#and I’ve no shaders either

[nexahexagon]

Made these for a TikTok, so if you recognize me there (or here) then hi! I doubt it but, hi!

Made because I’m the only one of my friends that didn’t have that “2 week mc phase”, and I’m the only one playing on the realm anymore (there is one other friend that has played recently, and she’s got a lot of progress done :] her sheep farm looks neat!)

It’s a little sad cuz they built an entire town with the furniture add-on and it looks amazing, but they haven’t played in ages so I’m just kinda wandering the little town or farming the crops by myself

[jeffgerstmann]

Hi Jeff, you’ve made your feelings on CRT filters in general clear, but I’d be interested to hear what you think of some of the Retroarch shaders like the mega bezel packs by Cyberlab. By and large I agree with you and never use CRT filters in commercial products because they look awful and are dumb conceptually, doubly so for myself because I work for a vintage tech museum and see games running on CRTs every day. But crt-royale, in particular, looks so amazing that it’s become the first thing I’ve found that I prefer to unprocessed pixels. It doesn’t look like shitty fake scanlines, it looks indistinguishable from a real CRT (to the extent that you can actually see the individual RGB pixels if you’re up close), and more importantly it doesn’t feel like it’s occluding the screen or taking anything away from the pixels, only adding a bit of shape and more complex shading to games that enhance the look immensely to me.

Of course I’m not looking to convert you or act like you’re dumb for rawdogging your pixels or anything, just to let you know that there’s now an option there that was impressive to someone who otherwise agrees with you completely on the subject!

I think the only thing I've tried that's managed to sell me on the idea of fake scanlines is the RetroTink-4K, which is very capable in a ton of really fascinating ways. Once you start mixing in VRR and OLED screens and all that, it starts to get interesting. Still not exactly enthusiastic about them, but I'll usually use them via the RT4K with the MiSTer, since it has very handy presets.

CRT Royale looks fine, it's been around for awhile now.

Either way, fake scanlines tend to look like shit when you're streaming it out, so I don't really devote much time to them.

[toastandjamie]

So like, since I’m doing my re-read, I’ve reached The Great Hunt and it’s got me thinking about that of the three Ta’veren boys, Mat is the only one who doesn’t get a pov in the first two books. His first pov is book three and while he definitely makes up for lost time I’ve been thinking about it.

So, when I first read Eye of The World and The Great Hunt and joked with my dad about how Mat was virtually a ‘damsel in distress’ for Rand in the first two books. And while it’s Funny I think the actual reasons I got that vibe is the lack of agency.

So Mat gets daggered very early on in the first book and throughout the Camlyn Road-trip Mat’s main purpose is to be something Rand can worry over or be frustrated by. In writing a character Pov is a major way of establishing agency since it turns the character into an active participant in the story and while it’s not the only way to do this as seen by characters like Morraine and Lan who don’t have povs in the first book either but are still active characters. This becomes especially apparent in book 2 where the major motivation for the boys to even go on the hunt for the horn was to get the dagger back for Mat, so much so that it’s readily established that Rand wouldn’t have gone on the hunt point blank if it wasn’t for Mat and the dagger; yet Mat still has no pov in this book despite being the one primarily affected by losing the dagger. Mat is more or less used as a plot hook in the first two books to force Rand into situations he otherwise would not be in. Such as what happened at Four Kings where Rand repeatedly wants to leave and suggests doing so but Mat insists on staying so they don’t have to sleep in the rain or in the case of the hunt, causes Rand to participate in the hunt with a life or death ticking clock. We don’t get any incite beyond Perrin and Rand noting Mat’s physically declining health, growing paler, losing weight and looking sickly as the book goes on. Mat of course doesn’t ever acknowledge it in dialogue because it’s Mat so we as an audience never get any incite into how Mat feels about the fact that he’s quite literally dying since we don’t have the benefit of his internal monologue.

