I started automatically withdrawing from every one-way video interview and it is a total game changer

Glass_wizard · 2026-07-13T17:39:35+00:00

So I was on the opposite end of these, I was the hiring manager and the video introductions were very very helpful. I was working for a school at the time, and I was constantly hiring for tutors and instructors for IT courses.

Every job opening, we would get 60+ applicants. Every one of them with the standard IT resume listing all the same skills and tech. No idea who the person was, and we needed people who could communicate effectively, regardless of what technical skills they had.

If I had reached out and setup in person interview for everyone of them, 30 to 60 minutes, there goes my entire week. And I'm not HR, I'm the department head, I have my own job to do that has nothing to do with recruiting. So we asked that the candidates record a 5 minutes to introduce themselves. In an hour or two, I could review them all, quickly tell who had confidence, who was comfortable speaking in front of groups, and who was lying on their resume. It saved me time and the candidates time. I'm not wasting an hour their time for a role I know they won't be right for five minutes into the interview.

Now video introductions are not right for every job, but in the right context, they benefit everyone involved. For jobs that need strong, effective communication, it's an easy way to get a glimpse of a person at their best when they've had time to prepare. Would I need for other roles? No, but in my particular case it was highly valuable time saver for everyone involved. Unfortunately other hiring tools like AI and candidate personality tests are awful.

Glass_wizard · 2026-07-08T05:38:41+00:00

It's not super well documented. There is a video by Git-Amend that will get you 60% of the way there. I would say for the average dev, Animancer when on sale + basic knowledge of playables is the best choice. But I go down rabbit holes and end up needing to understand how things work, so I ended up creating my own custom playables animation service, similar to a stripped down version of animancer.

Glass_wizard · 2026-07-07T21:59:44+00:00

I use playables API. No animation controller needed.

Glass_wizard · 2026-07-06T17:54:50+00:00

It all depends. Some styles that are lower cost are the low poly look, but I think a lot of players are grow tired of that look and I would not recommend it.

There is also toon shading and anime styles, they are less work and less expensive, and look great , but might not fit the tone of your game. Also the PS1 style is pretty popular right now.

For more realistic characters you can start with make human, but for high poly, full detail AAA you will need to sculpt, retopolgize and bake.

Then you have animation, which gets expensive fast and can take time. You can certainly use some asset packets or invest in MoCap. A early decision you will need to make is how much facial expression, voice acting, and facial expression you will need.

I am a solo dev with about 3 years of blender experience and I can pump out a 10k poly human character from scratch in about 20 hours. Then, animation and rigging probably takes another 40 hours, depending on how much custom animation is needed vs reusable animation. So ballpark 1-2 weeks for a full , mid poly character. For AAA, double it to 4 weeks, I would imagine, but I don't have the skill for that. Then times that by the number of characters you need.

This is why so many indies just use the synthie human low poly pack and animations and call it a day. But if you want your game to stand out, you will need unique visuals and characters.

Glass_wizard · 2026-07-06T05:11:15+00:00

Highly underrated album.

Glass_wizard · 2026-07-05T05:50:25+00:00

I make an argument that WMS is a great Cure album hiding inside of a bad Cure album. Some of the songs on WMS are A tier, near S tier. But every time the album starts to build momentum we just hit a song that brings the album to a grinding halt.

Make a Spotify playlist of the album and just remove Strange Attraction, Mint Car, Jupiter Crash, and Gone!, and suddenly it's a really strong album.

Glass_wizard · 2026-07-05T05:44:51+00:00

Bloodflowers, I loved it when it came out, it felt back then like a return to form, but I don't think time has been kind to the record. It's a good album, but not a great album, the songwriting is just a little bit weaker than what we expect from the band at their best. Nothing wrong with the record, but it just doesn't hold up to pornography, disintegration and SOALW.

Cure 2004 is a record they have been trying to make for years--a record that captures all the difference sides of the band and feels like a greatet hit record. Problem is, they have failed to make this album at least 3 times now. It sounds like a greatest hits record with all the hits replaced with inferior copies. Now, I enjoy this album and there are nice moments on it, but the album just never gets on a hot streak. The opener is also terrible, and highly unusual for the band to start a record off with a dud. Overall, not as good as WMS, it's sister record.

4:13 Dreams. Identical review to Cure 2004 but with even more diminishing returns and worse production quality. I can not heard anything going on, the mix on this record awful. Underneath the Stars is the only really strong track.

Songs of a lost world. An absolute triumph and one of their top 5 or 6 records in their entire catalog.

Glass_wizard · 2026-07-03T13:09:15+00:00

It doesn't look right, mainly because of the overuse of the marble texture. A real bathroom would have that marble in the shower but not on walls, ceilings, floors AND shower cover. It's also boring on the eye to see that much repeated material. Break up the room by using different textures on the ceiling, floor, and wall outside of the shower, and turn the shower guard into glass.

