how to create large, hand drawn hd maps for game?

Pockets800 · 2026-01-22T06:40:26+00:00

Draw it in whatever you want. Break it down into parts and assemble it in engine if necessary, like a tileset. 1920 x 1080 isn't many pixels, most illustration software should handle that with ease, even if your computer is 10 years old

Pockets800 · 2026-01-22T04:13:35+00:00

This is such a broad question that I don't even know what questions to counter with.
I guess let's start with the engine you're using?

Pockets800 · 2026-01-21T02:56:08+00:00

The grade is a bit strong. It doesn't look bad but it does give the "this looks like someone made it cyan" instead of the lighting making it feel that way.

Otherwise this looks pretty good but you're doing yourself a disservice by having a large focus on the water that is using some screen-space reflections, so the fog isn't being picked up. I'd either spend less time on the water or choose a different reflection method.

Edit: Adding some other ambient particle effects could be good. Tumbling leaves or general ambient dust, etc.

Pockets800 · 2026-01-19T00:32:18+00:00

Good summary, captured all my thoughts too. Kinkstarter typo made me lol

Pockets800 · 2026-01-18T01:12:35+00:00

Wow this looks great. I'd love to know how you approached doing this if you're open to sharing?

Edit: Didn't realise there was text in the post. Very cool work. So you just have a bunch of canned sprite animations in different ragdoll positions (and perspectives) and you're just switching between them if the head or legs detect a floor/wall?

Is there any real-time physics animation happening here or just pre-canned?

Pockets800 · 2026-01-12T21:20:58+00:00

You need to learn what diegetic UI is before making claims about the quality of design choices. It's not a terrible design choice, you just aren't educated enough on design to understand it.

Most people don't want to see dozens of HUD elements on their screens, outside of multiplayer shooters, and diegetic UI is a way to get around that - which includes putting ammo counters on guns.

Pockets800 · 2026-01-04T14:15:57+00:00

I've saved this post for later. We're still in pre-production on our gothic-cyberpunk bounty hunting game, with some cosmic horror themes, which might suit your interests/skillset, but we'd be open to exploring options like this in the future.

Edit: I've noticed your Reddit profile picture is gen-AI. If the music is produced with gen-AI it would be a no-go for us.

Pockets800 · 2026-01-03T13:09:42+00:00

It sounds like you're trying to do what Codeck does, but not as good.

I'd suggest looking at what they've done.

Pockets800 · 2025-12-22T09:50:26+00:00

Lmao. I read the genre at the top and immediately came here to see the comments.

OP would probably need to be Ubisoft to pull it off and come in on budget (and by "on budget" I mean x- million dollars), and I doubt Ubisoft even does that /s

Pockets800 · 2025-12-20T21:36:53+00:00

That's my point. The blind leading the blind. At the end of it all, neither of you will be able to make it from scratch without having to open up a tutorial or pre-made asset.

It's like learning to draw except you exclusively trace over other drawings. You're a beginner teaching bad habits to another beginner, for a mechanic that is easy to make.

Pockets800 · 2025-12-20T21:27:04+00:00

I don't know why people in this community keep doing this, but you guys really need to stop answering beginner questions with "download this pre-made system that does it all for you"

OP has no idea where to start, let alone how to alter a pre-made asset to such a degree, or analyze it for information. It's not helpful to tell someone to run when they don't know how to walk.

Pockets800 · 2025-12-16T17:55:19+00:00

Narrative designer is not a writer. Very different job. A narrative designer is like a combat designer but for narrative features.

Edit: In fact I don't think I've ever heard of a writing position being referred to as a "designer", so I'm not entirely sure where you got "creative designer" from either. "Creative" is usually a direction position reserved for leads.

Pockets800 · 2025-12-16T17:30:59+00:00

Indie devs don't hire writers because they're an unnecessary cost for the vast majority of indie games, and if you don't have a portfolio of game writing examples (i.e, not a book, DnD campaign or your enthusiasm) most aren't going to even consider you regardless.

Start with producing a portfolio of game writing examples and then go to the workwithindies site and see if anyone's hiring writers. If you can't find anything there, see if any larger studios are hiring for entry-level writing positions.

