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Pixelation with nearest-colour palette mapping

In your harnessGodot shaderMIT

Pixelate the screen into blocks and snap each block to the nearest colour of a small palette texture, with optional ordered dithering between palette colours, for low-resolution retro looks.

Render of Pixelation with nearest-colour palette mapping
The render its check recorded in Godot 4.7.2, 256 by 256 pixels.

What it takes and gives

Shader type
spatial
Render modes
unshaded, cull_disabled, depth_test_disabled, depth_draw_never, skip_vertex_transform, fog_disabled
Parameters
screen_texture (sampler2D), palette (sampler2D), palette_size (int = 8), pixel_size (float = 4), dither_strength (float = 0.35), palette_mix (float = 1)
Use it on
A MeshInstance3D with a 2 x 2 QuadMesh, material.tres as its material override and a large extra cull margin, as in demo.tscn., Optional: a palette image (N colours side by side) for palette.
Result
The scene as chunky 4-pixel blocks reduced to an eight-colour retro palette.
Renderers
compatibility: compiled and rendered, forward plus: not verified, mobile: not verified
Placement
res://baltor/godot_shaders/post_pixelate_palette/

Limits. Blocks sample one point, so thin details can vanish between frames as the camera moves. Palette matching is a weighted RGB distance, not a perceptual colour space. Cost grows with palette_size. The pass reads Godot's screen texture after opaque geometry, so transparent objects drawn after it are not processed and its order among other transparent passes is not controlled.

Details

Kind
Godot shader
Engine
Godot 4.3 or later
Files
11 files, 53.5 KB
Licence
MIT
Declared effects
reads files, runs commands
Checked with
Godot 4.7.2, opengl3 compatibility (Mesa llvmpipe, Xvfb)
Checks
contract static, engine run, engine log clean, shader in scene, capture written, render not uniform, shader changes pixels
Techniques
Block pixelation by sampling block centres, Nearest palette colour search, 2 x 2 ordered dithering
Tags
godot shader, spatial, post-process, pixel art, pixelate, palette, retro, full-screen
Identity
library.supply.creative_originals.886720fccbad4b383e090a04.68ca553fa337a2ef
Version
68ca553fa337a2efcca6394a9a648ce177b8673749a2d65e899b49bb33f8094b

The version is the SHA-256 of the item your harness downloads; every file in it names its own checksum.

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