Zombie Zi

Zombie Zi

@majormcdoom.bsky.social

Canadian indie VR dev / founder @cozycubegames.bsky.social. Wishlist 🐧Penguin Festival🐧: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3552090/Penguin_Festival/ Past: Owlchemy Labs. Proud husband and shiba dad. - 🚫 gen AI - 🚫 genocide - ✊ trans rights

8.2K followers1.2K following3.7K posts

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Zombie Zi
@majormcdoom.bsky.social

Hi, new followers! 👋 My name is Zi. I'm an artist/engineer/generalist who worked on games like Job Simulator and Rick & Morty VR. I'm currently making my own indie VR game, "Penguin Festival"🐧. More about myself in the thread below! 🧵👇 #GodotEngine #gamedev #indiedev

Zombie Zi
@majormcdoom.bsky.social

Glad I set up an igloo interior workflow long ago - Really saving my life now! When I tweak things, all the cuts, tesselation, and tiles update non-destructively. Imagine doing this all by hand because you need to move a piece of furniture. *shudder* #gamedev #indiedev #b3d

Zombie Zi
@majormcdoom.bsky.social

If something's shoved right against the mirror, a bit of geometry from the "reflection world" might poke through. I discovered this by making the debug penguin crouch in front of the mirror. #GodotEngine #gamedev #indiedev

Zombie Zi
@majormcdoom.bsky.social

This is a thread about landscaping, but it can also be take word for word as level design advice. 👇 #gamedev #indiedev

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Zombie Zi
@majormcdoom.bsky.social

This applies to props too. Just because you *can* add more doesn't mean you should. Try to establish a clear *basis* for additional elements, instead of padding out empty space or adding quirkiness just because you can. It's an easy trap to fall into, especially when you're idling or dissatisfied.

Zombie Zi
@majormcdoom.bsky.social

It is true that Blender is an amazing piece of software designed by and for artists. Yes. It is simultaneously also true that it is designed by and for robots.

Zombie Zi
@majormcdoom.bsky.social

Staging some baby photos right now, and let's just say I didn't design the character system for baby proportions, so the results are a little unsettling. Maybe I'll just enlarge the bed instead. #GodotEngine #gamedev #indiedev

Zombie Zi
@majormcdoom.bsky.social

A niche little trick for stylized texturing: You can make some super crisp slanted figures without cranking up the texture size to a billion. Just make pixel-perfect horizontal+verticals, and skew the UVs instead. 📐👌 #b3d #gamedev #indiedev

Zombie Zi
@majormcdoom.bsky.social

Long story short: I messed up. Due to a combo of poor planning and external stressors (physical/mental health, finances, etc.), I fell behind schedule. I'll push forward, but I can only make this wholesome penguin game with healthy body and mind, so adjustments had to be made! 🫶

Zombie Zi
@majormcdoom.bsky.social

Every day is just: - Wanting to scream into the void - Typing out big rant - Hitting "Discard" button on rant - Wanting to scream into the void

Zombie Zi reposted

Chris Kerr
@kerrblimey.bsky.social

🎉 HUGE CAREER ANNOUNCEMENT 🎉 Today, I'm launching Vertical Slice, a new independent trade outlet committed to producing quality video game journalism that inspires, informs, and interrogates. That means daily news, incisive interviews, vital investigative work, and more. www.verticalslice.news

Zombie Zi
@majormcdoom.bsky.social

Appreciated some Godot features for this piece: 1. You can tweak the hell out of shadows. Treat them as part of the art style. 2. NoiseTexture is super versatile for prototypes / simple stuff. 3. Subtle SSS can give even simple graphics some extra "oomf". #GodotEngine #gamedev #indiedev

Zombie Zi@majormcdoom.bsky.social

Don't have time to do Linktober this year, but I recreated one of my 2020 Linktober drawings in 3D. Was nice to do some personal art for a change. #b3d #GodotEngine #Linktober #Zelda #LinksAwakening

Zombie Zi
@majormcdoom.bsky.social

Don't have time to do Linktober this year, but I recreated one of my 2020 Linktober drawings in 3D. Was nice to do some personal art for a change. #b3d #GodotEngine #Linktober #Zelda #LinksAwakening

Zombie Zi reposted

Whelm 🐧Out now on Steam
@lessergames.com

2 more reviews and I'll get a colourful word next to the number. I know the game is in a bit of a sorry state right now, but that first rating could really help leading up to the full release. #gamedev #indiedev

Zombie Zi
@majormcdoom.bsky.social

Rather than seeing AI users in the arts as lacking intent, we should instead see them as *intentionally taking the average*. The problem isn't that they're saying nothing - the problem is that they're saying, to a million tiny things, instantly and silently: "Just steal the rough average".

Zombie Zi
@majormcdoom.bsky.social

These users are responsible for every part of the entirety of the unholy sludge returned to them by the AI. They know, more or less, where it comes from. Saying they're devoid of artistic intent is, at this point, inaccurate. No, they do have intent. It just happens to be garbage and plagiarism.

Zombie Zi
@majormcdoom.bsky.social

Back when I used Unity, I always envied Unreal's SkookumScript, with its seamless support for sequentiality + concurrency. Today I realized I've already achieved a similar workflow in Godot?? Such a giddy feeling. Look at this parallel code! 👇📜⏱️ #GodotEngine #gamedev #indiedev

Zombie Zi reposted

Makkon
@makkon.bsky.social

I'm immensely proud to announce that my texture library that's been in the making for nearly a decade is now available on my itchio store for indie devs to purchase commercial licenses. makkon.itch.io

Zombie Zi
@majormcdoom.bsky.social

Had an idea in the shower for an algorithm to find the "rough direction of a set of points". Worked beautifully, but now I'm wondering if all I did was derive linear regression from first principles? I'm just creating a matrix of absolute values of dot products. 🤔

Zombie Zi
@majormcdoom.bsky.social

It's essentially a weighted sum of all the edges, where the weight of each edge is how much all the other edges line up with it. When I do the weighted sum, I flip any edge vector that runs opposite to the current sum, so opposing directions are mutually reinforcing, not canceling.

Zombie Zi
@majormcdoom.bsky.social

Big (and breaking) update to the SyncedCollisionShape3D addon! You can now generate primitive colliders for non-primitive visuals (or a specific part). The "squeeze" button does a smart fit. Also added an extrusion feature. Get it here: codeberg.org/MajorMcDoom/... #GodotEngine #gamedev #indiedev

Zombie Zi
@majormcdoom.bsky.social

As usual, I will not be supporting this. Made for personal use to speed up iteration time when authoring collisions for VR props. Just sharing in case someone finds it helpful. 🙏

Zombie Zi
@majormcdoom.bsky.social

Dude, no freaking way... What you're seeing here is me doing live-blending / animations on baked lightmaps in Godot... 3700 FPS #GodotEngine #gamedev #indiedev

Zombie Zi@majormcdoom.bsky.social

A little experiment with postprocessing on *baked* lightmaps in Godot (they're just textures after all!). If you snatch the internal lightmap data and do some arcane SubViewport shenanigans, you can also use it to do *spatialized* effects on the lightmap too. #GodotEngine #gamedev #indiedev