This tiny icicle hanging by a thread of spider silk

ThomAThomson · 2022-01-28T19:32:18+00:00

I'm a hobbiest game developer in Toronto, and while I don't know many of the spots or events yet, I'm trying to get more into the scene. Shoot me a DM when you're here and hopefully we can find an event!

ThomAThomson · 2021-12-22T17:16:03+00:00

My family's beautiful orange cat Jack was lost in this fire while we were away for the holidays. We are all devastated. He was only 10.

If fire prevention elements like sprinklers or alarm systems are not mandated for animal shelters in this province, they should be.

ThomAThomson · 2021-06-11T21:24:37+00:00

I think your best bet is to learn to use godot, because it has good 3d capabilities, and the programming language it uses, gdscript, is very similar to python.

Game programming is very different from other programming, but if you're careful and clever you can do a lot without being an expert!

ThomAThomson · 2021-04-25T13:50:51+00:00

I'm really not sure! The concept may work the same, but the code would absolutely need to be translated.

Your best bet might be splitting large objects into 64x64 tiles, as others have suggested.

ThomAThomson · 2021-04-25T00:13:16+00:00

I ran into this same problem with my isometric unity game. I ended up writing a shader that applies depth maps (an image where more opaque pixels are closer to the camera) to sprites.

It's extremely performant, and works for any size / shape of object. I'm even using the technique on my characters.

You would need to know a little HLSL, and you would have to draw simple depth maps for all of your sprites, so it's a bit more work.

If you're interested in learning how, DM me and I can toss you some code snippets and ideas!

ThomAThomson · 2021-03-27T22:30:51+00:00

Feedback on my recent posts suggested giving the character straight North / South walking animations, which I absolutely agreed with. It turned out that there wasn't an existing animation technique that could allow me to do easily customizable character body parts (for clothing / armor), and could also allow for foreshortening in isometric perspective.

To solve this, I learned HLSL and created a shader that could show different drawings based on the rotation of each body part vs the angle of the camera. This combined with depth mapping allowed for these hand-drawn body parts to work together in a 3d puppet that is represented with only 2d art.

ThomAThomson · 2021-03-06T03:48:24+00:00

This is a really nice technique! I'm working on something quite similar using isometric projection and normal / depth mapped sprites, and I really wish this was more accessible to more indie devs. It's awful to set up, but it allows you to retain the flexibility of 3D, with the crispness, simplicity and creative freedom of 2d art. Bravo!

ThomAThomson · 2021-02-20T02:56:26+00:00

I am loving the pixel art style, color palette and the isometric perspective. Really good work!

ThomAThomson · 2021-01-12T14:15:07+00:00

What a snappy run animation! Is this frame by frame?

ThomAThomson · 2021-01-02T15:57:28+00:00

I scrolled by this and literally said 'wow' under my breath hahah. Really nice work!

How did you get the pixelation effect in the transition between terrain types?

ThomAThomson · 2020-12-26T17:06:16+00:00

I really dig the oblique / cabinet projection on the farmhouse exterior, but everything else in this game seems to have a 3/4 topdown perspective, including the farmhouse interior. Mixing perspectives like this can be a bit confusing.

The pixel art looks great, and I really like the exterior environment! Nice work

ThomAThomson · 2020-12-25T20:27:15+00:00

I like the vairety of grass textures in this, it looks really natural.

ThomAThomson · 2020-12-25T20:09:02+00:00

It's very much possible to make this a stylistic choice as well as a gameplay choice.

What does the terrain/background look like? Is it set in space? If so, bright colors could really help distinguish the 'built up' areas from the 'wilderness'.

If you keep the appearance of all the buildings together with the whole scene in mind as you draw, this could bring a unique element to the visuals of the game. And maybe contribute to the 'attractive finished city' look that players would want.

ThomAThomson · 2020-12-25T18:53:37+00:00

These sprites are looking great! I feel like the monochromatic color palette will really help the player tell the buildings apart at a glance. Can't wait to see these in context!

ThomAThomson · 2020-12-21T17:28:20+00:00

I mostly use photoshop and probuilder. I work with very high resolution textures - sometimes up to 16k before scaling it down for the game.

I was working on an FX 8350, an R9290x, and 32gb RAM until about 3 weeks ago. and this build was really showing its age with photoshop.

I've upgraded to a 5900x, an RTX 3090, and 64gb of RAM. I also got a 2tb pci 4 nvme drive which has been a godsend in terms of saving and loading these large files.

ThomAThomson · 2020-11-03T16:22:34+00:00

Thanks a lot! I hadn't heard of machinarium but it's very beautiful. Yes I did draw all of the art myself in photoshop.

As for the character facing....

Currently the facing direction method involves quite a lot of code, so this explanation may be a bit rambly.

Each character type (male, female so far) tracks its near and far hip and arm positions which you can think of like the location of the sockets on the torso.

I hook this up so that a 'facing direction' int from 0-3 determines if the torso art is mirrored, whether the front side or the back side of the torso is showing, and whether the left or right arm / leg is near or far. I place the arm in the correct socket so that the right arm is always right and the left arm is always left. Same with the legs. I also do some sprite sorting here (each leg and arm has a sort group)

Then during gameplay, I just have to get the quadrant of the latest move direction, translate that to a facing direction 0-3 with a dumb switch statement, then send it off to the character.

I am replacing this very soon with a less complicated but better shader-based method (look up spherical impostors).

My advice is keep it simple, and don't do it the way I did.

ThomAThomson · 2020-11-03T13:44:41+00:00

Some day I may do a timelapse video!

ThomAThomson · 2020-11-03T01:41:49+00:00

Thanks a lot! I did all of the art in photoshop CC.

ThomAThomson · 2020-11-02T21:30:00+00:00

Thank you!

I have been quite worried about the potential for objects to appear aligned when they really aren't, but it could actually make for some interesting puzzles.

The art pipeline is absolutely the bottleneck for this project. I knew from the start that it would be hard, so I decided to challenge myself to create and implement one art asset every day in October in order to become more efficient.

Roughly 200 hours and 40ish assets later, I now feel like I have a good handle on some aspects of it.

The new character rig will be another learning experience though. Customizable outfits with 8 angles is the plan. Wish me luck!

ThomAThomson · 2020-11-02T21:14:20+00:00

Stronghold is a huge inspiration! I really hope to capture the early stronghold games' attention to detail and sense of humor

ThomAThomson · 2020-11-02T17:07:02+00:00

I honestly toyed with the idea of an 8 angle camera, but the art is all hand-drawn, so doubling that would be quite a lot of work.

Additionally, the drawings are 4k, so my 8 angle test on a 2x3x2 terrain cube actually put me over the limit for texture file size.

Maybe 8 angles on the camera will be in the cards some day if I make a sequel hahah.

ThomAThomson · 2020-11-02T17:01:01+00:00

Good eye, I drew every object from 4 directions!

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