2D Infinite Character Forge – Pirates & Privateers

Create infinite animated pirate pixel characters with 2D Infinite Character Forge – a Procedural pixel character generator and animator.

Key features

• Procedural 2D pixel-art character generator for the age of sail: seed-based, deterministic, every character fully editable.
• 16 roles in two factions (8 pirate, 8 crown forces) × 8 race families and 12 race variants. Race presets are plain data, and custom races can be made in the editor.
• Hooks and peg legs per side (linked or independent), with role-based or manual frequency (None/Rare/Common).
• Equipment catalog: 13 weapons, 6 off-hand items, 9 hats/helmets, 12 outfits, 6 belts and chest pieces, 6 back/hip items, 2 glove types, 3 footwear types, 5 neckwear items, epaulettes.
• 14 animation slots, 98 frames per character: Idle, Walk, Run, Jump, Roll, Attack, Attack1, Attack2, Shoot, Reload, Block, Hurt, Celebrate, Die.
• Flintlock effects: priming flash, muzzle flash, powder smoke. Optional dust and motion-line effects.
• Left/right facing (exact mirror), with a consistent ground pivot across all frames.

Art and style

• Default 32 × 32 px character canvas, adjustable from 16 to 128 px. Animation frames are rendered on a padded canvas with a fixed pivot.
• Shading uses hue-shifted ramps generated in the OKLab colour space from base colours.
• Style Profile asset: outline colour and mode, lighting rules, cast shadows, contrast guard, shading ramps and effect colours.
• Per-slot or shared colours for weapon, off hand, headwear, belts/chest and accessories.

Workflow

• Editor window: live animated preview, seed browsing, thumbnails, race/variant/role selection, and Hooks & Peg Legs editing with side copy and Undo support.
• Export: PNG (scalable), editable prefab, baked animated prefab (sprites + animation set), character preset asset, JSON.
• Components: Pixel Character View (renders in edit mode and play mode) and Pixel Character Animator, with AnimationCompleted, AttackMoment, ShootMoment and ReloadMoment events.
• Runtime API: generate, re-role, change race, change equipment and change hooks/peg legs during play (PirateLibrary, PixelCharacterView, ForgeCharacter).
• Rendering core is pure C# with no Unity dependency. It can run on worker threads, as the Standoff demo does.

Samples

• Showcase scene and Standoff scene (pirates vs crown forces on a procedural beach, live generation on worker threads; WebGL draws on the main thread).
• Tools menu scene builders: interactive showcase, demo grid, animation gallery, role gallery, standoff.

Package

• Full C# source (72 scripts) in its own namespace and assembly definitions: Runtime, Editor, Samples, Tests.
• 16 EditMode tests (Unity Test Framework).
• Documentation: User Guide, API, Equipment Catalog, Races, Validation.
• Optional URP integration: sprite-with-shadows Shader Graph material (requires Universal RP and Shader Graph). The core works with the built-in SpriteRenderer workflow.
• No third-party art, libraries or online services.
• Can be installed alongside the other 2D Infinite Character Forge editions (separate namespaces and GUIDs).

Requirements

• Unity 2022.3 or newer.

2D Infinite Character Forge - Pirates & Privateers generates animated pixel-art characters for the age of sail: pirate crews and the crown forces hunting them. Every character is drawn procedurally from editable parameters, so you can generate one from a seed in a second and then change anything about it: race, build, face, hair, clothes, colours, weapons, hooks and peg legs.

Two factions, sixteen roles

• Pirates: Captain, Quartermaster, Buccaneer, Swashbuckler, Deckhand, Gunner, Privateer, Castaway.
• Crown forces: Redcoat, Grenadier, Marine, Army Officer, Naval Officer, Navy Sailor, Soldado, Governor. These are historical uniform types, with no flags or national insignia.

Each role dresses and arms a character with its own loadout and colour palette. Generate again and you get a new face, a new body and a different mix of gear.

Every race can sail

Eight race families and twelve variants (humans, high, wood and night elves, dwarves, gnomes, goblins, orcs, zombies and skeletons, merfolk and fishfolk) work with every role. Race presets are plain data, so you can build your own races in the editor.

Hooks and peg legs

Choose a hook or a peg leg separately for each side, or let the role decide: captains, quartermasters and gunners get them often, crown soldiers almost never. They follow every animation, including death. Generated pirates also get the occasional eyepatch and gold earring.

Age-of-sail catalog

• 13 weapons: cutlass, rapier, officer’s sword, boarding axe, boarding pike, dagger, belaying pin, flintlock and double-barrel pistols, blunderbuss, musketoon, musket, bayonet musket.
• 6 off-hand items: buckler, lantern, spyglass, pistol, rum bottle, dagger.
• 9 hats and helmets: tricorne, bicorne, plumed hat, bandana, headscarf, knit cap, round hat, grenadier mitre cap, morion.
• 12 outfits: shirt, waistcoat, gown, striped shirt, bodice, rags, frock coat, red coat, naval coat, sailor jacket, doublet, slops. Military coats have facing-colour cuffs, and coat tails sway as the character walks.
• 6 belts and chest pieces, 6 back/hip items (knapsack, cartridge box, powder horn, rope coil, cloak, loot sack), gloves, footwear, neckwear and epaulettes.

Colours can be set per slot or shared across all gear.

Animation

14 animation slots: Idle, Walk, Run, Jump, Roll, Attack, Attack1, Attack2, Shoot, Reload, Block, Hurt, Celebrate and Die. Flintlocks have a priming flash, a muzzle flash (a wider cone for the blunderbuss and musketoon) and drifting powder smoke. The reload hand travels along the barrel.

Workflow

• An editor window with a live animated preview, seed browsing, race, variant and role selection, and side-by-side editing of hooks and peg legs.
• Export to PNG, editable prefabs, baked animated prefabs, presets or JSON.
• A runtime API for generating and changing characters during play.
• Full C# source. It works offline, with no generation service and no external art.

Demos

• A showcase scene where you can play any animation on all characters at once.
• A Standoff scene: a pirate crew faces a redcoat line across a tidal channel on a procedural beach. The camera zooms out from two characters to more than a hundred, all generated live on worker threads.
• Scene builders for a role gallery and an animation gallery.

Suitable for pirate and naval adventures, Caribbean and colonial-era settings, roguelikes, tactics and strategy games, auto-battlers, crowd and NPC generation, and prototyping when you need many distinct characters fast.

Includes: runtime and editor source, sample scenes, EditMode tests, documentation, and an optional URP sprite-shadow material (requires Universal RP and Shader Graph).