#I think I want some kind of shader on it

[flickering-nightfall]

A karma flower sways gently in the dark~

[antirepurp]

been fiddling with a beach and i think i've got it mostly figured for the toon shaders :) there's definitely some jank i could try addressing when i start building the environments i really need (mainly the textures showing the ground meshes clipping into each other) but at least the rough execution is down now

[yournightmary]

Streamer!Ellie HCs

content warning:: fem!reader, modern!AU, mentions of getting hurt

AN:: Another headcannons, who would’ve thought? Streamer!Ellie was literally the reason I started writing. Enjoy :)

⇢ ˗ˏˋ streamer!Ellie who started streaming as a joke. Jesse was already a streamer and he constantly said she’d be good at it, so why not?

⇢ ˗ˏˋ streamer!Ellie who at first had such a shitty setup. No webcam, mic barely working and her PC couldn’t handle minecraft with shaders.

⇢ ˗ˏˋ streamer!Ellie who randomly went from 30 viewers average to almost 10k one day. Just blew up overnight.

⇢ ˗ˏˋ streamer!Ellie who gets canceled at least once a week. She just says dumb shit without thinking and has to apologize after. and people are just fucking weird.

⇢ ˗ˏˋ streamer!Ellie who lives off of snacks and won’t eat a proper meal if you don’t cook anything. She’s just always on that grind😎🔥

⇢ ˗ˏˋ streamer!Ellie who’s entire personality on camera is just a character. Screams and throws herself off of her chair on camera but goes non verbal every time she’s in private.

⇢ ˗ˏˋ streamer!Ellie who mostly streams games, especially minecraft & fortnite. She might make an irl stream once in a blue moon, but don’t expect it to be good.

⇢ ˗ˏˋ streamer!Ellie who loves her community and wants to talk to them more often but always ends up swearing and arguing with random people in chat.

⇢ ˗ˏˋ streamer!Ellie who gets copyright strikes and warnings from twitch admins almost every stream. Most of the times she doesn’t even know what she did wrong.

⇢ ˗ˏˋ streamer!Ellie who keeps your relationship a secret. She’s scared you’d get a ton of hate. (You would) ((Streamer fanbases are awful))

⇢ ˗ˏˋ streamer!Ellie who buys the most random things she can ‚for the lulz’. Whether it’s for her streaming room or bedsheets, she’s buying the weirdest option. (This made me think of her)



⇢ ˗ˏˋ streamer!Ellie who is definitely a hey mamas girl.

⇢ ˗ˏˋ streamer!Ellie who majorly fucked up and showed her personal instagram account (with your pictures) by accident. Her following went up by 10k almost instantly and she ended up deleting it:/

⇢ ˗ˏˋ streamer!Ellie who after that mistake took a hiatus for almost 3 weeks. I mean- logged out of every account she had and didn’t check any socials for that time.

⇢ ˗ˏˋ streamer!Ellie who came back to streaming thinking she’d get all the hate in the world but people were just joking that ‚she’s too much of a loser to have a pretty girlfriend’.

they were also surprised she was lesbian. She never talked about her private life on stream, not even once.

⇢ ˗ˏˋ In my mind she’s the female version of 2019/2020 Quackity. Is he still relevant? idk

⇢ ˗ˏˋ streamer!Ellie who jokes about selling feet pics and bath water a little too often for your liking.

⇢ ˗ˏˋ streamer!Ellie who once did a handstand for a 100 bucks. Ended up breaking her arm in two places and she couldn’t play games for almost two months.

⇢ ˗ˏˋ streamer!Ellie who gets hurt on stream so often she got flagged for self harm. Apologized on twitter though:)

⇢ ˗ˏˋ streamer!Ellie who definitely thinks loud=funny.

⇢ ˗ˏˋ streamer!Ellie who finds out she’s in some kind of drama every single time she opens twitter. It’s always for something stupid too, like saying she’d win in a fight against some random streamer and their fanbase gets pissed.

⇢ ˗ˏˋ streamer!Ellie who feels bad about having nice things so she just buys you a ton of gifts. Gotta spend that streamer money somehow🤑

⇢ ˗ˏˋ streamer!Ellie who showed you on stream once and the chat went crazy. People made edits of the 10 seconds you were on screen. Ellie watched all of them.

⇢ ˗ˏˋ streamer!Ellie who streams cutting her hair every few months. She says ‚she’s cooking’ while chat drags her through mud.

⇢ ˗ˏˋ streamer!Ellie who streams so much she started saying ‚chat’ in real life, even when she’s alone. Always gets embarrassed about it and apologizes.

Can you tell I was a dsmp kid during quarantine?

[mr-tsuyo]

i love the style of that 3d render of your character! may i ask how you animated the outline and made the whole thing pixel-y? :0

Very glad you asked!

There isn't many tutorials on how to make this kind of stuff so I am totally glad to be the first one.

BLENDER 2.5D TUTORIAL

First of all

Get your model ready and steady, that part is what I ain't explaing, however if you want it to have these colors, you will have to put this nodes in your texture shader

`[ This is for her red jacket, the lower nodes is for her primary colour and the upper nodes are for her shadows, which also has some extra nodes to give it a comic texture. ]

Quick reminder to give the model some lineart yourself to the parts that don't form its sihlouette, for example her shoes.

Now for the lineart, first of all make sure you have created a black Emissive material and that it has Backface Culling activated

After that go to the Modifier Properties and add a Solidify modifier

Make sure to Flip the Normals, set the Material Offset to where the Lineart material is, and adjust a little bit the Thickness of the mesh, then you will get some natural good-looking lineart like hers.

Now, you could easily be satisfied like this, but now we are going to make it feel like each frame is a new drawing by making her model lineart jiggly

First of all create a Displacement Modifier and give it a cloud texture

Make sure to lower the strenght and midlevel, otherwise it will look like this

Now, create an Empty Plain Axes and go to the Displace modifier, change the coordinates from Local to Object and focus the object on the Empty

And thanks to this adjustments, if you move the empty around, it will create a slight jiggle

Now what we want is for this empty to automatically move around without you having to do anything

Create a new screen and go to the Graph Editor section

In here we will be making the empty move with a modifier

Select the empty and press "I" of Italy and select Location, this will create a keyframe for the empty that we will be able to manipulate

Go to the Editor and ONLY SELECT THE Z POSITION, and then go to the Modifiers tab and add a Noise modifier

Make sure to adjust the Scale and the Strength so that it looks more proper for the jiggle effect, make it look like a rollercoaster!

And now, if you did everything right, your empty will be moving up and down and all around by its own

WHICH also means, the model displacement will follow the path of the empty to create that jiggly effect we crave so so much

However...

The model is indeed jiggling, but it's doing it the wrong way, we are trying to make it look like a cartoon not a gosh darnit gelatin

So to make it jiggle the right way we are going to make its noise feel more STEPPED

Go back to the modifiers of the Graph Editor and add a Stepped Interpolation, and make sure it has a Step Size of 5

And now we finally get the choppy jiggle effect!!

Now you can play around the Displace and the Noise to make it more or less jiggly

But nonetheless, if you followed the tutorial right, you will be gifted with the perfect looking 2.5D effect!!!

Now you can go ahead and try to fool everyone into thinking a 3D animation is 2D

And before we wrap up, one more extra for the one who asked how this is made,

We are going to make the render feel pixel-y!

Go to Render Properties, make sure you are using Eevee, and in Sampling put the Render on 1 and the Viewport on 0

Then go to Output Properties and you can do two things:

1) Change the X n Y to a size lower than 1000 px

2) Change the Resolution % to these numbers (8, 16, 32, 64) This way if you wanna do pixel art you are more accurate

For this render I used the 1st option

And last but not least, in the Output Properties make sure you save your files in the right way with these settings

THen render animation, make an image sequence with all the pngs, and TA-DAH

You get a pixel-y 2.5D animation!!!

