Hey guys,
I would like to introduce the tool for game developers and artists I am currently running a pretty successful Kickstarter campaign for:
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The main use of Sprite DLight is the generation of normal maps from 2D sprites in one click, which allows for quick and atmospheric dynamic lighting effects in 2D games:
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"Selen Run Animation" from Timespinner, ©2014 Lunar Ray Games, animated dynamic lighting preview of the sprite sheet in Sprite DLight
In the Kickstarter video, there is an example of a character, animated in a Spine runtime, together with a normal mapped version of the atlas, and a shader.
Top left: Body parts of "Leutnant", © 2014 Philipp Lauthner, Bottom left: normal map generated by Sprite DLight from a slightly modified version of the original sprite, Right: shader preview in Jonas' Spine Shader
The challenges of the integration with Spine are currently:
- The rotation of the bones has to be passed to the shader to display the normal maps correctly. A friend of mine (Jonas Jelli) wrote the shader you see in the video, and the normals already take the rotation into account there.
- When processing an atlas with Sprite DLight, the shapes are 'inflated' from the edges to the center of each shape. This makes them look 'disconnected' to an extent. You can see this pretty good at joints like the elbows or the knees.
I am looking for ways to solve particularly the second issue, and I am open to suggestions.
There are 24 hours left to get the tool at the Kickstarter backer price and to participate in the backer beta, which will start by the end of December.
All stretch goals are reached and the project is more than 650% funded.
Sprite DLight's Kickstarter campaign shows a lot of examples, including 3 videos.
The tool is also on Steam Greenlight, looking for more Yes votes.
Any kind of feedback and support is highly appreciated.
