Creating a Scene for my 3D Pixel Art Game

Date of Recording: 2020-11-14
I took a bit of a break from the usual tech updates this week to record a making-of video detailing what it's like to create a scene from start to finish in the Unity-based pixel art game engine I've been developing.
I found some neat modifier stack tricks in Blender for creating procedural, non-destructive details for rocks, stone bricks, and trees. This saves a lot of asset-creation time, which should hopefully make it more feasible for me to create a large game world without a huge team.
music: lofi hip hop to [chill/dance/study/relax/rage/party/sleep] to by Virtual Boy is licensed under a Creative Commons License.
/ lofi-hip-hop-to-chilld...

[@t3ssel8r]

FAQ: 1. Can I buy this? The package I'm building is for a game project I'm working on, so I currently don't have resources to support external users. Plus the code is in a constant state of flux. I may revisit this in the far future toward the end of my project, if there is interest at that time. 2. Can you make tutorials for how to achieve this? I've written about the techniques I've used in the video descriptions of my older videos, and plan on making new higher quality videos as I work on new features that I think are interesting or have educational value. I don't always have time to make a detailed video for every thing, but I'm always happy to respond to specific questions here in the comment section, or privately over on twitter. 3. Where did you pick up your skills? I mostly learned graphics programming through following the tutorials of Inigo Quilez and Catlike Coding online. I also highly recommend Sebastian Lague and AdamCYounis' channels here on KZbin.

[@Hekai]

Thanks so much !! I just came upon this video, and damn the clip at 4:15 is the closest to 2D i've ever seen in a 3D based engine, i'm straight shocked that's literally amazing bless you !

[@bobsmithy3103]

What CPU and GPU languages are you using? Like do you use c++ and opengl? nvm: title is misleading. He's just using unity and did not create his own pixel art game engine. He's using what seems like his own renderer

[@t3ssel8r]

@Arsen Here In my (limited) experience, releasing a successful product entails cleaning up the code, testing it so it works for different platforms, making sure it can be integrated in other projects, providing training, and support. Some of those things will naturally get done as I make more progress on my game, but some of them are too much of a distraction at this point. Thanks for understanding.

[@braindeveloperdimensional5579]

So your engine is for Unity only? Can it be ported to Godot? Is your rendering engine opensource?

[@t3ssel8r]

@Brain Developer Dimensional I suppose the shaders port easily since it's just HLSL. The rest of the pipeline would need to be rewritten for each new environment. I based on Unity because it is what my team is familiar with. No, the project is not open source.

[@roastman9753]

"To make the rocks more realistic, I let the computer do it for me."

[@IPlayKindred]

Welcome to 3d modeling

[@Med-B]

@@IPlayKindred i don't think anyone wants to spend 90% of the time working on a project just manualy making the models when it can be generated quick

[@IPlayKindred]

@@Med-B that's my point

[@ficticious_jr.]

@@IPlayKindred i agree with the kindred player because he plays kindred

[@otohime8516]

@@IPlayKindred Welcome to 3d procedural modeling***

[@nologin5375]

Even without the pixel engine the scene looked pretty nice and serene, but that engine stepped it up so much, very nice.

[@mythicdawnist]

When they said “trees are just cylinders with some merged spheres on top.” I felt that

[@PPno9]

I've been saying this for 15 years and no one's listened to me.

[@alcob5945]

they?

[@ireadysucks3026]

@@alcob5945 gender neutral pronouns

[@alcob5945]

@@ireadysucks3026 i don't believe men can become women and viceversa, especially without surgery and all the other stuff that should make you more similar to the other sex (yet not the same since you can't change your brain and every aspect of your body, not to mention that even if you did you would be a fake man/woman)

[@Geddy135]

I could imagine an entire game being made in this style and at the very end of the game, the camera pans in and moves around to reveal the game was 3d the whole time.

[@penkinodenuevo7468]

Cool!

[@t3ssel8r]

haha my idea was to do the reveal at the end of the first scene or something like that. or in the middle of the trailer. there's definitely some potential for that sort of deception

[@parallaxdawn2546]

@@t3ssel8r what about having it in the pixel art style but you can move the camera in a 3D space?

[@wiktor3727]

Try fez

[@andresouza6711]

wait its all 3d? always has been

[@1jiu23]

leaves made from spheres and rocks being low poly distorted cubes is such a familiar aesthetic in these indie games tbh

[@Detrax655]

It's an easy way of doing it, but damn it looks good ngl

[@ktmochiii]

the colors and little grass/leaves movement really make this scene! looks so good!

