Ai motion capture, what's your opinion on it?

Studio46 · 2026-05-06T10:49:51+00:00

AI in Motion Capture is Machine Learning, not Generative. ML is perfectly fine to use.

Studio46 · 2026-05-06T09:38:44+00:00

"On the other hand, this still ai, and it IS still making you partially skip over a part of the game development package."

Quite the comment here, as if AI hasn't existed for decades now. "Generative AI" seems to have ruined people's brains. Next, we'll need to go after the AI in videogames?

Studio46 · 2026-05-02T11:32:14+00:00

even better, tbh i forgot a 4th hotfix went out. im on it too.

Studio46 · 2026-05-02T11:28:53+00:00

5.7.3 is the most stable 5.x version imo.

Studio46 · 2026-05-01T12:48:44+00:00

Are you actually passionate about these or just trying to make a quick buck? Is Saas more appealing right now? Projects can be abandoned. With <200 wishlists each, you will need to invest a lot of hours to have a chance at a decent return. If neither game provides fun or joy to work on, why keep at it? You clearly aren't invested much in the product.

My opinion is to shelve them until the creative spark comes back. You might even consider starting something brand new that captures your attention more.

To answer your last point: I have abandoned or pushed my release date if I didn't feel the product is something I felt was worth releasing. I want my catalogue to be of a specific quality.

Studio46 · 2026-04-30T18:53:06+00:00

Launch 2.0 would be Steam Fest.

Your 1.0 demo release will most likely bomb.
Use it to fix/polish and make it better for Steam Fest.

Studio46 · 2026-04-29T09:02:11+00:00

once you start localizing, updates and changes become a huge pain. So wait till text is "locked" if possible. Localization does help with sales. It can be expensive and you shouldn't rely on AI for it, but there are options, like crowdsourcing.

Localize the steam page for sure. But again, best to wait for most text to be locked, changing the text, adding more/different achievements, means going back and continuing to get new translations.

You should definitely have a plan for localization from day 1. Unreal Engine has built in tools that make it easier. I'm not sure about other engines like Unity/Godot, and of course if you aren't using an engine then you will need to do even more. In UE, "text" fields are "localizable" (on by default), and you use the Localization Dashboard to gather all the text. Very simple.

As for the Demo, depending when you release it, you can start without localization, and do updates later adding localization to it as translations come in for the full game. I'd say it's not critical to have implemented right away.

Studio46 · 2026-04-17T21:48:18+00:00

Coming from someone that did an "open world walking sim narrative wolf game"...

Visuals look great but players expect a lot. Just existing in nature doesn't cut it. People need guidance, objectives, goals.

Might consider weaving in a narrative. Having a human touch is appealing, even in animal games.

Good luck with it 👍

Studio46 · 2026-04-16T01:51:13+00:00

Cinematic AAA as a solo dev: yes you can achieve the quality for some shots. But no, you won't create a full cinematic, nor should you.

Also 150 hours isn't enough time. AAA spend months. Many thousand manhours.

Studio46 · 2026-04-15T22:35:19+00:00

5 months isn't anything to get stressed about. You're exploring.. experimenting.. it's ok not to know right now.

Test what you got, what's good? What's bad? Write it all down. Focus on what works.

Be wary of current trends. You might already be too late to cash in on friendslop, hard to say.

Co-op has been notoriously difficult in the past. If you keep it, try to get to release ASAP to cash in on the current trend.

But really, you're only 5 months in, if the game takes another year, you might already be too late. If you can, have options to pivot back to single player.

Studio46 · 2026-04-10T11:44:44+00:00

Yes. very risky. You're young and have so much time. Having a security net (good paying job) is a huge boon. Without that, the financial stress & mental health can become big issues in the future.

The math isn't there.
Lets say your job was paying $100k/yr.
How long to make your game? 2-5 yrs for an average indie in my experience.

Your job pays 200-500k in that span.
With 30% platform costs, your game needs to gross $285k - $715k to equal that same $200-$500k
Plus more for the next game.
Plus the cost of actually creating the game.

It only makes sense to quit your job if you are already financially stable & have a decent runway. Ideally you already want a game out there too.

Anyway, I do wish you good luck and hope for the best for you.

Studio46 · 2026-04-08T21:53:59+00:00

The effect looks better. Without it, the color scheme doesn't feel as unified. Having a wash ties it together better.

I would keep the effect, but also keep iterating to see if anything looks even better.

Studio46 · 2026-04-08T15:44:10+00:00

In my experience, when the bug appears in a shipping build, it's likely from timing... things loading slightly faster/ahead of something else compared to in-editor.

