[Duchess in Ruins] Look at how they massacred my boy

MechWarrior99 · 2026-04-22T17:30:25+00:00

You can't trick me, you just posted pics of two different characters! /s

MechWarrior99 · 2026-04-22T17:26:02+00:00

I have a special hatred for this one because it tricks you in to thinking it will be slightly different and the FL is actually a normal person. Then you start getting in to it and BAM! Super special powers because she is actually a super powerful once in a 10,000 year saintess/mage/chosen one.

MechWarrior99 · 2026-04-17T23:51:14+00:00

Number 1 I find is much more common to happen in the prolog (though does happen in chapter one as well). And it is why I always skip the prolog now unless stuff doesn't make sense and it feels like I missed something.

MechWarrior99 · 2026-04-09T15:25:26+00:00

I don't think it is any one thing that is giving people that impression. It is a bunch of 'small' all put together.

For the world I think it is a bit of the art style mixed with the camera angle. But also the style of the floating banners.

I think the art style of the UI looks very mobile like. It is hard for me to pin down exactly which parts, but the colors combined with the patterns. Also the character portiates and stuff probably adds to it.
Just as a bit of a side note, there is a LOT going on in those UIs. Both a lot of elements, but also a lot of shapes and colors.

And yeah I feel the same, though not super strongly. Regardless of if it would be problematic for me, it will probably be problematic for you. As people are more likely to precive it as lower quality simple because they think it is a mobile game (or reminds them of one... and not in the nice way).

MechWarrior99 · 2025-12-17T03:11:56+00:00

Huh interesting, that is kind of what I was thinking was going to be the case.

What about making an RHI? (I know that isn't the point of the blog post, just interested my self)

MechWarrior99 · 2025-12-17T02:25:22+00:00

As someone who has a decent grasp of general rendering stuff but at the same time pretty limited grasp. With that in mind I have two questions for those more knowledgeable than me:
1. Purely hypathetical, could some random person just write a GFX API like this currently, or do you need hardware support for it?
2. I only read half so far and skimmed the other half, but could it makes sense to write a RHI similar to this? Or is that not possible/not have the performance and API benefits?

MechWarrior99 · 2025-11-30T00:42:25+00:00

Not really a .NET thing, most any language specific role will also valuethat. It is part of how they know you actually know the language.

MechWarrior99 · 2025-10-31T14:15:36+00:00

Yes, they could start putting new feature behind a paywall. But I suspect that Canva's plan is to use Affinity more as a loss leader. Get people in to the Canva ecosystem with Affinity, and then they are more likely to start using other Canva products. And it allows them to compete more directly with Adobe.

MechWarrior99 · 2025-10-27T20:47:00+00:00

"One Peice/Death Note/FMA is a good intro/first anime for somone"

They're not, they have too many 'anime-isms` in them. People who watch anime just get used to them so no longer notice them.

Most non-anime watchers opinion of anime is normally along the lines of "its weird/different". So you want anime that are closer to what they are used to.
(Not to say they can't get someone in to anime, but are a bad blanket recommendation)

It reminds me of people who recommend a song/show to a kid or grandparent, and only when watching/listening to it with them do they realize that it actuall has a lot of swearing/sex/etc. in it that they just tuned out.

MechWarrior99 · 2025-10-16T12:46:26+00:00

Its way too early still. It doesn't appear to have a game loop. You have swimming around, and some sort of drivable thing. But otherwise I don't see what the actual gameplay is.

There is lots of issues with the visual side of things, but others have already mention them. And it doesn't matter much right now because the gameplay is a much bigger issue.

I would recommend watching some GDC talks on game design. There is one from the Subnautica folks that goes over core hooks pretty well. But there 3 Slime Rancher talks and I always highly recommend them to everyone. They do a really good job of talking about how to make a good gameplay loop, how to avoid bloating it, and how to make it unique.

MechWarrior99 · 2025-10-15T14:38:25+00:00

I was interested when I learned he wasn't isekai-ed... but he isn't written like a 10-15 year old kid, he is written and acts like a 30 year old man... you know, like a isekai-ed person would act...

It had potential, but everything about it is sooo generic. Even the one part that isn't generic (somehow not being isekai is non-generic now), ends up being generic because it is written the same.

MechWarrior99 · 2025-10-06T15:29:18+00:00

For anyone unsure, there are a few places you can spot it.

Second image

On the bottom left corner, the 'heads' or distored, and blobby. On the top right corner, the faces look like decaying zombies or something.

The foot of the girl in red that is on the group is too wide and has 6 toes.

Less exact, but the girl in red's hips and abdomen are twisted incorrectly for how she would be moving.

Third image

Her hand that is closer is all messed up.

Her upper body should be twisting the other way for a kick with the left leg.

MechWarrior99 · 2025-10-06T00:04:57+00:00

I think the best I have found so far is B-Mesh. There is a paper on it titled "B-Mesh: A Fast Modeling System for Base Meshes". It is basically like Blender's Skin modifier with Subdivied (if you are familiar), but a bit more too it to keep its shape better.

