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One day, I'd love to dive into stylised 3D graphics as an R&D project. There's been decent progress recently, but I think there's a lot of low-hanging fruit lef

One day, I'd love to dive into stylised 3D graphics as an R&D project. There's been decent progress recently, but I think there's a lot of low-hanging fruit left to pick. Some open questions: - How do you reduce the detail of a toon-rendered 3D model as the camera zooms out? How do you seamlessly transition between its more-stylised and less-stylised appearance? - Hand-drawn 2D animations often have watercolour backgrounds. Can we convincingly render 3D scenery as a watercolour painting? How can we smoothly animate things like brush-strokes and paper texture in screen space? - How should a stylised 3D game portray smoke, flames, trees, grass, mud, rainfall, fur, water...? - Hand-drawn 2D animations (and some recent 3D animations) can be physically incorrect: the artist may subtly reshape the "model" to make it look better from the current camera angle. In a game with a freely-moving camera, could we automate that? - When dealing with a stylised 3D renderer, what would the ideal "mesh editor" and "scenery editor" programs look like? Do those assets need to have a physically-correct 3D surface and 3D armature, or could they be defined in a more vague, abstract way? - Would it be possible to render retro pixel art from a simple 3D model? If so, could we use this to make a procedurally-generated 2D game? - Could we use stylisation to make a 3D game world feel more physically correct? For example, when two meshes accidentally intersect, could we make that intersection less obvious to the viewer? There are probably enough questions there to fill ten careers, but I suppose that's a good thing!

rng_civ 2y ago
> Hand-drawn 2D animations often have watercolour backgrounds. Can we convincingly render 3D scenery as a watercolour painting? How can we smoothly animate things like brush-strokes and paper texture in screen space? There are various techniques to do this. The most prominent one IMO is from the folks at Blender [0] using geometry nodes. A Kuwahara filter is also "good enough" for most people. > When dealing with a stylised 3D renderer, what would the ideal "mesh editor" and "scenery editor" programs look like? Do those assets need to have a physically-correct 3D surface and 3D armature, or could they be defined in a more vague, abstract way? Haven't used anything else but Blender + Rigify + shape keys + some driver magic is more than sufficient for my needs. Texturing in Blender is annoying but tolerable as a hobbyist. For more NPR control, maybe DillonGoo Studio's fork would be better [1] > Would it be possible to render retro pixel art from a simple 3D model? If so, could we use this to make a procedurally-generated 2D game? I've done it before by rending my animations/models at a low resolution and calling it a day. Results are decent but takes some trial and error. IIRC, some folks have put in more legwork with fancy post-processing to eliminate things like pixel flickering but can't find any links right now. [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljjUoup2uTw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljjUoup2uTw [1]: https://www.dillongoostudios.com/gooengine https://www.dillongoostudios.com/gooengine
- kridsdale1 2y ago
  The best results I’ve seen at procedurally generated “old school” style pixel art sprites have come from highly LORA-ed diffusion models. You can find some on Civit AI.[1] So the future here may be a 3D mesh based game engine on a system fast enough to do realtime stable-diffusion style conversion of the frame buffer to strictly adhering (for pose and consistency) “AI” pixel art generation. [1] https://civitai.com/search/models?sortBy=models_v9&query=Pixel https://civitai.com/search/models?sortBy=models_v9&query=Pix...
  - chii 2y ago
    ah that's very interesting. Will save that link for future reference.
fidotron 2y ago
The future of 3D graphics is going to be feeding generative NNs with very simple template scenes, and using the NN to apply almost all the lighting and styling. It's kind of ridiculous that this occurs just as the dream of raytracing hardware approaches viability.
- CyberDildonics 2y ago
  It's kind of ridiculous that this occurs It hasn't 'occurred' at all. People extrapolated what they saw in the 50s to cars the size of houses, personal flying cars and robot helpers too.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - fidotron 2y ago
    There is certainly some erroneous ‘extrapolation’ going on here.
    - CyberDildonics 2y ago
      Right, that's why I pointed it out. There isn't any evidence this is something people even want to happen, let alone that it will.
      - fidotron 2y ago
        No, it is you that doesn’t want it to happen and so are having a strangely extreme reaction to a simple observation. Apparently you are not alone in that.
        CyberDildonics 2y ago
        It isn't a "strangely extreme reaction" to say that something that hasn't happened hasn't happened.
egypturnash 2y ago
Pixel art from 3d models: see Dead Cells. https://www.gamedeveloper.com/production/art-design-deep-dive-using-a-3d-pipeline-for-2d-animation-in-i-dead-cells-i- https://www.gamedeveloper.com/production/art-design-deep-div...
diablomablo 2y ago
One thing I've had to do while working on my 3D pixel art game is change the size of the pixels as the camera zooms out. Low res: https://x.com/Navy_Green/status/1525564342975995904 https://x.com/Navy_Green/status/1525564342975995904 Stabilization: https://x.com/Navy_Green/status/1693820282245431540 https://x.com/Navy_Green/status/1693820282245431540
DonHopkins 2y ago
Not 3D, but Stamen (a data visualization and cartography studio) made a beautiful watercolor map renderer: https://maps.stamen.com/watercolor/#14/52.3718/4.8958 https://maps.stamen.com/watercolor/#14/52.3718/4.8958
Jare 2y ago
> Would it be possible to render retro pixel art from a simple 3D model? Not exactly retro pixel art, or maybe it is since it's been 25 years (omfg) but in Commandos 2+ we had 3d models for the characters, vehicles, etc which we rendered at runtime to a 2d sprite which we then mixed with the rest of the pre-rendered 2d sprites and backgrounds.
- Reticularas 2y ago
  A more modern example would be Dead Cells

