Uriah

Uriah

@uriahgnu.bsky.social

Technical Artist UE5 #Indie #GameDev #NoAI | https://youtube.com/@uriahgnu

221 followers232 following190 posts

Uriah
@uriahgnu.bsky.social

Hey #indie #gamedevs, what do people think about open source (non-profit) projects in this era? I have a unique concept for a Bronze Age RPG I've been working on, but know it isn't feasible for a solo project or tiny team without funding. Are open source community projects even still feasible? ๐Ÿค”

Uriah
@uriahgnu.bsky.social

I'm not quite ready to share yet, as the design and world aren't flushed out, but I'm considering all options to make it a reality. A decade or more ago I don't think it would be a question, but now I'm not sure if open source projects are more or less feasible. Would love to hear some thoughts!

Uriah
@uriahgnu.bsky.social

Hot #indie #gamedev take: if you want to stand out, stop forcing yourself to blend in. For example you want to make a fantasy ARPG, forget medieval Europe, all those stories have been told ten thousand times, look to the Bronze Age, forgotten civilizations, there are new stories waiting to be told.

Uriah
@uriahgnu.bsky.social

I've recently been writing a concept set in during the late bronze age, and it is infuriating how few pieces of entertainment are willing to take the risk of stepping out of line with the medieval Europe fantasy trope. Be brave, take a risk, make something actually new, players will reward you!

Uriah
@uriahgnu.bsky.social

My latest Apply DBuffer decal method in #UE5. Put a lot of effort into this one experimenting with different ways to blend, but with just a few changes to the default function this is easy to achieve. Textures are very low res and use breakup noise or SDF sharpening. Grunge mask/normal from Quixel.

Uriah
@uriahgnu.bsky.social

Biggest issue using #Godot so far is no Vertex Painting tool is functional (links in reply). VPainter is broken in 4.4, there are errors and it breaks other unrelated editor functionality. I may try to fork and fix, anyone know of a better solutions? #indie #gamedev

Uriah
@uriahgnu.bsky.social

Biggest issue using #Godot so far is no Vertex Painting tool is functional (links in reply). VPainter is broken in 4.4, there are errors and it breaks other unrelated editor functionality. I may try to fork and fix, anyone know of a better solutions? #indie #gamedev

Uriah
@uriahgnu.bsky.social

I'm considering porting my Untitled Mars Game from UE5 to #Godot. ๐Ÿค” I understand the tradeoffs, UE5 has been amazing, no problem with Epic, but the desire to explore the wild open source frontier is tempting. This was made in a week, tree from a friend, optimized megascans, all shaders from scratch.

Uriah
@uriahgnu.bsky.social

New shader template for optimized workflow including options for macro and micro details (using Quixel Megascans 1K packed textures and adding tiling detail), as well as various directional snow blending methods, triplanar w/ corrected normals, foliage w/ pivot support, SSS, etc. Love Godot shaders!

Uriah
@uriahgnu.bsky.social

I'm considering porting my Untitled Mars Game from UE5 to #Godot. ๐Ÿค” I understand the tradeoffs, UE5 has been amazing, no problem with Epic, but the desire to explore the wild open source frontier is tempting. This was made in a week, tree from a friend, optimized megascans, all shaders from scratch.

Uriah
@uriahgnu.bsky.social

Set dressing mountains were most of the work here. Generated a large terrain in World Machine, scattered tree billboards based on splat map in Blender, baked the local pivot XY and random for each billboard into UV CUSTOM0 vertex data, and a shader to rotate to face the camera, SSS, dithering, etc.

Uriah
@uriahgnu.bsky.social

It is incredible how morally bankrupt the tech industry is. The latest trends in AI are mostly catch phrases without meaning or purpose, but don't think for a second they don't intend to take all our jobs. And we're expected to be... excited about it?

Uriah
@uriahgnu.bsky.social

Quixel Megascans, the ubiquitous enemy of the texture pool. Slay this beast with in editor texture packing! Several texture packing plugins are available on the marketplace, but I built my own for this specific use case with advanced options. #UnrealEngine #UE5 #IndieDev #GameDev

Uriah
@uriahgnu.bsky.social

New rules for Bluesky: Accounts spewing politics will be blocked. ๐Ÿ˜ That's it, that's all the rules. Oh, and ๐Ÿคฌ AI, crypto, and click bait accounts too.

Uriah
@uriahgnu.bsky.social

It is nice to see more experienced graphics programmers adopting #Godot. I've stayed away in large part because even as an experienced technical artist it can be quiet limiting, and I'm simply much faster in any other engine. Next year I have a small scale concept that might be perfect for Godot.

