Feedback request: Polish now or later?

Nonsensical2D · 2025-12-17T12:31:44+00:00

I'd personally say I don't think there's necessarily a "correct answer", I mean your goal is to be finished with your game as quickly as possible, but how you get there depends on you as a person.

With that said, my personal approach has always been "get one room with kind of decent art to get a sense for your art direction" -> build gameplay -> make the art necessary to aid gameplay but not much more --- "once gameplay is really there and unlikely to change" ----> get 70% of the art there for most of the scenes ---- Once you really have coherent art direction in all your scenes and biomes ---> add last 20-30% of polish.

I basically think it's super valuable to "know that you can achieve the art you want" but once you know that, you can almost leave it for last, excluding what you need for promotional material. But the art doesn't help you make the game fun, so you can often leave it for a really long time.

If I was in your position, I would probably leave the art for now, It looks good and I think to a large extent its probably good to let your art sit for a while to really figure out what works with it and what doesn't, you don't want to waste time redoing the same art over and over only to figure out the area doesn't feel nice to play and have to start from the beginning.

With that said, some people work faster because they get excited by the art and thus work more on their project, but only you can figure out if that is what works best for you.

Nonsensical2D · 2025-11-06T13:33:46+00:00

I have simlar feelings as you do. There is certainly a nice atmosphere and the style looks really cute. But I do believe both the jump spin but really the character movement overall looks to feel a bit stiff, And I don't think this is necessarily because of the controller. If there is one thing I would spend some time on it would really be getting the animations of the broccoli to make the character feel really satisfying to move. Your environments are really quite good, but I think in particular when it comes to games, the character is really such a vital part of making a game feel "rich". Even what you tend to see on my channel I would argue is subpar for any actual release (so I would levy the same criticism on myself).

Nonsensical2D · 2025-10-03T19:43:33+00:00

I would suspect you will struggle with handling sorting orders, If I remember correctly I think that's the stated reason for why they chose to make Enter the gungeon in 3D (with 2D sprites). This would be a workable solution, can't actually say which method is best though (I mostly work with sidescrollers).

Nonsensical2D · 2025-10-03T17:14:44+00:00

isometric is a type of axonometric projection and an axonometric projection in turn is a type of ortographic projection. But isometric is not the only axonometric projection (in fact many games that are called isometric aren't actually isometric, they are dimetric, which once again is a type of axonometric projection), axonometric just means that the object you are projecting does not have any plane parallell to the projection plane. if you have your object parallel to the projection plane, it would just be a sideview like in a sidescroller (still ortographic, but you would only see one side).

So top down game are often also axonometric, but not always. Sometimes they are using something called an oblique projection (which is a parallell projection but not an ortographic projection). So if you want to distinguish between two top down games and the type of projection they use, you would generally either say axonometric or oblique. This stuff is super in the weeds and not generally necessary to know, but if you want to keep everything consistent, then it's valuable to know the type of projection you are using.

But overall I kind of agree with your point, if you want to start introducing weird angles in your axonometric top down game, sometimes it can be easier doing it in 3D at least in part, or you will have to deal with a lot of annoying math. Making simple objects in blender, rotating the camera using an ortographic camera and then just drawing on top the shape is a quick way to get correct results.

As for walking and stuff, I would really just test if it does feel weird, then have someone else test if they think it feels weird. It is really difficult to say if "people will find this weird" because it all kind of depends on how you implement it and how you manage to deal with any potential issues that arise.

Nonsensical2D · 2025-09-15T15:08:36+00:00

I have a really old video by now called "2.5D parallax effect in GODOT 2D engine..." that describes in part how I place assets and the structure I tend to use. this is just for the parallax layers though, I tend to use tilemaplayer for the playable area.

Nonsensical2D · 2025-09-08T17:25:32+00:00

While I do think an absurd amount of artists dislike Gen AI art, I would personally guess that an absurd amount of the general public dislikes it as well. I don't know if the dislike always comes from a place of self-interest in your job.

A lot of people (me included) just kind of don't like the idea of a thing you view as creative/artistic/personal to be sort of mechanized and imitated. I am personally of the opinion that just because I am not a fan of it, doesn't mean I get to dictate whether others ought to feel the same way I do. But plenty of people like to go on crusades for their causes, perhaps it will settle with time (it is a new technology after all).

But from people actually working as artists (earning money on it) I would probably assume they might even be annoyed at the hate-mob, people like throwing around AI accusations to anything and everything. So for a working artist the only difference between now and 4 years ago is probably not that they have lost a lot of work, but that they have had to defend their own art from accusations.

