I’m working on a game which replicates 8-bit colors from an old ZX Spectrum game. (Entirely for fun and learning the engine). The tilemap and viewport show the colors as they would/should be:
However, when running the game, the colors and pixels lose definition and become blurred.
I am suspecting this is because the use of a camera with a spring arm a certain distance from the tilemap. Is there a way to counter this issue to preserve the original nature of the pixel art? (To be precise the target arm length between the tilemap surface and the camera is 1040). Hopefully these pictures show what I’m trying to do.
If you have applied the Paper2D Sprite settings to your tiles and textures, then they should not become blurry (right click on texture → sprite action → apply Paper2D texture settings).
But the camera can be the culprit, play with it´s focus distance (in some cases i had to set it manually) and depth of field (should be off).
In my tests, they always rendered crisp and clear, as expected, after using and adjusting those mentioned settings.
Thanks. I did follow the Paper2D sprite import process you mention. All of the settings are at default on the camera - and altering them (focus distance etc); even to huge numbers does nothing… which makes me think this is a lighting issue.
In the Viewport designer; when unlit, the colours are perfect; as they should be. Zooming in and out and it’s spot on. When I play the level; I see the issue.
Now, I don’t have any lighting in the Outliner… mainly because I’m not sure what the right light to use is. Could it be this?
Edit: Just saw, that you have tagged UE5, my project was still UE4, so i quickly copied it to a UE5 project, but still the same results, textures work as intended and get not blurred.
This is how your shown texture looks in my test project. I just had downloaded your example and imported it, applied the paper2d settings, made a mini tilemap and set it in the world.
My camera is about 2800 units away, focus distance about 1300 (not sure why ^.^ but it delivers sharp images at its usual distance).
Testvideo:
Screenshot without sunlight to see, if a black background changes anything. The camera might not be perfectly straight aligned in that shot, but looked fine enough.
Thanks, with a bit of playing with the camera length, I’m fairly content with the result. In fairness, being very new to this I suspect I’m using the camera incorrectly for this kind of task - but your hints were very helpful.
