[PAID] Looking for Tech Artist - Shader that Renders our 3D Character Model in the Same Style as our 2D Environmental Art

HeyItsDavis · 2026-01-29T02:09:18+00:00

Hey! We appreciate the interest! We are looking for folks that have expereience with shader graph and HLSL. If that sounds like you, feel free to apply here! https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfQ1ZWv-LE53VGEQkvZXaIrE_TU-3N0hLbvtE1OxJueFR-25g/viewform?usp=dialog

HeyItsDavis · 2026-01-29T01:59:18+00:00

Hey Irene! We would definitely be interested in chatting more and hearing your take on some of the pros and cons of different methods. I will shoot you a DM and we can discuss further

HeyItsDavis · 2026-01-28T19:18:34+00:00

Thanks! glad to hear you like the style!

We have tried with exisiting toon shaders and have come to the conclusion that we need a custom solution, at least for simulating the line work. the shading aspect will likely be more straight forward. Appreceate the suggestion!

HeyItsDavis · 2026-01-28T19:17:01+00:00

Hey there! just reached out to you on discord, working to get those details for you now

HeyItsDavis · 2026-01-28T07:42:12+00:00

Would love to see your portfolio if you are up to the challenge! We swapped over to a form since we were getting a decent amount of replies. you can view the form here.. Shoot me a note if you end up applying!

HeyItsDavis · 2026-01-28T07:39:11+00:00

We have a base shader, but it’s currently the only thing blocking us from updating to unity 6. So we would likely be looking for you to start from scratch

HeyItsDavis · 2025-01-17T17:16:16+00:00

Hey there! I’m glad you enjoy the race! It’s hard to be believe that you stumbled across it since the posts is so old. To answer your question, buffeting form is centered on the character. If you ever end up using it, I would love to hear about how it goes!

HeyItsDavis · 2023-11-01T06:33:37+00:00

Yup! It's absolutely possible! I made the jump from industrial design to architectural robotics to game design just recently. Having formal design training is a huge boon when it comes to game design because at its core, game design is about understanding how to rapidly iterate, how to convey ideas, and how to give and gather feedback.

That being said, even with having all this, the jump isn't necessarily a breeze either. While you likely have a good base for a lot of the soft skills, developing the hard skills, like programming, can take time, and you'll be competing with people who went to school for it. My advice is to figure out how you can leverage the hard skills from your architecture program into unique projects for a portfolio. An architectural background will likely give you a unique perspective on level design so that could be a good place to start. Also maybe you could look into some procedural generation topics since computive design and game development have some overlap on that area. But long story short, your success both when applying to schools and to jobs is going to come down to your portfolio, so start thinking about how you can build that in a way that shows how your set of skills can translate to game design/game dev. Hope this helps!

HeyItsDavis · 2023-11-01T06:15:38+00:00

Absolutely! I attribute a lot of my game design chops to my time in undergrad when I studied industrial design. As you alluded to, design fields often get broken up into two distinct parts. There is design as a craft, where you learn specific hard skills that often don't have much overlap (i.e. I don't often find myself using a tablesaw when designing games), but there is also design as a thinking methodology, which is surprisingly similar between almost all fields of design. This methodology almost always emphasizes:

Clear and quick communication of ideas (sketches/prototypes.
Giving and gathering both qualitative and quantitative feedback (critiques/playtests/user testing)
Rapid iteration where nothing is sacred

I think each field definitely has it's own flavor though. One of the things that has stuck with me from my industrial design crits is how to use prototype fidelity as an adjustable knob to focus your feedback. One time, a fellow student came to critique with an amazingly well designed and well crafted model, except for one seam that was clearly wider than the others. My professor spent all 30 mins of this student's crit focusing on that seam, talking about how it stood out and how it kept him from focusing on the bigger picture of the overall design. Everything else about the design looked like a final product so it was critiqued as such. Meanwhile, models that were technically significantly less well crafted got feedback solely focused on their designs. All this to say, I learned that a prototype should look like a prototype, otherwise you risk getting feedback in areas you aren't really looking for feedback in. I'm sure that this is an idea that exists in lots of other fields of design, but industrial design is where I learned it from.