Thank you so much for checking, I hope this is useful for anyone who wants to do this stuff, if anyone has any questions don't be afraid to ask, I may have explained some stuff badly.

Anyways have a very jolly day

Tsuyo OUT

[hermitcraftx]

Actually, no, I'm not done talking about the Minecraft Movie. I'm so incredibly angry about what could have been. Rant incoming, sorry to any and all witnesses. All ye who enter here abandon all hope.

The Lego Movie was a good movie because it was an homage to animators and the community it had built up during the years, was genuinely very well animated and had good plot points despite maintaining its humor, and was a good watch to people who didn't even like Legos. It did have a couple big name actors placed in there to draw views (i.e. Will Ferrell) but for the most part the movie was completely animated with very sparse real life moments that worked very well to tie into the narrative the movie was creating. You're a little kid and the world is so big and angry and full of structure, and you just want to create the things you want to see without being told what to do. Emmett is an ordinary guy told he's special as a lie to get him to comply with what Vitruvius wanted, the same way he complied with orders his entire life, and he defeated that cycle of thinking by showing kindness despite his terrible treatment, unlike Lord Business (i.e. Will Ferrell). It worked astoundingly well to create something that ticked a lot of boxes: narratively sound, incredibly pleasing to look at, funny, and capable of handling serious topics despite being a Kid's Movie.

The Minecraft Movie... does none of that. There are no well placed homages or tributes to a loving community that has been built up for well over a decade. There are no callbacks to Minecraft animations, to any of the Minecraft covers that were a staple of early Minecraft, no references or respects paid to anybody that has been a big name in the community. For fuck's sake, they didn't even put Herobrine is. Herobrine is, to be frank, the most basic Minecraft reference they could have input into this movie as a subtle nod to the community that almost everyone would have understood, and I remain disappointed.

The art style isn't respectful of Minecraft animators at all, instead vaguely resembling AI slop where they tasked it to make Minecraft in real life with realistic shader packs as the references. To be quite frank, it is a spit in the face of almost every creative person in the community. It's disrespectful to the animators, the parody creators, the modpack creators (highly unlikely but I really hope they get in deep shit for using some of them as references, because it's almost uncanny how similar they look), the Minecraft content creationists, everybody. I know they let a scant few Minecraft youtubers on set, but still.... no well hidden easter eggs? No CaptainSparklez logo? No Yogscast? No EthosLab tnt slab? Not even any of the newer youtubers that have made the Minecraft scene up for the past several years. (Not talking about the green guy, god, no, I'm very grateful for that in fact. But nobody at all? Seriously?) I get that it's a MINECRAFT movie, not a Minecraft youtuber movie, and is supposed to be well-digestible for the average audience that isn't familiar with Minecraft, but there are very easy ways to implement this. Most people would at the very least be happy to see a couple seconds of community references, regardless of what they were. Again, NO HEROBRINE? What the fuck are the Warner Bros doing.

There appears to be no strong structural narrative that ties into the base game either, despite there being a... relatively straightforward way to implement one? Look, man, the game literally has objectives for you, despite being relatively sandbox. You spawn in, you chop wood, mine for diamonds, and fight monsters, you go to the Nether, you beat the dragon. The piglins as an element outside of the Nether don't make sense as gameplay wise they zombify, which has been mentioned a lot, true, but I haven't seen ANYONE mention that they could just... I don't know... Go to the fucking Nether!? Why is the plot line being pulled from Minecraft Legends, a game that everyone thought was boring and forgot about instantly? Why are Mojang and Microsoft trying so hard to branch out from base game Minecraft? So far it looks to just be a bullshit poorly carried out isekai movie with a bunch of big name actors, one liners, shitty quips and "he's right behind me isn't he"s. There's no SERIOUS plot beat at all, not even getting a feeling that this might be any more than "uh oh, they're stuck in Minecraft and piglins are trying to kill them!"

The CGI is terrible. Just incredibly poorly implemented. The people look gigantic at the start and it's not immersed at all, it genuinely looks like some of the worst green screen work I've ever seen. They look like they're standing on a rug.

I don't know. It just makes me incredibly angry. There's a deep lack of understanding and appreciation for the game, and that sounds childish, but I think it is decently imperative to at least understand the basics of Minecraft before you make a game on it. Most people under the age of 30 understand at least a little bit about Minecraft, and if they don't, it is your job to make it enjoyable for them! You can make a story about a man that washes up in a strange world and goes to kill a dragon. Everyone can understand that. That's a very basic story that we've been milking for literally hundreds of fucking years. Nothing in the trailer resembles Minecraft at ALL, it was genuinely unrecognizable and alien to me when I first saw it. The trailers don't have a strong resemblance to Minecraft either, but it's there, and they could have honestly just based it off mostly the trailers and that would have been better? Making the movie fully animated would have given it charm and appealed to kids in the same way, and they could have pulled a Lego Movie and done an in person sequence with Jack Black at some point. I don't know. I don't understand a single cinematic decision in making this film.

A lot of people wanted a deep somber animated film about Steve exploring the loneliness and solitude of the world he's in, trying to thrive and create in spite of that, and while I agree that would be incredible, there is just no universe where that would happen in. But that doesn't mean this is excusable. There are so many better ways to execute and implement the ideas that would do well in big theater for a kid's game and it looks like they spat on those ideas and put them in a blender. It's almost comical how bad the movie is: and such a huge, SAD fucking jump from Warner Bros blowing it out of the water with the Barbie Movie last year. My young cousin finds the pink sheep scary and wanted me to turn it off when we showed it to her. There is truly no audience that I feel this appeals to in a meaningful way, and I hope it flops like Morbius. I hope Microsoft and Warner Bros go bankrupt from this.

All in all, it's a terrible example of a game that has been near and dear to a lot of people's hearts and a significant portion of a lot of people's childhoods and makes a mockery of the people that enjoy it, I feel. It's like if The Mario Movie and Jumanji had a terrible, terrible baby. Unless their plan was to get so much negative attention that hoardes of people go to hate watch it, I have no fucking idea who the hell let any of this be released to the public.

Don't go watch it. Don't give these people your money. Demand better for your community and your fans. Hold Microsoft and Warner Bros accountable for bad quality. Microsoft has been a fucking nightmare since... forever, really, but Mojang has really suffered under their iron fist rule for a long time now. Microsoft has been trying to push Mojang to other games and Mojang, due to Microsoft's restrictions, is unable to function as it's own entity anymore. Any drama with updates? Updates too long? Missing out on content from certain updates? Caused by the copyright being owned by Microsoft. Make no mistake, I'm not defending Mojang, they aren't a small little indie company like they say they are- they're owned by one of the biggest goddamn companies in the world. Microsoft has been working on this movie for a goddamn decade and has been working on this concept specifically for almost four years, and this is what they came up with? It's nightmarish. Knowing them they'll try and push it onto the people that actually play the game too, god forbid.

Don't let them ruin our game. Don't give them your money. Watch something worth your time.

[miapcain]

Your game is so cool, I wanna make games myself someday too. Is unity good? I've heard some bad stuff about the CEO...

