Post-Processing Effects

The Effects tab lets you add real-time post-processing to the viewport. Effects are applied at export time, so what you see in the preview is what you get in your sprite sheet.

Adding Effects¶

1. Open the Effects tab from the menu bar.
2. Click an effect to add it to the stack.
3. Adjust its parameters in the panel that appears.
4. Toggle effects on/off with the checkbox next to each one.

Effects are applied in order from top to bottom. Drag to reorder them.

Blend Function¶

Most effects expose a Blend Function parameter that controls how the effect composites over the scene. Common values:

Available Effects¶

Visual Style¶

Light & Color¶

Depth & Focus¶

Anti-Aliasing¶

Distortion & Noise¶

Motion¶

Advanced¶

Effect Parameters¶

Pixelation¶

Simulates a lower-resolution image by grouping neighboring pixels into larger blocks, creating a retro, blocky appearance often seen in old-school games or censored visuals.

ASCII¶

Converts the image into a grid of characters by mapping pixel brightness (or color) to a set of ASCII symbols, producing a stylized, text-based rendering of the scene.

Dither¶

Applies a patterned noise to simulate additional shades using a limited color palette, creating a classic retro rendering similar to old displays and early game graphics.

Sepia¶

Applies a warm brown tint to the image, mimicking the look of aged photographs and giving the scene a nostalgic, vintage feel.

Color Depth¶

Reduces the number of available colors by limiting bits per channel, producing a posterized, banded look reminiscent of older hardware and low-color displays.

Palette¶

Remaps all colors in the image to the closest match from a predefined palette, creating a cohesive, stylized look often used to emulate specific hardware or artistic color schemes.

Bloom¶

Adds a soft glow that spreads from bright areas by blurring and re-blending high-luminance pixels, enhancing highlights and creating a more cinematic or dreamy look.

Brightness / Contrast¶

Adjusts overall exposure and tonal range, making the image brighter or darker while expanding or compressing the difference between light and dark areas.

Hue / Saturation¶

Shifts overall color tones and intensity, allowing full hue rotation and control over how vivid or muted the image appears.

Color Average¶

Flattens the image by blending colors toward a shared average, reducing visual complexity and creating a washed, unified look.

Vignette¶

Darkens or tints the image toward the edges to naturally draw focus toward the center, simulating lens falloff or cinematic framing.

Gamma Correction¶

Adjusts midtone brightness using a nonlinear curve, correcting how luminance is perceived on different displays and controlling overall image “weight.”

Tonemap¶

Converts HDR values into displayable colors, controlling exposure, contrast, and highlight rolloff to produce a visually balanced final image.

Depth of Field¶

Simulates a camera lens blur by focusing on a specific depth plane while blurring objects closer or farther away, adding realistic depth and cinematic focus control.

Tilt Shift¶

Applies a band of sharp focus with blurred areas above and below, mimicking miniature photography or selective plane-of-focus effects.

Tilt Shift 2¶

A more flexible directional tilt-shift implementation that defines focus using a line segment and customizable blur behavior.

Bokeh¶

Renders out-of-focus highlights as soft, lens-shaped light artifacts, simulating real camera aperture behavior.

SSAO¶

Enhances depth perception by darkening areas where geometry is close together, simulating soft ambient occlusion in crevices and contact points.

Depth Visualization¶

Debug visualization that maps scene depth to grayscale, useful for inspecting depth buffers and focus behavior.

SMAA¶

High-quality anti-aliasing technique that reduces jagged edges using edge detection and pattern blending.

FXAA¶

Fast post-process anti-aliasing that smooths jagged edges with minimal performance cost.

Glitch¶

Creates digital distortion artifacts such as tearing, displacement, and randomized signal corruption.

Chromatic Aberration¶

Simulates lens distortion by offsetting color channels, producing RGB fringing especially noticeable toward image edges.

Noise¶

Adds film grain or sensor noise to break visual uniformity and create a more organic or analog feel.

Shockwave¶

Creates a radial distortion ripple emanating from a point, simulating explosions or impact waves in the scene.

Scanline¶

Overlays horizontal lines to mimic CRT displays or retro screen rendering.

Dot Screen¶

Converts the image into a halftone pattern of dots, commonly used for print-style or retro comic aesthetics.

Grid¶

Draws a uniform grid overlay across the scene, useful for debugging, alignment, or stylized UI effects.

Smear / Motion Blur¶

The Smear effect blends each rendered frame with a decaying afterimage of previous frames, producing a motion-blur smear trail. The trail builds up while the animation plays and clears when playback stops.