[@ruvimperna5532]

Your pixel art is superb, the lighting/shading is perfect to emphasize the shapes of objects in pixel art, like your water line is very light, if a stone is sticking out, u have a lighter gray highlight around where it differentiates it from the ground (4:23 stone next to pillar). Your style is so perfect.

[@josewenzel]

This youtube channel must be the best thing I found this year, you are really talented dude... it makes me envious... in a good way

[@dited358]

Dude this are literally the most nostalgic beautiful and timeless graphics design I have ever seen, imo the market is too full of games that think realism is the ultimate goal

[@Soyaa]

This is genius and your Pixel art engine looks great. Are you planning to sell some of your tools in the asset store?

[@jasonhoffman91]

Wow, this is great. I am new to game dev and this help alot. Amazing work flow!

[@u3mmar958]

@@jasonhoffman91 ????????

[@Garnox_]

the new pinned comment says this: 1. Can I buy this? The package I'm building is for a game project I'm working on, so I currently don't have resources to support external users. Plus the code is in a constant state of flux. I may revisit this in the far future toward the end of my project, if there is interest at that time.

[@ecco1k]

@@u3mmar958 I think he meant to comment, not reply

[@otohime8516]

Make sure to correct the several vertices, the transforms and the topology, if you get it in your hands hahahaa

[@renatorodrigobs79]

Please, PLEASE, teatching us how to make something like it! It’s AMAZING!

[@dumas124]

Wow, the pixel shader you have going on here is absolutely amazing.

[@yukinanka]

Yo, I'm stifled. Your work looks fantastic! Thanks lord KZbin algorithm.

[@mikesproductionsgamedev]

This is really beautiful. The fact the trees are just spheres beneath all the well-animated pixel leaves is something I'd have had trouble believing just looking at the final product.

[@CiruPlays]

as someone who just sometimes models and rigs random unpainted monsters in blender for fun, this makes game scenery and for some reason, breath of the wild scenery, even MORE breathtaking. thank you.

[@TimpersOliver]

as a pixel artist im blown away by how good the final piece turned out. the colours are incredible.

[@Levi_Zacharias]

I love the cloud shadows in the final version! and that pond reflection looks great.

[@player6769]

The end product looks incredible my guy. A tutorial on the procedural editing for the trees and stone would be super dope but I understand you're busy.

[@danlei88]

This is some incredible work! Can't wait to play whatever games you make with this system.

[@empiredirt6530]

wtf. too good. That pixel art shader/rendering engine is gorgeous. I'm jealous. I'd buy it from the asset store wink wink.

[@pluto4540]

This already looks so cool, like this as an entire game just- damn Amazing work so far

[@igor_ai88]

Wow, the result looks so nice and cozy, the water is very eye catching too

[@jerrygreenest]

There are several different 3D pixel art videos out there on youtube, but I think you nailed it the best with your engine, filters, shaders and whatsoever. Can't wait when the actual game will come. And also when after the release you will make efforts toward sharing your way of doing, in form of tools, lessons, etc., - also can't wait. Good luck.

[@BlackroseXX9]

Well done! This is an incredible pixel generation. Thank You for sharing!

[@Pearking_]

that has to be one of the most beautiful things ive seen in a long time.

[@arrtemfly]

yoooooooooooo those pixel shaders are NUTS! this is totally great.

[@wizard4599]

Studying game dev at uni right now, this is really inspiring. I'll share this around, love what you're doing.

[@soerennielsen]

I've never seen anything like this before. Simply in awe here. Amazing job! Keep us posted please.

[@McNottagoose]

Increase upload frequency of this quality and youll have a very, very large following very quickly

[@thejoshuawatts]

Wow, this is my first time seeing this kind of technique, and i gotta say this blew me away! thanks for sharing your technique! learned so much.

[@solojun27]

The water looks so amazing

[@DeaconOfTheDank]

Loving your content. The end result is always astonishingly beautiful.

[@ZimmervisionCZ]

This looks absolutely stunning! I would be overjoyed to watch or play something that looks like this!

[@キラキラくりくり頭]

Mind blown by the end result

[@semproser19]

That end result is absolutely incredible

[@janthummler3548]

Holy Cow, this is beautiful!

[@Betruet]

That water reflection is magic

[@Dessikret]

a game like this thats able to shift from top down to 3rd person revealing its 3d would be fucking crazy cool take my money please

[@hungha4329]

god your style of this made me so pacefull

[@vincentsavoretti2201]

Fantastic work, I live your pixel filter. Good to see I'm not the only one using 3D specifically to get a 2D result

[@timmy1877]

That pond touched my soul

[@RaidenFreeman]

I ADORE the look of what you've made.