That depends heavily on what you want to do. Unity is fine, Unreal is fine, Godot is fine, but each has different strengths and weaknesses (another way to phrase it, having used Unity a lot personally and Unreal a lot professionally, would be "Unity is awful and Unreal is also awful, but you can get by in both"). If you want to make a 3D action game, probably learn Unreal; I use Unity for mine because I like writing in C#, but for an absolute beginner, Godot script and Unreal's blueprints are probably both easier to learn. Don't listen to anyone who tells you Unity is somehow easier, the only real strengths it has in a vacuum is much better online documentation, better access to HLSL shader stuff, better version control, and kind of better live coding than Unreal; a lot of stuff that's easy in Unreal takes absolutely forever to do in Unity.

Other tips: Join game jams and work with other people, make friends who do similar things to what you want to do; Don't make the game you really want to do until much later than you think, you will burn out running into issues, make tiny tiny tiny projects first; Learn what sources to trust for input. A lot of unreal tutorials on youtube are really terrible and will teach you bad practices, forums will tend to be better, friends who are already versed in the software are often a much better bet, but don't expect to learn anything without a lot of experimenting first; Don't expect to make any money off it, at least for a long time.

Best of luck

[silentpinessave]

Willamette Road [Base Game] The pale blue house on the right is for sale, ready for your sim to move in! The Shaws live in the yellow house, but people haven't seen them much since their son's funeral. Nobody wants to remind them of Luca's death, so everyone kind of just leaves them alone.

This is a WIP build for my base game only save file: Silent Pines. I was inspired by some New Orleans houses and came up with this little street! I'd like to add some more decor, but I like the look of it so far.

I'm also experimenting with some shaders, so please recommend me any you think would fit! I'm using ReShade 5.9.1. and the honeybee reshade in this photo.

Love from, Silent Pines.

[r3dcam3llias]

So... I've really been struggling with making backgrounds for my mod lately, and I kind of realized drawing completely from hand for every single one would NOT be possible. At the same time, I am also strongly against using any kind of generative AI, even if it wouldn't be something commercial. So instead I tried out using the Sims 4, with some shaders, as a kind of base(?) for a background, and tweaking it, drawing onto it etc... I'm not sure I'm 100% happy with the end result, but with only 4 hours of work its a whole lot easier than drawing completely from hand, especially for a personal project. (after and before below)

I'm definitely going to play around with it more to get it the way I want and likely will end up using just 'general shapes' rather than drawing completely on top of the old picture, but what do we think, success or...?

[bobacupcake]

Sorry if you've been asked this before, but do you need to be good at math to understand shader programming?

short answer: no !!!

longer answer: there can definitely be a decent amount of math in shader programming, but the number of math things you need to learn is like, fairly limited, and you dont necessarily have to learn How they work, just what they do

the two biggest Math Things that you will run into in shader programming are dot products (kind of simple) and matrix multiplication (hellish), but when you break them down into what they actually do it can be pretty intuitive. and when you know them, you are set for like 95% of shader math unless you want to start doing things that involve like, diving into research papers

lets say dot product for example, which is probably the math concept you use the Most, instead of thinking of it like a math equation, you can just think of it as how close two directions are to eachother

this is the one thats used All The Time since its essentially your main way of comparing the direction of light (or anything else) with the direction of the surface of your objects (the normal)

matrix multiplication is harder but, you arent actually doing the matrix multiplication, so you can just treat it as a black box that converts points in 3d space from one "space" to another

it's a bit more to wrap your head around, but luckily, unless you are doing some fancier stuff, you will be doing the exact same matrix multiplication Every Time and most programs even handle all of it for you!! in unity, literally all i have to do is add this line to all my shaders (or i would if it wasn't already there in every base shader i make)

so, Yes there is some fancy math going on underneath, but you can absolutely do shader programming without being good at it . sorry if this seems intimidating i went a bit more in depth than i needed to but i promise even if this ^ all went over your head you are 100% fine

[deedee-sims]

Tutorial - extracting stuff from Disco Elysium (+ viewing the models in blender)

Due to... recent events, I decided to finally get myself to write a tutorial about this, because all I found was some half-assed reddit comments when I was trying to figure out how to do it sometime last year.

I'll show you how to extract... pretty much everything (including voice lines) from the game.

This is a beginner tutorial, so you don't have to know shit about any of these programs, I'll try to explain everything.

I promise it's pretty easy! I extracted stuff from various games, and this is one of the easiest I ever did, so yeah.

You'll need:

Disco Elysium on PC

AssetStudio

Blender

+1 Interfacing

+2 Endurance (mostly to survive my bad jokes)

First of all, open AssetStudio. You don't have to install it or anything, just unzip the file you downloaded and open the program inside (AssetStudioGUI).

This is how the bad boy looks like, we'll be able to see the asset list on the left and the preview on the right.

Click on File../Load Folder.

Select the folder where the game is installed. For me it's Steam\steamapps\common\Disco Elysium\disco_Data. You can load individual files too, but it's easier to just list everything and then filter them imo.

Wait... for a while. It's a lot of assets. Make a tea or something (hydration is important).

After everything loaded up, click on the Asset List tab. You can see all the stuff! Well, it's rather confusing. Let's see what is what!

If you click on Filter Type, you can see the types of the assets. These are:

AnimationClip: I think these are supposed to be the animations, you can export them if you select an animator asset alongside and right click Export Animator + selected Animation Clips (couldn't get the animation to play but that's probably on me).

Animator: These are the rigged models, you can export them to .fbx format, but I couldn't figure out what to do with them in Blender because they were kinda distorted (funnily enough, when I imported it to the shitty Milkshape program it showed up just fine... and people wonder why I prefer shitty Milkshape XD) Anyway, I hope someone can figure this out that actually knows something about Blender lol.

Audio Clip: Sounds, voice lines, background music. (.wav format)

Font: Well, fonts. Can be exported and installed to your device like any fonts.

Mesh: 3D models of the characters, objects, scenes. (.obj format)

MonoBehaviour: No fucking clue.

Shader: Shaders for the game. Not interesting in our case.

Sprite: Images that the game uses: portraits, object thumbnails, user interface elements.

Texture 2D: The textures that belong to the 3D models. (.png format)

TextAsset: ??

VideoClip: The stuff that plays when you open the game.

You can preview any assets (well, the ones that you can preview), if you click on them. You can view them in the right panel.

You can extract by left click on the asset in the list -> Export selected assets. You can select multiple assets and export them at the same time.

The program will ask you to select a folder where you want to export the stuff. It'll export them into separate folders, by assets.

Well, yeah, now you know what is what, and how to extract them, but there are still a lot of assets. Good news, you can filter them with the little search bar too, if you type in some gibberish! Some stuff are a little tricky to find.

Voice lines are grouped by task / place, so if you know where the particular thing takes place, you can try to filter for those. The assets are named with the speaker's name - either a character or a skill. I think the numbers mean some kind of order, but I couldn't really figure it out. If you click on one of them, you can preview, and listen to it in the right panel! Super easy! (if you want your own daba-doop-doop-dead it's Kim Kitsuragi-YARD  HANGED MAN-556. Just saying)

For objects and characters, you can find them by name, although some characters are named differently. Like, Harry is referred as Tequila in the game files.

Basically if you want to have a character or an object extracted, you’ll need to extract a mesh and a texture that belongs to it. You can quite literally play dress-up game with Harry, because all of his clothes are separate files (and named with kinda the clothing item name). The Kineema has multiple parts (exterior - interior - door - whatever else).

Anyway, let's move on to the Blender part before I forget how to do it (I learned it this morning lol). (Disclaimer: I don't know jack shit about Blender, I use it for extracting stuff and creating the simplest shapes in existence. I use the godforsaken program Milkshape on a daily basis.)

Open Blender.

Hit delete to get rid of this beautiful default cube.

File.../Import.../Wavefront (.obj)

Select the thing you want to import (I'll import the gremlin child).

