Effects overview

Effects turn a plain capture of your model into pixel art: they limit the colors, add shading, clean up stray pixels, dither, and draw lines. This page explains how effects fit together so you can build a look on purpose instead of by trial and error.

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What an effect is

Effects live in a Style Profile. Every Pixelate Asset that links the profile uses its effects, so one change restyles every character, prop and particle effect that shares the profile. Each effect works on the finished frame at the sprite’s final size, after the source is captured. Effects never change your models, materials or scenes, and the Preview, Export and Save GIF all run the same effects, so what you see in the Preview is what you export.

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Built-in effects

Add an effect with Add Effect at the bottom of the effect list. The menu is searchable and grouped by category: Lighting, Color (Color Adjustments, Color Palette, Palette Swap) and Stylization (Pixel Cleanup, Dithering, Lines). A profile can hold each built-in effect once. Every profile also has Profile Settings (Pixelated and Pixels Per Unit). It is always first, and you can’t remove or turn it off. See Style Profiles.

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Processing order

Effects always run in a fixed order. You never arrange them, and the Inspector lists them in that order so you can read the stack from top to bottom: Profile Settings, Lighting, Color Adjustments, Color Palette, Pixel Cleanup, Dithering, Lines, Palette Swap. What actually runs depends on whether the frame is lit:

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How effects depend on each other

Some effects need another effect in the same profile, or change how another one behaves. Effects also feed each other:

• Color Adjustments → Color Palette. An Auto palette is built from the adjusted colors. When you change Color Adjustments, an Auto palette you haven’t edited regenerates itself once you stop dragging. An edited Auto palette shows Auto palette is stale instead, so your edits are never lost without asking.
• Lighting → Color Palette. Palette Affects Lighting decides whether the palette snaps the lit result or the base colors. See Lighting.
• Color Palette → Pixel Cleanup, Dithering, Lines. Pixel Cleanup copies neighboring pixels, so it never adds colors. Dithering mixes neighboring palette colors. Lines with Indexed on snap line colors to the palette.
• Lines → Palette Swap. Palette Swap runs last, so lines drawn in palette colors are recolored too.

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Change an effect for one asset

The profile owns the effect list. Add Effect, Remove and Reset change the profile, even when you use them from a Pixelate Asset’s Inspector, so every asset that uses the profile follows. A note under Add Effect names the profile and how many Pixelate Assets use it. Everything else in a Pixelate Asset’s Inspector can be changed for that asset only, with overrides:

• Turn an effect on or off with the checkbox in its header. In a Pixelate Asset’s Inspector this is an override: it applies to this asset only, and a blue bar at the left of the header marks it. To follow the profile again, choose Revert On/Off Override in the effect’s ⋮ menu.
• Change a value: tick the checkbox to the left of a field to give this asset its own value. Untick it to follow the profile again. ALL and NONE above an effect’s fields tick or untick every value override of that effect.
• Apply Overrides copies the asset’s on/off choices and values into the profile. Revert Overrides drops them all.

Overrides are stored on the Pixelate Asset, so the profile stays the shared source of truth. An Auto Color Palette is always per asset, whether or not you override anything. For the details, see Style Profiles and overrides.

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Start from a sample look

The nine sample Style Profiles in _Samples/Style Profiles are good starting points. Select a sample Pixelate Asset, link a profile, and read its effect stack in the Inspector. Samples lists the effects and key settings of each one.

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Write your own

Programmers can add custom effects that appear in Add Effect next to the built-in ones. See Extension authoring.

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Next steps