Developer DreamIntoleance showed us part of the process behind Invisum Piscium, a PSX-inspired walking simulator made using Unreal Engine 5.
The project mixes pixel-textured 3D models with UE5 lighting. A pixelation effect is then added on top to bring the final look together.
According to DreamIntoleance, Unreal made it easier to build the kind of lighting and atmosphere they wanted without needing to create custom rendering tools first.
Most of the textures are created in Aseprite. After that, they are transferred into Blender and UV mapped onto the 3D models.
To achieve the retro look, DreamIntoleance uses Closest texture filtering, a setting that tells the engine to always sample the nearest pixel instead of blending them.
Before moving the assets into Unreal, DreamIntoleance renders the scenes in Blender using EEVEE. This is to make sure the models and textures already create the look they were searching for.
Once everything is inside Unreal Engine, the scenes start using the engine's lighting features.
For this bathroom scene, DreamIntoleance used:
- A skylight
- A point light for the ceiling lamp
- Some post-processing for color adjustments
According to them, keeping the lighting setup simple made it easier to focus on the look of the game.
After that, a pixelation post-process effect (a visual filter applied after the scene is rendered) gets added over the final image.
DreamIntoleance explained that the pixelation effect alone is not what creates the final look. Most of it comes from the lighting and colors of each scene, which also play a big role in smaller areas throughout the game.
For the outdoor areas, DreamIntoleance decided not to use Unreal Engine's built-in sky systems. The sky is instead a cube-shaped skybox covered in hand-made pixel textures.
According to DreamIntoleance, this made it easier to control the colors and mood of the sky directly. The cube shape is also difficult to notice during normal gameplay.
If you want to see more of Invisum Piscium or the creator, the links will be right below.
Interested in learning more?
If you want to start building your own tools in Blender, Blender Tool Development Fundamentals covers everything from writing simple scripts to building custom UIs and production-ready add-ons using Python.
Anyone interested in developing tools with Blender? A new update for Blender Tool Development Fundamentals is coming! ✨ https://t.co/EIAfxngToX#indiedev #gamedev #b3d pic.twitter.com/jcx71UfpN6
— Shaders Bible Series (@ushadersbible) March 15, 2026
Jettelly wishes you success in your professional career!
Did you find an error? No worries!
Write to us at [email protected], and we'll fix it!
Level up your Tool-making skills in Blender!
We invite you to explore "Blender Tool Development Fundamentals", a comprehensive book on the concepts and fundamentals seen in this post.
Other posts that might interest you.
-
Solo developer Rasim Alam shared the rendering system behind RuneCipher, a tactics RPG built in Godot 4 that achieves directional lighting and dynamic weather in 2D. -
Oleksandr M. walked us through how his GPU-driven vertex shader handles thousands of real-time reactions in Unreal Engine. -
.png)
Adrian Caminero Navarro shared a water shader study in Unreal Engine, exploring shoreline interaction, contact foam, and refraction using Single Layer Water.
