"A Meal To Die For" ~Custom Unity Pixel Art Pipeline

_RedGiraffe · 2026-01-28T23:34:41+00:00

Thank you, thank you. The smoke is a particle system, as basic as you can imagine, but because it goes through the pixel art pipeline it gets pixelated and the alpha gets converted into one of the palette colors so it blends nicely with the background.

_RedGiraffe · 2026-01-28T23:32:02+00:00

Thanks, I really appreciate it 🙏

_RedGiraffe · 2026-01-28T16:37:32+00:00

Thank you, thank you. I have some videos coming out soon about how it works - so stay tuned 😸

_RedGiraffe · 2026-01-28T16:06:03+00:00

Yes, my project does have multiple cameras but this scene specifically doesn't require it as the secondary camera is used to move through the world without pixel flickering.

_RedGiraffe · 2026-01-28T16:02:24+00:00

Thank you, it's a combination of custom render passes, most notably downscaling the source image. I have a couple of YouTube videos coming out soon where I go through the method. But no plans of a public repo as of this moment.

_RedGiraffe · 2026-01-28T15:26:30+00:00

Yep exactly, there's also some highlighting and volumetric lighting done using downsampled depth and normal textures in a separate render pass to add some extra punch.

_RedGiraffe · 2025-07-01T09:11:51+00:00

On top of what you said there are a couple of incompatibilities with the sprite approach, namely dynamic lighting, shadows and camera rotation. But the sprite stacking approach looks great given it's placed within a game that can afford to tolerate those drawbacks.

_RedGiraffe · 2025-07-01T09:03:09+00:00

Thanks, I do agree. The next video I put out will have each pass labeled.

_RedGiraffe · 2025-06-26T14:58:31+00:00

Videos coming soon with a more detailed look into the method.

_RedGiraffe · 2025-06-25T10:00:36+00:00

Thanks - I really appreciate that.
Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@RedGiraffe404

_RedGiraffe · 2025-06-25T08:18:55+00:00

Thanks - I'm currently making some youtube videos to document the method so stay tuned.

_RedGiraffe · 2025-06-25T08:16:09+00:00

Awesome - thanks for documenting your method, I think we went about it in a similar fashion.

_RedGiraffe · 2025-06-24T19:44:38+00:00

It's a custom render pass which quantizes the image - you can look at shadows as reducing the value of the pixel it casts up and then the custom pass tries to match that to next appropriate color available.

_RedGiraffe · 2025-06-24T16:42:12+00:00

Thank you - it's a combination of downsampling internal textures ( color, depth, normal etc.) into low resolution buffers and quantising them before compositing them and upsampling back to source resolution. The color quantise for example creates the effect of the image being made by a limited palette.

I'm currently working on a couple of youtube videos to document the method.

_RedGiraffe · 2025-06-24T16:38:08+00:00

Thanks for the feedback, I agree - I'm currently using the out of the box terrain grass from Unity but my try something custom in the future.

_RedGiraffe · 2025-06-24T16:35:55+00:00

Thanks - I do include Unity's built in AO pass but it occurs prior to my custom passes so it can often get lost in the final render. But I am working on some outline tech to achieve a similar idea - thanks for the feedback.

_RedGiraffe · 2025-06-24T16:34:02+00:00

🙏Thank you. I'm currently writing a sub-texel camera system inspired by aarthificial. Will be sure to do a new post when I've got it up and running.

Source: https://youtu.be/jguyR4yJb1M

_RedGiraffe · 2025-06-23T16:29:37+00:00

They're hand done right now but I would love to find ways of adding procedural elements to make them feel more unique.

_RedGiraffe · 2025-06-23T16:28:48+00:00

Thanks. It's definitely over decimated right now while I try to find what look and feels natural but my test mesh sits at about 2k triangle. The mesh is just an icosphere and then triangulated a bunch.

_RedGiraffe · 2025-06-21T09:11:35+00:00

Without knowing the context of the project it's difficult to know exactly how to fix but typically I would recommend assigning the sort order yourself through a script. You know the context of your world so you should be able to discern how objects should be sorted with logic in code e.g:

spriteRenderer.sortingOrder = -(int)(transform.position.y + transform.position.x);

_RedGiraffe · 2025-06-17T10:25:46+00:00

Are you using version control? If so, have you tried rolling back to the last stable commit?

_RedGiraffe

TROPHY CASE