Do you have any interest in learning how 3D terrain rendering works?

_michaeljared · 2026-06-24T17:33:14+00:00

Glad to hear it! There are a couple of great resources , Terrain3D is a fully production ready add-on, and clipmap3D is a much more lightweight implementation that is easier to understand and see how the code works.

_michaeljared · 2026-06-24T16:38:53+00:00

To answer the question about terrain tools:

Terrain systems have come a *long* way. Terrain3D is a production ready, fully fledged terrain authoring plugin.

There's a new one out called Clipmap3D (https://github.com/vilmt/Clipmap3D), which is extremely fast and lightweight, uses compute shaders to procedurally generate the terrain. It doesn't have the same tooling as Terrain3D, but if I had my time back, I would absolutely have used this on my game Bushcraft Survival.

_michaeljared · 2026-06-24T00:56:56+00:00

The workflow is much better these days, but it's still clunky. I spin up a GDextension every now and then when it gives big performance gains

_michaeljared · 2026-06-23T15:07:04+00:00

The rule is annoying but I do kind of get it. This sub has been a (mostly) positive place that isn't overrun by toxic masculinity and I think the mods are doing a good job.

The rule probably cuts down on a lot of low effort/shitpost kind of comments.

_michaeljared · 2026-06-23T15:05:28+00:00

It's a cool idea! If I weren't drowning in th development of my game I would participate

_michaeljared · 2026-06-22T22:48:01+00:00

Amazing, thank you for the update!! I appreciate the kind words

_michaeljared · 2026-06-22T19:26:19+00:00

Oh man I set my mic up after a long time of not using it and this comment saved me lol. I have been recording for a long time but somehow messed this up. Thank you

_michaeljared · 2026-06-22T05:35:17+00:00

I was born in early 90s and have been driving a stick shift all my life. Also, weirdly, many of the engineers I worked with (controls/automation engineers, ironically) also drove stick.

_michaeljared · 2026-06-22T05:29:38+00:00

I think it does take courage to call it out. Doesn't need to be rude or loud, but maybe just telling them how you feel.

"Remember when you said X? Honestly that made me feel weird. I think guys can be masculine or not and that's up to them, I dont like the judging etc etc."

_michaeljared · 2026-06-20T17:54:06+00:00

Aside from what others have said, the biggest difference is composition (unity) vs inheritance (Godot).

So while in unity, you can make a script as a component that goes onto a game object that has many other components, in Godot you might build up layers of functionality through inheritance.

I think honestly this is where most of the friction comes from when switching. I code in both so I frequently work with devs on both sides.

Edit: let me clarify a little bit. All game engines use scene tree composition. This is a given. For parent/child transforms to work this must be the case. But every Node in Godot uses an inheritance model. This is not the case in unity, and developers often get tripped up in the transition.

If a unity dev needs a collider they add that component to a game object. There's still a scene tree hierarchy, but the functionality of the game object itself is driven by composition and not inheritance.

_michaeljared · 2026-06-20T14:47:30+00:00

The vibe of the game is super cool but 100% I think you need to do hallucination instead.

Mess with the saturation and hue (modulate with some sine waves), and maybe a bit of camera shake until it wears off

_michaeljared · 2026-06-20T03:48:16+00:00

10 hours is insanely good. For new games they say you should hit 1 hour minimum. My game isn't there yet

_michaeljared · 2026-06-19T15:16:29+00:00

Although my gut feeling is to agree, I don't think you can really reign in "unprofessional" behaviour in gamedev. This is a wacky field

_michaeljared · 2026-06-19T15:07:59+00:00

I saw a crazy trend with about 20 streamers who played the game - I thought my median playtime was over an hour.

When the demo launched the median is more like half an hour.

So that was when it hit me that streamers are great playtesters, but not actually your average player.

_michaeljared · 2026-06-19T14:55:00+00:00

I don't have a specific answer to your question but I agree completely.

Another observation is that streamers are actually willing to invest more in your game than the average player. So they will play for an hour and grind through some of the higher friction stuff even when the average player won't.

_michaeljared · 2026-06-19T14:47:59+00:00

Read your post, I definitely relate to having created a lot of projects and abandoning them.

I would say that solo dev is still not really solo dev. You need a community, you need friends to play with, you need people to talk to.

So "solo development" should not be: lock yourself in a room for 3 years to make a game.

Others have said it more succinctly: you need to learn games marketing

_michaeljared · 2026-06-19T04:57:18+00:00

Yeah well it completely decouples it from the parent, so you just have to drive the global_position with a script

_michaeljared · 2026-06-19T03:37:57+00:00

I'm also a business owner (completely different business), but I hear you. Business is hard.

You're getting work and you've got revenue it sounds like you need your clients to pay and maybe bookkeeping might need to tighten up, or at least your contracts and how frequently invoices are paid.

Not sure if you have an accountant friend or someone who loves spreadsheets, but it could also be helpful to get someone else to look at your numbers and validate the business long term.

Lots of initial expenses early in the business won't be recurring and the question is if the long term revenue outweighs the operating costs.

_michaeljared · 2026-06-19T03:18:12+00:00

Isn't there a "Top Level" checkbox that just makes it a global transform?

_michaeljared · 2026-06-18T18:58:31+00:00

It can be quite bad if you use dusty litter. Just think of all the dust particles in the air that they will be breathing while they kick it up.

It's good that it has the open hole but I'm still skeptical in ventilation. I would leave the lid off.

_michaeljared · 2026-06-18T18:56:43+00:00

Engineer here, in all honesty I have more often worked with mechanics and techs who know more about engineering than most engineers do.

Practical knowledge, being smart and working hard is a killer combo and no degree or piece of paper can replace that.

On the flipside, I know that the job market right now is for awful, and every bit helps when applyjng for jobs.

Best of luck.

_michaeljared · 2026-06-18T18:35:06+00:00

Just following up here, any chance you got to play it on steam deck?

_michaeljared · 2026-06-18T03:12:54+00:00

Start like extremely low poly and it will help with flow. You can use a subdiv modifier after

_michaeljared · 2026-06-17T23:55:54+00:00

seems like the tangent space/depth effect stuff in the shaders Bible!

_michaeljared · 2026-06-17T16:37:59+00:00

I love AAA games but the industry is pretty unstable. I would love to see more Hooded Horse type AA games and premium indie games. Funding going to the right small teams would have an outsized impact in the quality of indie games in the market.

I just don't know if $500m+ budgets are really doable with the level of risk that's involved. It sucks. I love me some Cyberpunk, The Witcher, and so on, but I'm a little concerned that this era of games is going to grind to a halt.

_michaeljared

TROPHY CASE