Compare this to a the time where they subverted the ‘damsel in distress’ trope. with Egwene, there are three major plot lines in which she’s captured and we have povs for all three and in each of those events she still has agency. Even in the damane arc where she is quite literally stripped of her agency she still feels like an active character because we see her trying to defy the Seanchen, she’s not simply a plot device needing to be rescued she’s a character experiencing trauma. Even when Rand was put in the box he continues to evolve as a character and so did Faile during her time with the Shaido. All three had povs, all three were still actively participating in their situation, we knew exactly how they felt about the horrible things happening to them and see them deal with them in ways that show their characterization and growth.

Mat receives none of that. Not until the third book at least when he’s finally freed from the dagger.

So what’s up with that? Well, it’s possibly intentional. Okay so, the dagger of Shader Logoth and it’s Evil overwrites or at least tries to overwrite the person it’s possessing, that’s it’s curse, you become one with the dagger and one with Shadar Logoth. So up until the point Mat is fully healed from the dagger he is not really himself. Even after Morraine partially heals him, calming him down and keeping it from getting worse he’s still not fully Himself, as evidence by his memory loss. Partly it’s repression, but it was also the dagger overwriting his pre-exiting memories, his personality, everything that made him him. In the simplest of terms, Mat quite literally Wasn’t really his own character until book three, in many ways he WAS the dagger. An object with no personal agency but a catalyst for other characters.

[yakumtsaki]

Welcome back, beloved readers! Things have finally calmed down for me so it’s time to inflict this update on the world. When we last left off, BATSHIT FELINA SMASHED VICTORIA’S URN

-WHY IS IT NOT BROKEN?!?

Because it turned out there’s a cheat to repair urns, HA. In your face!

-I BROKE THAT THING FAIR AND SQUARE

Felina seriously, GO TO HELL. I freaked out thinking I’d have to either quit without saving (hadn’t saved since before SUGAR DIED) or I’d have to deal with Victoria’s missing character file. You’re not allowed anywhere near the mausoleum again! 

-THAT’S FINE, I’LL JUST TRAP MYSELF IN THIS WALL UNTIL I DIE AND THEN YOU’LL BE SORRY

Bruh. I’ve had enough of this house, between the walls of death..

..the eternal yard fire..

..and the fact everyone is afflicted with a gross cold they keep passing around despite the fact I gave them medicine-

-I, a retired Mayor, was clearly the right choice to make medicine.

Well I thought you might do something useful for once, Shajar, but joke’s on me. Point is, it’s time to gtfo..

..to our new gigantic house! Look at all our crap on the lawn, and yes, I’m referring to the sims. 

I unpaused for 1 second to check something and Barf and Failina (Barflina?) have re-become enemies?? Did you stop being enemies at some point because I completely missed it. 

-We did but new house, new us!

It’s done! I went all out on this house for no discernible reason, let me give you the grand tour:

First floor! Man this house is a nightmare. 

Foyer! 

Luxurious pet room!

Kitchen!

Dining room!

Gambling room Library!

And living room!

Moving on to the second floor, Cyn and Sophie/Shajar’s bedrooms I kept the basically same as in the last house. The unfinished bedroom is Sugar and Sandy’s for reasons that will be explained shortly. 

I really feel I made this house too nice for the Unions but what can you do. 

Felina and Barth’s rooms in their ~signature colors~

And Liz and Sophito’s bedroom which is clearly all Liz.

Finally, on the little rooms on the third floor are the music room that @microscotch​ decorated❤️, and a lame room where we keep all our career rewards!

The mausoleum, which is unchanged other than I moved the pet graves in it and put them under each generation..

..and this is the yard! I kept it pretty much the same except larger-

-and I added a lake! We’re all done, time to unpause and enjoy long, safe lives in our new house..

OMG WTF

-YOU CAN’T ADD A FLAMETHROWER IN THE MIDDLE OF A FOUNTAIN, MORON -EVERYONE KNOWS WATER CATCHES FIRE 

BRO. When I tell you guys the entire family almost perished in a FOUNTAIN FIRE. Incredibly fitting cause of death. Thankfully the firefighter heroically saved us and all is well! Now I can’t wait to play a billion sims and pets on this gigantic cc-filled lot with no further problems whatsoever!