There he is! And he doesn't fucking care!

Btw, you can zoom with the middle mouse button scroll or middle mouse button + Ctrl, rotate with middle mouse button, move the view with middle mouse button + Shift. So you can see his itty-witty mischievous face from very close!

Now, that's great, but he doesn't have textures still. First of all, change the Viewport Shading to Material Preview.

Select him (just click on him, you'll see an orange outline). And go to the Material Properties tab on the side.

Click on the little dot next to Base Color, and select Image Texture.

Click on the Open button that appeared out of nowhere, and search for the Cuno texture.

Tada! He looks beautiful now! (and he still doesn’t fucking care)

You can do the same with any 3D models, objects from the game, really.

Well, that's it lol. I hope it made sense! And I really hope someone runs away with extracting the animators + animations, because I'm pretty sure it's doable, I just have no clue how.

[rubellynwoolsworth]

HNK themed Gemstone hair shader (WIP)

Remember the phos gem hair shader I made a few weeks ago? wait, that was several months ago? Anyways I made a new gemstone hair shader in blender. Ramble under the cut.

I admittedly wandered away from the HNK appearance to focus on a more gemstone look and I kinda like the effect thus far. There are some key parts I kind of want to take a look at and highlight so to speak with the current shader.

While there is a fresnel and a cel shading effect, I don't really know how well it applied. Another aspect I added was the bevel around the edges of the hair to give it depth it desperately needed due to how the multiple voronoi textures cluttered the look. Since the bevel required me to UV unwrap the hair, I decided to also add lines to the hair to make it moreso resemble, well, hair. The bevel effect is also why I used a different hairstyle to Phos's hairstyle, partially out of having already applied the effect to this hair first, and partially to show the bevel more clearly. The bevel in particular was something I've wanted to add to the hair since the last shader I made since the edges kinda looked too plain in the last shader.

If you recognize the crystal effect, I used the same method from my stained glass gengar shader, just a little bit more complicated since there's three to four layers of voronoi. It all comes together to create what I think is a pretty neat effect where it appears see-through to some extent.

Now, I used a kinda old method for the cel shading so it has a similar problem to the prior shader to which it doesn't react to changes in lighting, but I think that'll be a quicker fix. Also it appears to have an unintended side effect where the bevels glow in the dark so I'll have to fix that too, but overall its a good start.

[divaatrait]

If you've been feeling burnt out or are just overall not enjoying the look and feel of your game, this guide is meant for you! Coming from someone who started out with The Sims 3, I've had to do a lot of adjusting to find what I like to do in The Sims 4 and I think I've finally figured it out. In this guide, I'll go over Graphics, Essential Mods, and Gameplay Ideas to help you make your experience more enjoyable!

Graphics✨

The Sims 4's biggest asset over previous iterations is its graphics/aesthetic and more importantly, its versatility in this regard. You can make this game look more realistic or more cartoony depending on what you prefer thanks to ReShade and GShade. While there is controversy with the latter, I think having these kinds of tools added to your game will really help with making the game better to look at. I personally recommend these presets:

@bojanastarcevic's Boho (left) and Light (right) presets

@neecxle's Boho Dreams

@pixelglam's Pearl

As you can see, using these enhancements can add a lot of great atmosphere to your game but knowing how to tweak these to your liking will make all the difference. When installing and using presets, ensure that 1) you have edge smoothing in game turned off 2) you have SMAA or FXAA turned on through ReShade or GShade and 3) you've adjusted ADOF [qUINT_dof.fx] to suit your gameplay.

These are my settings (apologies if it's hard to see) but what gives my screenshots more of a cinematic quality is having the "bokeh" settings adjusted like so. I also have the ADOF hotkey set to "tab" so that it automatically turns on and adjusts the depth-of-field when I want to take a screenshot.

BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE! While all of these shader presets are extremely important to the look and feel of your game, there's an extra couple of steps you can take.

@plantyl-m's GraphicsRules.sgr makes those in-game shadows nice and crisp! It's a relatively small tweak, but I feel like it makes such a huge difference to the quality.

@softerhaze's Sunblind Lighting Overhaul. The pictures speak for themselves!

@northernsiberiawinds's Better In-Game Lighting is another great option for lighting tweaks (there's also lighting adjustments for CAS that I love to use)

And that pretty much wraps up my segment on graphics! Now, don't feel compelled to use all of these if your computer can't handle it. While these tweaks are nice, they don't make or break the game. Use what works and don't mind what doesn't!

Essential Mods🔧

I'll be the first to admit that without mods this game can be a bit- or a lot- dry. Depending on what kind of gameplay style you prefer, you may not need or want certain mods but I think there are some core mods that EVERY simmer can make use of.

@deaderpoolmc's MCCommand Center is a must-have. I personally use it most often to add relationships between sims for storybuilding, changing how long certain actions like doing homework takes, and changing my Game Time Speed to make my days last longer (more on this later)

Weerbesu's UI Cheats for quick adjustments to household funds, motives, and more.

@twistedmexi's EVERYTHING, but if I had to narrow it down T.O.O.L Mod, Better Build Buy, and All Cheats are the ones I get the most mileage out of.

TurboDriver's Wonderful Whims. In addition to all the features you might be familiar with, you can also use it for posing and animations. It has a positioner as well that makes placing sims so easy!

@bienchien's Whim Overhaul to make what your sims want to do more sensible based on their personality, aspiration, and environment.

For mods that add more gameplay, try out these: Basemental Drugs to add effects from consuming substances @utopya-cc's Passionate Gifts for more romantic interactions @zerbu's Turbo Careers to make more active careers Lot-51's Collection of Mods for various tweaks and features including functional hotels, internet service, and rentable movies.

There's plenty more mods, too many to list in this post but at the end of the day, enjoying your gameplay involves you!

Gameplay Ideas 💭

I love longer gameplay, that was my favorite thing about The Sims 3. But I often felt like managing a longer gameplay in The Sims 4 didn't feel as rewarding. It can be easy to feel like your save has become stagnant, especially if you're only playing with one sim in a household. And I realized why this happens. The Sims 4 has a lot of features, more than I thought, and they're overly available. Right off the bat, I can take my sim anywhere, to any world and do almost anything. And somehow, that makes it feel less impactful. I don't like following structured challenges or scenarios, so this is what I do to make get myself more invested in my sims and their lives.

Create Your Sims Intentionally What does this mean? Create your sims with room to grow the longer you play! Maybe you want a sim to become a famous actor, but they're socially awkward. Now not only do they need to gain fame, but now they're also working to overcome their awkwardness and develop more charisma. Give your sims room to grow, to adjust. Let them have negative traits or dislike things that they might be naturally better at so they have to work harder at what they do like. Another tip: when making your sim in CAS, choose their aspiration based on what bonus trait you'd like them to have then change their aspiration in game. This way, you get an extra trait that may add more to your sim's character.

Give Your Sims a Context to Exist In Because they didn't just fall out of a coconut tree, give your sims other sims to bounce off of. Maybe they have a strained relationship with their parents so they avoid them all the time. Or they had a falling out with an old friend so when they run into each other, it gets super awkward and makes them tense or uncomfortable. Using MCCC or other cheats to give your sims a little more of a backstory when you start playing makes them feel more real as you go forward.

Lengthen Your Game Time Speed When I realized I could do this, it changed everything! Sims take a long time to do pretty much everything. So days and days pass and it feels like you aren't really getting much done. Using MCCC, I changed my Game Time Speed to "30" and that lets me actually stop and think about what I want to get done throughout the day instead of solely focusing on filling their needs. For example, my sims can actually have a full morning routine like going for a walk, making breakfast, and showering before going to work. Having more time in the day lets you focus on all the smaller details and lets you notice that there's actually a lot you can do.