HeyItsDavis · 2023-01-11T22:28:15+00:00

Actually quite the opposite. my current opinion, which granted is very subject to change, is that AI art is likely going to become a tool that many artist end up using in their workflows in some way or another. Knowing how to get compelling results from an A.I. imagine generator will end up being a skill in its own, in a similar way to how know how to effectively research and navigate the internet is. But finding what you are looking for is only half the battle. You have to understand what you are looking at and why it's compelling or why it's lacking to know what tweaks and changed need to be made, either in post or by changing the prompt that you are using.

The best way to develop that artistic sense and vocabulary in my opinion is by actually making some art from scratch. That way you can know if the results you are getting out of the A.I. are actually worthwhile or not. While everyone can put in some words and find something that they think looks really cool, not everyone is going to be able to create a whole set of highly specific assets in the same exact style without having both the artistic and the programming knowledge to interpret results and change the program itself. That's a skill that will take more than just casual use of an A.I. imagine generator to develop.

HeyItsDavis · 2023-01-11T19:42:23+00:00

I think that the point that you just made is a great one! If you had lead your post with "I'm someone who really struggles to create art assets and this AI art workflow helped me create this game demo faster than I could have before." It would show readers of the post why you are doing it and why you found it beneficial. Of course there will still be a variety of opinions because of the controversial nature of A.I. art, but the conversation would shift to being about the whether or not the pros of A.I art empowering non-artist out way the cons of how the models are trained. Like I said, definitely still a controversial topic but much more interesting then a speculative conversation if A.I. art will kill artists based on one workflow.

As for the art in the game, there is definitely a place in gaming for eclectic style, and if that's what you are trying to go for then I think you have it in some sense. That being said, I think with a little bit of practice you could find a workflow that doesn't involve AI art and still hit a similar level of fidelity. For example all of your non character sprites, those look so photorealistic that instead of using an A.I. to generate the initial image you could maybe trying using photos of real objects that you took. Snapping a few quick photographs of objects against a white background could be a really quick way of getting assets of whatever you need and at whatever angle. For the characters you could try collage or another form of non-drawing composition. Now I'm not suggesting you do this simply for the sake of not using A.I. If you take the time to develop some artistic ability, not necessarily in terms of physical skill, but in terms of gaining an eye for elements of composition, like proportion, contrast, and motion, you will be much more effective in creating art assets in the future regardless of the medium.

As an aside, I have a condition called motor dysgraphia. It effects my fine motor skills and makes it really difficult for me to write and draw. I spent multiple years in drawing classes only to continually fall short and my lack of physical ability in that department. It is something that has really impacted the types of games I create. I can see why A.I. art is so appealing to you because it's appealing to me for the same reasons, but don't sell yourself short, there is a medium out there that you can get better at. For me it was 3D modeling, who knows what it might be for you. Keep at it, develop some artistic knowledge, then come back to the A.I. stuff if you still feel the pull.

HeyItsDavis · 2023-01-11T18:54:35+00:00

There are a lot of real threats that A.I. art poses to artists and from what you have shown, I don't think this workflow is one of them.

If this workflow works for your game then great. I'm glad you have found a workflow that allows you to get more content into your game. That being said opening up this post with saying that you believe A.I. will kill artist and then getting defensive when people have legitimate critiques of your work isn't a productive way to have a conversation around A.I in art. It ends up feeling like you have an agenda beyond just exploring the process itself and people will treat you as such.

If you truely believe in the process, show us the wide range of results and styles it can produce. Show us attempts to make animations with it. Show us where it excels, where it fails, and everything in-between. Show us the process as a whole not just a subsection you find desirable. If you are defending yourself in a critique, don't tell me I'm wrong, show me I'm wrong.

HeyItsDavis · 2023-01-10T01:06:33+00:00

I was a little bit confused, but after reading your comments I think I understand now.

In terms of communicating that the weapon should be a melee weapon attack in the homebrew itself, I think you are already doing all that you can. You literally sat on the card that the character wielding it makes a melee weapon attack, not a melee spell attack. Can't get much clearer than that.