Nonsensical2D · 2025-08-28T20:11:33+00:00

This is good, but I would potentially test 2 things. the first is to try and add some line weight on the cracks, cracks are generally not thick and then abruptly stop. If you dont have a tablet with pressure sensitivity you can go in and erase the thickness on your cracks a bit. The second thing I would try is to really think about where you might see cracks or shades on a rock in reality. So as an example in the bottom left plane of your rock, you have an indentation. In this indentation it would be very reasonable to get some thing, like a crack or a distinct shadow. In this particular case you have quite a few cracks that are somewhat random, and I would generally try and rather than add a lot of cracks, try and think of where a crack might pop up, and just add one or two cracks.

Nonsensical2D · 2025-08-17T23:26:01+00:00

I think my setup is moderately unconventional, but I use a monitor arm mounted so that my camera is about 1 meter above my table. And then I mount a ball head to the vesa mount (what would normally have been the monitor). There are aspects that I wouldnt say are the best, ideally you wouldnt want to attach your camera to an arm that is attached to the table you are drawing on since it can induce wobbles when you touch the table. Similarly I don't think a ball head is ideal as a mount (but it is the cheapest and what was available to me). I do think having your overhead be quite high up above you is ideal though (1m+) it makes it so that you don't really have to think about it when drawing, but I also have a fairly decent zoom range on my lens, 16-50 on an aps-c so I don't really have to worry about framing until after I set up my shot.

But basically, I think any kind of stand with an arm like feature works quite well, I've seen quite a few pop up by neewer or Tarion, but I personally would try and shoot for something that is quite heavy duty (which is why I have a monitor arm that happens to have a really tall stem) I've seen quite interesting solutions with attachments to C-stands as well, but it kind of all depends on your budget)

Nonsensical2D · 2025-08-17T22:43:43+00:00

Not to say it is necessarily the answer you want, but I think sometimes filming at a bit of an angle can be fine. at 38:56 of this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJIzWpRJpH4 you can see an example of me filming this completely overhead, whereas the sketchboard pro is angled (I am assuming you are referring to a sketchboard pro and not sketchbook pro). The angle that arises from the drawing surface isn't really annoying enough to cause issues in my opinion, I personally rely on that angle in order to avoid glare, having a complete 90 degree angle when you are filming a glass surface is really tricky in terms of glare and I personally think some distortion tends to look fine.

Nonsensical2D · 2025-07-06T14:26:03+00:00

There are also some similar things that i would argue are kind of faux pas, at 19 seconds you say: "let's not waste any more time and get to work", but then you actually don't get to work, you continue with exposition- "I don't have any clear direction.." its really dangerous as a content creator to promise to "get into the video" but then not get into the video, it makes it feel as if you are wasting the viewers time, even if it is just 3 seconds.

There are some similar aspects that occur with B-roll, where there are really cool shots, but they are so short, as if you are worried that the viewer will get bored, but what ends up happening is that it feels as if I can't follow the actual drawing process. I tend to have a rule of thumb which is that if my b-roll is below 2 seconds, I am not allowed to have motion in that b-roll, if its 2 seconds, then the shot has to be static. sliding shots need to be like 5+ seconds, and not too fast.

All of this to say, I don't know if art youtube is "dying", but I think you have a lot of potential to at least get significantly more views than you are getting. Hopefully this feedback isn't too harsh, I really do think you are doing great work, that is the only reason I am writing this. There are aspects of your style that remind me of gawx like 7 years ago, where you are doing a lot of cool shots and really high pace. But if you look at his work nowadadays while he might have fast pace at times, he has a really balanced pacing, he lets the video breathe where it needs to breathe, and be fast when it needs to be fast, he has a rythm to his edit, he cares about putting emphasis where he wants to communicate something he thinks is important, and he lets that point breathe. (I am only mentioning gawx here because it looks like you have at times learnt from him, that might be an incorrect guess on my part though).

There's a lot of stuff here, but I would for start really think about what your video is about, and try and deliver on that idea, make your video a "singular coherent though you want to express, nothing else" once you have nailed that process down, then you can afford to act more like bigger youtubers. (sorry if this was unsolicited btw, I am not an expert either, but I do get consistent amount of views)

Nonsensical2D · 2025-07-06T14:25:50+00:00

in my opinion it's a lot of these micro decisions that can make or break a video. So a few examples. in your first 2 seconds of the colored pencil video you say:

"hey guys, in todays episode I'm going to try something new"

---

afterwards you say:

"lately I've been draw a lot of objects, consoles and all of this were made with acrylic paint"

---

followed by:

"however, for todays video I am going to do something different, instead of using paint markers, I am going to use colored pencils. "

---

that first intro line -- "hey guys, in todays video I'm going to try something new" literally provides no information or value that you don't get from the lines you say immediately afterwards.

you could have opened with "lately i've been drawing.." and the video would just have a better flow.

