It's that time of year again. Time for the #LOWREZJAM!!!
Almost every year so far, I've maintained a guide to getting 64x64 resolution working as natively as possible so this year is of course, no exception. This is not for absolute beginners but if you've done some tutorials for unity then you should be fine here.
This guide goes beyond just using the default pixel perfect camera and the goal is to have Post Processing, UI, and the normal artwork ALL being forced into the 64x64 resolution. This is janky, but it DOES accomplish those goals. Every time I've tried to do it in a more clean fashion, I end up with UI that is affected by post processing, or UI that isn't interactable, or some edge case in the Pixel Perfect Camera component.
Last thing, if you don't care about post processing, this is actually much, MUCH easier, you can scroll to the end for that guide and if you're making a 2d game with no post processing/lighting, I recommend that instead!!! Anyway lets jump in.
We're going to start with a NEW, 2D URP project on Unity 2021 or 2022 (I have tested in LTS of 2021, 2022, and the pre-unity-6-2023 builds, Unity 6 DOES NOT WORK). For 3D URP, just be sure to install the "Pixel Perfect" or "2D Pixel Perfect" packages from the package manager.
Once we have that setup, make a new scene and save it as "64xTemplate" or something similar. In this case, we're using a LIT 2D (URP) scene for this example but you can use LIT 3D (URP) as well. At this point, I like to add a 2D sprite or 3D cube rotated at 45 degrees so that we can see our results.
- Create a new folder in Assets called
CameraRig. - Inside this folder create a new
Materialthat uses theUniversal Render Pipeline > Unlitshader. Name it "MainRenderMat" - Also in that folder, create a new
Render Textureand name it "MainRender" - Assign the new
Render Textureto the "Main Render Mat"'sBase Maptexture
- Set the render texture to have a resolution of 64x64
- Set the render texture Filter Mode from
BilineartoPoint - On your main camera, rename it to "Game Camera" (it should keep its
MainCameratag so it continues to work with Cinemachine) - On your "Game Camera", tick the box for
Post Processing - Now, on your "Game Camera" , set the target render texture/Output Texture to your "Main Render" render texture.
- IMPORTANT If you are using 2D art assets, you need to add a Pixel Perfect Camera onto the "GameCamera"
- The Pixel Per Unit size needs to be 6 and the resolution needs to be 64x64
Okay, so... this is where it gets... Janky.
- Create a new camera and call it "RenderCamera"
- Delete the Audio Listener on this camera
- Move it FAR out of the way, for example: 0, -1000, -10
- If possible, use that position as it's easier to setup if your X is 0, and your Z is -10
- Set your Camera Projection to the following settings:
Projection: Orthographic
Size: 5.333333
Clipping Near: 0.3
Clipping Far: 20
Next, add a Pixel Perfect Camera component to it with the following settings.
Assets Pixels Per Unit: 6
Reference Resolution: X64 Y64
Crop Frame: Windowbox
Grid Snapping: Upscale Render Texture (In Unity 6, you get an error)
- Create a new 3D Plane (Yes, even in 2D).
- Make it a child object of the "RenderCamera"
- Set the transform to the following:
Position: 0, 0, 10
Rotation: 90, 0, 180
Scale: 1.06, 1.06, 1.06
- Now add that material we made earlier.
Main Render Mat!
You should have something that looks like this now!
Add a Global Volume to the scene and create a new volume profile on it. For ease of testing, add a couple of effects that make it easy to see. After that you should have something like this:
Easy right? All the effects are pixel perfect and show as you might expect!
This is the last little bit here, it's the reason for all that annoying setup. This is probably the last year this tutorial uses UGUI based on the roadmaps I've seen, but I could be wrong. (2023 Edit: I was wrong) (2024 Edit: I was wrong again)
Right click in the heirarchy and create a new UI > Panel.
This should have added a few new objects into the scene
Canvas
> Panel
EventSystem
On the canvas, set it up with the following settings
Render Mode: Screen Space - Camera
Pixel Perfect: YES
Render Camera: RenderCamera
Plane Distance: 5
Sorting Layer: Default
Order in Layer: 1000
On the canvas scaler, you are going to want to set that up as per usual, here are my settings.
UI Scale Mode: Scale With Screen Size
Reference Resolution:
X: 1920
Y: 1080
Screen Match Mode: Match Width Or Height
Match: (All the way to Width)
Reference Pixels Per Unit: 100
I won't get into UI specifics but you can adjust your panel or add buttons and they will show up overtop the game scene. Most importantly, they won't have any post processing applied to them.
For fonts, honestly I have not come up with an ideal solution. This is the font I've settled on for these jams: https://fontstruct.com/fontstructions/show/1404190/cg-pixel-4x5-1
I also use that with a font size of 150, and a Line spacing of 20
If you don't know how to get that font into Text Mesh Pro, you want to go to Window > Text Mesh Pro > Font Asset Creator
From there, you can use the default settings and just add the source font file. Then hit Generate Font Atlas
Finally, save the font asset out and boom
This is a pretty good starting point depending on what kind of game you are making. This setup will work in 2D and 3D with no differences except you will need to import the 2D pixel perfect package into your project.
TODO: Enhance this section, since for 2d games with no post processing this is actually the method I recommend
On your main camera, add a Pixel Perfect Camera component and give it the following values
Assets Pixels Per Unit: Depends on your project, its up to you!
Reference Resolution: X64 Y64
Crop Frame: Pillarbox
Grid Snapping: Upscale Render Texture
Make a new Canvas and set it from Screen Space - Overlay to Screen Space - Camera and assign your main camera to it.
Profit???
UI will work as usual and will adhere to the pixel perfection. The only issue, is that this UI setup gets affected by Post Processing if you use it.
If you wanted to do this in the built-in render pipeline you can, but you end up with a similar setup to this. You can reference my old guide for that.