Any tips on software/plugins that render 3D models as pixart style w/ normal / height maps? I am specifically looking to convert static mesh (props / furniture / buildings) - so the ability to create sprite sheets/handle animation is not important. I realize no method is bulletproof and will require manual retouching.

I have this : https://www.unrealengine.com/marketplace/en-US/product/3d-to-pixels

and while pretty solid at the job, the workflow is not ideal for iterating. I'm platform agnostic, I'll embrace anything that can get the job done.

Thanks!

No matter which tool you use, you're going to have to do some scripting I think.

A long time ago, I've done this in 3ds Max, writing some MaxScript. It worked fine at the time, but I wouldn't recommend it to someone new, unless you're already heavily invested in 3ds Max.

Blender has a pretty strong community and a number of third party plugins, and if something's missing, you can write more functions using Python. If I had to set up a “3d to pixels” automated pipeline today, I'd probably start there.

@hplus0603 Thanks, I've found a couple projects in Blender that do pixel/toon. I'm searching for something that added normal to that, but have been coming up blank so far - so maybe yeah time to jump into hacking up my own solution.

Blender: no scripting required. You can render your models onto a texture and export them from any angle you like.

Secondly, similar to how normal maps are made, you can bake the height coordinate (default is y in Blender) onto a texture and export it. Use the Cycles render engine within Blender (it comes included). I highly recommend it as it is quick once you get going.

In your software, you can then extract the pixel RGB value from the height map to determine the height in-game of the static scene.

But what are you doing with “normal / height maps”? Actually rendering your “pixel art” as voxels, with depth information and possibly tweaked normal maps, rather than as flat sprites?

Thanks everyone, I've got a working system now. Easier than I thought it would be!

I'm using the normal maps on flat planes to create ‘fake’ bump information for lighting. I'm creating depth maps and then converting those to normal maps inside of UE.