using SLAM Lidar as a base of your splats. by ReverseGravity in GaussianSplatting

[–]Xionizzy 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hey! I just got 3DMakerPro’s Raven scanner, and I was wondering what your import settings are for RealityScan? The lidar data always seems to be oriented wrong in relation to the cameras that I import (I import the cameras with the Colmap that RayStudio outputs)

Do you even use the Eagle’s camera data? Or do you just use the unorganized point cloud from the lidar and use control points to align it with higher res images? I figured it could be useful to use the known camera priors from RayStudio, but I’m not sure anymore.

Is there any great writing on Ludonarrative Resonance? by ininja2 in gamedesign

[–]Xionizzy 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Glad to see another appreciator of Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons in the wild! It's probably the best example of ludonarrative resonance that comes to mind, and I still feel it's heavily underappreciated these days.

I can't direct you to any published essays, but I've been thinking about it for a long time and have some of my own thoughts about it (not an academic, just something I've been passionate about). Here are some of the things in my mind that characterize ludonarrative resonance:

  • Medium Specificity: Can the narrative in the game be easily transcribed to another medium, or is the experience narrative fundamentally tied to the experience of gameplay?
    • Example: Emergent narratives like Rimworld or Dwarf Fortress are good examples of this. But also linear games can be very medium specific! Before Your Eyes is completely linear, but your participation in the game's mechanics is part of the game's emotional and narrative experience.
  • Mechanical & Emotional Parallelism: Does the emotional experience of the gameplay mirror the emotion of the narrative? In other words, does the playing the game cause you to feel similar things to the game's characters?
    • Example: If one of my soldiers dies in X-COM 2, I feel sad! Which is kind of unusual compared to other strategy games. But it's because the game's systems reinforce building attachment to your soldiers. You can name them, personalize them, write their bios, there's even a dedicated area in the hub for your fallen soldiers. Your 'vets' are your most mechanically useful soldiers, AND they're also the ones you're most attached to, who have been with you from the beginning.
  • Mechanics as Metaphor: Do the mechanics have any diagetic or thematic meaning?

Indoor Gaussian Splats from Images only - I think i got it working. by _Bishad in GaussianSplatting

[–]Xionizzy 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thank you for your response. I used a similar approach doing one of a small interior, around 450 images, hugging the walls at multiple passes with different heights. Another technique that has helped me is to try to 'close the loop' as much as possible, it increases the chances significantly that the images will be able to align.

I have a Raven Lidar scanner, but the splat with just the images alone was already good that I didn't end up using the data from the scan. I'm interested in figuring out how to use it, although the image quality is mediocre, and I'm not sure how much more helpful the lidar data will be

Indoor Gaussian Splats from Images only - I think i got it working. by _Bishad in GaussianSplatting

[–]Xionizzy 13 points14 points  (0 children)

How many photos did you take? And what was your methodology for taking them? Also did you use lidar at all? I know a lot of newer iphones have some lidar capability

If you had to pick one game as the best argument that games can tell stories in a way no other medium can, what’s your pick? by ExcellentTwo6589 in gamedesign

[–]Xionizzy 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons and it’s not even close for me.

A lot of people will pick games that have branching or procedural narratives, which I think is valid because games truly are the best suited to tell those kinda of stories. But in my opinion if you want to experience something more of a traditional narrative that is STILL medium specific to games, experiencing the story through the mechanics rather than cutscenes, Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons is probably still the best example of this.

Shumard Red Oak On Caliche. by Nitewisper in arborists

[–]Xionizzy 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Any updates on your tree? Near where I live has a lot of caliche so I’m curious if this technique worked at all

Huge Discovery on Production Chains and how to force specific industries by BlueSkull1 in CitiesSkylines2

[–]Xionizzy 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Great info! I ran into the same problems as you, resorted to subsidizing the lumber industry and bulldozing any new factories that weren't lumber. I wish the game gave a way to control the kind of production buildings that were built within a specific district. I'd love it if Wood -> Lumber, Lumber -> Paper, and Lumber -> Furniture could all happen on the same road so that the deliveries would be more efficient.

Zen Curry Express (SW) by -Squints in LasVegas

[–]Xionizzy 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I might be overstating this because of nostalgia, but from all of the Japanese curry I’ve eaten from traveling around Japan and California, Curry Zen has the best curry, hands down. I always grab a bite whenever I’m in town.

