I am still learning about game development and development in general. I am reflecting on why I do not like the existing art pipeline in engines. You need to get locked into some decisions. One small example: if you want to do blend meshes, you are locked into the mesh, and you cannot modify the mesh. If you want to make changes, you will need to redo all your blend meshes. These kinds of issues are littered across the pipeline. A tiny change in the early stages of the pipeline causes a ripple effect.
Back in the day, we had two ways to serve JPEG images on the internet. The internet was slow, so you could see how the image was loading. One way was loading from top to bottom, and another way was blurry with little detail and then became sharper over time.
I think in game development (maybe in general software development) it is important to get the rough game from beginning to end, so you will have some blurry vision of the game and a general idea of how the game feels, what kind of weak or strong spots the game has, and in general, if it’s worth continuing to work on the game.
So, the first step is to implement the main game loop and all service functionality around the game as fast as possible with placeholder assets and without any important functionality. This way, you can get the feel of the gameplay. I think the second stage is to add assets to bring the look of the game as close as possible to the final look. This is more to keep excitement about the game fueled by nice aesthetics. I found having a lot of placeholder and temporary art demotivating. Also, once you are done with this step, the game is technically shippable. It is just about adding more content and polishing it up.
As I mentioned at the beginning of the post, I am still learning, and these are just my thoughts, not tested. What are your thoughts?
Last week I started working standing almost 100% of the time. I feel it has helped a lot to deal with my long COVID symptoms.
YouTube playlist is buggy; it is falling apart with my 400 music videos playlist. Slow, stops playing at random times and refuses to restart.
I have an idea for tutorial processing. I feel my tutorials are too slow-paced. Personally, I watch my own tutorials on 2x speed. I’m wondering if I should record them normally, then speed them up to 2x and re-narrate them to match my own 2x talking speed.
Does anyone use the Insert button to toggle between insert and override mode? I never use it, but occasionally press it by accident, then I try to hit backspace? We probably have to repurpose the button for something more useful.
Some game developers ask: “I spent 3, 4, 5 years working on a game, and then I released it. Some minor issues, like problems with the controller, generated negative reviews that set the tone for the whole project, and the game sank. How can I avoid these types of mistakes?”
I think it is expected to make mistakes. You need to learn by failing. You just have to be okay with failing, stand up, and continue moving forward. I believe it is better to start by making smaller scoped games. Start with a game jam, make a game in 2 days, and see the reaction. I learned that issues with the controller can indeed affect the reception of an otherwise decent game from my game jam experiences.
In my opinion, you just have to be ready to fail and make sure that after failure, you are able to stand up and continue with better knowledge.
Just keep swimming.
If someone says to you, “I am Taiwanese” or “I am Singaporean,” and you reply, “Nah, you are Chinese,” remember that they feel the same way as if a Ukrainian says, “I am Ukrainian,” and you reply, “Nah, you are Russian.” Please, be mindful.
Today I went to the SoCal Startup Day and saw a lot of desperate entrepreneurs. I could see it in their faces. They go for the pitch, it’s high energy and upbeat. But then they come downstairs, and their expressions change from smiles to desperation. It’s a horrible sight. I question why you have to sacrifice your family, health, and happiness if you want to have a business. Why is that mindset so prevalent?
I don’t know exactly why I went to the conference. It’s kind of the opposite of what I want—I want to find some life in the work-life balance situation. I’m already working 40 hours a week at my job and then using the rest of the time to work on my own games. Don’t get me wrong, I love making games, but sometimes I want to go for a hike, eat good pho at a restaurant, or sit in a beach chair and watch the waves of the Pacific Ocean. I thought maybe I could find someone who could fund me, so I could quit my studio job and fully focus on working on my games. Take three years, finish the game, put it on sale. Another three years, finish the game, rinse and repeat. And instead of working 85 hours a week, maybe work 60. That would be nice.
But no, if you’re an entrepreneur, you have to sacrifice everything. Shrug.
I don’t know what to do with my life.
Breaking news: Apple finally added a calculator to the iPad!
“Reticle” and “reticule” are two different things.
I had a strange dream. I invited Elon Musk to a Bible study group in my dream, and he agreed and came to the meeting. He was super chill and seemed to be having fun, while I was very self-conscious, thinking I was wasting Musk’s time with the Bible study. Then I started thinking that the setup didn’t make sense; I must be dreaming. Yeah, nothing makes sense, I am dreaming, and in my dream, I remembered going to bed. But I also remembered that before going to bed, things didn’t make sense either. It cannot be that I am dreaming in this dream and in the other “reality.” And then I actually woke up.
Should we start calling Proton PINE (Proton is not an emulator)? Some people call it an emulator, and it triggers me a bit.
🌸 Fri, Jun 7, 2024 🌸
The 2FA into my studio takes so much time; sometimes I get distracted while waiting for the webpage to come up, and ending up on the timed-out page, because I forgot that I was about to log in to the studio system.
🌸 Thu, Jun 6, 2024 🌸
Sometimes my Unreal Engine gets confused about which GPU to use, giving the error “Cannot find a compatible Vulkan device that supports surface presentation”. I am fixing it by adding -graphicsadapter=X. For example, /mnt/Texas/prj/ue5.4/Engine/Binaries/Linux/UnrealEditor ~/prj/TheFinalAct/TheFinalAct.uproject -graphicsadapter=2
🌸 Thu, Jun 6, 2024 🌸
The Actor Lifecycle is a very useful documentation page. Do you put all starting functionality into BeginPlay? And you’re trying to figure out dependencies between an actor’s initialization? What if this actor runs BeginPlay first and another one hasn’t run it yet? Check this page; you can put your starting functionality not only in BeginPlay, PostInitializeComponent is one of the useful ones, or OnConstruct, which is very useful for seeing the result immediately in the editor. #UnrealEngine
🌸 Wed, Jun 5, 2024 🌸
If you cannot select translucent objects in Unreal Engine, just press T; it toggles the ability to select translucent objects.
🌸 Tue, Jun 4, 2024 🌸
I have an interesting thought: ChatGPT, in its current state, may actually help people improve their communication skills. Since ChatGPT can be somewhat limited in understanding, it requires clear and well-written input to comprehend. This mirrors the skills necessary for effective human-to-human communication. TL;DR: If ChatGPT 3.5 can understand you, most likely other people would understand you as well.
🌸 Tue, Jun 4, 2024 🌸
Is the ‘Do-Re-Mi’ song from The Sound of Music 2 semitones flat? 🤮
🌸 Tue, Jun 4, 2024 🌸
Modern Game Engines are forcing the development in the waterfall style, the asset pipeline is so rigid it is forcing developers to build the ‘PROCESS’ around it. My dream is to be able to easily make small tweaks at any stage of the game development.
I don’t like when services ask for my birthday; can they stop doing it?
Today, I learned that I do not ask “why” questions often enough. For decades, I was implementing the OnClick event on mouse button release. Then, I watched a video (link below) where John Carmack asked the “why” question and realized it is better to implement the OnClick event on mouse button press. This is good knowledge. I was doing it wrong for multiple decades and apparently never asked that question. What else am I doing without asking “why”? How can I find these instances in my life?
Did you know you can drag-select in Unreal Engine by holding Ctrl+Alt and dragging the mouse?
Would you trust a guy who created a tech (software) company with “open” in the name, like OpenCV, OpenStack, or OpenBSD, and later said he meant “open” as in available to the public, not open source? Would you trust that guy?
If shampoo Head & Shoulders worked, they would go out of business. Therefore, Head & Shoulders does not work.
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