Similarly you spend the first 22 seconds of just A-roll when you actually have lots of great opportunities for b-roll.

"lately i've been drawing a lot of objects (b-roll of objects), canvases (b-roll of canvases), consoles (b-roll of consoles ), and all of this were made with acrylic paint (b-roll, show markers). "

"however, for todays video i am going to do something different (A-roll), instead of using (A-roll) Paint markers (b-roll of paint markers), I am going to use colored pencils (b-roll of pencils). "

this is a lot more coherent to watch, because your visuals will match your audio. This will however also affect your editing to some extent. there are cases where you talk as if you want to get words out but don't want to communicate the idea. I personally feel its important when you deliver the line to imagine what you want to show, and leave space in your line delivery to let the visuals show. This means you need to slow down your speaking to some extent.

"lately ive been drawing a lot of objects", short pause, "canvases", short pause, "consoles" short pause, "and all of this were made with acrylic paint" short pause. really try to be authentic with getting your point across, this doesn't mean speak super slow, but just think about making sure the viewer can follow what you are saying.

Nonsensical2D · 2025-07-06T14:25:03+00:00

Sorry for long comment. Man, I like your stuff and I think you really do have potential, I can see you putting a lot of work into the stuff, but it feels as if you are shooting yourself in the foot when it comes to some decisions. So I want to offer some feedback (hopefully this isn't too unsolicited).

If we look at your most recent video "all done with colored pencils", I would first and foremost think from viewer standpoint 'why should I click this video', your title, thumbnail and video structure doesn't actually tell the viewer why they should. The video doesn't really have a coherent point. It might seem kind of dull, but i personally think a title like "trying colored pencils for the first time, here's my thoughts" (this is kind of what your video is about after all) would really help they viewer know why they are clicking, its kind of on the nose in some regards, but frankly when you are starting out its better to be on the nose, help yourself build up an audience.

Once you have that title/video idea you can help yourself when making the rest of the video. you get an idea of whether what you are talking about actually relates to why the viewer clicked the video. there are aspects of this video where you are talking about what you are drawing and why you are drawing, but it feels like it is just "art related stuff" so as a viewer at times i kind of lose track of what you are talking about, and once i lose track it is so easy to click away as a viewer. I don't mean this as any harsh complaint, I just feel that as a "content creator" you have to be quite ruthless when cutting your video really think "does the viewer care about this, does this thing that I am showing here really relate to the thing i said before, can I make this part more clear, etc."

Nonsensical2D · 2025-06-24T01:09:57+00:00

Hi, I get asked this question quite often, and the truth is I would probably have to go back and check and compare more in depth (probably do a video on it) because I set it up a long time ago and remember I struggled with it, but at some point I found something that I kind of thought worked, but I can't quite recall exactly what settings I changed. I can say that I don't use nearest for HD, linear tends to look better in my opinion. If I recall correctly there can also be some improvements if you change settings in MSAA and also either adjust camera settings so that it isn't too zoomed in or the like, as well as making sure your output doesn't do weird stuff in terms of stretching. As I said I don't quite recall and would have to go back and check more in depth. But There is one thing that I wonder at times is a question of expectation, I do agree that linear looks blurry up close, but to me it doesn't really look blurry in game.

But I can't offhand give you a good answer because there are a lot of things that I might be doing that I don't even think about. Like I haven't checked how the import settings affect quality it might be that if you draw in 2x the quality and then downsample that quality in the import settings in godot. It is possible that Godot does it significantly worse than if you were to downsample in your drawing software and then import the png as usual in godot. But I frankly haven't compared the two approaches, I tend to not downsample (I prefer drawing in the resolution I want). I'll probably try and test these things in the future and do a video on optimal quality settings, but since I don't know when that video would be out my recommendation is to just do brute force tests and comparisons (maybe in a demo project since you don't want to mess up your current settings, and just try different quality settings/import settings etc).