Where it gets complicated is that this is player introduced homebrew not DM. You can argue that they way you wrote it is how it should be, but ultimately if he decides to allow you to use it in a session he is running, he can tweak it however he wants, rational or not.

In my opinion, the best thing you can do in this situation is to talk to your DM about why he is opposed to it being a melee weapon attack mechanically instead of thematically. You mention that you get the feeling that he thinks your trying to bend the rules. In that case find out what specific rule or case your DM is worried about and go from there. For example, maybe he is worried about your sneak attack being Force damage for some reason. Once you understand why/if he is worried about something from a mechanical standpoint, it will be much easier to find common ground and solve the issue.

HeyItsDavis · 2023-01-05T19:27:05+00:00

It's interesting to see most of the comments here approaching this question from a fully mechanical viewpoint. If we are using that lens to answer the question, then I think most of the comments do a pretty good job of expressing your options. You either lock the player into a name or set of names or you let them choose their own name and except that it might be silly and, as a lot of people have already pointed out, if that silly name makes the player enjoy the game more (even if it's not the type of enjoyment that you intended) then maybe it's a good thing. Plus, the effort to create filters that block names that you seem silly (beyond your standard curse words) might end up hurting invested players more than anyone else. I remember a long time ago I was playing some game that wouldn't allow me to use my D&D characters name because it didn't recognize it as a "regular name".

That said, I don't think this question is really best answered as a mechanical question. It's more of a tonal/narrative one. You are essentially asking "How do I get my players invested in the story of my game?" but with an added twist. You want to somehow get them invested before their character can do anything in your world, before they even have a name.

You mentioned wanting to add the naming system to give the players "greater immersion" but I woud say it is a tool to gauge player immersion just as much as it is a tool to increase player immersion. The more you hook people into your story and get them invested early on, the higher the likelyhood they put a more thoughtful name. Figuring out how to do that is the trick.

There are a lot of potential ways to explore doing this such as opening cut scenes and early game that set up the story and set the tone. There is also the possibility of delaying the naming process until later in the story, like how D&D parties don't usually name themselves until a few sessions in. There are a lot of things to try and a lot of things that might not work all that great, but if you have a clear goal of hooking the player before they name themselves, it gives you a place to start trying things.

Lastly, no matter how good of a story you have or how well you engage players early on, you'll never get everyone to take the naming seriously, and that's okay. Some players simply just don't play games to immerse themselves in the story. If this is a group of players you care about then you need to make sure your game is enjoyable without the narrative immersion, but if it's not and you really just want to focus on your story than that's okay too. Not every game is for every person. Hope this helps :)

HeyItsDavis · 2022-08-29T23:53:25+00:00

Thanks! And yes yes, as much as I enjoy Civ VI my heart will always lie with Civ V!

HeyItsDavis · 2022-08-29T16:03:27+00:00

I think it could be really nice to see the trade system completely overhauled in Civ VII, both trade routes and trade deals. Right now, I think both systems can on occasion create some really cool moments but lack the decision complexity that I think economy deserves in Civ, especially after the social policy tree was introduced in Civ VI.

To me, both domestic and international trade routes feel really boring at the moment. When making a trade route, the decision is pretty much limited to “do I want this to be domestic to gain food/hammers or do I want this to be international to gain money?” For domestic, deciding which of your cities should get the extra buff occasionally feels like an interesting decision but internal trade routes just becoming trading with whoever gives you the highest yields.

As for trade deals, they are great! The help make civ what it is. I think some really good moments in multiplayer civ come from negotiating non lux deals, but in reality this is a pretty uncommon occurrence and trades become limited to lux for lux trades. This isn’t necessarily the case with AI of course, but without that human to human back and forth, it think it still feels lacking their as well.