Note: Because Smear accumulates frames over time, it works best with looping animations. For still renders or single-frame exports the trail will not be visible.

Selection Outline¶

Draws outlines around selected scene objects using object/depth masking. Use this when you want a controllable object highlight or a toon-like selection edge.

EdgeOutline¶

Creates screen-space visible edge lines from depth and normal discontinuities. Use EdgeOutline for line-art or toon-like renders where internal visible edges are part of the style.

EdgeOutline is different from Selection Outline:

• EdgeOutline emphasizes visible screen-space edges and surface breaks.
• Selection Outline emphasizes selected object masks.
• Silhouette Outline focuses on the outer contour of the selected model.

Silhouette Outline¶

Creates an outer-contour style outline for selected models. Use this when you want a cleaner shell around a character or prop without emphasizing every internal mesh edge.

For the cleanest exported sprite outline, also consider Spritesheet Postprocess > Outer Outline in the Export Workbench. That effect runs on the captured 2D frames before atlas packing and can use Crisp Pixel mode for nearest-pixel outlines.

Custom Shader¶

Write a GLSL fragment shader applied as a full-screen post-process pass.

uniform sampler2D tDiffuse;
varying vec2 vUv;

void main() {
  vec4 color = texture2D(tDiffuse, vUv);
  // Invert colors example
  gl_FragColor = vec4(1.0 - color.rgb, color.a);
}

Tips¶

• Use SMAA for export, FXAA only for previews. FXAA is faster but can soften fine details; SMAA preserves shape clarity for final output.

• Stack effects from “physical” to “stylized.” Start with SSAO / Depth / Lighting effects, then apply color grading (Tonemap, Gamma), and finish with stylistic effects (Pixelation, ASCII, Glitch).

• SSAO is most effective in tight geometry. It shines in corners, joints, and overlapping meshes — reduce intensity if the scene already has strong directional lighting.

• Pixelation works best when paired with Palette or Color Depth. Without limiting colors, pixelation alone can look like a low-res image rather than a deliberate style.

• Bloom + Tonemap should be tuned together. If highlights look blown out, reduce bloom threshold or adjust tonemap white point instead of lowering bloom blindly.

• Tilt Shift and Depth of Field should not compete. Use one as the primary focus model — combining them often creates confusing or over-blurred depth separation.

• Glitch and Chromatic Aberration are most effective in short bursts. Keep intensity low for ambient use and reserve stronger settings for key moments or transitions.

Recommended Stacks¶

Retro Pixel Art¶

A classic low-resolution game look with limited color depth and crisp shapes.

• Pixelation (high Granularity)
• Color Depth (low Bits)
• Palette (optional, fixed palette)
• SMAA (optional, light smoothing)
• Vignette (subtle, optional)

Use when: you want Game Boy / SNES / indie pixel-art style renders.

CRT Monitor¶

Simulates an old display with scanlines, slight noise, and chromatic imperfections.

• Scanline
• Chromatic Aberration (low)
• Noise
• Gamma Correction (slightly adjusted)
• Vignette (medium)
• Optional: Bloom (very subtle)

Use when: retro UI, cyberpunk scenes, emulator-style output.

Cinematic Shot¶

A clean, film-like render with depth, lighting control, and subtle post-processing.

• Depth of Field
• SSAO
• Bloom (moderate threshold)
• Tonemap (ACES or Cineon)
• Vignette (soft)
• Gamma Correction (fine-tuned)

Use when: character renders, storytelling shots, trailers.

Stylized Illustration¶

Flattened, artistic look with controlled color and shape emphasis.

• Color Depth
• Palette or Color Average
• Outline
• Dither (optional)
• Brightness / Contrast
• Hue / Saturation

Use when: illustration-style renders, concept art, UI visuals.

Glitch / Cyber Breakdown¶

Digital corruption style for transitions or dramatic moments.

• Glitch
• Chromatic Aberration (high, animated if possible)
• Noise
• Scanline (optional)
• Shockwave (event-based)

Use when: UI transitions, damage effects, sci-fi corruption.

Miniature / Tilt Focus¶

Makes scenes look like scale models or dioramas.

• Tilt Shift (or Tilt Shift 2)
• Depth of Field (low intensity or disabled)
• Vignette (light)
• SSAO (subtle)
• Bloom (very subtle)

Use when: world dioramas, playful or “toy-like” renders.

Debug / Technical View¶

For inspection, layout, or development visualization.

• Depth Visualization
• Grid
• SSAO (optional, low)
• Outline (debug mode)
• FXAA (optional for clarity)

Use when: debugging scenes, aligning objects, verifying depth.