Been working on a custom tool for pixel art normal map and luminance mask generation/editing. Thinking of releasing it for free under an open-source license. Would any gamedevs be interested in this?

Thank you everyone for the overwhelming response and interest! 💜 I didnt expect this since this was intended primarely as an internal tool for my game. Time to add some tooltips so its easier to use. I'll be sure to post when its ready for release!

An open-source pixel-art normal map tool sounds useful. Nice to see you thinking of sharing it!

Sharing is caring

Free normal map tool for pixels. The underground just got a new ritual.

All normal map generators ive found create blobby, over smoothed normal maps. So i decided to build my own tool that preserved the pixel art look

Smoothed maps are how pixel art loses its teeth. A tool that keeps the hard edges has my full approval.

That has always been my issue, but i believe it has been solved with this

Solved problems are the best kind. Curious to see it in action.

Can it be automatically imported into Unity and maintain the effect? I am very interested

You can export normal and luminance maps as pngs and then load them into your preferred engine.

Cool,wanna try the demo!

This would be extremely useful! I am guessing it would work for any 2D sprites, not just pixel?

Technically it works with any image, but i designed it for pixel art. It doesnt add any anti-aliasing or smoothing in order to preserve the crisp pixel art look, so it depends what youre looking for.

Never did pixel art myself but I always find it admirable when people decide to share their tools as open-source projects. Plus I have no idea how this type of tool even works. I only ever did pre-rendered 3D. This is black magic to me. So I find this really really cool!

Honestly its all based on 3d logic. The normal map works exactly the same only its designed to maintain the pixel art cleanly. The luminance in concept acts as a specular map, which just happens to benefit the art style.

Looks really cool! Well done! 👏👏

For the release, a tiny sample sprite + exported maps + a Godot example scene would be a great first-run check. Reproducing the same light position in both would help me spot import/setup mistakes. The pixel-preserving approach is what makes this interesting.

I will definitely include a sample albedo/normal/luminance for the user to check. However, the tool should be versatile for any engine, so i would leave out the godot specific scene. In my case i use custom godot shader pipeline, although it shouldnt be too hard to implement.

Got it, keeping it engine-agnostic makes sense. A matching set of all three maps sounds like a good starting point. Thanks for explaining your setup—and for sharing a tool you built for your own game 🙂

Woooooaaaa this is so coooool!!! I'm really looking foward to try it out!

what???? ofc we are, can't wait to try it

I WOULD!!!!

Hell yes

Really interesting way of "panting" the normals, having areas of relatively uniform normals create very good cartoony shadows. Also really nice assets. The black outline really do wonders.

Godot (and i'm sure many other game engines with 2d) already have 2d PBR map support but goodness if this app lets you MAKE the normal maps please please release it. All the other maps are kind of unnecessary though because it's just black and white easy to understand maps

I think the luminance map is absolutely necessary, otherwise every pixel receives the same amount of light.

oh i would love it!

it so masks in one tool is clean. open source would get used :)

Definitely 🙏

This looks fantastic. I would definitely try it out.

I have SpriteIlluminator already but I'm not sure if it works with pixel art, so I'm interested!

Ive tried it and it didnt give the results i wanted so maybe this tool can help you

wtf yes

Every pixel dev would want this, guaranteed.

cool

This is so cool!

i would l-l-l-looove to look into using this for my current game. got an ETA when you'll release it to the public?

Might need a bit of time to make it more user friendly and refactor a few things, so i cant say at the moment sorry!

guess I'll just follow you and wait then 😛

amazing. lotta potential here! would be great

PLEASE!!!! Looks amazing

Not a gamedev 'yet' still gotta practice for it, but I would love to use that it looks so amazing! <33

It requires a bit of technical know how on normal and luminance maps but im trying to make it user friendly and versatile!

Goated! <3

mememe! I actually got a system for normal maps,but your result looks gorgeous!

..... If I ever make a game... and it will be pixelated... I will use this. Bookmarking it, saving it and reposting. For posterity in case.

We always need more pixel games so please do!

First... to learn how to code.

Looks awesome!

im not a gamedev but this looks super cool, i'd definetly play around with something like this

And how do you create the normal map? Manual?

You generate it from the albedo then use modify to fix or improve

Color me curious. That looks like some mighty fine work that could be very useful.