Make or Place Multi-Use Lots and Use T.O.O.L. Mod If you own a decent amount of packs, having multi-use lots is a must to get a lot of bang for your buck. For example, country clubs, movie theaters, restaurants, etc. are going to add to what your sim is able to do. Look at CC made by Cepzid for more functional objects to add variety to what you can do. Also, if you use T.O.O.L. you can place any object in the world to add more activities and make your surroundings feel less like set dressing.

Limit the Worlds You Play In If your sim can go anywhere, at any time, then what is the point of going anywhere at all? I like to limit the worlds that I can visit by using "travel" to around 3 or 4 depending on region. That way, when my sims go to worlds outside of the region, it's more exciting because I'm not constantly seeing it. For example, my current family The Fords live in Brindleton Bay. I'm American so I think of Brindleton Bay as being The Hamptons, which is North East Coast. So I think, what other worlds would be reasonably close and easy to visit? I assign regions like this: - North East: Brindleton Bay, San Myshuno, Newcrest, Britechester - The South: Willow Creek, Magnolia Promenade, Forgotten Hollow - Northwest: Evergreen Harbor, Copperdale, San Sequoia - Southwest: Del Sol Valley, Oasis Springs, Strangerville -Europe: Tartosa, Windenburg, Henford-on-Bagley - Central America: Selvadorada, Ciudad Enamorada - Pacific Islands & Asia: Sulani, Mount Komorebi, Tomarang Playing with these regions in mind, it adds a challenge to my gameplay. If there's a world I want to visit, I need to set aside time in my sims schedule to actually visit it (such as requesting vacation time). Also this allows me to have long-distance relationships which can add to slow burn dynamics! Case in point, Darcy and Lopez or Caleb and Natty.

6. Let Your Sims Have Their Autonomy Back Okay, I'm guilty of micromanaging. But sometimes, it's okay to sit back and let your sims try different things. Obviously, the autonomy isn't always super logical so definitely nudge your sims in the right direction but a lot of the enjoyment of the game for me, especially when playing with families, is to leave them to their own devices. With The Fords, I primarily focus on Natty which leads to a lot of hilarious moments that wouldn't have happened if I was stressing over everyone acting perfect. For example, when Caleb came to the Ford house I had Natty make them iced tea to drink on the porch and while she was inside, Alan (her dad) came out on his own and started talking to Caleb which didn't go that well. Let your sims do what they want sometimes!

7. Most importantly, find what YOU like to do! Comparison is the thief of joy, that's totally true. What one simmer likes to do, you might hate. For me, decorating is like pulling teeth. I'll do it every once in a while, but I mostly find builds from other amazing builders. I also don't really care much for challenges and like to create stories with my sims. The point is, we all have our thing. But it's important to experiment and find what your thing is. I happen to really like the actor career, which a lot of people don't find enjoyable. So don't let others opinions impact what you have fun with. Of course, if my advice works for you then I'm happy but if not, there's no love lost. Do what makes you happy!

Well, that's all I've got. I can definitely make some follow-up posts if my tips change or I discover something new. But for now, I hope this post helps or gives you some ideas!

[front-facing-pokemon]

gmax sandaconda is the DEFINITION of snootirific. i'm not the nose rater but i have to say gmax sandaconda might have the best snoot in the whole franchise

i saw someone in the tags of one of the posts where i used the word "snootiferous" say that they added that word to their vocabulary. as though it was a word i didn't make up. i totally did make it up and now i keep saying it, specifically in posts on this blog. i have not said it anywhere in my real life but if i can make other folks say it then i think that's the ultimate funny

not getting their models, but rendering the eyes properly. there are two competing and likely theories for why the eyes are so fucked up in gen 9: number one being that the eyes are rendered dynamically in-game as shaders instead of as flat textures like they typically were in past pokémon games so that pokémon can look around, have reflections in their eyes, have more dynamic eyes, et cetera, which means they're much more difficult to render authentically for quick silly tumblr screenshots; and number two being that game freak renders them dynamically as a "security measure" to keep folks online from ripping the models as easily to use them for… whatever they want. such as blogs like this, which are of course extremely harmful to the pokémon company's bottom line and destroying their business et cetera et cetera (sarcasm). either way, the eyes are fucked up, and i either have to find a way to recreate the eye textures from what i am given in the texture files, or i have to find a way to recreate the eyes to the best of my ability using shaders in something like… blender, which is what i've been using for more recent models since gen 7. that puts more work on me for every individual model, and isn't exactly easy for models that i have to rip and convert myself when there are dozens of nodes in the shading panel that i don't know what to do with. for example, here's what quaxly (famously, a pokémon with pupils that can look around, as it appears in a whole cutscene in-game) looks like out-of-the-box when i convert it myself from the model format used in-game:

if you can't tell what's wrong, here's what it's Supposed to look like:

notice the white pupils? those aren't rendered properly in blender, notably because no texture exists for them. no texture even exists for anything you see in the eyes there, but it's all somehow magically appeared in the shading section, by magic. and i am not that kind of wizard

this means very little to me. i just played around with some of the nodes by looking at the strangely-colored textures that were given to me with the .trmdl conversion, and i managed to get something close enough:

but they kinda look like they're looking in two different directions (possibly fine? we'll have to see how they look front-facing) and the colors are slightly off (can anyone tell but me? possibly not); not to mention it likely won't be this easy with every pokémon. pokémon whose eyes are much more complex or have colors i can't easily match, for example, or pokémon for whom multiple parts of their eyes are missing… not to mention i don't necessarily have the time or willpower to be spending hours tinkering with these models every morning to make sure the eyes look right. ideally i can take what i've learned from fucking with quaxly right now to hopefully move forward a bit smoother, and eventually i'll refine a process. but until then, this is what worries me

right, but it's also less funny. the initial concept for this blog, inspired by pokémon like snivy, is that some pokémon look really funny when they're up in your face staring at you. it's a concept everyone loves. but if they're facing away from you, there's considerably less to work with there. they're all Kinda just gonna look the same. they lose a lot of that personality. i suppose i'll consider it if i ever run Really low on options, though

nah. i don't do visual art anymore. that time has passed—now if i do it, it's usually a one-off thing and i never want to look at what i've created again afterward

[cerealmonster15]

not 2 be dramatic but also it is my blog where i can ramble about what im feeling whenever i WANT!!! anyway i like. feel like something is fundamentally missing from my entire being or w/e lol. like. i mean there's a very high chance i have adhd which does explain a looooooooot of The Way That I Am and my struggle at doing and focusing on stuff and things and my rapid rotating around short interests in things. but like i also feel like [and maybe this is part of adhd idfk, i havent been Officially Diagnosed just a lot of therapists and friends with adhd all tell me i probs do lol] i just dont feel motivated to do things. and ive been this way i think a lot of my life. i realized a looooong time ago that i was not so motivated by passion but by fear!!!!! fear of failure or whatever!!!

fuckin adding a readmore bc i ended up talking forever lmao

like in school. i got good grades but i never really felt smart exactly. i was able to work really hard and spend a lot of time doing homework and whatever because i feared the consequence of failure. i didnt wanna get bad grades [not even from like a threat from home or anything, i just was afraid of the system lol like i didnt wanna fail and then snowball into ruining everything for my future or w/e. like i've always been kinda 0 to 100 in things like that lolol]

but like i remember going into college like "well i am interested in physics and compsci so i guess ill declare double major til i decide which one id rather do" but i didnt really have a clear goal. physics i dropped first because as much as i like the concept, the classes were still hard and i didnt have any idea of what i'd do with it if i did pursue it. comp sci i at least was like "well i like video games i could do something with that probably" but then i nearly flunked and dropped the class lol. my fault for skipping an intro class bc i was like "Well i learned a lot of the basics in high school" bitch u did not retain any of those basics. anyway i ended up swapping to digital arts under that same "well i like shows and games maybe i can do something with that" and that did ultimately lead me to grad school for game dev and learning what tech art is and all that. and i was employed as one for a lil while!

