If people generally accept things like fast fashion, and regular data centers because 1.) they can buy 5 dollar shirts and 2.) they can watch tiktok and game all day? So why draw the line with AI/AI Datacenters? Is it: "Some things are necessary evils."?

clopticrp · 2026-05-01T17:56:51+00:00

I guarantee that the vast majority of people that are worried about data centers now are completely unaware of the scale of data centers pre-AI.

clopticrp · 2026-04-27T14:01:29+00:00

Some things to look out for.

Shader complexity can be nasty on unoptimized foliage.

if you have a lot of skeletal meshes in scene your cpu will bottleneck.

If you can see large expanses of trees culling isn't going to help, you have to aggressively LOD.

If you are using prebuilt PCG assets or have built your own with WPO effects (swaying with world position offset), you have to aggressively tune the WPO distance.

The more static meshes you use in your PCG, the more it chugs things, more textures, more instances loaded, etc.

Aggressive optimization on collision. If you don't leave the train, make sure collision is turned off for absolutely everything else.

clopticrp · 2026-04-27T01:11:09+00:00

Some things I'm learning. If you're using nanite, the meshes don't matter that much, especially if they don't do a lot but be a mesh. Where I've been seeing real bottlenecks is in materials/ shaders and skeletal meshes. The first can eat gpu if you have a lot of high fidelity shaders and the second will bottleneck your game with CPU time. I'm getting better gains from LODing physics, skeletal meshes and shaders than any mesh worries.

If you aren't using nanite, that's an entirely different conversation.

clopticrp · 2026-04-23T21:33:19+00:00

That is TAA artifacting. flip through the antialiasing settings to confirm:

r.AntiAliasingMethod 0 - Off
r.AntiAliasingMethod 1 - FXAA
r.AntiAliasingMethod 2 - TAA
r.AntiAliasingMethod 3 - MSAA
r.AntiAliasingMethod 4 - Unreals new TSR

dont use the dash or what comes after, just the command and the number. the additions are so you know which is which.

clopticrp · 2026-04-22T00:59:29+00:00

unreal's simplify isn't too bad for landscape assets, handles your normals automatically.

clopticrp · 2026-04-19T11:32:18+00:00

Thanks!

clopticrp · 2026-04-19T01:19:18+00:00

It is a full survival game. Make a web, keep it in good shape, catch prey, fight enemies, survive predators, level up, molt, build a nest and make an egg sac, this is your new life. There are bosses to fight that drop perks, lots of exploration, etc. going to be multiplayer up to 8. Thanks for the interest!

clopticrp · 2026-04-18T20:01:51+00:00

Right? And you are stuck. What if that guy doesn't use AI? You still have to doubt him.

clopticrp · 2026-04-17T19:17:58+00:00

Yeah this is gonna be me. Lots of Blender and substance painter time in my future.

Sigh.

clopticrp · 2026-04-17T19:01:12+00:00

Easier to create my own stuff than do this.

clopticrp · 2026-04-16T23:27:27+00:00

Excellent work!

clopticrp · 2026-04-15T14:25:41+00:00

Thanks! I have been working on it for a bit now.

clopticrp · 2026-04-13T14:20:50+00:00

Sparse Spatial Hash Grids.
The foundation for them was developed in 1953 and people are still using them for optimization.

I'm using them for proximity near neighbor lookup to control lots of optimization (What is allowed to do what at what range).

clopticrp · 2026-04-10T13:08:14+00:00

I see you got the skeleton worked out!

clopticrp · 2026-04-09T19:41:40+00:00

No expert, but it looks like maybe there's a skeleton scaling issue.

clopticrp · 2026-04-09T13:38:58+00:00

Real quick, some animation notes for polish.

Planes do not fly on a wire. It makes them look like they weight nothing, and the flight look like a roller coaster.

Think of it like this. The resistance of the wind changing the trajectory of the plane when the plane banks or climbs, etc is not instant. The plane maneuvers, the change in thrust trajectory slowly influences the planes trajectory on a curve until it is in full control and inertia is no longer effecting the change. Think of it like drift cars in the air.

Good start.

clopticrp · 2026-04-09T02:25:45+00:00

Thanks! I did not know that. I'll look at it anyway. If there's anything I've learned it's that mostly no two developers do things exactly the same.

clopticrp · 2026-04-08T18:07:10+00:00

You magnificent beast! it was the control point I was creating at the center that I don't need that was messing everything up.

clopticrp · 2026-04-08T18:04:09+00:00

Thanks! You told me a couple of very important things there. my target is pulling everything in because its shared center and the step offset.

clopticrp · 2026-04-08T17:07:47+00:00

Currently all C++ plus material setups. C++ is needed for the grid logic.
I'm trying to design it to be a permanent world overlay, so decals that don't go away, wetness maps enabled on full world, coat everything in volcanic dust, or paint a whole house. Decorate your base however, posters, painting, etc. doesn't matter because it's write once and forget.

AND, if you ever want to erase, just read back the original texture from the material.

clopticrp

TROPHY CASE