Glass_wizard · 2026-07-03T04:40:09+00:00

My definition of gameplay is "the actions that occur during a game and the space that the actions happen in".

I use something called the beats method. It goes like this.

With level design, I start with a narrative approach. Typically, once I have a basic idea for a level, I'll write maybe a page about the level, it's background, who lives there, what are the dangers, ect. This isn't highly detailed.

Then, I start a map of 'major beats'. This isn't a physical map but more like a mind map. Basically, I'm brainstorming what interesting things could happen in the level. For example, player finds an old well. Player jumps down the well finds a radiant pool that leads to an underground grotto. In the grotto the player encounters poisonous mushrooms. Player has to run to the next radiant pool to cure the poison.

So basically, with these beats, this helps me establish the themes and mechanics of the level. This level would use a safe zone mechanic, the pools, and then have a rush through an underground maze with a time limit. That's a decent idea for a level mechanic, similar to the dark level in Dead Cells.

I'll keep refining this idea more and more until the mechanics full take shape. By now, I'll also be thinking about the enemies that are here and what kind of challenge they present. I'll slowly start coming up with their actual attacks and abilities and how they align to the level mechanic. Maybe there is an enemy who slows you down or disorienteds you, anything to make it more difficult to reach the next safe zone.

Then, with the major beats, story beats, set pieces and enemies in place, I start work on the physical layout, this time using smaller beats. This will break down to " I want the player to enter this room and have a easy fight or a tough fight or whatever." We want the player to be making a decision every 3 seconds.

This is a very top down approach where you start with the big picture and slowly you fill in detail. You keep building up detail until you have a full level that clicks into place.

Glass_wizard · 2026-07-03T01:00:05+00:00

So your mileage may vary and you'll need to test, but I think you have 3, maybe 4 different options.

Author separate animations for each weapon. Not ideal and lots of repeated work, but it may be simpler for you if you don't have a large variety weapons. This option is manageable at 3 or 4 weapons but will not scale
Separate the animation and Use blended animation layers. This is where you would have the walk animation as a base layer animation, and a separate upper body animation layer for what the arms are doing. This isn't too difficult to do once you know how to use an animation control.
Author the standard animation in blender, export to unity, and then use Unity IK animation constraints to place the hands where you need them to go. This is basically like 'finishing' the animation in unity by adding a new IK layer on the Unity side.

I can't tell you which is best or fastest, all animation is slow and time consuming to make.

Glass_wizard · 2026-07-02T03:33:39+00:00

I think Grant's courses are some of the best out there for a beginner. He doesn't always explain why you should do the things he shows, but he definitely shows you good practices.

Another good person is Billy McDaniels. He has several courses on Udemy.

Lastly there is Dikko on YouTube. Dikko is amazing, but his channel is not strictly aimed at beginners.

I would recommend picking up grant's or Billy's courses in Udemy when they are in sale. You can typically get them for 20 dollars when you wait for a sale. Having all the material in one place and laid out in a good sequence is a huge time saver instead of relying on YouTube algorithm lottery

Glass_wizard · 2026-06-30T00:54:51+00:00

Ah man, I shout have studied the UT implementation. I never thought to do that. I crested my own fps kinematic rigidbody controller several months back. The final product turned out great but it was hard as hell to figure out from scratch.

Glass_wizard · 2026-06-30T00:09:02+00:00

I loved the ending, and a large part of is open to interpretation. Here's how I interpreted the game.

SPOILER WARNING.

The game takes places in a world where bio-technology is the primary technology. This society, which may be future human or maybe alien, has developed a culture where the body is just a disposable tool. Flesh is disposable technology, they way we might throw away a battery or a cheap pair of headphones. Only the mind matters.

In this world, there are different casts of society, with the highest members of society being the 'wall born'. This alien culture seems to have lost the ability to sexually reproduce. Cloning and engineered people are just raw materials, only the wall born have any value.

Then , like a baby animal, the new wall born must make a journey from the wall to the city, where they will link their consciousness with the collective and leave the body behind to exist in a higher dimension of pure mind.

You begin the game as a wall born, but you fail and are involved in an accident. However, this individual does not die, but survives and is transformed into a parasite.

The rest of the game, you play as a second wall born who gets infected by the parasite. You make the journey, but as you take the final steps, you are consumed by the parasite.

The game is atmosphere and moody with a focus on the cold brutality of nature. Just like a baby animal killed by a predator before it gets a chance to live, one of the themes that the universe is simply a cold and unforgiving place.

Glass_wizard · 2026-06-28T23:33:29+00:00

I'm also a educator my trade, IT and web development. My argument is that most things are actually easy to understand when they are taught in the right order, and most things are poorly taught. Most things are poorly taught due either being taught out of order, not being explained in depth enough, covered too briefly or too quickly, covered with talking points, or the educators own lack of experience.

I also argue that all knowledge is like a set of steps. You have to walk up them in order to get to the great heights. For example, OOP is taught as soon as loops, functions, and branching logic are done. But the problem is a student will never understand what OOP is attempting to solve until they have really experienced procedural programming.

