We've seen a bit of a resurgence of 2D pixel art as a game art style. The retro look has a lot of charm and can be surprisingly versatile. But just because it's low-tech doesn't mean it's easy.
What can you do if you want to make cool pixel art sprites but can't draw? One creative 3D artist has a solution: a free plugin for Blender, one of the best 3D modelling programs. And he stresses that the process doesn't use AI.
Making pixel art with blender (pokemon) from r/blender
The developer and 3D artist Lucas Roedel has created a free Blender addon that turns 3D models into pixel art-like renders. It might seems like a regression to start in 3D in order to recreate the art style of retro games from the '80s, but the plug in appears to be very effective, making this an option to jump on the pixel art resurgence.
This addon is a modified version of Mezaka's pixel art setup to work with Wevee, Bayer dithering and multiple light sources. The results are not entirely flat 2D pixel art since they retain a sense of depth, and they can be animated in Blender before export.
Lucas has posted a step-by-step tutorial showing how to use the pixel-art addon in Blender with the Pokémon Tatsugiri as his model. He demonstrates the whole workflow, from modelling in Blender to applying the pixel addon, adjusting the model, rigging and animating, exporting and importing into Unity, the game development software.
He notes that the modelling doesn't have to be perfect because the pixelart-like rendering will hide many imperfection. He also opts to add smear frames to simulate the effect of motion blur but this step can be skipped if not desired.
Of course, the addon doesn't only work on Pokémon. Lucas has a demo of the addon at work with a cat as the star.
You can get the plugin for free via Lucas's store on Gumroad.
Blender itself is free and open source. See our Blender review.
For more inspiration and ideas for things you can do in the software, see our roundup of Blender tutorials.
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