#gamedev#gameart quick trick.
If you are working on super low poly models, like those in the wonderful #valheim, you can get weird shading effects due to extreme normals averaging- which gets the lighting from vastly different directions.
Here, the tip of the ponytail is getting its shading from diagonally down infront of the character. On the edited version, I pointed it to the direction that the front polys would be facing- at right angles to her chest.
This is what is happening. Here a blue light is above and a red one below. The first shape has a hard edge- the vertex normals point up or down. The middle is averaged (smooth edge) and the third is edited so they all point up.
I go green and my clothes turn into purple ragged shorts. Efficient shorts that hide the mesh behind and therefore are quicker to render but also never clip through.
*turns round and looks directly at the Hitman team* Wink.
Also the green I go isn't a seperate texture but a color multiplied through a mask onto my skin, allowing for any shade or variants to share the same shader and textures.
The way dynamic shadows generally work is by rendering the scene as if the light was a camera, but only the z depth. This results in a texture. Every light that casts shadows therefore counts as another render, and does the entire scene again. #gamedev
So each time your character runs past a light, that light has to render their eyeballs, eye sockets, eye lashes, clip and render their hair, render their clothes and shoelaces and... you can't ever really see this in the shadow.
A shadowcaster mesh is a fast convex mesh.
Likewise, the floor of your dungeon will probably never cast shadows on anything behind, so you can turn shadowcasting off so the lights never need even load them to do their zdepth pass.
Okay, so folks, if you have a glass clockface like this, make it flat and one material. Instead of making the mechanisms behind it, use OFFSET MAPPING in the shader to push back the clock handle texture layers. This gives you the effect of glass over the mechanism, but no cost
To all those who supported me when things fell apart, who donated money to keep me alive, who housed me, and fed me, who dropped off supplies, who gave me old machines or donated tablets and software... I am so very grateful. Thank you.
Transgender people shouldn't have to go through these things. But the fact is we do.
Hopelessness, homelessness, police brutality, transphobic employment market. It's a nightmare.
Without you I wouldn't be here. And I will never pretend I didn't need that support.
I am starting to get back to a place of security, and even enjoying little luxuries. It has been a long road, but I found that every stepping stone back to where I was has been made of the kindness of others.
This journey has made me a better, kinder person in return.
I don't like Pokemon. I don't like it as a concept, I don't enjoy the style of the IP, and find the games horribly dry and limited.
But my kid loves Pokemon with all his heart, and I always wanted my parents to give the slighted a crap about what I was into...
... so I got myself some so when we video chat, we both open a booster pack...
Aaaanyway, long story short I now have a full retail box of boosters on my desk so we can do this til the cows come home.
I am not sure he realises that the trades I will do from "my deck" are gonna be totally in his favor.