So I was the texture artist for all the Kobolds in Dungeons & Dragons Online: Stormreach. #dnd
However, I found it rather confusing that they had become little lizards. It was around 4th edition when the game came out and they pushed for the new Kobold direction.
I grew up with dog faced Kobolds you see, being a child of the seventies and gaming mostly with older modules we could afford.
Though I am not a fan of little Lizardman Kobolds, I also don't vibe with the "slap a dogs head on a human body" thing I have seen of late.
I like my Kobolds as kind of whacky fun encounters.
My take on Kobolds is that they are not evil, but have extremely strong senses of community and humour and very little fear. They believe that a good death is one that makes their mates laugh and their names will be immortalised with acts of extreme daring and irony.
Kobolds can be convinced to join the party, (if you can put up with their manic energy and constant pranking) if you can make them believe it would be a fun demise of epic proportions.
Kobolds only run away when they have the duty to tell their people of a particularly fun death
Kobold spellcasters are essentially like having a lit firework in your pocket.
Because Kobolds do not value a meaningless death, if they beat you, they will not kill you but will put you in an elaborate or ridiculous traps.
You will most likely wake up with drawings all over you, your hair half cut off and feathers (or an entire chicken) stuck to you.
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So lighting comes in two main forms- static lighting and dynamic lighting.
Static lighting is where you precalculate information because it is "static"- i,e, it doesn't move so it doesn't change.
Dynamic lighting is updated on the move.
Static lighting is a hack, and relies on your scene staying still. You can still have dynamic lights in the scene (like your muzzle flash or explosions) but most of the lights and shadows in the world are rendered to textures called light maps.
I just read read the comic 30 days of night vol 1, because I had a love/hate relationship with the work when it first came out and I thought I would give it another go.
Now I have a lot more years of experience under my belt I finally can put into words what bothered me.
At the comic store, flicking through, I immediate bought it because it has this amazing texture and feel. As a young goth it was fucking rad looking.
But getting it home I found I felt... well... rather unhappy.
Looking now I immediately grasp what my problem was.
The only time you see triangle count affecting the quality of your texture is when you want to take a straight texture and curve it around a bend.
Like in this example (not my own- if anyone knows the original source please comment)
So texture quality wise, there is absolutely no difference between the two meshes shown.
Here is a little picture story about growing up as an intersex kid.
This pic is teenage me (at art school). What a little cutie huh?
So here is the thing...
I used to get hit on a lot, which wasn't always as nice as it sounds.
See, straight guys would think I was a girl. Gay girls would think I was a girl. Straight girls would think I was a guy and, yes, gay guys would think I was a guy.
This lead to some pretty uncomfortable and yeah, pretty fucking dangerous situations.
One of my fave tricks to liven up any #TTRPG system is assigning things with "playable adjectives".
So a player doesn't pick up just any fireball spell- they get a (rolls dice) Overzealous Fireball. Or a (rolls dice) Hungry fireball.
So what does that mean? Well, if the player can find a reason or justification that the adjective is in use, then they get a bonus.
They can also use it in a negative way to bank a bonus later.
For example, a "hungry" fireball may make them ravenous when cast, or...
Or perhaps the hungry fireball immediately uses all fire in the vicinity- so all torches and candles go out when it is cast.
This is on the fly, and encourages players to improvise and be creative. Players who struggle with this can just agree on bonus conditions.