rng_civ 2y ago

> Hand-drawn 2D animations often have watercolour backgrounds. Can we convincingly render 3D scenery as a watercolour painting? How can we smoothly animate things like brush-strokes and paper texture in screen space? There are various techniques to do this. The most prominent one IMO is from the folks at Blender [0] using geometry nodes. A Kuwahara filter is also "good enough" for most people. > When dealing with a stylised 3D renderer, what would the ideal "mesh editor" and "scenery editor" programs look like? Do those assets need to have a physically-correct 3D surface and 3D armature, or could they be defined in a more vague, abstract way? Haven't used anything else but Blender + Rigify + shape keys + some driver magic is more than sufficient for my needs. Texturing in Blender is annoying but tolerable as a hobbyist. For more NPR control, maybe DillonGoo Studio's fork would be better [1] > Would it be possible to render retro pixel art from a simple 3D model? If so, could we use this to make a procedurally-generated 2D game? I've done it before by rending my animations/models at a low resolution and calling it a day. Results are decent but takes some trial and error. IIRC, some folks have put in more legwork with fancy post-processing to eliminate things like pixel flickering but can't find any links right now. [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljjUoup2uTw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljjUoup2uTw [1]: https://www.dillongoostudios.com/gooengine https://www.dillongoostudios.com/gooengine

kridsdale1 2y ago
The best results I’ve seen at procedurally generated “old school” style pixel art sprites have come from highly LORA-ed diffusion models. You can find some on Civit AI.[1] So the future here may be a 3D mesh based game engine on a system fast enough to do realtime stable-diffusion style conversion of the frame buffer to strictly adhering (for pose and consistency) “AI” pixel art generation. [1] https://civitai.com/search/models?sortBy=models_v9&query=Pixel https://civitai.com/search/models?sortBy=models_v9&query=Pix...
- chii 2y ago
  ah that's very interesting. Will save that link for future reference.

fidotron 2y ago

The future of 3D graphics is going to be feeding generative NNs with very simple template scenes, and using the NN to apply almost all the lighting and styling. It's kind of ridiculous that this occurs just as the dream of raytracing hardware approaches viability.

CyberDildonics 2y ago
It's kind of ridiculous that this occurs It hasn't 'occurred' at all. People extrapolated what they saw in the 50s to cars the size of houses, personal flying cars and robot helpers too.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- fidotron 2y ago
  There is certainly some erroneous ‘extrapolation’ going on here.
  - CyberDildonics 2y ago
    Right, that's why I pointed it out. There isn't any evidence this is something people even want to happen, let alone that it will.
    - fidotron 2y ago
      No, it is you that doesn’t want it to happen and so are having a strangely extreme reaction to a simple observation. Apparently you are not alone in that.
      - CyberDildonics 2y ago
        It isn't a "strangely extreme reaction" to say that something that hasn't happened hasn't happened.

egypturnash 2y ago

Pixel art from 3d models: see Dead Cells. https://www.gamedeveloper.com/production/art-design-deep-dive-using-a-3d-pipeline-for-2d-animation-in-i-dead-cells-i- https://www.gamedeveloper.com/production/art-design-deep-div...

diablomablo 2y ago

One thing I've had to do while working on my 3D pixel art game is change the size of the pixels as the camera zooms out. Low res: https://x.com/Navy_Green/status/1525564342975995904 https://x.com/Navy_Green/status/1525564342975995904 Stabilization: https://x.com/Navy_Green/status/1693820282245431540 https://x.com/Navy_Green/status/1693820282245431540

DonHopkins 2y ago

Not 3D, but Stamen (a data visualization and cartography studio) made a beautiful watercolor map renderer: https://maps.stamen.com/watercolor/#14/52.3718/4.8958 https://maps.stamen.com/watercolor/#14/52.3718/4.8958

Jare 2y ago

> Would it be possible to render retro pixel art from a simple 3D model? Not exactly retro pixel art, or maybe it is since it's been 25 years (omfg) but in Commandos 2+ we had 3d models for the characters, vehicles, etc which we rendered at runtime to a 2d sprite which we then mixed with the rest of the pre-rendered 2d sprites and backgrounds.

Reticularas 2y ago
A more modern example would be Dead Cells