Alright then! I had a feeling it might come to this, Sugar take Sandy and gtfo.

-I will but be warned, our absence won’t solve anything! 

Ya, it sure DIDN’T. GROSS. Finally I turned off shaders and it went away, ok Sug, you and Sandy can move back in..

..and we can begin the ENDLESS task of getting all the skill points you lost to zombiehood back. And once you’re back at the top of your career and Sandy tops hers you are OUTTA HERE, you hear me???

-Ya ya, how many times are you gonna kick me out and move me back in? Admit it already, you LOVE ME. 

Ok ‘love’ is a strong word-

-YOU CAN’T LIVE WITHOUT ME.

LET’S MOVE ON

It’s our first night in the new house and this is how Sophie and Shajar sleep. 

-Close enough for me. -I’d like another wall between us, actually.

#itsover

-Ah, nothing like that first sip of whiskey before school!

Ya Barth, I’m a little concerned about your aspiration bar.

-Ah, nothing like the first four glasses of whiskey after shcool!

Ya ok, we’re calling the matchmaker this weekend.

Jimbo (the puppy we adopted to mate with Veronica, I don’t remember if I introduced him) grows up and he looks ICONIC

The difference between their necks LOL

It’s Sophito’s birthday and Liz’s is in a few days, so it’s time to get started on their death portraits. What a cheerful gift, Cyn! 

Family reunion! Look at everyone all together, getting along..

..even Gunther came but completely ignored the party and went straight for the ballet bar, which legit made me emo, idk if you guys remember during generation 1 how obsessed he and Daniel were with the ballet bar, awww❤️ Alright, back to the party, go on Soph, blow your candles-

OH FFS

-SCREW YOU, FAILINA, IT’S BEYOND TIME TO HAVE OUR FIRST FIGHT IN THE NEW HOUSE  -AGREED, AND I CAN THINK OF NO BETTER MOMENT THAN THE ONE RIGHT BEFORE OUR FATHER BLOWS HIS CANDLES IN FRONT OF OUR ENTIRE FAMILY

Ok are you done?? Is this over?? Let’s try the cake again, Soph-

-Sorry, it’s time for me to finally reconnect with iVan, huhu!💗 -Awww, I’m so happy for you, grandma Cyn!

-DON’T BE TOO HAPPY, FAILINA -FUCKING BRAT, I HAD MY BACK TURNED

OK YOU KNOW WHAT, FORGET IT

HERE, HE’S GROWN UP. HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SOPHITO 

-WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH THIS FAMILY~👻

Ya idk, Victoria, you tell me, it’s your amazing DNA at work. 

-YOU’RE AN EMBARASSMENT, BARTHOLOMEW  -Well that hurts, grandma! 

-Thankfully nothing a drink won’t fix!

Oh my- I’d like to clarify at this point that this goddamn party is still going on-

-when this simultaneous pet and human fight occurs:

It’s Jimbo vs Shinok..

..and Barflina vs human dignity.

-Oh no, babe, I can’t look! -How could this happen, we were such involved parents!!

And at the moment where Barth throws his sister through a window, the matchmaker rewards us with a genie lamp for treading the arduous path of excellence. I don’t know about you, but what I take from this is we are perfect and should never attempt to improve ourselves in any way! 

[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/

[candycryptids]

“We’re going to need more supplies, make a note for me Tuesday, and then we can hand it off to Lucia and see to the tempered…”

We’ve made it to Garlemald!!! Poor Keathan is chilly, but hopefully we’ll keep warm enough while we find a way to put our fist to Zenos’ pearly whites.

Keathan belongs to @zombiesockfuckinglovescardfight and the shader is [Neneko’s Gameplay Essence] (I hope. It’s either Essence or Vanilla plus but I’ve been flipping between them with uncertainty lately and forgot to check— it’s in the gameplay folder ☠️)

[crispsandkerosene]

Hi!

I love your shader changes, they add so much to the visuals of the game! Thank you so so much for sharing!