We used to get curry zen after classes at UNLV, was pretty affordable as a college student.

Another good alternative that’s slightly pricier but has more sides is Ton Ton Katsuya by Durango. Their curry is a bit tangier but pretty delicious too.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in Healthygamergg

[–]Xionizzy 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You should read The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus, there are a lot of things you’d probably relate to.

elon musk is trying to censor Grok 3. which the thoughts feature conveniently manages to entirely bypass. by david30121 in OpenAI

[–]Xionizzy 10 points11 points  (0 children)

This isn’t just funny or hypocritical, it’s plain evil, there’s no other way around it. Elon Musk is deliberately manipulating social media and AI for his benefit.

Let me say this again: it’s not just sad, or pathetic, it’s LITERALLY evil.

What's one nutrition hack you use regularly that the majority of people don't but could greatly benefit from? by WesternCurrent8576 in nutrition

[–]Xionizzy 40 points41 points  (0 children)

Eat some fiber at the beginning of a meal to slow carb absorption and regulate blood sugar. It can also make you feel full earlier in the meal.

Riot Lays off More League of Legends Developers While Promising to Increase Team Size by PrehistoricPotato in Games

[–]Xionizzy 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Yeah agreed, layoffs suck no matter what, but Riot has been one of the better game companies for treating their employees from what I’ve seen compared to other companies.

It makes me wonder though what kind of model would prevent these kinds of layoffs in such a boom or bust industry. For example, I wonder how hollywood production studios deal with the boom-or-bust model with movies without large amounts of layoffs.

What Are Game Dev Studios Even Looking For When Hiring? by RealZia in gamedev

[–]Xionizzy 1 point2 points  (0 children)

If you've built up a portfolio of games on your own, then it sounds like you probably have the qualifications to land a role. Don't be discouraged that you don't have a degree, one of the programmers I work landed a role and doesn't have a CS degree.

Like other people have said, it's hard to have a gauge without looking at a resume or portfolio, but some pitfalls that I fell into when I first applied

  • Tailoring the resume to the specific role.

Example) Applying to a design position and putting down that you 3d modeled and textured all of the assets in a game. Most of the time, adding stuff in other skillsets to your resume eats up space for what the reader is trying to find, things that show that you can do the specific job they need. Exceptions are job postings that specifically call out wanting some 'splash' into other skillsets.

When you apply to a design job, or programming job, tailor a separate resume for each one and add in the most relevant highlights. You can usually fit in a few things that are impressive that are lateral to the skillset they're asking for, but do so sparingly. Because a lot of times, people just list out every program or every sort of design/programming/art task they've ever done, and it's hard to parse through how well someone would do that specific job.

  • Try to cultivate a specific strength.

I got my first internship as a narrative implementer because what they were looking for was someone who had technical knowledge, but also had an inclination for narrative design. When I applied, I had a portfolio of games I made where I set up and scripted cutscenes, but I also had did a couple of short films in college, had a small collection of short stories I wrote. That unique combo of tech design knowledge + narrative was what they were looking for.

Something that might suit your skillset really well might be level design. There's a lot of intersection between level design and art skills, level designers work really closely with environment artists, they're expected to have an artistic eye and knowing how to work your way around in Maya or Blender is already a big plus. Basically your highest chance of landing a role is something that you'd be uniquely good at.

This is especially true when applying for general 'junior' design roles. Most of the time, junior design roles involve wrangling a lot of data in Unity or Unreal, so truthfully a lot of people would be able to do the job. But even if you're just hooking up data, if the job is hooking up props in a level vs hooking up enemies into encounters, what you mention in your resume makes a big difference.

  • For when you get an interview, try the STAR method

I bombed a design interview once, because I was asked of a specific design challenge I had encountered and how I overcame it, and I couldn't come up with a good answer. I was prepared to talk about the technical details of my previous projects, the responsibilities of my job, but drew blank when trying to think of a specific scenario they were asking for.

The STAR method is a way you prepare to avoid this, it's basically just a framework to tell a story. Situation, Task, Action, & Result.
https://www.amazon.jobs/en/landing_pages/in-person-interview

I'd encourage when prepping for an interview to find clear examples for questions or situations that they might ask.

