted to do it isometrically?

[@GAMEGLiTcHDevelopment]

I do not believe anything needs to be changed for the render pipeline but you might have to adjust the tile mapping to match the isometric tiles if thats what you are trying to do.

[@pixelpat777]

Great info thanks. Is there a way to get a full side on view?

[@GAMEGLiTcHDevelopment]

You can rotate the 3D model to whatever orientation you want before you capture the animations. Not sure if that answers your question.

[@pixelpat777]

@@GAMEGLiTcHDevelopment Thank you great newd

[@jasonargo4459]

When introducing lighting in Unity to the normal map, is there a way to make lighting also behave in a pixelated fashion? I can replicate this in Blender, of course, but that limits the imported sprite's lighting options once in Unity.

[@GAMEGLiTcHDevelopment]

If your talking about just pixelating the render image check unities pixel perfect camera tutorial on there channel that might help you out.

[@jasonargo4459]

I'm talking more about the way light is hitting the player / object itself. There's a general splotchiness to it that seems aliased: imgur.com/vYnzVi2

[@GAMEGLiTcHDevelopment]

@@jasonargo4459 Oh I see so your looking for more like hard shadows that will give you nice crisp pixel shadows. That will probably require a custom shader graph. The capture project is from another youtube channel and in it should have a custom shader that creates the effect I think you want. The problem you will run into is that the capture project is using the standard pipeline for Unity and not the Universal Render Pipeline. If you are not using the URP than you can just copy his custom shader from the video if you are using URP than you will have to know how to make a custom shader using the new shader coding structure. I attempted to recreate it in URP and sort of got it working but it didn’t quite work as I wanted it too.

[@jasonargo4459]

@@GAMEGLiTcHDevelopment That seems like a lot of work that may or may not produce the exact solution I need which... just about sums up my entire video game development journey, so I'll do it! But I can go ahead and tell you that there is probably a big latent demand for people who not only want their 2D to 3D assets to have that look in Unity but for the lighting to have the same look. Might be a great sequel to this video?

[@GAMEGLiTcHDevelopment]

@@jasonargo4459 Yeah custom shaders play a huge part in a lot of good looking games. I have been trying to learn it on my own that way I can actually explain what I’m doing but there is very little documentation and learning material for how to actually use shader code. Most tutorials show you how to make a custom shader but don’t share there thinking process behind it. So once i figure it out I will probably make a mini tutorial series about it.

[@serhattnc1815]

Can ı rotate the charakter bcz its not looking like a platformer charakter

[@GAMEGLiTcHDevelopment]

Yeah you can either rotate your character to how you want it before using the capture camera or rotate the capture camera. Either one of those should solve your issue.

[@epicmcdude]

Hi! Amazing tutorial, this is exactly what I was looking for. But, I have a question! Do we need to create a material for every animation the player has? Because each material has it's own texture and normal map, so using different animations creates conflicts with the default texture sprite on the material. I'm having this issue, not sure how to transition to different animations if the animation sprite sheet and the texture sprite on the material are different.

[@GAMEGLiTcHDevelopment]

So in the 2D space the animations automatically switch out the main texture but not the normals. So you have to set up a system that switches out the render textures for the normal maps. I have to take a look at what I did but I did get it to work. I wish the animation system in Unity would automatically switch them but it doesn’t so you have to do it manually.

[@epicmcdude]

@@GAMEGLiTcHDevelopment Oh 2D animations change the main texture? This is my first time working with 2D in Unity, so this is good to know! I don't know if this influences things, but since you mentioned that for 3D we needed a shader, I made a shader in Shader Graph that can set the Main Texture and Normal Map, so that the 2D sprite can receive 3D lights and shadows from 3D objects. Does the 2D animation account for the material from the shader or does it only change on the Sprite Renderer? I managed to jury-rig something up but I'm starting small with an Idle and Run animation since I don't know if this is good practice. I check the input to see if A or D is pressed, and if it is then I switch the _MainTex and _NormalMap of my shader with Set Material Texture from the Idle to the Run animation sprite sheet. I don't know if I should keep doing this for every animation the Player character would have?...

[@GAMEGLiTcHDevelopment]

@@epicmcdude You are pretty much spot on with what it takes to have a 2D sprite with normal maps work with 3D lighting. For the switching of textures the main texture only switches through the sprite renderer. So if you are using a custom shader i believe you do have to change both main and normal map textures depending on the animation state like you mentioned. So your setup I believe is the correct way to do it. You could always test and see if the sprite renderer changes the main texture in the shader but i don’t think it will work like that sadly.

