My main concern is what this could do to game marketplaces. As long as curation and vetting remain strong on digital storefronts or there are meaningful gates to pass through, things may not go as badly as I'd imagine.
www.gamedeveloper.com/programming/...
I'm currently seeking new opportunities. Looking for Senior 3D Artist, Senior Technical Artist, Senior Environment Artist, or 3D Generalist roles. Previously at Capgemini Engineering, NASA, and Unity Technologies. Open to connect. #OpenToWork
New on the Unity Asset Store: Factory Training by Unity Technologies. A large industrial training environment template for Unity 6 and URP. Great for walkthroughs and simulation prototypes. Free: assetstore.unity.com/packages/tem...
Resolve is not too painful of a tool in my opinion and a good alternative to that Adobe product. Saw you discussing demos with Chris Z on YouTube and left with quite a few good tidbits.
I built a Blender tool to make vertex coloring way less painful. Edit Mode vertex colors (faces + verts, no Vertex Paint). Palette-driven masking + color picking from geometry. Game-engine friendly (linear data for shader masks).
github.com/jamesarndt82...
If you're a Unity user looking for a lightweight/free option to place grass & trees on your terrain, you should have this tool. I was impressed with how simple it is to use, but how much it offers in regard to masking/refining where things go.
assetstore.unity.com/packages/too...
A very small group of gamers actually care about the process or human beings that create these games. Sales numbers tell us a story. The amount of successful games on Steam, that have not disclosed their AI usage is likely somewhere around 60% or more.
This feels like one big "holier than thou" situation. What studio has completely eliminated the presence of generative AI either on their machines, the software or on the user's mobile devices? GenAI has penetrated literally almost every tool and OS around, and so no studio is "clean" so to speak.
These color combinations are beautiful. They evoke feelings from my NES-addicted childhood.
You can interact with the live app here -> jamesarndt.itch.io/web-product-...
This is a 3D configurator built in a day using AI. This wasn't about replacing tech artists. It was about augmenting my strengths. My expertise drives the decisions & AI accelerates the execution. The tech stack uses ThreeJS, HTML, CSS & a GLB asset.
Link to video -> www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxVY...
A walk around this little sandbox interior. It's not much visually, but I'm laying the foundations for building out the game's mechanics and features. I'm happy for now to have solid locomotion, a working camera and interactable objects. #NowPlaying
๐ฃ๐ฟ๐ผ๐ท๐ฒ๐ฐ๐ ๐๐ฎ๐๐ฒ๐ฏ๐ฎ๐น๐น I feel good about this sand & chalk line materialization and I'm going to move on to other parts of the stadium. I've added chalk lines and a layered detail map to the custom shader. This allows me to now add "wear and tear" to the grass and the sand.
youtu.be/wEdWZG5-OjY
Follow my blog here -> substack.com/@jamesarndt82
๐ฃ๐ฟ๐ผ๐ท๐ฒ๐ฐ๐ ๐๐ฎ๐๐ฒ๐ฏ๐ฎ๐น๐น I created a mesh decal to provide a transition between where grass and dirt meet. Doing this with a decal can be tricky in regard to normalizing shading between the grass, dirt & decal surfaces. Have no fear. Weighted vertex normals to the rescue. youtu.be/00Q2rCRwm9U
I installed Unity's Visual Effects Graph to see if I could instantiate a bunch of particle-based grass and how that may look. Not abysmal, but not great either. It's definitely a bit overgrown.
After I wrapped work with the team this afternoon, I moved on to pretending to be a horse for my youngest. After that I managed to sneak in about an hour on the baseball stadium project. I created high-resolution geometry for the infield grass and dirt, and authored PBR materials for both.
Created a fresh Unity URP project tonight, picked out an MLB stadium (Busch Stadium in St. Louis, MO). I've imported a GLB from the web and I'm going to materialize/texture this when I have downtime. I'm using the Unity glTFast, HBAO and Umbra Soft Shadows packages.
Iโve added some late 1980s cars to the parking lot. Itโs been a slow project. For more than a year I chipped away at building them. Fun little detail: none of the cars use texture maps; theyโre all colored with vertex colors. The game takes place in a video rental store tucked in a shopping plaza.
Realized I hadn't fired this one up in a long while. Gameplay actually holds up.
Got to meet this guy at the local fall festival this weekend.
I'm still blocking out areas with large shapes, but I've started vertex coloring geometry faces to get a better idea of how things feel within context (no textures). Its always amazing how a little color can make things start to feel more cohesive.
It's that time of year.
I've started a "blog" on Substack and if you're interested in progress you can follow there.
substack.com/@jamesarndt82
I've been working on my game where I can squeeze in the time. Today I started blocking out the interior of the "Blockbuster" video rental store where our protagonist works. #unity #indiedev #gamedev
These fonts hold a special place in my heart. Open source license and high quality.
www.keshikan.net/fonts-e.html
When I was a child in school I remember these serving as storage. We'd write bits of Basic code, make simple programs and then save it to one of these 5.25" diskettes. They weren't this tiny. These are Mini Brands toys you can buy in most retail stores.
Neil Blevins reminding artists of one very important facet to getting your renders to look good. This applies to both offline and real-time renders.
www.neilblevins.com/art_lessons/...
Had a bit of fun last night materializing an old vehicle model. I remembered a PS2-era game called Auto Modellista an was wondering what an updated version of that could look like. I don't want to be tempted.
youtu.be/JkmzDeiMiVk
Caught this in the 'Shader Graph improvements in Unity 6.3' notes in the Unity forum. Graph Templates - As with VFX Graph, you can now create new shader graphs from templates. There are other great improvements and additions, but having boilerplate graphs is a great thing.