[@bluematter435]

indie game dev its the ultimate, making more with less. it looks so beautiful... when i saw how simply youve made the trees i though, man i gotta get me a pice of this 3D pixelart action. its so cool, the way you do bolean oprations and make use of procedual modifiers / shaders. how you dont even care about perfect topology, cause the only thing that matters in the end is "does it look good", and man does it ever. thank you for sharing your process, it has inspired me to be much more ~lazy~ energy efficient! also thanks for sharing who you've learned from, i also learned a lot from sebastian league, my intro to making cool interactive grafical things comes from Daniel Shiffman's videos (the coding train) (makes many coding challenges and tutorials)

[@trysta73]

Very successfully pulls off the illusion that it's pixel art. Gorgeous, nice job!

[@1daniel2678]

Reminds me of Breath of Fire from PS1, a game that I miss so much.

[@Kenji_195]

Ignoring the title, to me this is actual art

[@groudon6423]

Pixel art is a style of art

[@mylo5641]

@@groudon6423 and 3d art is as well, this is basically 3d pixel art

[@cearaj405]

I don't see how the title would annul this statement?

[@groudon6423]

@@mylo5641 I didn’t get what he was trying to say 😅 I thought he was saying that pixel art wasn’t actually art. I get it now.

[@MrHerrJonsson]

​@@groudon6423 He might refer to "my Pixel Art Game Engine". The engine itself is Unity. My guess is that the pixelation is made through a shader with some other nifty tricks. Regardless the title implies it's his own engine, which it is not.

[@iamvulgar8188]

Bro, this is absolutely amazing looking. Great job.

[@caiocesar4827]

That's insane! Awesome job and thanks so much for show us!

[@PitchBlackCat]

Absolutely stunning result

[@jehriko7525]

This is incredible, I have to take notes from this!

[@drawcentral1048]

That looks insanely good!

[@ErlingBelsvik]

I would love to see the journey between the fade to black, and the changes you made to the trees, cause there is a big leap between the scene before and after the changes.

[@v-vol224]

omg, I've been looking for something like this for so long and finally I found you. hope to learn something new from you.

[@ashrafsahli2869]

It's amazing, wonderful work.

[@MilesPlaysPriv]

the water is so gorgeous

[@KentHambrock]

Best of luck with building your game. It's looking absolutely gorgeous so far. You could probably drum up a lot of attention closer to the launch of the game by just constantly posting short videos/gifs of new scenes to an Instagram account and linking it to some subreddits about game dev. I'm excited to see what else you do with this.

[@t3ssel8r]

thanks for the suggestion!

[@datmars2398]

Watched this video over 10 times now and im every time blown away by the artstyle and the way it works. I would love to see a video on how to create the sprites for the grass and trees. Cool video :D

[@nelsonthekinger]

This is beautiful

[@superscatboy]

Imagine a world where steps were put on weird offsets like that.

[@alexnoman1498]

My thoughts exactly. :D Making a world and making a world used by people are quite different.

[@ecgwineicling2543]

The misaligned steps may not make practical sense, but they are a minimalistic design element that changes the perception of the scene from "transitional zone, just a flight of stairs" to "it's an enchanted baroque garden".

[@KevDee]

I love that procedural displacement stuff, then the decimation to the low poly look... too bad I use Maya and have no idea if there's an equivalent outside of manual Booleans and extrusions...

[@ReasonMakes]

This is super cool

[@Erikanimations]

It is beautiful and inspiring, quite innovative idea too

[@Lochyj0001]

This has no right to look that good... Good work!

[@captainofnumenor8221]

this is truly magnificient

[@RamJam610]

wow! thank you for sharing this process. looks great!

[@phoenixastra4429]

you are so inspiring! Very cool

[@neenaw]

Now this is some big brain game dev

[@jordannoyer1884]

I don't comment a lot on YT. But man... just wow, love it ! Good luck with your project !

[@luciafantin]

Beautiful work! it looks amazing and very unique style

[@Czarewich]

WOW... just... WOW! This looks so good!

[@Elrinth]

Insane, I'm looking forwards to the next 2d Zelda in this style!

[@str8poisintv131]

I know nothing about game development but I want to make one in this 3d pixel style so thing like how dead cells is rendered. This look amazing my guy

[@nickshare6808]

It would be great if there are more detail about how to add details to the trees. Its like magic from a smooth surface to a leaf filled tree and I would like to know how its done.