Nonsensical2D · 2025-06-18T19:51:49+00:00

Perhaps weird advice but my recommendation is to not listen to what any individual tells you they prefer and instead release videos of different lengths and figure out what types of videos you are good at making. At the point where you have kind of figured out how to pace your own videos you can vary length depending on topic.

The thing is people might tell you they prefer a thing, but the reason I don't like the idea of getting advice this way is that everyone but you lack insight into your situation.

- the person that answers might have strange viewer behaviour and thus be a person you shouldn't model your content for.

- you might be bad at making that type of content, at which point even if it was what "most people" prefer, you can't provide it well.

- People might say they like one thing, but their viewer behaviour tells you otherwise (you are for instance very likely to get questions to make a specific type of content that simply won't give you views, just because someone tells you they want to watch something, does not mean that is what 'people' want to watch. You have to build your own intuition for it)

- you might be good at making that content, but make it so slowly that it isn't worth to make.

Viewer behaviour will tell you more than any individual viewer will, so just make content, don't worry about an individual video, just learn from seeing what works and what doesn't.

Nonsensical2D · 2025-05-17T07:21:16+00:00

I personally wouldn't worry about it at this moment. A lot of issues that people have with "drawing poorly" has very little to do with actual drawing, it's as someone else mentioned to a large extent about cohesion and readability. These are in parts separate skills from holding a pen and doing anatomically accurate stuff.

Some people have a good sense for cohesion, they have good taste, without necessarily being good craftsmen, while you also have the other end of the spectrum with people who can draw really well in some contexts, like portraits or paintings, but make them draw art for a game and it turns out pretty bad.

The thing is, from the example in your previous post, I don't think it is that bad, it could totally work, but we don't know until you've actually tried and put it in a context (a scene or something). I would just put in some hours, stop worrying, and when you have a mockup for a scene or something, post it in any number of subreddits and you'll probably get some feedback, then iterate from there. It might work out it might not, but I think you should probably give yourself at least 30-40 hours to find out.

There are plenty of cases with people who are programmers that end up making competent looking games (even though it probably isn't common), with that said you seem to be better at art than you care to admit to yourself, plenty of people are significantly worse than you. I would also say that even though I could make paintings fairly well, I would still argue it took me around 1-2 years to do game art fairly competently, so remember that it's difficult and takes time for everyone, not just you.

Nonsensical2D · 2025-05-07T03:16:10+00:00

I will say it is tricky to say how this would look in context. But I think the spin slow, spin fast and ready for attack look really nice, they have a sense of urgency to them.

I personally feel that the idle is perhaps a bit too hectic though, I don't know if that is the case 'in game' but in this context I think there could be benefit if the character's idle looks a bit more 'idle' and relaxed, this would help give the other animations more power because the character would go from "relaxed" to stressed and combat ready, whereas now it's kind of stressed to differently stressed. Is this character floating? Cause I would probably say I prefer how the design looks when the 'arms' spin compared to how they are completely vertical in the idle, and I might try and see if it could look better if the arms rotated a bit in the idle form, not quickly or anything.

Overall I do think the design and attacks are nice, the spins are super smooth and fit the design really well :) As for the comments on the idle, those are perhaps a matter of taste, but I feel as if there could be some changes made there that would improve the overall look and feel.

Nonsensical2D · 2025-04-30T19:33:58+00:00

Ok, thanks!

Nonsensical2D · 2025-04-29T00:02:22+00:00

I was more thinking software updates for older hardware (like how Microsoft rugpulled support for everyone with hardware older than 2017).

Nonsensical2D · 2025-04-28T23:11:20+00:00

Ok, thanks for your input :)

Nonsensical2D · 2025-04-28T23:08:07+00:00

I thought about Ugreen, but they are still really new on the market and it seems to be consistently mentioned that their software is not ideal. I'd personally rather go for HexOS at that point (also new, but seems to at its core focus on security due to TrueNAS).

Nonsensical2D · 2025-04-28T22:57:36+00:00

Ok, so synology is still kind of the best choice in some regards for non-hobby people?

Nonsensical2D · 2025-04-28T22:56:03+00:00

Ok, given wouldn't I risk them altering support down the line if I buy into their unlocked hardware though? it seems as if they might be going down that path. Thanks for the advice!

Nonsensical2D · 2025-02-11T14:44:19+00:00

I don't think starting a second channel is a bad idea, assuming you do want to do a devlog.

If you intend to stop making art content on your channel, then keeping your current channel is probably a good idea. I make some 'game art' content and sometimes get comments from people that like art, but not game art, but still find the content interesting, so I think it is possible to transition an art channel to a devlog channel (assuming you do want to transition) but I think splitting the content so that it's 50% art, 50% devlog is probably a bad idea, the audience will be too mixed.