Uriah
@uriahgnu.bsky.social

Why the hell are most games so similar? There is so much untapped potential, especially in story telling, existing cultures and historical settings for inspiration. Yet, looking at the industry you would think players like buying the same clones over and over. I know why, and am very against it.

Uriah
@uriahgnu.bsky.social

My real concern is that massive AAA games and subscriptions have already conditioned the audience expectations too much. Combined with the exodus of devs caused by the collapse and emerging AI could further exacerbate the problem. Devs might exit entirely, instead of making their own smaller games.

Uriah
@uriahgnu.bsky.social

Why the hell are most games so similar? There is so much untapped potential, especially in story telling, existing cultures and historical settings for inspiration. Yet, looking at the industry you would think players like buying the same clones over and over. I know why, and am very against it.

Uriah
@uriahgnu.bsky.social

Yes, I think there is a bubble in AAA, and the cracks are showing. I'm optimistic that if the industry kills itself, al la 1970s Hollywood, a sort of revival could follow, a renaissance, arguably this is already happening to some degree.

Uriah
@uriahgnu.bsky.social

Why the hell are most games so similar? There is so much untapped potential, especially in story telling, existing cultures and historical settings for inspiration. Yet, looking at the industry you would think players like buying the same clones over and over. I know why, and am very against it.

Uriah
@uriahgnu.bsky.social

Indie and AA games must be far more innovative to survive, it defines them, but they are not for everyone, or often even accessible. What is worse is that subscriptions such as Game Pass are killing the ability of small games to reach wider audiences, and also limit creativity.

Uriah
@uriahgnu.bsky.social

Why the hell are most games so similar? There is so much untapped potential, especially in story telling, existing cultures and historical settings for inspiration. Yet, looking at the industry you would think players like buying the same clones over and over. I know why, and am very against it.

Uriah
@uriahgnu.bsky.social

Why does every ARPG have to be third person generic fantasy? Why does every sci-fi game need aliens or fantasy to be interesting? Why does every successful IP eventually need a live service? Why is every survival game crafting and base building?

Uriah
@uriahgnu.bsky.social

Why the hell are most games so similar? There is so much untapped potential, especially in story telling, existing cultures and historical settings for inspiration. Yet, looking at the industry you would think players like buying the same clones over and over. I know why, and am very against it.

Uriah
@uriahgnu.bsky.social

Trend chasing cost Sony more than a billion dollars recently, and all signs point to this continuing. Besides the other challenges the industry is facing, AAA companies are extremely risk adverse. However I believe less risk in the short term, is an extremely risky strategy in the long term.

Uriah
@uriahgnu.bsky.social

There is a lot of missinformation going around regarding one of UE5's flagship features, Nanite. Gamers and even devs either think it is a silver bullet, or causing poor performance, a problem I think Epic have made worse by statements like (to paraphrase) "Nanite should be used on everything".

Uriah
@uriahgnu.bsky.social

Warning: the following contains shaders developed while under the influence. Consuming spiked egg nog and not sleeping may lead to interesting results. Not recommended for kids under the age of 35. ๐Ÿบ๐Ÿ˜œHappy holidays everyone! #Indie #GameDev #UnrealEngine #UE5 #TechArt #RTVFX

Uriah
@uriahgnu.bsky.social

Not as pretty, but it resents about a major breakthrough for me #UE5 PCG. Using raycast to find the exact river bank, then sorting and splitting the points into new splines, then spawning spline meshes, with ease in/out and a lot of other tricks. Who needs Houdini?! ๐Ÿ˜„ #Indie #GameDev #UnrealEngine

Uriah
@uriahgnu.bsky.social

Someone couldn't handle that I pointed out their precious followers are bots ๐Ÿ˜„ So are everyone else's. Welcome to social media in 2024.

Uriah@uriahgnu.bsky.social

Unfortunately it looks like followers are 75% or more bots. ๐Ÿ˜‘ I knew Bluesky was too good to be true.

Uriah
@uriahgnu.bsky.social

Are any of these accounts real people!?! Reply if you are NOT a bot, after that I'm blocking every account that looks like one. AI generated images and accounts that only like and repost are mostly likely bots.

Uriah
@uriahgnu.bsky.social

Spent a few days diving into #UE5 Procedural Content Generation. River generator all done within PCG including spline mesh, clutter and foliage. Working on Data Asset for config and Biome support. Feel like I just scratched the surface, but PCG is incredibly powerful! #Indie #GameDev #UnrealEngine