psx effects

[cinni]

a.k.a. how to make your game/animations look like a playstation 1 game :-)

~~~

i'm currently trying out some new scripts in blender to recreate the style in the above pic, and thought i'd make a thread to share some assets if you want to recreate this effect!


PSX_retroshader (unity)
i personally use this shader in my unity projects, it's pretty simple to use. once the package is installed, change all your shaders to the imported psx shaders, and then you can add the C precision script to your camera if you want a limited palette.



PSX-URP (unity)
i *just* came across this, but looks very interesting! i'll report back whenever i get around to trying it.



PSXify (blender)
this is the script i'm currently trying out but i'm having some issues rn.. will have to study more, haha. but looks great if you can get it working!




just a note about general rules of this style of rendering -- the less vertices your model has = the more warping your textures will have, otherwise known as affine texture mapping. this is a good example of it below:



As you can see the effect is better when the mesh is subdivided (bottom left mesh) instead of when the mesh have a low poly count (top right mesh)



i use this sometimes to my advantage if i want to make a dizzing/warping effect, but it does get tiring on the eyes if used in excess.

[cinni]

also as a quick "hack" you can downgrade the resolution in blender for a pixel-y effect, which is most noticeable on the edges of your models.

original:


sampling changed:


+ resolution changed:


these are the settings you need to change:


change the sampling to "1" for the pixel-y look

to amp it up more, reduce the resolution of your render:

this is 1/4th of the default size


ALSO! to get that displacement effect of vertex snapping, here's a useful tip:

-apply a displace modifier, coordinate “object” and target your camera. Direction RGB to XYZ, space gobal.
-as a texture, create a Cloud texture, Cell Noise.



Now when moving the camera the object will be displaced.

[source]

[cinni]

i came across this tutorial on ps1-style rendering in blender and it was exactly what i needed (all it really does is pixelate the edges) :-p i usually animate in blender > render in unity, but for this animation i kinda needed to do everything in blender. huzzah!