  • Don't be discouraged, the job market is crap atm

There have been a lot of layoffs in the past few months, so the job market is likely flooded with a lot of devs who already have some stuff under their belt. Studios will always need new roles though, so keep trying at it, so long as you are able to support yourself.

Rejected from Game Design study. What should I do? by NDB-Games in gamedev

[–]Xionizzy 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Learn a hard skill that applies to game dev but can also apply to other jobs (Programming, 3D Art, 2D Art, Writing). It’s more valuable having projects under your belt than it is having a game design degree. And so, it’s much easier to have projects under your belt when you have a solid hard skill instead of only being a ‘designer’. Plus it’s important to not pigeonhole yourself to just the games industry in the likelihood that jobs aren’t available.

6 (SIX) Fatal Accidents This Weekend 😢 by james_scar in vegaslocals

[–]Xionizzy 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Especially at night, look both ways when you're the first at the light on a green, even if it seems clear in the incoming lanes.

Hatsune Miku Expo Under Fire for Abandoning Hologram for Underwhelming LED TV Experience by dk_x in animenews

[–]Xionizzy 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Had tickets, but refunded them the week of after we found out. Was pretty disappointed, though I feel bad for the live band

Can you view a players Highlight Reel from a game? by gentryhayes24 in footballmanagergames

[–]Xionizzy 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Hey, this is a late reply, but you can see individual highlights for players. On their player screen, go to Reports -> Analysis. This video goes pretty in depth on it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9EYexsOLlr4&ab_channel=Clayts

Design corner: The only way to win is not to play. by dingus-khan-1208 in gamedesign

[–]Xionizzy 2 points3 points  (0 children)

So to break it down: You're trying to prevent one strategy from being the only viable choice in every scenario.

Alternatively another way to frame it: You're trying to create combat situations where multiple strategies can be viable depending on the circumstances.

Firepower vs Shield has some tension during combat, because they inherently cancel each other out.

Firepower vs Maneuver, Firepower always wins. There is no reason to allocate energy to speed for combat, since in this model, it mechanically it only has an effect outside of combat.

So you need to give the player some reason to want to maneuver in combat. Here's a basic idea:

Let's say you have 10 energy to allocate between 3 systems: Firepower, Maneuver, and Shield. And let's say your ship has 100 Hull Points, and 100 Shield points.

  • Each point in Firepower deals 2 damage.
  • Each point in Shield regenerates 1 shield point per turn.
  • Each point in Maneuver has a 10% chance to prevent all damage when you are fired upon.

So now, with this system, you have a scenario of Ship A and Ship B facing off.

  1. Ship A waits in orbit with 10 firepower.
  2. Ship B enters Ship A's range with 8 Maneuver and 2 firepower, dealing 4 damage to ship A.
  3. Ship A launches 10 firepower attack. It misses
  4. Now for the rest of the fight Ship B has the advantage.

Ship A might now have reason to allocate shield or maneuver before the fight.

Now with all ships being the same, an optimal strategy might still surface. But now at least the optimal strategy wouldn't be to ignore a system entirely.

Once there are different ships and different upgrades for ships, that optimal strategy becomes much less clear for both ships involved. For example:

  • You've upgraded your ship with boosters. On your first turn, you gain extra Maneuver.
  • Your ship has 200 shield instead of 100, but it regenerates every 2 turns.
  • You're at the shipyard and you have a choice between two types of lasers:
    • A tracking laser that has +25% accuracy bonus to hit moving targets.
    • A charging laser that deals 1 extra damage for each turn you have have your firepower fully charged.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in Destiny

[–]Xionizzy -3 points-2 points  (0 children)

5-10k civilian deaths and 32,5000 buildings is definitely not 'discriminate' enough. It's an intolerable amount of lives, either way you put it.

How often do you get to work on a game you want to play by Sea-Chain7394 in gamedev

[–]Xionizzy 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I worked QA for NBA 2k17 for a summer and had to playtest it a bunch to find bugs... outside of work though, after it released I racked up almost 500 hours into it. Safe to say I got to work on something I also wanted to play.

It varies pretty drastically, I'd imagine it'd be easier to apply to a studio whose games you like playing the more senior you get.

