Agenda

The team at Hypersect wanted to stand out from the competition with the art style of its tactical RPG, Never's End, by solving the problem of rendering a true 3D world as if it was hand-drawn 2D pixel art. In this session, Ryan Juckett (game director and lead engineer) will share details about the game's art pipeline and rendering technology powered by Hypersect's proprietary game engine. Characters and the environment are fully 3D modeled allowing a level of fidelity not possible in a true 2D sprite engine. While maintaining a hand-animated sprite illusion, Never's end allows for full camera control, dynamic lighting, complex materials such as liquids, skeletal based animation of dynamic clothing and weapons, and more.

Takeaway

Attendees will learn the many challenges of building a 3D renderer that behaves like a convincing 2D sprite engine, and how they were solved, along with the techniques used to build 3D art that can translate into 2D pixel art.

Intended Audience

This talk targets programmers, technical artists and 3D artists interested in working with stylized rendering pipelines. We will discuss tools and techniques for art asset creation along with technical details of algorithms and rendering.