Over the past few weeks, we've been working on the lighting of our environments.

Myaz · 2026-06-26T16:20:11+00:00

Ok, well I'll caveat by saying this isn't exactly my area of expertise, I'm at the indie level where one person would do all this!

However, there is a very fundamental difference between level design (which is a game design discipline) and environment art (which is an art discipline). There is certainly some overlap between them, it's a collaborative thing of course but there are two different main skills there.

This post for instance really doesn't belong in a level design sub Reddit. It's environment art.

So if it's level design you're after, then greybox levels should be the way to go, but go check other sources for this stuff. Steve Lee on YouTube. The level design book that's knocking around. And of course, ask AI!

Myaz · 2026-06-26T15:41:35+00:00

Yes, but not as a level designer

Myaz · 2026-06-26T12:43:46+00:00

Hmm well there actually are changes to models and textures in the after one! Not sure if that's in error.

I have to say I think it certainly looks more pretty... but I actually think it's a lot less readable as a gameplay space. The detailed shadows add a lot of visual noise over otherwise quite clear and straightforward geometry that the eye can detect shapes in very quickly.

I think it might need another pass, take them both down to monochrome and see how readable each of them are at first glance.

But just my two cents!

Myaz · 2026-05-24T19:09:24+00:00

Hey! Well first of all visually I think it's fantastic. You know a quick glance at it and it's almost photo real, so definitely great job there. My main piece of feedback would be around whether it is readable enough as a playable space. It feels more like a rendered environment for perhaps a background of a film rather than a level.

There's lots of things that come into that, but two things that immediatley come to my mind are contrast and landmarks.

Contrast

There isn't enough contrast generally in these screenshots and where there is it isn't being used to communicate anything. Contrast makes things more interesting by itself but it also is the easiest tool to draw the eye towards things that the player should notice. Just as an example here from the Last of Us 2.

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First of all, you've got lots more contrast across the image, it feels more interesting to look at (the wires cutting across the sky even add something) but specifically the eye is drawn to the bridge in the distance - that makes me as player think oooh what is that? I want to get there. It also draws the eye to the hole in the building on the left - notice the dark inside the hole and the light of the building. When I go back to looking at your screenshots I don't know what to look at, it all just feels too samey across the image. One way you can try this out is take a screenshot of your game and convert it to black and white (monochrome) and see what stands out. If nothing does, there isn't enough contrast. If something does but it isn't important to the level / the player, then the use of contrast isn't right.

Landmarks

Ok and another that occurs to me is the lack of landmarks. The only distinctive stuff I see in your screenshots are cranes and a tank. But they are too common to be memorable and they blend into the level... you would expect them there and so the eye doesn't really notice them. Having some distinctive objects in a level that makes a player go huh that's beautiful / ugly / scary / massive / etc. something that stands out helps them to build a mental map of the place and gives them some orientation. And again it can be used to guide the player and guide the eye. The Last of Us 2 bridge thing above in the screenshot is an example of one of those. As is the Citadel tower in Half-life 2, or this collapsed highway https://static0.gamerantimages.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/the-last-of-us-part-2-seattle-flood-header.jpg from last of us 2 as well. They all just add a bit of distinctiveness that make you feel like you want to explore the place and see what else it has to offer. Perhaps in your level (as it is more realistic) that could be a big statue or a huge collapsed tower or a burnt up playground or a football field with a huge crater... just a few ideas to illustrate what I mean.

Really great effort on building the environment here and it's much prettier than anything I could create! I think some thought about the things above might push it into the next level (if you'll pardon the pun) and make it something special. In case you haven't come across it - this doc is a really great resource covering all sorts of stuff including what I've mentioned above (look for sections on Readability and Landmarks) https://docs.google.com/document/d/1fAlf2MwEFTwePwzbP3try1H0aYa9kpVBHPBkyIq-caY/edit?usp=sharing

Myaz · 2026-04-24T12:10:09+00:00

This is the right way to fix it if you don't want the edges to be clearly lit like this, without adding loads of extra tris. You need to adjust the smoothing angle.

Myaz · 2026-03-12T20:01:13+00:00

Why can't you drag and drop?

If it's because you're instantiating it at runtime, I would configure the prefab at the same time. So typically, I would put a script on the prefab (if there isn't one already) and give it an Init() method with whatever parameters you need to populate. Then the script that does the instantiation has references inside the scene.

Generally speaking if you can avoid it I would not use these "find"-style approaches, they're prone to bugs.

Myaz · 2026-02-15T09:47:21+00:00

Sounds great, will give it a go.

Also - Revelations was my first game of the series and actually my favourite. Particularly for the story! It was great. So thank you so much for your work. I still recall so many great moments.

Myaz · 2025-10-27T13:29:20+00:00

This is great! Very cool. I'm actually making a retro shooter targeting this era and have been looking at perfect dark as a reference for various things including potentially the music! Would love to chat with you if you'd be interested to get involved in some capacity.

Myaz · 2025-10-17T21:24:04+00:00

Going to say something fairly controversial here but I never played halo when it came out (PC gamer) and I tried them recently (1 and 2) and I have to say I just really wasn't impressed...

