Dither
Dither is a new layer blend mode shader similar to Dissolve. The shader turns each Hexel’s opacity into a discrete pattern of dots and offers 10 different patterns, from solid color at 100% opacity to sparse dots at 10% and below.
Dither patterns are often used in 8-bit pixel art, where the color palette is limited. A pixel of a single color drawn in various patterns can create a whole range of values.
Pro Tip: The Dither shader renders the pattern dots as single pixels. Images exported at higher resolutions will result in a finer dithering pattern, and lower resolution images will result in a coarser pattern.
Normal Map Lighting
Normal Map Lighting is a layer post effect that treats the RGB colors in a layer as normal vectors and lights them like a 3D shape! Best used with isometric art, you define the direction each surface faces by painting red, green, and blue walls, set the light direction in the layer properties, and the shader does the rest.
Paint right-facing walls red (255,0,0), left-facing ones blue (0,0,255), floor planes as green (0,255,0), and any ramp a combination of those colors, e.g. a right-up ramp should be yellow (255,255,0). Set the blending mode of your normal map layer to “Multiply” to have the lighting “shade” layers below it.
Sharing is Caring
All effects listed here are distributed under the MIT License, feel free to copy, tinker, and profit from them greatly.
Effects are nothing more than short text files of GLSL shader code. They are open source, tweakable, and easy to share. If you’d like to learn more about creating your own effects, check out our tutorial:
