@insomniac_lemon

insomniac_lemon@lemmy.cafe · 2 months ago

Nope, sent it here. Guess it just doesn’t work for whatever reason, despite both instance being Lemmy. (also, Kbin was my previous instance, too).

Unfortunately I’m not that social so I don’t really have any other options.

insomniac_lemon@lemmy.cafe · 2 months ago

Would love to hear your thoughts if you’d like to share them. If not, that’s fine too. Either way, good chat.

I sent you a message, not sure you got it (instance issues?).

insomniac_lemon@lemmy.cafe · 2 months ago

You know how to use the tools

I don’t know how to use blender

I’m not new with it, but I am banging rocks together when it comes to using Blender. Not good with shortcuts and often have issues with modifiers. (I preferred what I casually started with a decade ago, Maya, though it is/was bloated both in terms of size and cost)

If there was other FOSS low/medium-poly software that works well for VC (+material(placeholders)) I would be interesting in trying it. But I’m guessing Blender is as good as it gets.

Godot, fine with that but not too keen on GDscript.

I got curious and searched your username and badgers and this appeared

I was confused at first, but figured that’s what you did (search only hit because of the alt-text as well).

I also have been doing exercises, but mostly coding stuff

I am interested in coding stuff too (a specific niche language), though I struggle with project viability even more there too and have put it on the backburner.

insomniac_lemon@lemmy.cafe · 2 months ago

I wouldn’t call it ‘work’ yet, more practice than anything (lost some steam being unsatisfied with idea prompts though) and refining a workflow (palette, materials, import script, Blender default file). I’m unsure on actual ideas (that are viable for me), too.

insomniac_lemon@lemmy.cafe · edit-2 7 months ago

Abandon widespread* texture use, return to polygons+vertex colors+in-engine cutscenes (and similar data-saving techniques like soundfonts).

my examples (2D: created with Godot, 3D: created with Blender)

A simplified polygonal scene, originally from Futurama scene that's styled like anime. Fry is saying "You and I are enemies now." while pointing at a jpegified Professor Farnsworth. Meta note: The scene was made in the Godot game engine.

Peter Griffin in a polygonal art-style, saying "I find this... shallow and pedantic." with a smug face and touching his fingertips together.

The entire scene is low-poly with colors defined using the mesh itself, also the image is optimized for color to reduce data, resulting in dithering patterns. In a gray room with black and white triangle tiles, there are 6 badgers of various sizes standing and facing the viewer. Similarly, there are 5 eyes floating in the air one of which is not fully opaque. There is 1 banana on the floor.

A low-poly, vertex color-only model of a tail-less gecko, pathetic-looking and purple under its eyes. The origin lines from the software Blender can be barely seen

Animated eye

This was using a feature that likely isn’t viable (for common use) due to performance.

And for something not-by-me, see Spyro’s vertex color skyboxes.

The Lofty Castle skybox from the original Spyro. A beautiful sky, with the bottom half being dark-ish purple space with small triangular stars, the top-half with a visible planet and another smaller planet/moon in a blue sky, with the middle of the sky being separated by a line of clouds with an orange/pink glow on the upper half

* general normal maps are ok, but I didn’t have much luck beyond using generated noise for metal. I even tried some stuff with watercolor, maybe with better shaders it could work but untextured is easier.

Or another example, any material you can just apply without alteration (for instance, make something look like wood) is alright too. Maybe UV mapping is not too bad, but extra per-model work is not ideal.