
Welcome to the course! Here we'll go over some technical details regarding sprites.
Mapping 3d into a 2d grid
We'll learn to light pixels to add depth to the final sprite
Quick timelapse of a mesh for spriting
We preview our model as a 2d sprite
We'll do some data setup for the exporting process
We'll write the python code to export our sprite sheet as a png with transparency
We'll add a quick rig to our mesh to export animated sprites
We'll complete our code to export sprite sheets
We're done with sprites, lets take a look back!
We'll analyze the background style of FInal Fantasy Tactics and set what we're aiming for
We'll build a simple texture atlas tool
We'll begin by blocking out the background
We'll texture the background
We'll add some details like the window holes
We'll give the finishing touches to the base mesh
We'll add some cracks to our background using scattering
We'll add small bushes that adapt to the terrain using scattering
We'll use an HDR texture to add some nice looking colors to our background's vertex colors
We'll add further control by adding per point lights to our scene, this will allow us to add detail
After some final touches we are done!
A small cutscene made with the assets we built during the course!
Have you ever wanted to make graphics similar to the gems of the golden age of JRPGs such as Final Fantasy Tactics, Breath of Fire 4 and Vagrant Story?
We all know the "feel" but it is hard to replicate, a lot of the time the methods used to generate pixel art graphics from 3d models suffer from inaccuracies such as filtering in the textures and lack of control over lights and the inability to have a stable and reliable pipeline from 3D to 2D.
In this course we'll develop a workflow that'll make this a lot easier! Both for sprite sheets from 3d models as well as 3d backgrounds.
We'll build and use a single click export tool that will allow us to model, animate and then quickly save as a transparent PNG sprite sheet all our models with their various rotated views, this is exactly the same workflow as used in games such as Super Mario R.P.G for the SNES to generate appealing sprites that are consistent across the board.
Then we'll make an environment that uses vertex colors to store its light information, and texture atlases to both reduce the texture count and ease our production workflow, just how they did it for games like FFT and Vagrant Story as well as countless other gems from that era.