[@epicmcdude]

@@GAMEGLiTcHDevelopment Thank you for your help! it is reassuring to know that I am on the right path, even if it will double the work at least it looks good :)

[@aesirian6709]

@@epicmcdude Maybe you've already found a solution to your problem, but you could always capture multiple animations and then merge them to the same "image" in photoshop or any other editor. That way you're using the same spritesheet (texture) and will most likely have an easier and less resource requiring solution, or maybe I understood your problem wrong.

[@nonnomenes1590]

how to export the sprites at the end for use in other things?

[@GAMEGLiTcHDevelopment]

Check around the 4 minute mark of the video it shows how you save the sprite sheet to your computer. You can than use the sprite sheet for whatever you want.

[@KalponicGames]

what about regular sprite? What if I don't want to make the sprite look pixel but a regular image? Btw u have not included the link to the script.

[@GAMEGLiTcHDevelopment]

For the capture camera script go to the video link in the description for dead cells shader video and than get the capture camera project that includes the scripts. As for making a regular sprite you can just adjust the cell size to whatever resolution you want. The higher the pixel size the better quality and less pixelation.

[@KalponicGames]

@@GAMEGLiTcHDevelopment is it better to use Unity Recorder:learn.unity.com/tutorial/working-with-the-unity-recorder-2019-3?uv=2019.3# ?

[@GAMEGLiTcHDevelopment]

I haven’t looked into the recorder but it looks like it could also work although I do not believe it is set up to also create normal maps.

[@konardkonrado7755]

in 2018 version its still possible ? or its 2021 feature?

[@GAMEGLiTcHDevelopment]

I believe the converting 3D model to 2D sprite part should be possible with 2018 however using Unities new 2D lighting system and using the the 2D normals for your 2D sprite I would suggest using either 2019 or newer versions of Unity. I haven’t tested it with 2018 versions so I’m not entirely sure but thats my recommendation.

[@Bacatorious]

Hey GAME GLiTcH! Wonderful video, this is exactly what I have been looking for. I am having one issue, I would like to use my own models and such to create sprites for a 2D game I am creating. It will not let me change the source clip to my own animation file. I can figure out what I am doing wrong as I have followed your video step by step.

[@GAMEGLiTcHDevelopment]

Did you make sure to set the animation to legacy before dropping your character into the project hierarchy? If you did that and its not working try restarting the unity project and make sure you character is still set to legacy and try again. Sometimes Unity will bug out and not let you add it for some reason.

[@Bacatorious]

@@GAMEGLiTcHDevelopment Yea I just tried that, still not working, are you on discord by chance?

[@Bacatorious]

@@GAMEGLiTcHDevelopment This might be a noob question but in your video the animation you wanted to capture is attached to your prefab, mine is not nor the material or any of that. It is just the FBX and I have all the animations seperate from it. does it have to be attached. If so how do I do that? its never really been a requirement up until now/

[@GAMEGLiTcHDevelopment]

@@Bacatorious if it is exported as an fbx the animations and models should be together. What program are you using/exporting from?

[@Bacatorious]

@@GAMEGLiTcHDevelopment it's an asset from the unity asset store called Golem by the publisher Protofactor Inc. It was part of a bundle not to long ago. But I noticed most models from the asset store come this way. I also noticed that one FBX file have an animation labeled take 001 attached to it and that one actually selectable by the capture camera helper. But the rest of the animations such as the walk and attack that are in the folder with it can't be selected. I will try with a few different assets and see if the result is the same.

[@SeiGion]

Where can i get Animation Capture Helper Script ? @@!

[@GAMEGLiTcHDevelopment]

The link should be in the description of the video

[@SeiGion]

@@GAMEGLiTcHDevelopment You mean , download it on Patreon site ?

[@GAMEGLiTcHDevelopment]

@@SeiGion no there should be a link to another youtube video that has the script in their description. Its a bit tedious I know but I wanted to give the script creator some credit

[@Danrney]

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[@bluepianist2497]

Im creating a 2D game i need a graphiste guy motivated to work with me in the start for free , and when we have our game , we 50/50 , me mp

[@bluethumbbuttoneek9465]

🤢unity