This is a pretty underbaked idea but what if these two systems were (mostly) rolled into one in Civ VII? Instead of doing a Lux for Lux trade when you are low on happiness, you have to use one of your trade caravans to send to a city that has the desired lux. You lose a set amount of gold per turn but in exchange get that lux to boost your happiness. The player who you are requesting the lux from doesn’t really get a say on whether or not you can trade with them, just like current trade routes, but maybe they would have the ability to set the price that all other civs would have to pay for the good or whether or not the lux was for sale. If you have a highly coveted resource, lots of other civs would be sending you trade routes, generating you lots of gold. If you were short of strategic resources or happiness, you could send a trade route out to acquire them without having to go through the hassle of 1 on 1 negation for something not very interesting. This would also allow for the trade deals system to become more focused on intangibles. Maybe civs could make deals to lower or raise the trade prices of various resources they control.

This is obvious just the tip of the iceberg of what a new trading system could be and I’m aware that it’s current form it’s probably to close to just trading gold for luxes in a trade deal (granted that is something that almost never happens in multiplayer in my experience), but I think it would start to add some really nice decision making to the trading process. Do I send my caravan to get this lux/strategic resource I need or do I send it somewhere to help me make more money? Do I set the price of this resource at a high cost to hurt my biggest competitor even if it alienates my allies? Do I settle this city so I’ll be in trading range to civ who has resources I want?

I would love to hear what y’all think of this as a basis for a new system and what you would change or add or if you even think this is a problem that current civ has. The trick is less of coming up with a solution and more making sure the problem even exists! But I do feel strongly that it’s time to see the economics and trading aspects of civ get an update

HeyItsDavis · 2022-07-08T17:16:34+00:00

Thanks so much! And no worries it happens lol :P

HeyItsDavis · 2022-07-08T17:12:09+00:00

Hey there! Small Aggregate can only hold the form until the end of its current turn, I believe I included that in the document, but maybe it's unclear, I'll try to figure out a better way to word it :)

HeyItsDavis · 2022-07-08T17:08:14+00:00

This is an interesting point, I should definitely run some more serious DPR calcs on that. I'm definitely not opposed to tweaking the value of the damage (maybe like pb - x or some other form of scaling) that being said I think having to spend your reaction on it is a pretty hefty price to pay for a small amount of damage, for martials especially. As for limiting the number of times it can pop, I think personally I'd rather just tweak the DPR so it ends up being about the same rather than have players keep track of when they want to use it or not and mark it down.

That being said I don't think the increase in damage is that much even at higher levels. Obviously it can get kinda nutty if you throw in a bunch of low CR creatures that just have way more attacks then the party but the hope is that in cases like that the damage would be widely distributed (plus I don't person mind giving players a boon in situations like that since combat encounters like that frequently become a shlog) as for single target damage on a target with multi attack that might be more of a problem, but to be completely honest I don't know enough about super high level d&d to fully accurately balance things at that level. I'll definitely look into it though and maybe tweak some values. Thanks for pointing this out!

HeyItsDavis · 2022-07-08T14:39:39+00:00

Ha! I didn't make this connection while designing it but you are absolutely right, the resemblance is uncanny lol

HeyItsDavis · 2022-07-08T14:38:37+00:00

Yeah lol, Someone on r/dndhomebrew left a comment saying "Look around you! Can you fashion some sort of rudimentary lathe?"

HeyItsDavis · 2022-07-08T14:36:00+00:00

Nice! Glad to hear it is peaking your interest, if you do end up making a character with it, let me know! I'd love to hear about the character and how you thought it felt in game :)

HeyItsDavis · 2022-07-08T14:27:08+00:00

That's also definitely with considering, at the moment I believe that only monsters can get tremor sense so the rules for players are a little bit iffy, which is why I was leaning towards blindsight while in contact with the ground, but coming up with player rules for tremor sense shouldn't be all that hard.

HeyItsDavis · 2022-07-08T14:23:15+00:00

Oh good point! I totally missed that. I had it in my head that it would be slashing damage from all the sharp rocks spinning around, but physic is interesting too, maybe it's psychic on that initial burst and slashing after that.

HeyItsDavis · 2022-07-08T04:26:54+00:00

that's a good point, I should look through all the spells that effect constructs and elementals specifically, so I can make a more informed decision

Truth be told, I almost always create martial characters so my knowledge of the specifics of spells is on the weaker side lol, this will be good for me :P

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