Today's #gamedev tip. Sometimes scenes can get very visually busy, and it can slow down game designers trying to tune stuff or find problems like collision gaps or triggers in the wrong place.

You can set up the ability to instantly switch your scene to a design friendly mode-
Which hides all the art assets and instead shows simple block geometry that represents collision, materials based on physics, grid textures and 'helper' objects like text notes, arrows and snap points.

To set this up, ensure every asset in the level is inside a prefab/blueprint.
This allows you to include hidden 'helper' meshes with tags or layers to reveal them and a script to turn them on or off when the game runs.
You can also sit your collision on these objects, allowing you to reuse them and switch out the artwork for variations.
Unlike your typical "show collision" visualisations, having it all as helper geo allows you to put materials to communicate function, and shaders such as triplanar projected grids so you can visualise scale.

You can add text notes like "spawn point" or "enemy breaks out here".
Environment art is just set dressing for a much simpler gameplay layer underneath (climbable ledges, damaging areas, pressure plates, block pushing puzzles). So being able to switch back and forth can really help speed development. It also means you are less likely to err...
...with things like leaving gaps and having areas you can clip through
It is kind of like taking your greybox with you. :)
As always, I be like Pete, and I dance for nickels.

ko-fi.com/dellak

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More from @delaneykingrox

Mar 18
#gamedev #gameart advice. I see a lot of students making levels as one big mesh in 3d apps.
Environments are usually made up from what are usually called "kits" of modular pieces.
Here is some of the kits for Hitman taken from their talk (link shortly).
Learning to plan out and make modular kits is super important part of your skill set. Designing modules that are reusable and reskinnable makes a huge difference to your workflow.

You can buy various kits on asset stores that you can look at to get ideas.
Read 8 tweets
Mar 17
#gamedev advice of the day. You can usually hire around three junior artists for the price of a senior artist. However, this is a false economy.

You need senior artists early on, which you then expand with mid weight and then junior artists later.
Three junior artists can make a lot of assets. However they do not yet have the experience to know how to make assets efficiently, how to set up art pipelines and how to make assets that work well in engine.

They may produce lots of stuff, but that stuff may be unusable.
Senior artists have the ability to set up art pipelines and make asset creation resources.

Think of this as like building a production like with factory equipment vs. hand making everything.
Read 16 tweets
Mar 8
I often get asked what software and tools one needs to be a 3d game artist.
These days, my answer is massively different to what it was before.

Here is my definitive list:
1. Blender 3D.

Amazing even myself, the poor yokel of 3D packages has come of age. Forget crushing fees to Autodesk, this package now has everything a game artist needs to kick start their career and it is free (though I recommend donating some money to their team).
1(cont) Blender massively updated their clunky old UI, and as a result the product has gone from strength to strength in a very short time.
You can model, sculpt, bake, hand paint textures, animate and build shader graph materials that display correctly in the viewport.
Read 14 tweets
Mar 8
An NFT isn't the picture itself, it is just a link, password and receipt for a picture stored somewhere.

A receipt that costs an immense amount of fossil fuel power and generates stupid amounts of heat to feed the computers worldwide that only VERIFY your receipt exists.
You are burning massive resources just so a sea of computers can keep checking to see if you still are a total wanker.

Your art is still utterly copyable, reproducible, hackable and will vanish if the linked resources break- just like any cheesy old web link.
If you would like to support artists, buy the art itself. You can buy the physical original, signed numbered prints, or even buy the rights to reproduction.

It pretty much nothing to keep an actual work of art in environmental impact.
Read 7 tweets
Mar 6
Translating red flag terms
"Woke" = not about white straight men.

"Politically correct" = not about white straight men.

"Cancel Culture" = I am facing repercussions for being a terrible human being.

"Too political" = not about white straight men.
Translating other red flag terms:

"Underage woman" = child.

"My Freedoms" = I am a spoiled selfish child who doesn't care about anyone else's safety.

"Good Old Days" = when everything was entitely about straight white men.

"Family values" = I am a homophobe.
"One bad apple" = I am comfortable with the current level of corruption as it benefits me.

"Privatise" = steal public resources for me/my mates.

"Edgy/provocative comedy" = for the consumption of straight men.

"Pandering to" = not for consumption of straight men.
Read 8 tweets
Mar 3
J'Ak Chi'Ck!
It just works
Read 4 tweets

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