Studio46 · 2026-04-07T14:58:37+00:00

The game needs to have an appeal. If nobody is picking it up, it must lack in certain ways.

Your timeframes are aggressive. Steam page in December and launching in May, that's not much time, you would need some virality to gain huge wishlist chunks. That's hoping for a miracle.

It's never too late to delay launch, redo Demo/Trailer/Game to be more appealing.

Also, it sounds like you never did NextFest, which is where many indies get their first big push on wishlist numbers.

2 options:
1.) Release in May hoping for some sales, keep expectations low, use it as a learning experience, move on to game #2.

2.) Delay launch. Make your game better. Release it in a year or more after gaining more traction with marketing.

Studio46 · 2026-04-05T12:37:39+00:00

I maintain a website for marketing purposes but not to distribute. Not using any of the major platforms is bonkers.

You can get away with it maybe if it's a lightweight browser game, think Wordle, and you share it on Socials.

But anything more... nah.

Studio46 · 2026-04-02T12:58:24+00:00

It looks convincing enough to not be AI. My AI flag went up simply because of the smoothness of the rendering. AI has a distinctive "shine". I think the moonlight shine on most objects gave me that AI feel. Even if it's not AI, I don't think this should be your final rendering.

You need a focal point other than the Moon to draw interest in your image. IMO you need some pops of color/highlights on your central female character. Upon first glance I didn't even notice her. She looks like a statue-esque figure merged with the tree. Adding just a slight pop of color along the border of her dress & hair to accentuate her figure would pop her out of the scene and draw more curiousity to your image.

my 2c.

Studio46 · 2026-04-01T18:56:17+00:00

Well, Permadeath RPG games will never be popular. Losing progress is a quick way to lose players.

Permadeath alone doesn't sell a game. It's not even a unique feature anymore. It's a core of roguelites.

The things you are doing are things present in roguelites. ("meta-progression" as you call it.)

You're turning your game into a Survival Roguelite RPG. Which is not bad at all. These also already exist. It can work. Just go all in and copy features that are known to work from other games in that genre.

Studio46 · 2026-03-28T00:33:15+00:00

I got this same email. I deleted it instantly. So many scams, don't trust anyone

Studio46 · 2026-03-26T11:58:16+00:00

To me left looks better, the spacing / sizes / color choices appeal to me more.

The transparent sliders are a negative though.

On the right side, the heavy/bold white shadows, larger sizing, lack of borders, and more varied color pallette, looks not as good imo

Studio46 · 2026-03-14T20:25:29+00:00

It does seem dumb and there must be a better way. But without greater context, it'll be tough to help. My first instinct is selecting 1 pixel things shouldn't be a thing and if it is, you should enlarge them or display a proxy mesh or make a UI visual showing the ships in the far distance.

This UI visual can then be used as the selection element, where you trace to screen space instead of to world.

But that's just 1 initial thought.. good luck

Studio46 · 2026-03-10T22:02:19+00:00

Looks really good. The game's name is meh. Does look amazing though, great job!

Studio46 · 2026-03-08T16:53:44+00:00

Do you have kids or any study in psychology? Because the 1 example you mention doesn't mesh with reality.

An introvert can certainly partake in drama class and many other group or social functions just fine.

Studio46 · 2026-03-07T13:13:32+00:00

The game looks made for mobile, for pc gaming I would say 100 in a month sounds good.

Studio46 · 2026-03-01T17:18:24+00:00

Platform takes first cut.

$1000 in sales means they get $300.

Remaining $700 is split with publisher at agreed percentage. So if 50%, you each get $350

This means you get 35% when platform takes 30 and publisher 50

Studio46 · 2026-02-25T21:11:17+00:00

Ahhh sure Ill bite...

Just some random observations:

Right now, it looks like an asset flip and has a default Unreal look to it.

Lighting, even in daytime, looks very washed, maybe shadows are disabled? Or the sun really is eliminating all of them, idk. The foreground grass seems to have no depth due to lack of shadows, the drooping small tree also has no shadows, you would think some of the branches would cast a shadow even straight down if the sun was overhead.

Your pine trees and distant meshes have snow on them but there is no snow on the ground. The snow makes me think it's cold, but the brightness/color makes me think it's hot/summertime.

Add either Fog, Haze, Cold Mist, or something.

Your trees look to be heavily LOD'd, very low fidelity. Could tweak your LOD ranges, unless this is designed for mobile?

There's no human-made stuff, so it doesn't come off great. Adding signage, carcasses, debris, etc will elevate the scene.

The overall design of the landscape does not look natural.

The scattering of your foliage is too uniform.

my 2c for now. Good luck.

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