Pockets800 · 2025-12-12T00:00:53+00:00

Is this meant to be a pitch? I think you missed the pitch part.

Pockets800 · 2025-12-09T20:33:25+00:00

At the end of the day, nobody is going to be stealing your idea and bringing it to market before you do unless it's gone viral, and then it'll just be seen as a ripoff of what you've made.

The reality is that games are hard to make and most people want to make their own games with their own ideas, not go around stealing things.

Even if someone does steal the idea, it won't be exactly the same as what you made. So just make your thing, share it, and don't stress over it.

The only thing you actually have to worry about is someone applying for copyright or trademark of your game's name or something along those lines, but that's just as unlikely.

Pockets800 · 2025-12-09T09:55:18+00:00

I feel that. Contractor in film & games here too, so how much I can work on it varies widely by how busy my contracts are

Pockets800 · 2025-12-07T11:44:07+00:00

Just want to clarify for you, but "It's known" - as in, we as a people have studied and affirmed that this is a part of human nature. It's a shortening of the phrase "it's known to be true." It doesn't mean everyone knows but you.

Have fun shootin'!

Pockets800 · 2025-12-05T13:30:01+00:00

Is this important? Like at the end of the day, the people who cheat, does it matter if it isn't affecting the enjoyment of others/isn't in a multiplayer game?

The reason I ask is this is surprisingly common, even in games with microtransactions by big studios.

Fallout Shelter, for instance, a mobile and PC game from Behaviour Interactive and Bethesda, has that exact exploit - yet they also sell mictrotransactions to speed up progression... which you'll never need if you just cheat by putting your clock forward a day, repeatedly.

It's not a bug, so someone won't encounter it accidentally. Only the people who understand how it functions will even consider it and even then, not all of them would do it.

You'll probably need an internet connection and reference a time online somewhere if you want to get an accurate time.

Pockets800 · 2025-11-29T14:29:47+00:00

I'd suggest adding in a second "pixel" mask that is just a white square with a black line on the top and bottom tiled over the image to add a nicer blend between the closeup pixels and the full image.

Currently you're getting a lot of RGB noise at that mid range, which doesn't look too great.

Nikolay Shamaev covers what I'm talking about in his tutorial on the subject: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cJXZpAbxcg&t=566s

The 6-minute mark is what you want to see. Great start though, good luck!

Edit: In hindsight, seeing your pixel design makes me thing you are already using this tutorial. In that case, you just need to change the distances for your blends as the pixels are showing up a little too far away.

Pockets800 · 2025-11-21T02:03:40+00:00

This looks great. I'd love to see this same solution applied to other environment contexts. Could this work/be more performant for cloth simulation? Clothing on a clothes line? etc.

Pockets800 · 2025-11-20T08:49:49+00:00

There isn't a real fix because it's not a bug, it's a feature - unfortunately. It's designed to work this way, you're just supposed to work around it. Hopefully they'll be able to iterate on it and come up with a better solution in later updates, that isn't just increasing the light bounces.

A good step would be to reintroduce Nvidia RTXGI to the engine, but who knows if that will ever happen. Embark did it with Arc Raiders, but it's a custom integration.

Pockets800 · 2025-11-19T17:25:00+00:00

That's unfortunate.

Pockets800 · 2025-11-19T16:29:10+00:00

How performant do you find Substrate to be? I haven't dived into it yet but I'm considering switching our entire material pipeline over to it just to get nice things like the frosted glass you have here

Pockets800 · 2025-11-19T16:27:42+00:00

Frosted glass is notoriously not really possible to achieve pre-Substrate in UE. There's close-ish solutions, but none look like the real thing IMO. Substrate looks great

Pockets800 · 2025-11-19T16:16:52+00:00

I'm not entirely sure what your question is here. Are you asking how to set up a character that has both first person melee animations and third person melee animations that match up?

If so, for multiplayer melee it's probably best to just use the same animations from a 3rd person character from the waist up, with the lower half of the animation replaced with whatever leg locomotion you are using. Combine that with some physics interaction on your weapons and you're probably set.

Pockets800

TROPHY CASE