but then i got let go. and in the midst of a really Hard Time to be unemployd for gamedev bc of the mass layoffs ALSO happening over and over and over and over, so despite the fact that i have some industry experience, i have a significantly harder time even getting interviewed. but a lot of it is my portfolio - unfortunately the nature of the jobs i had didnt really net me much in the way of tangible portfolio work, and a quality / updated portfolio really is what matters in this field

and thats where i hit my problem. i really am not self motivated or like, creative. i dont really have ideas. a lot of my portfolio was school assignments <- stuff i had to do. stuff people told me to do. even now, i sometimes do vfx to help my partner with his solo game hes been making for years, and thats my main portfolio addition source because i need someone to tell me what they want. and then i also struggle to see the vision of that sometimes like ive been SO STUCK on a specific effect im making for the game bc im not understanding the vision and also im not really around other tech artists or vfx artists much anymore. not like in grad school lol. even at my prev job i was the main vfx person so i was kind of on my own floundering around to figure stuff out- and a lot of times i couldnt. there was no senior to guide me if i got stuck.

so when i'm just alone in a vacuum with nothing forcing me to do things i just dont. i LIKE vfx and shaders and even python, but if i dont have a thing where i have to follow specific tasks i just cant think of anything interesting or unique to do myself. even a lot of the python ive learned recently was from a udemy course, which helped a lot bc it was structured with little assignments, explanations i understood in small bursts, and specific projects with specific goals. one of those i did kinda expand on based on what i learned to make a portfolio thing, sort of. it's out of place on my artstation bc it's not really gamedev related at all but its python and it's SOMETHING. python is a tech art skill at least. i can replace it sometime if i have more relevant things but i just dont right now. i dont know what to make. i have no tool ideas, or even if i have a vague idea i just go "i dont really know how id do that" and dont feel motivated enough to figure things out or to make that vague idea even somewhat interesting. vfx i just go "i dont know how to make this look more interesting" and get stuck at unimpressive points if anything. i dont have the designer or passion part of the brain that i kinda need to survive this and it scares me. i like the structure and stability of being employed because someone tells me what they need. i dont know what i'm supposed to do on my own but im supposed to figure it out otherwise my portfolio stays stagnant forever!!!

so many times people will like. have a side project. they learn from those projects. they have a vision they want to see completed and they pick up skills for that thing. my partner is a big example with his game hes making - he could already program but hes learned a lot of the art needed to make it work, because he wanted to see the game made. people have like their comics or animations or games or whatever they do, hobbies, anything that they feel passionate about and i feel like i just lack that passion. scared that i like the idea of doing things more than doing them even if i do enjoy doing the things when i do them, but not enough to like, get myself motivated to lol. if that even makes sense.

like idk. i at least have martial arts - i did aikido in college and i do capoeira now- but it's stuff i can only do bc i have a regular group i pay and go participate in with other people. once i dont have those group settings i dont do it on my own.

ive tried to get myself to learn musical instruments so many times but once i stopped taking lessons for sax or piano bc i got busy with school, i mostly just dropped them. i cant motivate myself enough to practice on my own even tho i did learn enough fundamentals that i probably COULD if i just. cared enough i guess. i always had in the back of my mind that it would be cool, IN THEORY, to draw comics or make a dating sim/visual novel of any flavor, a virtual pet, a farm sim, whatever. but i dont actually have the vision for it. i dont have a story to tell. i'm not motivated enough. ive looked up several times ways i might be able to use python to make a lil tamagotchi project to practice but i just never do!!! maybe i know enough python from the udemy now that i could but would i?? idk!!!

people always say you learn best by just jumping into it. find something fun you want to make or do and then learn as you go. but i dont have passion. im in a vacuum. even with my fics, i still like writing my fics!!! but i slowed down so much on those. because before, i was writing them to share between my friend and me when we were first getting into twst and based off a lot of inside jokes and ideas bouncing off of each other lol. fics, aus, doodles, whatever. and we still talk twst but she isnt caught up to main story anymore and it's not as much of a thing we talk as often or deeply about. i think my doodles got a lot more boring as a result and ive had less ideas. but i do still love the characters so so so so much and i do have fics i want to write... but it slowed down and i dont WANT it to slow down. i get excited over characters and games, and it doesnt really help me in terms of trying to fuckin Get A Job or Learn A Skill or whatever but. like at least it's something. i feel like my doodles got more bland too like i just kinda redoodle the same stiff generic things over and over and over again forever

there are so many things i can just do a little bit of but not enough to be like. impressive. or hireable. or helpful or smart or knowledable or whatever. like i can crochet a little bit. i can sew a LITTLE bit to get some simpler cosplays but nothing fancy. im not motivated enough to push those further to like "make my own clothes" or a more ambitious cosplay even tho i like the base level stuff. i can program a LITTLE in python but cant motivate myself to figure out what to do with it. i used to know a little hlsl and i know some node based shader stuff but not enough to be super deep with it. like more than a non tech artist i guess but not enough to make things that really look all that good 😑 i used to do tech theater in high school, but only really knew the basics of the woodworking and lightbooth stuff, not enough/not kept up with where i could do anything with that now even though i enjoyed it then. i was in chorus in school for like five years in middle/high school and i took some basic piano and saxophone lessons but every time i try to go back to something like that im dusting off the cobwebs. i also have always had huge anxiety so i coudnt ever have considered a performance thing with it anyway. whenever i was in school chorus production musical things i was only in ensemble parts or at the very least singing with a small group of other people because i never had the ambition or desire or bravery to try and stand out lol. i liked being backstage. i started learning to rollerskate but i only ever really got to a point where i could move around without falling over and then as soon as i started capoeira i never touched the skates again. even though it was fun! i studied spanish for years and used to practice with my father but i barely ever do now, even thought i knew enough to go to spain on a school trip we still were in an english comfortable environment and i really could just fumble my way through simple conversations in spanish. i dont keep up with it enough to like, be able to smoothly translate more casual dialogue or whatever and as much as id really love to practice that more, i once again dont have the motivation or drive or even ideas for it. i have a few times thought learning portuguese for capoeira or japanese for just generic enjoyment of japanese games and anime and stuff would be cool but i do. not. stick. with. it.

i do notice lately that the other thing. next to the fear of failure motivation. it is the community thing. i do capoeira not out of fear but because there are other people i go and do it with. i pay for the classes, i enjoy the classes, i do the classes with other people. when i was in school i had other classmates doing the same things with me. when i was in tech theater or chorus clubs i had clubmates. music instrument classes i had the instructor / it was something my mother was paying for me to do / the instructor would give me homework to practice and i had to be able to report to that person the next week so i would have the incentive to do it [another failure thing i guess but still lol]. cosplay i do alone as i make it but then i see other people at cons. i hadnt done new ones in a long time tho because i wasnt going to cons, and the only one i made recently i also had the motivation and deadline of a con coming up that a friend and i were going to go to together and our cosplays connected. theres community. but right now i have no job to worry about failing at, and no coworkers to bounce ideas off of. personal projects are in such a vaccuum i just dont have the motivation or self discipline. even the udemy python thing, some lessons are more interesting than others, and it's general python stuff so rn the recent stuff is like, good dev stuff but not gamedev stuff; but i have learned enough where i probs could take it and run but i dont know how or why or what to do with it!!!

i dont know if im even making a point here i think ive just had these thoughts swirling around my mind and overwhelming me for. well kind of forever LOL

[apostaterevolutionary]

What are you computer specs? Mine is not the newest or the most powerful, I haven't started playing DAV yet but I'm not it'll run properly

So my computer is pretty old too (I think I bought it in 2019? Maybe even 2018?) and it's a laptop, so it's geriatric by computer standards lmao. But it was very good at the time I bought it, so it's hard to say what the case may be for you. I do think it's very likely that any remotely capable computer can run this if mine can, but I don't want to give guarantees and be wrong of course. Either way, I've listed my specs below. I have an ASUS Zephyrus M GM501

OS: still on windows 10 Processor: Intel Core i7-8750 (note that the can I run it website told me this processor wouldn't be able to pull it off, but it has basically the exact same performance as the i5-8400 listed in the minimum requirements so I figured I'd give it as try and it works fine 17 hours in) Memory: 16 GB RAM Graphics: NVIDIA GTX 1070

The game even runs on medium graphics instead of low and the only somewhat issue I've had is occasionally the sound will get a bit distorted (unclear if this is actually an old computer issue, a regular bug, or has something to do with me using an external sound input/output manager device - it's not frequent enough to be a huge issue). It does recommend an SSD, which I have, so while it says it supports HDD too, I can't speak to any differences there

The only thing I found that was actually kind of annoying is on the very first boot, it has to compile shaders and for some people, this only takes a few minutes. For others, including me, this can be in the range of 30-60+ minutes. After it does this, it won't do it again, at least presuming nothing changes, and every subsequent launch will only take a few minutes while it verifies the shaders instead. So it's just the first time that sucks and while I don't know for sure if the time is correlated to older pcs or not, I wouldn't be surprised if it is. So be prepared for that

Also, if you're not sure, steam will give you only a 2 hour test run before you can't get a refund anymore (kind of an issue if you're affected by the above point), but if you buy it from EA, I heard they have a significantly more forgiving refund policy? So you could get it, see if it'll run, and then get a refund if it won't. If you have a free way to access it, such as via a steam family share or something else, you could also try that to see if it'll run before buying (I did this with jedi survivor a few months ago lmao)

[akfelpsrecaps]

Recap for Vod 14 — O Cabeção de 1000 de Vida

half of this vod was wandering around Valigma and talking about upgrading his items, while the other half was going through the dungeon to find denix \o/! (well… other stuff happened between and around all that, but this is the bigger stuff—see below for more information!)

a little note that none of the quotes are verbatim transcripts or translations but are instead meant to convey the vibe of what was said as accurately as I could do quickly

reblogs appreciated \o/

-Felps has a shader working and either that or some other settings has made it so the horns’ sparkles keep getting in his face. He switches them out for the cat ears again before switching those out for the flower \o/

-he doesn’t spend much time in the base today and heads straight to valigma

-he uses the mirror to teleport back to his bed because he wants to try upgrading the mirror. then goes back to Valigma

-talks about the different items he has + some of their upgrades for a bit

-stops to fill in a creeper hole a little, then continues running around Valigma and talking about the items 

-Felps decides to go to the modded abandoned mineshaft he was at a few vods ago. he also confirms that he won’t go to the cube without Meiaum 

-he runs into a “bubble entity” which looks like some kind of flying fish that keeps putting him in a bubble (the bubble just lifts him up for a bit before popping. with the bunny slippers he doesn’t take fall damage, but it doesn’t go that high anyway)

-he looks at an enderman and runs, but the bubbly entity is still bubbling him while the enderman attacks him

-he doesn’t have a sword. It broke sometime last time he was streaming on arkanis and he never replaced it (his armour is also nearly broken)

-he managed to get away from the bubble entity but the enderman is still chasing him and there are other monsters

-He tries to use the mirror to escape back to his base but the teleport keeps resetting when he takes damage

-he does manage to get away enough to use it though \o/ with two and a half hearts to spare pfft

-he looks at backpack upgrades. he can’t make any yet, but it seems like he wants the crafting upgrade + maybe the automatic feeding upgrade

-he smelts some more of his iron so he can make some armour

-he puts down one of the skeletons he got from the graveyard at the cube and it makes an ominous sound

-he keeps picking it up and putting it back down. He’s keeping it in his hats backpack in case he needs to play a dramatic sound effect

-makes himself a new set of iron armour + makes a diamond sword (he took a look at the other types of weapons you could make with the mods but prefers the classic sword) as well as an iron pickaxe

-him and guaxi talk via walkie talkie a little \o/ (even though he starts the conversation guaxi still scares him a little when he responds pfft)

-guaxi says he’s at “Felps’ stone” and Felps teleports back to base thinking it’s a code name for that pfft

-Felps tells him to refer to it as cubão and heads there to meet guaxi

-as he’s walking there he tells guaxi he’s arrived. he keeps trying to argue that he is there and guaxi is calling him a liar pfft

-Felps admits he isn’t there. Then a few seconds later says he’s arrived (he still hasn’t)

-once again “now I’ve arrived! Hi”-Felps, who still hasn’t arrived

-when Felps says again he’s arrived even though he technically hasn’t yet Guaxi starts robbing their chests pfft

-Felps is climbing up to the cube now

-guaxi puts back the stuff he stole and Felps arrives on top of the cube for real now

-Felps shows guaxi around the various rooms of the cube. they watch meiaum’s livestream for a moment but Felps tells guaxi to stop because there’s spoilers since he isn’t with them pfft

-Felps continues showing him around

-Felps tells guaxi the theory that the rooms here weren’t originally inside the cube and were teleported in somehow

-guaxi says he’s staying at Choke’s house now since he got expelled from the city and that they’re friends now \o/

-Felps takes guaxi up to the platform above the cube and tells him about the book that says someone entered the factory. Guaxi, who has entered the factory, starts laughing

-he reads the book out to guaxi properly 

-Felps goes afk for a bit. guaxi leaves pretty much straight away

-he contacts guaxi via walkie talkie and guaxi tells him he’s in the city. He leaves the cube 

-Felps asks what his name is and he tells Felps it’s “Cleopatra” (from what I can tell. Not sure if there’s a different spelling)

-Felps runs into Guh \o/ Guh shows him around his house! when they get to the bedroom Guh tells Felps he can lie down on the bed next to him if he wants and after a bit of hesitation he does

-Felps suggests he should hold an event here and Guh says he’ll plan something and make sure to send Felps an invitation \o/

-as soon as Felps leaves he asks guaxi if he’s okay via walkie talkie

-guaxi responds but is also clearly speaking to Felps while in the middle of a sentence he was already saying. Either because he was trying to respond without the person he’s talking to knowing or on accident

-Felps meets guaxi, Alice and cleber at the front of town hall. Guaxi doesn’t have his mask on, but does have an eyepatch on (apparently he has a bee trapped in there)

-guaxi asks if they take their masks off to sleep but they don’t answer

-Felps asks them to describe their faces perfectly so he can see it in his mind. Cleber’s response to this is :>

-Felps asks if they can paint over/customise the masks and Choke teleports in—quickly followed by Gabe and bagi and Wuant 

-the players all walk away from Alice and Cleber

-“in a nutshell: things are happening”-Bagi

-they’re going to go fish? Which could be a code word for something else pfft

-Felps mentions that they should go get Guh

-gabe has a book with coordinates + a short message that he throws to Felps. (54:30-ish to read the text)

