

This is all just a guess, and I'm sure his technique is a lot more sophisticated, if nothing else because it sounds like he's been tweaking and iterating on his algorithms for a while now. Once you've got the depth map, there are some simple algorithms to generate a normal map from it. Tweak the depth based on pixel color intensity relative to neighboring pixels, under the assumption that a darker pixel next to a lighter pixel is farther from the camera than the lighter pixel. logarithm or square root) to soften the peaks. Perform some kind of blur on that depth map, and some other bounding/softening function (e.g. the nearest pixel that's not part of the sprite). Assume a pixel's depth equals its distance from the nearest background pixel (i.e. Probably you could do something passable with a simple approach. I would love to hear any kind of input and feedback on the project.
#Sprite dlight vs sprite lamp mac
The tool is being developed for Windows, Mac and Linux, and the backer beta is scheduled to start around mid-December. Sprite DLight also creates depth (cross conversion between depth and normal maps possible), ambient occlusion and specularity maps, and it has an option to combine multiple normal maps in a correct way.Ī lot more information, videos and examples are available here: The final stretch goal has just been reached: "Manual artistic control" brings the ability to split normal maps into light maps, that can be painted on in any image editor and be merged back to a new normal map.įor engines that do not support shaders, the tool allows you to re-render and batch-export sprites for different environments. The Kickstarter has 3 days to go and is about 580% funded. For games with lots of assets and animations, a developer without any artistic skills will be able to batch process all sprites and sprite sheets in a matter of seconds, without any additional work. In contrast to existing normal map generators and plugins, Sprite DLight generates a voluminous normal map based only on the input sprite, where the overall shape and the details of the subject are taken into account. With this, you could create a game featuring dynamic lighting on pixel art characters and objects, simply by processing the game art and using the normal maps in combination with a shader.

The Kickstarter is now more than 450% funded and less than $500 away from the final stretch goal, with about 8 days left.Hey, I am Dennis, developer and artist, currently running a Kickstarter for Sprite DLight, a tool for game developers that generates normal maps from 2D sprites in one click. "Wolf where?" sprite sheet, ©2014 Kevin Chaloux, re-rendered for different environments with the normal map and lighting of Sprite DLightįinally, a huge "THANK YOU" to adnzzzzZ for the suggestion to post on reddit, which resulted in a massive boost. "Super Aged Warriors Alpha 2 HD Turbo Special", ©2014 AlbertoV (DYA Games), re-rendered for different environments with the normal map and lighting of Sprite DLight
#Sprite dlight vs sprite lamp pro
With the batch-processing feature of the Pro version, all sprites of a game project can be re-rendered for various environments in a few clicks. The diffuse light of the lighting preview can be reduced to its directional component, so all frames inside a sprite sheet can be consistently re-rendered. The third stretch goal has been reached, which brings a feature to re-render sprites with different lighting conditions, based on the generated normal map.

I hope "real" dynamic lighting will work for LÖVE with the light library or something similar, still I'd like to share the latest news: If you do not know which one to choose, just take both So Sprite Lamp is about maximum control and making your work easier, while Sprite DLight is about doing your work for you. You would just process the sprite sheet in one click, resulting in quick normal maps that are all calculated with the same settings. Sprite DLight is targeted to projects with larger numbers of sprites, where you just don't have the time to draw everything by hand.

This way, you could have things like brush strokes in the normal map and you can achieve a better quality if you take the time (and have the skill) to paint everything nicely. Sprite Lamp is an amazing tool that takes 2-5 hand painted lighting profiles and combines them to a normal map. 1.There is no final decision yet, but I have been thinking of $30 for the Lite version and $50 for the Pro version when everything is done, so backers are rewarded for helping to make it possible (Kickstarter and PayPal backer prices are $20 for the Lite and $35 for the Pro version).Ģ.
