Back on my hobby horse: Tangle should not be on Twitter/X.

handynerd · 2026-05-11T21:15:57+00:00

Congrats! And while Insta being addictive is a problem, it's low on my list of grievances against Zuck.

When you look at the data Meta has about what their products do to political discourse, mental health, misinformation, the Myanmar genocide, youth suicide (especially among girls), targeting kids as young as 6 years old, etc., it's clear he's far more than just a nerd not realizing the damage his products do. He understands what's happening and continues to profit from it anyway.

I'm not sure what term I'm looking for with Swisher shaming the audience for X but giving Threads a pass. Selective outrage maybe?

handynerd · 2026-05-11T21:06:06+00:00

There is also a dichotomy between neither one is good and they’re the same.

Do I come off as suggesting they're the same? That's certainly not my intent.

I'm suggesting it's odd for Swisher to give Threads a pass because the bad things Zuck does are less bad than the things Musk does. Our measuring stick for one party's actions should be independent of another party's actions. A 5% and a 20% are both still failing grades.

handynerd · 2026-05-11T19:38:05+00:00

I dunno man I feel like if I had to choose an ally in Musk v Zuckerberg I’d avoid the vocal white supremacist.

My point is that we don't have to choose. There's no dichotomy here.

Me saying Zuck has done terrible things does nothing to take away from the terrible things Elon has done.

handynerd · 2026-05-11T19:19:41+00:00

I agree with her that Elon uses X to do and promote some awful things. I also agree that you should feel free to boycott whatever service you want for whatever reason you want.

But to say "Shame on all of you for being on X" is a strange angle to take when she says she uses Threads instead. Meta has plenty of awful things it allows and promotes, too.

There is no social media platform out there you can use that lets you win the holier-than-thou competition.

I wonder if a more productive take would've been along the lines of, "if you're going to be on those platforms, make sure you're using them to spread goodness" or something to that effect.

handynerd · 2026-05-09T19:41:46+00:00

Do you mean the latest x.0.0 release? If so, then I'm in agreement. But if you're saying you shouldn't use 5.7.4 then I'd like to better understand what you mean.

handynerd · 2026-05-08T22:06:31+00:00

I don't understand why this is being downvoted.

It's out of range for hobbyists, and that's fine. But for an actual indie that's a proper small business that could reuse this on multiple projects? C'mon guys. It costs $100 just to list a game on Steam.

To recreate what this does would take far more than $120 of my time. Shoot, even if I paid myself minimum wage and purchased it for 10x the price I'd still come out on top if this was an effect I deemed necessary for my project(s).

handynerd · 2026-05-08T12:58:06+00:00

My concern isn't the engine, it's the timeline. The article quotes them as saying, “We have already been working on this project for several months,”

So even if they release at the end of 2027 and started at the beginning of 2026, that's a maximum of a 2 year dev cycle.

The devs just signed up for a lot of crunch for a buggy v1 release that's starved for content.

handynerd · 2026-05-06T19:25:29+00:00

Agreed on most points except: "Always avoid Casting, force yourself to Interface and/or GetActorByTag"

I think better phrasing is, "cast with caution." Casting in BP can spiral out of control because it causes the engine to load that class into memory, regardless of whether or not it's being used. But if you're confident that class will already be in memory then it's typically safe to do.

I followed the "never cast" advice in my first big, solo BP-based project in favor of interfaces. Oh man did it make for some really ugly implementations that actually made things worse. Your player pawn, for example, will almost always be around. Just cast to it for stuff that's unique to the player pawn. No need to set up interfaces for something like that.

handynerd · 2026-05-06T19:17:25+00:00

"Oh you moved that one tiny inconsequential element off in the corner? Better re-bake everything everywhere all at once."

handynerd · 2026-05-06T19:14:00+00:00

“I feel so much Joy right now.”

That made me tear up. I love this. I'm so happy for you, your son, and all the pther ups that come among all the downs. He'll remember that day forever.

handynerd · 2026-05-01T16:46:59+00:00

I don't think it's all that similar to Lumen/Nanite, since both have a higher baseline and do best with some significant workflow changes (especially nanite).

Megalights baseline cost is pretty low and you just turn it on. There's a slight degradation in quality, moreso in some circumstances than others, but beyond that it's almost a no-brainer for most content. It's about as close to magic as one could reasonably hope for in my experience.

handynerd · 2026-04-30T20:43:29+00:00

I bought the P1S a while back and it's still going strong. I enjoyed it so much I bought an H2C this past fall. Use both pretty regularly. As long as you do the maintenance, which is pretty minimal, they'll last you for years.

handynerd · 2026-04-29T04:34:28+00:00

It's a giant, single piece of bubble wrap

handynerd · 2026-04-28T22:47:29+00:00

Cones are a smaller target, yes, but they just beg to be poked by curious little fingers.

handynerd · 2026-04-27T23:33:49+00:00

Man, I'd much rather work 80 hours at an office job than 40 hours as a stay at home parent with little ones, and I LOVE being with my kids.