[@t3ssel8r]

ah. yeah the video was initially just a showcase of workflow, rather than something actually explaining what the game does. In this case, the game populates leaf sprites on all the vertices of the original mesh, and transfers the vertex normals to the sprites so that the lighting matches. Then a vertex shader turns the sprites to always face the camera.

[@nickshare6808]

@@t3ssel8r Interesting! Thank you

[@jitspoe]

Nice! I've been wanting to make a game with a 3D->pixelart rendering system, but I need to finish some other projects, first. Cool to see somebody implementing similar ideas!

[@borisweppner6219]

This is so extremely *AWESOME!!!!!!!*

[@pineaplehead5020]

beautiful

[@VideosBySimon]

this is so beautiful i cant wait for this to come out

[@mlninja3283]

bro just made this in 2 hours I'm honestly flabbergasted

[@Reyoso]

im glad this popped up on my feed, this is fucking cool

[@snikm2057]

this is something I always wanna make but yours is way better, damn

[@megapixeler]

Very cool, the only thing I would change is the strenght of the shadow casted by the clouds just a bit... And It would be perfect.

[@MrSpacepauls]

damn beautiful bro

[@ekremnerede]

Thanks for sharing 👊

[@charliegriessel4547]

dude, wanna be able to do that! Hope to see more vids like this in the future!! Subcribed :)

[@publicalias8172]

Beyond incredible

[@zelfzack9432]

Well, that's awesome

[@therealgunny]

the shaders are pretty cool, keep it up

[@simaocouto8106]

ohhh my... that looks amazing

[@ir-dan8524]

this is crazy cool, can't wait to learn more

[@lawrencelawine9082]

this rock creation is beyond awesome. can you go into it more specific? also the stone pillars. Normaly I would import it into Zbrush and create a high poly sculpt which would take much more time than your approach

[@t3ssel8r]

sure thing. everything is done in the mesh modifier stack. first I subdiv the mesh or remesh to a high poly count, then I apply a procedural displacement texture using a texture that invokes the shapes I want, and finally I add a planar decimation to simplify the geometry. the rest is playing with the parameters and scale to get the effect you want.

[@HarhaMedia]

That does look really really good. Holy crap. I went the simpler way with my game, I just export tiles/sprites from blender into tile/spritesheets using python scripts. So you have the benefit of having an actual 3D rendering while I'm limited to 1 perspective since it's just 2D images...

[@t3ssel8r]

your way runs a lot faster on the GPU in game though :)

[@johnglynn6290]

Oh, man...this looks SO GOOD! Dude, create a class on how to achieve this and sell it or use the videos that you have already done and use them to promote a Patreon with tutorials. I honestly don't think you realize how much gold you are sitting on here.

[@LAB_RAT_]

that's very impressive, do you work in video game or something ? I would love to see more of these tutorials, cheer bro !

[@Rofeu]

This is just beautiful...

[@BRSkiter]

That´s such a gorgeous art style!! Does transforming 3d into 2d actually improve performance? If it does, this is (apart from a pretty art design) a really good technical design aswell, congrats anyway on that engine tho, looking forward to your videos if you decide to follow the algorithm hype train

[@t3ssel8r]

thanks, the pixel art shader is a bit slower than traditional realtime 3D because it has to run pixel edge detection, and grass sprites need conditional writing to depth buffer which is slow on mobile devices. However, the ability to run with much simpler textures, polygons, and rendering at a lower resolution for pixel art look somewhat makes up for this. It's still much more computationally taxing than just building a 2D game, or a purely sprite/texture based game, but it should be able to run decently on most modern devices.

[@JoseyHikari]

Its been 2 years, there is interest in buying this engine. But I want do my own graphics, for my 3D Pixel Art Harvest Moon Game XD It was originally created in RPG Maker XP, but that is now too old. I'm looking for an alternative right now and the style of these 3d pixel arts is just perfect!

[@TickleTigger-xs2rp]

That looks incredible!

[@jerrygreenest]

Looks absolutely majestic But I really expected you to turn the camera 👿

[@shadamethyst1258]

You should try using metaballs for the tree leaves; displacement could also be done using cycles and baking stuff from there

[@t3ssel8r]

I tried metaballs but they were too fiddly for me in the end and need to be converted into marching cubes meshes anyways. baking is a huge pain in blender so I try to avoid it when possible. no need to uv unwrap and introduce displacement textures (and write shaders to apply them in game) when I can just save raw displaced vertices.