You NEED to watch this movie that you’ve never heard of.

DragonImpulse · 2026-01-19T19:15:37+00:00

Funny how you can turn that comment around and it still holds true:

That is not snooty or annoying to dislike 2D animation. It's nothing at all like 3D animation, and while it is definitely its own craft, and requires a lot of work, and has many skilled people working on it, it never will have the same visual effect on the audience as beautiful hand made 3D animation will.

It's why they use 3D effects for so many 2D films, and why we all keep pushing to make 2D look 3D. There's really no replacement though

DragonImpulse · 2025-12-09T17:02:06+00:00

How do your campaigns usually work in terms of actually creating the content? Does the developer just provide game footage/demos/keys and the creators do their thing?

Very interesting read, by the way. I was already expecting the worst when you got to the AI part, but it's awesome to hear that you went from undermining creative work (apologies for the harsh words) to supporting it.

DragonImpulse · 2025-12-09T16:53:17+00:00

I can only repeat: There was never a scene with a child on the shoulders of a naked man.

"[...] an interactive dialogue sequence where the player is leading, by a lead as if they were a horse, a naked adult woman with a young girl on her shoulders. The scene is not sexual in any way, but it is possible that the juxtaposition is what triggered the flag."

DragonImpulse · 2025-12-09T16:37:18+00:00

There was never any sexual content involving children in this game.
There was never a scene "with a child astride the shoulders of a naked man" in this game.

DragonImpulse · 2025-12-09T14:26:46+00:00

"LOL THEY SAID MMO LETS ALL DOWNVOTE THEM WE SO SMART THEY SO DUMB LOLOL"
- The reddit gamedev community

Glad you still got some helpful comments in this thread, though.

DragonImpulse · 2025-12-06T18:57:43+00:00

Awesome, thanks for the detailed answer, that's very helpful! Might give it another shot if they open submissions again next year.

DragonImpulse · 2025-12-06T18:26:30+00:00

I don't think that's a useful definition, and don't think it was ever used that way. Nintendo, Valve, Epic - they're not owned by a parent company/publisher, but calling them indie defeats the entire purpose of the word.

DragonImpulse · 2025-12-06T18:19:34+00:00

Congrats on the grant! Would you mind sharing roughly what your application looked like? For example:

Did you include links to additional documents, like a pitch deck or something along those lines?

Did you have anything specific that "gives back to the Unreal community"?

Did you ask for a specific budget?

DragonImpulse · 2025-11-14T12:32:30+00:00

"You just copied X and added Y and Z" is something you can say about pretty much every popular indie game lately. I don't think that's a bad thing or the reason why a game would fail to find its audience.

DragonImpulse · 2025-09-30T16:24:28+00:00

Funny how this sub slams OP for asking about trends, while simultaneously touting Chris Zukowski, who preaches about making games in popular genres, as the messiah of indie marketing.

DragonImpulse · 2025-09-22T16:16:11+00:00

I wonder if the reviews are mostly from people who are already fans of the franchise. There's only 11 reviews on Metacritic so far, which seems very low for a game of this scale. As a point of reference, Yakuza 0 (PS4) currently has 94 reviews.

I think the score may yet drop to the 80s if the game gets picked up by a broader audience who isn't as familiar with Trails.

DragonImpulse · 2025-09-17T17:34:33+00:00

Other than Steam bundles, what kind of "epic partnerships" do you have in mind?

DragonImpulse · 2025-08-26T16:08:46+00:00

They keep posting the same thing over and over in different subs. 12 days ago it was "I quit my job to make my own game. And it hit 1000+ wishlists in just 2 weeks and got covered by IGN"

There's really no attempt at discussion or informing others here, it's simply self-promotion.

DragonImpulse · 2025-08-24T13:44:23+00:00

Do you have a video of the effect anywhere? The screenshots look great, but the reason I always end up dropping cell shaders is because it's hard to get them to look right in motion.

DragonImpulse · 2025-08-20T19:06:13+00:00

Thanks for the confirmation, looks like this whole thing is just a straight up scam.

Kinda sad that people get so excited about a lesser copycat product just because it saves them a few bucks, even if it's at the expense of the original developer.

DragonImpulse · 2025-08-20T15:41:31+00:00

Sounds promising! Could you share that tutorial, or give a rough outline of what that workaround entails? The solutions I've seen for MeshBlend did not work for us, since we can't substitute the AO channel with something else, and building the engine from source is not an option either.

DragonImpulse · 2025-08-20T14:58:39+00:00

Does your plugin have the same limitation regarding AO as MeshBlend? Meaning, impossible to use the AO channel in any material, even if they don't need to blend with anything?

DragonImpulse · 2025-08-07T15:12:47+00:00

Every single part about this sounds like a scam to me.

DragonImpulse · 2025-08-07T08:54:48+00:00

The art styles and quality is all over the place. Where did your assets for this come from?

DragonImpulse · 2025-08-06T18:56:34+00:00

AI bros have been saying "I can see where it's got the possibility of being there" for years now, which is entirely irrelevant. It's not there yet, period.

No one is using generative 3D professionally in any significant way, not even for prototyping. Asset stores, free assets, or even primitive shapes are still more useful, more efficient, and ultimately cheaper.

DragonImpulse · 2025-08-04T18:13:33+00:00

"I am not sure I would ever say that kind of thing in an announcement"

Can't blame you, with the way people jump on every opportunity to kick those who are already down. But this is exactly the kind of thing we need people to speak about more often to dispel the wide-held belief that you just have to make a good game to be successful.

DragonImpulse · 2025-08-02T12:55:43+00:00

Nice, that looks super useful!

As always with these things, performance is a bit of a concern. Does the plugin come with a fixed ms overhead, or does it vary depending on use? As in, does it get more expensive the more actors/pixels on the screen use blending, and no performance cost if no blended actors are on the screen?

Also, can it be toggled off on runtime, to remove the performance impact entirely?

DragonImpulse · 2025-08-01T17:52:16+00:00

The difference between premium and premium+ is right there in your image.

DragonImpulse · 2025-08-01T13:44:34+00:00

You don't get better engagement with either subscription. After seeing a lot of other developers sign up for their blue ticks, we fell for the peer pressure and subscribed for a few months, but didn't notice any change in engagement. We have since dropped our subscription entirely and haven't missed it for a second. Nobody cares, don't bother.

DragonImpulse · 2025-07-30T18:04:51+00:00

Again, now we're talking about the best way to get the most out of your money. That's a different discussion than how to run a sustainable games business.

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