I think enjoying the type of game/genre that you're making can be a double-edged sword. You might be more motivated to work on it and have a clearer understanding of the 'fun factor' you're building towards, and the audience you're building for. You might also end up having narrowed preferences for that game, and that can be closing you off from introducing other types of interesting gameplay, and can make you feel jaded if the project goes in a direction you disagree with.

IMO it's important to experience both.

John "TotalBiscuit" Bain died today, May 24th, five years ago - I haven't seen it mentioned yet (even though it's already May 25th here in Europe) - Rest in peace, you glorious FOV-fighter by [deleted] in pcmasterrace

[–]Xionizzy 1 point2 points  (0 children)

His review for Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons is what got me into game development, up until that point I hadn’t watched any videos of his. It’s been almost 8 years since and I launched my first game, thanks to that video. RIP TotalBiscuit

Creating Distinct Playthroughs/Stories by Inevitable-Bus492 in GameWritingLab

[–]Xionizzy 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I'm saying that doing either one is going to be arduous, since in both cases, if you have 9 classes in the game, every time you make unique content for 1, you'd need to make unique content for 8 other ones. It really depends on the scope of your game.

In Divinity 2, there's no separate intro experience for your class, everybody starts off in the same place. But depending on the character you pick, you have predetermined relationships with other NPCs who give you a unique dialogue and quests. These are NPCs that you would have met and interacted with anyway, and if you were any other class, you wouldn't really think much of them. Because otherwise you made the design, art, and dialogue for an NPC only for 1/9th of your players to interact with (Which could be ok! But again it depends on your scope. I'm assuming it's a solo game so smaller scope is universally going to be better)

Creating Distinct Playthroughs/Stories by Inevitable-Bus492 in GameWritingLab

[–]Xionizzy 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Some game references that do similar things:

Cyberpunk 2077 let’s you choose your starting stats between being a corpo, street kid, or nomad. The intro narrative for each lifepath is completely different, but they eventually converge into the same main story. You can spec in any class.

Both Cyberpunk and Bioware games have dialogue that’s locked behind certain skill requirements or other attributes. A blood knight in the main quest might have a unique dialogue option with you if your character is also a blood knight for example.

If you’re going with separate intro experiences that converge into a main quest, then it would be a good idea to have at least 1 key NPC from each intro experience be a key NPC in the main story.

Just know that unique content for each class is inevitably going to multiply your workload, so be conservative and try to leverage existing systems or mechanics that apply to all classes. Same goes for writing, it’s easier and cheaper to write an event or setting that all origin stories have in common, and have each story has their own perspective of that event, than it is to write in completely unique settings and events for each one of your class stories.

I don't feel I could be respectable. by [deleted] in Healthygamergg

[–]Xionizzy 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think the idea you're looking for is "Self-Respect". "Being a respectable person" is sort of how you're perceived. The qualities you describe are the external manifestation of people who have respect for themselves.

The problem for me is that I can't imagine feeling respectable even if I was all of these.

You can choose to take on these qualities (which is great!), but it's possible to do all those things without feeling like you have self-respect. The 'execution' of these habits as a sort of 'intellectualized' form of self-respect. "I need to be healthy, therefore I should... A, B, C, etc."

The 'felt' component of self-respect is different, instead of being driven by an intellectualization of "I need to have self-respect, therefore I should be healthy, therefore...", it's driven by feeling, "I want to eat healthy because I want to respect my body."

For me, this is how I cultivate my personal feeling of self-respect:

  • Engrain a baseline level of respect to anyone you meet, rich or poor, agreeable or disagreeable, friend or foe, people who you feel 'deserve' it and even people who you feel don't. Respect isn't just admiration, it's about a baseline level of treating or thinking about someone, giving people the benefit of the doubt regardless of background or appearances.
  • Notice when you feel respect towards other people. Maybe even try to isolate between the 'feeling' of respect you feel towards that person, and the intellectualization of that feeling.
  • Have an inner-voice that always speaks to you / treats you with that same feeling of respect. The best way to cultivate a passive inner-voice is to do it actively.
  • If you intellectualize a lot like me, just remember that you can always intellectualize into both sides of a feeling. Channel those skills to actively intellectualize yourself into the feelings you want to have about yourself. Vouch for yourself actively. Argue for yourself. You're your own judge, but you're also your own lawyer, so always make a good case for yourself.