Modified version of Lucas Roedel's Pixel Art Rendering Addon

• Easily pixelates 3D renders
• Supports interaction between multiple lights
• Stylized shine effect

1. Press the Code drop-down button
2. Press Download ZIP and store wherever you want
3. Open Blender and press Edit (in the top left) -> Preferences -> Add-ons -> Install
4. Find the ZIP file and double click it
5. Click on the checkbox next to the add-on

This video explains the basic usage of the tool. Below are more details on the newly added features and advanced use cases.

A stylized, anime-like shine effect has been added. Two new buttons allow you to easily add this effect to pixel materials—compatible with both single- and multi-light setups.

• Adjust the Fac value on the final Add node to control the opacity of the shine. A higher Fac value makes the shine more opaque.
• Use the Shine Reflection node to tweak the shine’s color, rotation, scale, and screen position. These values often require tuning per object. To fine-tune further, try disconnecting the Shine Scale and/or Shine Rotation inputs.

A stylized smoke, anime-like particle system has been added. Three new buttons allow you to add the particle system, or add its separate peices (emitter and particle object).

To get reflections to work with this add-on, you will need to use Light Probe Planes. Based on testing in Blender 4.1, no other method produces accurate reflections with pixel materials.

• Set Roughness low and Metallic high on the reflective object.
• Adding subtle backlighting can help make reflections more visible.

Using an image texture as the base color on the Principled BSDF node is supported. However, detailed textures tend to clutter the pixelated result.

• Prefer simple or stylized textures.
• Alternatively, add texture overlays in post using external software.

Normal Maps also work for this add-on. However, regular Normal Maps will most likely result in a cluttered result.

• Creating new maps with a pixel art software, like Aseprite, with no anti-aliasing, can give a good result.
• Alternatively, maps with less details may also work.

Pixel materials do not support translucency. To create effects like glass:

• Use a basic Blender material instead.
• To match the pixel style, you can:
  • Add the Shine Reflection node group.
  • Use a pixelated texture that blends into the scene. You can use this Blender addon to achieve a pixelated look on textures.

This is a modified version of Lucas Roedel's original add-on. It includes bug fixes and improvements aimed at making the code more readable and easier to extend. You can find the original code here — I highly recommend checking it out and leaving him a tip if you find it useful.

Whilst the addon does work in version 4.5, rendering with the Eevee engine seems to have changed. Rendering with only 1 sample will result in a terrible final render. One solution is to increase the render sampling count. This does work slightly, but even with high values (over 10k) areas that should be colored solid will have very slight deviations. I have yet to find a fix to this. I recommend installing an older version of Blender (I recommend 4.1) and rendering from there. Rendering with 1 sample in this version will result in a clean pixelated render.

This add-on is licensed under the GNU GPLv3 License. For more information read: LICENSE.