If you take it for free please credit me - Its my first released product ever so please let me now what i have to improve. I am working on the documentation but its easy to use with the standart settings. Just plugin the DitherInstance.material into the blend from your postprocess volume. It can be merged with the 8Bit Pixellize tutorial - i only use gumroad so someone can support my work even if its just 1 dollar so its hosting and donation at the same time.
Sorry for bringing this back from the dead, but is there any chance you might update this for 4.13? Or at the very least provide a tutorial? If so Iād gladly contribute / donate to learn.
Hi, its now ported to Unreal Engine 4.13 and 4.15. However, i decided to place it on Unreal Marketplace once and for all. I thought it was a good idea to release it for 0+ so that people can decide how much they like to spend for this item.A few spend a lot but most spend nothing. Also there was not much feedback given which was needed so that i can improve it. So even if its bought for free i awaited some feedback in return. This was my first public release after all and it was used for measurement. I have no idea or control in which way this postprocess is used since this release. I am so much interested in which games / projects it is used.
I donĀ“t want so sound bitter, but i canĀ“t keep up fast enough with all the development happening for the Unreal Engine. And i am very nervous before i try to release something. While I am unsure if my work has some value, others will win the race and place their products on the marketplace. So in order to fight this problem i need to push all my work to the marketplace/ to the public so that i am able develop things far further. Even if this is just to build up courage for myself.
For the ones that bought this asset ( and therefore donated my work), many many thanks. I will send you a very special asset pack and the converted project soon.
Hey Glutamatkrieger, just wanted to chime in and say I took a peek at this a long while back, since Iām such a sucker for that retro look. I had intended to use it for a personal project relating to a cyber-punk story, sort of a short to introduce a world that I might build up in my spare time. At any rate, I fully intend to utilize your asset there, especially after having scratched my head a lot trying to figure out how to achieve it. You did a very good job. Keep it up!
Iam very busy working on this retro filtering project. For me its very important to build an easy to setup and maintain solution. For now you can drag and drop this effect right into any existing scene and then setup the values on the details panels.
A new effect, mainly used in cutscene rendering for old games like War Wind 2 and Command and Conquer is the newest filtering option.
Quick screenshot with demo scene inside the pack :
The next days its all about the documentation part and bug fixing. I have never created a documentation on this project but this is the most important part. You can easily create all kind of effects so this needs to be explained in detail.
You mentioned brightness issues, which made me think of something. Are your running this in 4.15? Just curious, because if you are fine tuning colors and brightness, youāll probably want to hop into 4.15 to make sure it looks good against the default tonemapper. Sure, you can set the filmic tonemapper off, but I personally feel it looks good and itās better to work with it, than against it
Edit for @Derjyn : Jeah its used with 4.15. And the brightness problem is fixed and you the brightness from the tonemapper / eye adaptation can be changed to nearly fixed values.
The polishing and documentation part is the most time consuming thing right now. Its crazy, trust me. But that makes a huge impact on how this effect can be used. This Post Process can be used in conjunction with Post Process Volumes and it even saves and reads Templates!
ThatĀ“s so convenient. Its a simple trick with the construction script but that will make you soooo happy, i promise. It reads and writes values from the Retro Rendering Postprocess and from the Post Process Volume. But this is just a service, you can also use this Post Process Materials within the regular workflow. Its all blueprint stuff no c++ code.
The reason why this is still filed under this Retro Game thread is that it will be used in my own projects. This makes sure, that there is a use for it in a real content creation workflow. It doesnāt replace real pixel art but it can be used to render out Art assets that have a specific look. Combined with a render blueprint, this can be used to create isometric art like seen in many old isometric games. I donĀ“t know if this can be applied to this sidescroller game type yet so that needs to be tested.
There is also another reason why i really like using Unreal Engine for rendering instead of non real time rendering, and that is the openness of the art creation workflow. You can use every program to make 3D Models for the Unreal engine and than render out your asset with this Retro Effect applied with so much customization on effects and on materials in real time. No need to to use any other Render engine if you can have PBR rendering in realtime for this task. This will be a very creative workflow and i can hardly wait to use it for my own projects.