-bagi says she heard someone saw bia and asks who. Wuant says it was him and Choke

-Felps tries to pass on the information that quel can understand what bia says

-bagi tells them that Jota and Bia used to be friends, then Bia was accused of witchcraft 

-Felps advises bagi to talk with quel about bia

-bagi says the guy from the factory must be trying to use this witchcraft too but in a different way

-wuant says it’s probably not the factory owner because he welcomed wuant very nicely

“he told me to leave the factory”-Guaxi “I think it’s because you didn’t speak well to him”-Wuant

-bagi asks what’s in the factory. wuant says all he’s seen is Mr. Arnaldo’s room

-(Felps puts a jar of jam on the ground)

-Arnaldo told wuant that the factory is for cars and that they only manufacture engines

-wuant has a lot of faith that Arnaldo is good, while the others aren’t too sure. Choke says she wants to meet him to see and Wuant says he’ll try and talk to Arnaldo to make it happen

-the others notice the jar of jam

-Guaxinim breaks it “it’s mine now” but gives it back to Felps immediately. Felps places it back where it was

-i think they’re heading to the coordinates. guaxi and Felps race a little

-“we left everyone behind”-Guaxi

-they stop so everyone else can catch up pfft

-they find a little clearing of mud with a chest in the middle. Felps waits before walking onto the mud but guaxi doesn’t. nothing happens though, but a creeper does show up

-I think someone opens the chest? a loud sound happens and it starts flicking between night and day

-and yes the mud does drop out from underneath them pfft. they fall a long way, but it’s into water (bagi hits a block on the side though and gets downed. They manage to pick her up)

-there’s a waystone and what looks like a modded abandoned mineshaft

-i think they’ve been dropped into a dungeon of some kind. Corrupted pillagers start spawning

-Felps is breaking a lot of the spawners and getting spirit orbs \o/

-choke falls into lava and Felps tries + manages to help her (after a lot of scrambling)

-below the mineshaft is a crypt of sorts I believe? still part of the dungeon. Felps loots a little, mostly grabbing iron + a hat bag that gave him a monocle

-Felps has to go afk for a bit

-the others must do something during this because a little cutscene of a green ghost (denix I believe?) plays (Felps is still not back for this pfft)

-Felps meets up with the others easy enough. the ghost is there!! He’s following Gabe around

-Felps is invisible now due to the low light of the cave + his cloak

-they found a pillager in an “arkanya field”—which acts as a forcefield but may have other stuff going on with it? They leave it alone because guaxi is calling for help somewhere else

-the thing he’s fighting is a giant warped fly. He’s downed when they arrive and Felps picks him back up

-Felps “dies” but his totem ability activates and teleports him elsewhere close by instead of him actually dying 

-the fly is killed but I think bagi is saying there’s still two left?

-Felps goes back to see the arkanya field. the pillager in there died presumably from touching the field too much…? It hurts Felps a little everytime he gets too close

-Felps instead leaves to loot a bit more. A head on a very very very long neck attacks him?

-he calls on the walkie talkie for people to come up and see but it’s still chasing him so he starts running down the stairs to where the others are pfft

-this thing is a “murmur” and has 1024 hearts of health (what the vod is named after)

-they kill it \o/ 

-I think Meiaum contacts them via walkie talkie? Very briefly

-It seems like they needed to kill these things to open the arkanya field—As Denix leads them back over to it and the field is gone. there’s a glowy purple chest there. Guaxi opens it and gets a sword I think

-denix via signs tells gabe the sword is for him (guaxi throws it to him but i think someone else magnets it oops)

-Felps opens another hat bag and gets a crown \o/

-there’s a hole where the chest was and they all jump down it

-i think there was a scroll in the chest that has been given to gabe now

-they are struggling to figure out what he has to do oops

-gabe I think places down a waystone so they can all get back to the city hall

-okay never mind. They go to the entrance of the place

-a brief talk, and then they climb up some water to get to the top again. while felps is trying to look in the chest guaxi hits him off pfft (he doesn’t fall far luckily)

-it turns night unnaturally

-felps briefly stops to eat irl while the others walk away. Except bagi who stays with him and says: “be careful with the dangers of the night. Felps? Be careful. it’s very dangerous” 

-they’re all following Denix who is taking them further away from Valigma

-despite how far away they are from Valigma they run into Gomez?

-Felps notices there’s a little place nearby and goes to check it out while the others talk with Gomez. Guaxi goes with him

-they don’t really find anything interesting and go back to the others

-small chat with Gomez then he leaves. Denix is missing during this entire interaction I think, but they find him easy enough after

-he continues leading them somewhere

-they find a little village of sorts and felps takes their iron + bread pfft

-denix takes them to a place similar to where felps + the other people on the boat had to go to before getting to Valigma

-now denix will explain \o/ (1:37:27) basically he says it’s a ritual 

-felps sends the location to Meiaum and tells him to come there. also tries to contact him via walkie talkie

-there’s some kind of little puzzle with books here. It’s a bit hard to describe especially because felps is mostly taking the opportunity to eat pfft. If you want to look at the details go to 1:38:00

-when denix says he chooses gabe Felps says goodbye to him pfft. “It was great to meet you”-F

-denix is getting gabe to use Arkanya I believe?

-felps says goodbye to him again pfft

-it works \o/ they’re put into a cutscene. it just says something in a different alphabet i believe? It looks like it’s made up of faces for about half of the letters

-gabe can use the ability again and summons the cutscene again

-bagi suggests it’s the language no one can understand, and that bira said bia kept speaking in other unknown languages

-according to denix the pact is complete

-denix says they have a connection and choke I believe says gabe’s become a father? Felps congratulates him. Denix calls him pai 

-while the others are talking with Denix guaxi points out there’s water on the ground. felps does a running emote on it, then they go back to paying attention to the conversation 

-felps gets a text from Meiaum saying he’s coming

-I think denix says Gabe can connect three other people to the connection? So get 3 other parents for Denix basically lol

-while they’re talking about all that felps realises guaxi and bagi have left the group and follows after them

-guaxi tells bagi about how he was kicked from the city

-bagi reacts to this information like she has experienced the same thing guaxi did or heard of someone else experiencing it

-Felps is the only one crouched during this conversation 

-felps asks if bagi knows about guaxi going back to the other island and then says that the spirit who spoke to him said they shouldn’t go back there/he shouldn’t leave Guaxinim there

-choke and Wuant show up at the end of the conversation and because Felps’ last word was “lá” he pretends he was singing pfft

-they all start walking away leaving gabe and denix by themselves

-felps asks them to wait because he told meiaum to come here pfft

-Felps goes to look at a nearby village \o/ and releases a spider from a spider egg pfft. bagi goes with him \o/ they loot some chests

-guaxi and wuant show up \o/

-Felps places pancakes he found in a chest on the floor then destroys them and they disappear oops… (cake physics I suppose)

-felps finds soap in a chest and then asks where Guaxi is + calls him dirty pfft

-he finds guaxi and eats the bar of soap in front of him 

“disgusting”-G “It’s delicious!”-F

-they lose each other briefly in their looting then meet up again. I think Felps walks in on guaxi saying his name and tells him to stop (which he does not do pfft)

-felps accidentally sleeps in one of the village beds and resets his spawn

-Felps finds a hunter’s belt (same mod at the cloak + mirror) and puts it on! one of it’s abilities is giving him another slot to carry wearables. unfortunately he needs a pet to use it’s other abilities

-felps goes up the tower and messes with the windmill a little before destroying it when guaxi gets there. they both leave quickly

-he opens up his phone to a message from meiaum—something about a camera?—and resends his location

-this vod continues in the next one \o/