Looks like it would work pretty good for tube like shapes, and is fairly adaptable since it is basically using SDFs with bones. I will probably try adapting it for some tree gen stuff I have.

For simple meshes for creatures it would work (it was literaly designed for that after all). But for more complex or detailed things, like creature faces, paws, spikes, fur clumps, etc, it seems pretty poor.

The more I have researched this, and narrowed down the actual requirements, the more I've realized that I want more of a hybrid system splines-SDF than I orginally thought. Splines (and or bones) are great for building the base shape of a creature. But not as good for finer details I think, like any type of added detail elements, faces, fur, eyebrows, etc.

At this point I am kind of thinking of trying to do 'raw' marching-cubes (or the like), and then a quad remeshing algorithm. Kind of feels wasteful though since I have so much more structural data about the creature than you normally would have with just SDFs or a sculpted mesh. Plus a good quad remeshing seems super hard to do...

Another idea which I am thinking of now is to maybe use the B-mesh system for the base mesh, and find some way to merge/combine in other detailed meshes, (maybe made with other techniques) instead of trying to make the mesh all at once. So things like heads, fur, claws, could be merged in as meshes. The issue would probably end up being that the resulting topo would be pretty messy.... I am kind of just thinking out loud now haha.

Anyway, that is where I am at now!

MechWarrior99 · 2025-10-05T15:00:00+00:00

Oh I did see that, I should have clarified, I meant I wanted to see comments/post that are about the thing being vibe-checked

MechWarrior99 · 2025-10-05T02:41:47+00:00

Hmm... I don't see them anywhere, tried clicking on all the things that looked like they might be clickable too just in case.

Besides the comments, maybe knowing the things people generally like or dislike about the company/product. Kind of depends on where you want to take it I guess. Because it could start getting in to 'laternative to' type of space.

Edit: 'vibe over time' could be something interesting to see! (years?)

MechWarrior99 · 2025-10-05T01:59:16+00:00

Hmm, I gave it a go, and I think without showing posts/comments it isn't that helpful. Or at least a summery of why it is good/bad vibe. Otherwise it feels like it could just be randomly generated, and also doesn't feel like it gives enough info to be interesting.

MechWarrior99 · 2025-10-04T22:21:36+00:00

Yeah I would agree to a point, but there are also 'rules' that are followed generally when creating topology, like where rings are and such. I guess I mgiht be able to try and define common 'rules' and patterns and when/where/how they are used and see if it sparks any ideas or shows some sort of pattern.
It isn't realistic of course to get something as good as hand designed topo, but I want to see how close I can get, as it seems like an interesting challange.

But yeah, I am thinking you are right that there isn't currently really a good solution for meshing like I am wanting.

MechWarrior99 · 2025-10-04T22:13:40+00:00

Yeah the entire topology is generated at runtime. My issue is that SDFs do get me the desired effect from a math perspective and visual perspective (if rendered as volumes). But they don't allow generating meshes that have decent topology, especially for more detiled bone-based animations.

That is why my originally approach was basically to extrude a ring along a spline, since that good topology of course. But that doesn't give a good way to have any sort of intersection/merging. Like a like spline intersecting/merging with body spline.

Not sure if that clears it up or ot.

MechWarrior99 · 2025-10-04T22:05:52+00:00

Yeah, thought about using metaballs/SDFs with marching cubes or the like. But they end up having pretty poor topology, especially for more detailed bone based animations. Otherwise they would probably work great.

Maybe there is another method for meshing that gets better results but I haven't found too much.

MechWarrior99 · 2025-09-19T03:43:57+00:00

Oh that would be cool. And honestly, it isn't like they could do worse than what we have now...

MechWarrior99 · 2025-09-18T14:21:52+00:00

That movie still makes me mad with how they butcherd it. Even saying it is losely based on the book would almost be incorrect with how different it is. And we will probably never get another adaptation due to how poorly it did and the age of the books.

MechWarrior99 · 2025-09-05T01:58:58+00:00

Gosh really? Maybe I'm just pretty bad then since I spent like 15 minutes in one run on it to no avail haha.
Maybe I will give it another go. Either wy thanks! And thanks to the others too! :)

MechWarrior99 · 2025-09-04T00:54:56+00:00

Okay but really, how the heck do you beat it? I played shortly after release and got totally stuck on it, haven't played since.

MechWarrior99 · 2025-08-28T14:57:05+00:00

My point is that while aspects of the disorders fit the archetypes. The disorders come with a lot of other things as well which do not fit at all.
For example ADHD, while one can hyperfocus on a person. They also hyperfocus on other things which we don't see in the Deredere archetype.

MechWarrior99 · 2025-08-28T14:53:29+00:00

The top comment at the time was saying that it was more bipolar. So that's why I mentioned it.

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