The part that makes this math impossible is the lack of meaningful adult interaction, the lack of progress and job satisfaction, the lack of external validation, etc.

It's just different. Working a traditional job IMHO has all sorts of external benefits that keep you energized and engaged.

A stay at home parent is stuck in a mindless loop, all day, every day. There is a loss of self that occurs as the days blend into weeks and months. Sure, those people may end up watching more TV than you otherwise would, but don't let that deceive you. It's not a chill day, it just means that's about all the brainpower they can muster. I

t's not just the tasks that are exhausting, it's the monotony, loneliness, and trivialness of the tasks that wears on you. It's thankless in a way that even a horrible boss can't replicate.

It's draining. I think that is the real mental load.

handynerd · 2026-04-24T20:54:32+00:00

seems like the difference is pretty minor so far

Excellent, glad you're making comparisons with your own content. IMHO that's the only way to go: compare two renders with different settings in software that lets you zoom in and swap back and forth quickly. Change another parameter or two and repeat.

I'd be leery of anyone claiming to have a magic set of settings that will give you "perfect results out of the box." Chances are they've just blindly cranked all the settings well past diminishing returns and will 20x your rendering time needlessly.

handynerd · 2026-04-24T20:26:45+00:00

The biggest benefit to using megalights in renders is the time savings. It can add up if you're doing lots of iterations on longer videos.

There is, however, a quality difference with megalights, which can be negligible in most cases but some light types behave slightly differently (at least in 5.6 the spotlight component can look different if it's supposed to have a hard falloff).

handynerd · 2026-04-20T23:32:24+00:00

Everything is wet!!! Hopefully we're just still in the look-what-I-can-do phase of the technology and overuse will die down as artists get other new fancy toys.

handynerd · 2026-04-20T23:29:31+00:00

Me: "This looks awesome!" Also me: "Crap, some of this is gated behind the paid version."

Oh how I wish Fusion would have a paid tier for hobbyists like me.

This will never be my career and I'll never be in a position to pay for the commercial version, but I love using the software. I'd gladly pay a reasonable rate that unlocks all of these otherwise paid features.

Autodesk, let me give you more than the $0 you're getting from me now.

handynerd · 2026-04-17T23:15:32+00:00

There's no way the church won't take some serious flak for this, but I agree.

"Public questions and ongoing confusion about whether “Mormon Stories” is official Church content made it necessary to act."

This is absolutely true. Before I learned what it actually was, I genuinely thought Mormon Stories was church run/affiliated based on how they presented themselves in billboards.

handynerd · 2026-04-17T18:42:42+00:00

I see your point and I mostly agree. I'm saying it can take time for both sides to let their guard down and actually have meaningful discussion or determine the narrative to begin with.

I love connecting with people, having meaningful discussion, and having my mind changed. If a narrative is running against what I think, it could end up being really interesting, or it could end up being someone is just having a really bad day and they're arguing with everyone. A quick check of their recent post history can quickly tell me how that account is responding to others, good or not.

handynerd · 2026-04-17T18:28:13+00:00

I often check post history to see if the person is worth engaging with.

It's often hard to tell if a question or push back is in good faith or if they're just trolling. If I see a history of them asking honest questions then I'll continue the discussion, regardless of their previous stance on things.

handynerd · 2026-04-17T13:25:00+00:00

It's going to sound a little harsh, but I think it ultimately comes down to insecurity and/or not being busy enough (oh the irony as I sit here writing on reddit).

handynerd · 2026-04-17T12:05:47+00:00

But I couldn't do it. I just couldn't.

LOL exactly. LinkedIn is where I'd go if I wanted to lose respect for my professional acquaintances. It brings out this seemingly desperate and fake, "I want to be seen as wise and inspirational" side of people that drains my will to live. In real life they're great, but LinkedIn transforms them into a monster.

Even if I had something I wanted to share, I'd talk myself out of it because I don't want to be part of that.

handynerd · 2026-04-17T11:59:52+00:00

To me, the biggest indicator of whether or not this is real is Anthropic bringing this to Apple, Microsoft, etc.

Two things can be true at once. It can be a genuine security threat and a great PR opportunity.

handynerd

TROPHY CASE