And for all who downloaded or bought my Gumroad version, this pack is now a much more polished and fixed version. Its not comparable anymore.
One more Teaser on how this can be used for retro looking cutscenes : https://youtube.com/watch?v=3eFD4G7zGwk
Thanks for keeping this up to date! Wish I could see more examples of what others are doing with this, but Iām just as guiltyā¦ I found it very easy to use, but since it was your Infiltrator screenshot that sold me on the plugin, right after buying it from Gumroad, I downloaded the latest Infiltrator, added the plugin, and did a complete flythrough of the level, letting my imagination wander with all the retro cyberpunk possibilities. I proceeded to try the plugin in several of the other Epic example projects, as well as all of my own current ones at the time, and it worked flawlessly and looked great in every case. So in my case at least, not sure I could give you any constructive feedback aside from: job well done!
Not sure when Iāll have a finished project that might include this, but Iāll very definitely give you credit. Hope to see more of your creative work using this effect!
It felt very close to be done two days ago. But then i did some in depth field test and it didnĀ“t work as flawless as i wanted it to be. Beside that, i am currently very occupied inside a half time job.
The current state feels actually very polished. The Visuals are good, the implementation is easier then before and it is easier to use in regular workflows. The newest step was to combine the Postprocess Volume with this Effect so that it doesnĀ“t break any standard workflow. This actor injects into any referenced Volume and writes and reads values from it. So that is a bonus feature inside the package which i hope it feels as much convenient to use for you as it does to me. I have to admit though, it is some kind of overthinking. There is a risk that this feature wasnĀ“t needed in the first place. I really want to finish it as fast as i can or my own desire of reaching perfection might cause me alot of more unnecessary pain and wasted time.
The most interesting feature is to change the dither Methods. I donĀ“t like to use standart routines, so i found 4 artistic interesting methods.
The newest one looks very good for 12+ Color Steps and the second one is a very harsh method to simulate old 4+ color steps which looks perfect with desaturation or single color effects.
Like always, another work in progress screenshot with the newest method :
Hi, I have to delay the development for a week. Iam assigned to a full time job and my part time job. However, Iam working on it whenever I can. The post process template thing was too much work - that really blew up the whole thing. It worked, but it wasnĀ“t stable enough. So this feature is thrown out and i am back to basic again. The dither detection reached a very stable and polished state as shown in this picture :
While this is close to be final enough but there are a few things needed to be done. I hope you have patience left for the next update (i guess there will be two updates left to show before the official release)
Hey there, has there been any updates on this? Iād like to try it out by unfortunately the 4.11 version on your gumroad isnāt quite recent enough for me to use, Iād love to use it on one of the more recent releases of ue4.
Hey someguyihate and all other follower of this thread. First off, iam sorry for this huge delay after my last reply. Had to work too hard and found not much spare time to work on this again. This Summer was over in no time for me.
However, there will be another update soon and i have great news. I managed to make this postprocess effect pixel perfect. That means you can actually use render from this effect and overpaint it in photoshop matching the correct pixel size. That is what i always wanted to achieve and its now achievable for me. That actually means a lot of improvement on rendering quality. You can scale down the game resolution to very low settings and still get sharp pixels without the blur you would get with scaling down the render resolution. The dithering effect is now also pixel perfect, which was impossible before and so it was only a visual effect not an accurate one.
But enough talk, here is an example render for you. Feel free to open it in your favorite foto manipulation software and see it for yourself.
Hey there, I have updated the previous effect for all Gumroad customers. Unfortunately, I canĀ“t update for 4.17 as for now - There seems to be a new way to plug in postprocess materials and I have to find a way to deal with it. Next step is to package the new effect, shown above. This will be the final step for this journey. Big thanks to all supporters who bought it. You will be the first in line to test the final effect when its done.
I know itās been eons since you made this post, but any chance itād be compatible with 4.26? Iām racking my brain over trying to recreate this effect and wanted to break down yours to get a better idea of whatās going on. Would gladly purchase!