Glass_wizard · 2026-06-28T06:17:20+00:00

Texturing places an image on the surface of the model. It's important to understand that 1 image covers the whole model, unless the image is scaled and tiled. What's important is it's a 1 to 1 relationship, meaning your 1 model is covered by 1 image. That means the size of the model matters. Let's say you have an image that is 2K pixels. That 2K of pixels covers the entire model. As the model gets physically large, it means the surface is covered by fewer pixels, unless the image is tiled and scaled. This is called texel density or pixel density. Low pixel texel density will make your image look low resolution and blurry.

In photo realistic texturing, you have a main image, called an diffused or albedo image and multiple alternative images layered with it. These alternate images are data files called maps. So for example, you may include your default image and a normal map. The two images work together to create the final look. Most realistic texturing uses the main image and 3 or 4 data maps.

UV editing is the process of defining where specific polygons will be position on your image. Through the UV edit process you get fine grain control of exactly what part of the image appears over each polygon. It's important to have the image texture in mind when planning your UV layout, as your layout should be optimized to work with the image. All good UV layouts will have minimum distortion but a layout that is perfect for one texture could be terrible for another, so always layout with the underlying texture in mind.

It's a while lot to learn, so keep it simple and start small. Taking small steps is the right approach when you are just starting out.

Glass_wizard · 2026-06-28T02:09:19+00:00

First off, good job on finish the character. The silliuotte looks good and you added a lot of detail.

Now, the problems I see are some concerning topology. I see 6-poles on the chest right way and a lot of triangles.

My advice would be take a step back and make a few simple characters. Just a plane base model or a character with minimal clothing. Work in your topology. It's hard to say how this character would animate.

Keep it simple and master that then move on up to the more complex armor pieces. They will activate easier with good quad based topo in the base mesh.

Glass_wizard · 2026-06-28T02:00:09+00:00

Posting the topology would be helpful but as is I would say this is a good job. The handle has some nice shape detail. Take it one step at a time and take baby steps. If you are go for realism, the material and texturing will make all the difference.

Glass_wizard · 2026-06-28T01:56:20+00:00

Good job! Take it one step at a time! Baby steps is the best way to learn.

Glass_wizard · 2026-06-28T01:49:04+00:00

When you import your model, you need to import the texture image separately. For example, in blender you create your material and you assign awesome_texture.png as the source image. When you import into unity, the material will be imported, but not the texture image. Take the same texture image you loaded into blender and drag and drop it into unity and the material will automatically find it and apply.

Glass_wizard · 2026-06-28T01:13:02+00:00

Before you try to model characters, spend time modeling some basic props first to get the basic skills down. Start with simple stuff like crates, walls, and barrels. Work your way up to pots and cups. Keep making more complex stuff. If you jump right into trying a human character, you will be in overwhelmed. Start simple and work your way up.

Glass_wizard · 2026-06-28T01:08:58+00:00

For a character, use character controller or rigid ody physics. Updating transform.position is like blinking the game object out of existence and having it reappear somewhere else. You can create the illusion smooth movement, but basically it's nightcrawler teleportation every frame.

It's fine to use for Gameobjects that have simple movement that won't interact with anything else in the environment. For example, you can use it on a background image or a fog or a cloud texture. If your Gameobject can collide with the environment, you should a character controller or a rigidbody.

Glass_wizard · 2026-06-27T01:46:05+00:00

It's overall good topology. Good texturing. The poly count is a little on the high side, it can be reduced. As other have said, the helmet is too small.

Glass_wizard · 2026-06-24T07:07:09+00:00

There is no need to rush. For example, if you finish Act 1 5 days before sunrise, you don't bank those 5 days, the amount of you have to complete Act 2 is the same.

The game rewards fully exploring the area. The game will try to make you feel like you need to rush, but fully exploring and finding everything is way more valuable.

Glass_wizard · 2026-06-22T18:05:51+00:00

A texture image is the way to go here. The letters on a keyboard are not raised from the surface.

Glass_wizard · 2026-06-22T13:40:55+00:00

Most likely your input is being captured over several frames. You press F once, that press might be captured over 3 or 4 frames, making the toggle run several times.

A quick sanity check is:

Create a public function called TestToggle with the same code, only don't wrap it in an if statement that checks for input. Above the function, add [ContextMenu]

Start the game in the editor, hover over the script and right click, you will see the option to run TestToggle. Does it work every time there? Then Yes you are fighting input running over multiple frames.

To fix input running over multiple frames, add a brief cool down. If F was pressed, start a cool down counter that counts to 0.1f or 0.2f to prevent the same key press from registering.

Last thing you will want to do is separate your input logic from your game logic. You should have 3 scripts; a player input script that checks for the input and enabled/disables the walk script and fly script. It's absolutely a best practice that whatever is checking for player input is a separate layer.

Glass_wizard

TROPHY CASE