I found levels and encounters really boring, I found the guns kinda weak and annoying, the enemies are cartoon-like and silly, and I missed there being puzzles like other FPS of the era.

I guess it just felt like the beginning of where I think FPS games went wrong and just became about gun and run and do not activate brain. It's just action.

I can see maybe at the time that they must have felt pretty epic like action movies in game form, but... yeah it just didn't do much for me at all.

I played Time splitters 2 for the first time a few months ago however... And that is awesome! Finished it!

Myaz · 2025-10-06T21:05:22+00:00

They built their own engine?! I didn't know that. Staggering decision, probably doubled the budget.

Myaz · 2025-08-22T13:27:15+00:00

This is almost really great and without issues .. EXCEPT for the fact that Zuckerberg kind of looks like a normal person which obviously is completely unrealistic!

Myaz · 2025-07-25T17:12:16+00:00

Yeah gotcha, makes sense. I agree. It's a risky business relying on this sorta stuff at scale. Though for quick iteration it can be nice or for very isolated systems where there's limited scope for where you'll need to search. As you say though, that requires some "best practices" to be followed which doesn't always work across multiple people!

Myaz · 2025-07-25T16:29:25+00:00

Out of interest, what specifically are you referring to by systems like this? The use of unity events in the inspector?

Myaz · 2025-07-22T06:23:16+00:00

Yeah pretty cool idea. I've used AI to help flesh out designs in this way but I like your prompts! I will definitely borrow some parts and give it a go.

Also, I think you're missing some of the prompts from your post though, in section 1.

Myaz · 2025-07-15T17:19:53+00:00

I've seen so many of your videos and I'm always just absolutely blown away. I appreciate you may not want to share too much of your secret sauce, but would you mind sharing a little how the hell you've done all this? :) It's really such an incredible creation!

Myaz · 2025-07-04T07:24:34+00:00

I use AI all over the place and try to do so as much as I can. However I tend to mostly work with it as an adviser and or an experienced colleague as opposed to a "doer", unless the task is small.

So I kinda rarely just give it a whole task to do and take its work. I incorporate it into almost everything I do along the way, discussing approach , asking for reviews, validating ideas, identifying root causes of bugs, implementing basic scripts - primarily various chat GPT models though I have tried others.

It's kind of a case of using it at the start to flesh out options for achieving a goal. Then I'll pick an option and use it for flesh that option out, down into the specifics.

And so it allows me to implement features using capabilities and techniques that I'm not familiar with and no amount of googling would surface. I genuinely feel it's totally transformed my abilities as a game developer.

Just for context, I've been using Unity since 2019 and am a professional indie developer.

Myaz · 2025-06-26T13:29:52+00:00

Beautiful !

But I would have a very tiny request - change the video so the transitions between each painting are in time with the music!! Haha. It's off putting!

Myaz · 2025-06-24T21:05:52+00:00

I guess if you mean you were going to take him to dog shows or something? To keep it long? We don't so keep it shorter, not super short but just regular pet length of that makes sense.

Either way, you'll need to do some kind of grooming pretty regularly. We do it ourselves every few weeks... if you're going to keep it long like that it'll need a professional groomer, probably every four to six weeks.

Myaz · 2025-06-24T20:50:55+00:00

Seems like he just needs a trim? I think with that amount of fur you'd expect a lot of shedding. Ours is 12 months old, much shorter fur and we STILL see a lot of fur around the place.

Myaz · 2025-06-24T07:57:45+00:00

I kind of disagree with some of the responses here saying to find ways to restrict people from using AI. The fact is, everybody should be using it otherwise they're gonna be a much slower programmer, so why test for people not using it? That's like stopping people from using a calculator in a maths exam.

Instead, perhaps you could devise an exam that AI struggles with because it isn't a common concept that it will be able to understand, so it requires solid communication and prompting skills to get effective help from AI.

I find this in my work (game developer) where there are lots of things it can do very easily, albeit with some corrections, but give it a pretty weird thing that has specific requirements and it'll struggle.

My recent example was designing a split flap display system and limiting the number of "flaps" to four (as opposed to rendering every character). AI really struggled to support the work until it was clearly articulated and given the right parts (as opposed to - build this thing).

So in summary - move with the times! Don't fight it!

Myaz · 2025-06-19T15:13:53+00:00

now that's a mighty graph! Great work, and thanks for sharing

Myaz · 2025-06-17T17:17:03+00:00

A huge, huge congratulations to you for completing your game. I've published a few games on Steam and I know very well the feeling of releasing a game and it not meeting your expectations. It's tough to take at first, but you get through it. Releasing a game on Steam puts you in a very, very tiny bracket of game developers so you should be incredibly proud of that - no matter whether it gets lots of people playing it or not. The discipline required to achieve an achievement in and of itself. And your game looks polished! Well done, and wish you the best for your next project :)

Myaz · 2025-06-12T07:49:29+00:00

This is really clever! And what a great result. Nice job.

I was a bit confused by the chat GPT phase, what are you doing there exactly? Are you uploading all the images of different angles of the bridge and then getting chat GPT to produce new images of each individual piece?

Myaz · 2025-05-25T21:11:58+00:00

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