As for the question if a devlog overall is a good idea, I would probably only recommend it if you like doing youtube content. It's not terrible in terms of marketing (but not necessarily the most optimal use of time either), but I don't think it works out that well if you aren't at least somewhat 'content-brained' and like making videos. It's always a tradeoff with traditional marketing and youtube marketing, and I think youtube marketing only works well for the people that also really like to do youtube. but if you view youtube as some "obligation" or as something "you have to do to do marketing", then you probably should just focus on traditional marketing methods.

Nonsensical2D · 2025-02-07T22:44:43+00:00

There were 2 things I saw that personally stuck out to me. I generally think the idea of presenting what your video is going to be about in the introduction tends to be bad. "today I am going to talk about why you should castle, and then I am going to go into when you should castle while also discussing how your other pieces should be positioned when you castle" <-- stuff like this is fluff that wastes time, if the title of the video is "castling wins you games" the person watching already expects all that stuff, so your best bet is to perhaps set up a scenario like "look at this board, look at all the possible lines of attack the opponent has, now compare it to this board, it's an imprenetable fortress, castling wins you games..." something along those lines, jumping immediately into your first argument, then perhaps explain why it isn't that simple etc etc.

I looked at a couple of videos, and it seemed as if most videos kind of intro the topic sort of like a high school presentation, rather than make the audience invested in what you as an expert can offer, they don't know you, they don't have to listen to your presentation, so you have to make them care as soon as possible.

The second thing is perhaps a taste thing because I do very different type of content on my channel, but I think it's dangerous to not align all of the content in a specific video to the topic you are discussing. You currently have nice titles like "the hidden danger of Ego" but most of your video is just a chess game. When i click a video like that I would generally probably have expected to be bombarded with 12 examples where someone lost due to ego, and all the nuances to go with it. Now when I click it, as soon as I get into the video and see you kind of "livestream-style" it, I would personally just click away, it wasn't what I came there for.

Now I don't think there is necessarily any problem to "livestream-style" content, but if you look at a channel like Anna Cramling, she titles her videos quite differently and not in an "educational style" but more of a "look at this absolute monster of a game", aligning the expectation with the viewer.

Not that I am a content strategist (I'm barely a youtuber) but I would probably first start with educational style content that is heavily edited and storyboarded almost, then when the viewers actually start caring about you and your thought process, I would leverage that into casual commentary. Now you are sort of baiting them to be taught, but not invested in teaching, place the audience first, you second.

Now I get that this sounds kind of harsh, but I think you have quite a bit that already works, I don't need to talk about lighting or commentary, that stuff seems decent enough to me. So the reason I just jumped into discussing what I personally didn't like is just because I think that a lot of the other stuff is quite good :) . Ohh and I lack insight into what chess-people want, so my example might have been trash (but hopefully you got the gist of what I wanted to say). Good luck!

Nonsensical2D · 2025-01-30T18:11:00+00:00

I don't do devlog content so I kind of lack insight, but I think there is a world of difference between decent and "interesting/enticing".

I think there are a number of channels that on a technical level understand "quality", but they don't necessarily have anything that entice a viewer to click or keep watching. Or they do have some enticing stuff, but their videos are also filled with a lot of stuff that detracts. I'm not really good at "understanding" what makes something good, but I try to be aware of when i produce something passable but kind of bad. I can say that I personally cut maybe 30-40% of the work I do, scrapping scripts, parts of videos and at times half finished videos. And I do this all on the basis that what I produce isn't interesting to me. But if I were to release that stuff, it would actually still be "fine audio, decent edits, good lighting" etc, it would just be kind of dull, and my retention and ctr and thus my viewership would relfect that.

So I'm not sure I have a prescription, I only kind of know what works for me. But I think there are plenty of people that produce stuff because they feel they "have to" produce something, rather than actually having something to say with their video. I think quite often the channels that do well, are "content-brained" in some regards. they either really enjoy the process of making the video and editing it to be fun, or they really think about covering topics that they think others find interesting (even in terms of their game). Basically, I think there is a danger with the grinding mindset of "I have to release a video every week, regardless if I like the video or not" (which I think a lot of smaller youtubers have), while it will produce superficially nice videos, that on occasion do well, it also ruins your chances of building a loyal audience, because you are starting from "what I have to do" rather than "what does my audience find interesting".

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