I have a request, would you be able to take a look at my attempted merging of your shader and dreadpirate/pineapple5050’ post-processing shader? I’ve been trying to get them to work together for hours, but for some reason I either end up with pink flashing of the sims or your part of the mod just simply doesn’t work. It’s only one resource that needs to be changed, but for the life of me I can’t figure it out. I can send you the file, not sure if it’s completely useless or not😅

Thank you in advance, and no rush. If you’re not interested or available that’s fine too, eventually I might get it right.

Hey!

Sure. You can send me a link to the original mod if you prefer.

(What I do is extract the overlapping shaders and use KDiff to merge them.)

[bhaalbaaby]

If it isn’t too much trouble, would you be able to recommend tutorials when it comes specifically to extracting custom character models? I’ve found something called Ninja Ripper which looks to get the base models and meshes but I can’t find a tutorial for anything texture or appearance wise.

Hope you have a good day ^^

hello! I wouldn't use ninjaripper for models since they aren't rigged, but it is good for backgrounds and stuff and that's what i use for my rips.

Here are a few great video tutorials specifically about BG3 meshes:

Druundev's Custom Armor // focuses more on armor meshes

Padme4000's BG3 Editing Heads in Blender 2.92 + 2.79 // I like this one because it shows how to snap heads to the bodies to fix seams

The tutorial by Druundev goes over briefly finding the base MSK for nonskin textures, but most of the textures will be within your VirtualTextures. You can use Ezechi's Virtual Texture Renamer to make sense of them so you can easily find them and recolor them either with node spaghetti or in your preferred texture editor with the MSK as a guide.

You can also use this tool to get your character's together too! I hope all this helps!!

edit to add on: Volno's Texture Toolbox is also great for the main textures. The main texture files you will need will be the _CLEA, _HMVY, and _NORM. They will most likely be in the UnpackedData\Textures\Generated\Public\Shared\Assets\Characters\_Models file paths or UnpackedData\Textures\Generated\Public\SharedDev\Assets\Characters\_Models for NPCs. For Volno, you can follow the shader inputs and just change the files to the correct ones. You will have to play with the skin shader inputs to get the right colors and tones, however, since not all color presets are there. There is a PDF in the file to help set it up.

[jacklemon77]

What medium did you use to make the color wheel challenge (it looks amazing by the way)? I’m in awe of the level of technical skill and personality, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a sculpture that has that sort of style

Thanks a lot, I'm happy to hear so much positive feedback :) The stuff is all done in 3D, the Clay-Doh shader is what does most of the job carrying the visuals.

I'm lucky that the rough feeling of clay marries well with my own weird style. I do most of the preparatory sketches on either MS Paint / Photoshop with a mouse. It's freeing, idk why. I then went onto blender for each one and "traced" in 3D and tweak the design a bit to make it work better. Here's a random assortment of the sketches:

As you can see, sometime bringing an official reference can help me with some 3D shapes. Most of the stuff is just for a render... so it works for the camera. If you go around some models... well. Bald rika.

One of the things that helps a lot selling the Clay feel i think it's the scale of it all. Adding some real props and making sure that the finger impressions were scaled to a believable size helps a lot. The lighting also does its job. I'm not very good at lighting, but I'm pretty proud of how it came out. Here's a screen without any characters and just the props.

There's also some stuff like pieces of characters being modelled separately as you would with clay itself etc etc. For anyone who just came across this post: check out the full render here!

[5yn]

aion/mary, 1200 words

Mary Magdalene doesn’t fear cliffs or spires. She doesn’t steer clear of bodies of water, unfathomably deep, and shakes off her wince with a brittle laugh when she stumbles, one night, in the pitch-black darkness. 

The cut on her leg, upon inspection, is a straight and less-than-shallow red. “Steady now,” Aion says, watching disinterestedly – the vaunted Holy Woman she may be, and he’ll be the last to deny the value of her assistance, but she still bleeds and bruises like any other human out there. He has better eyesight than her, and it takes a moment for her to take his arm. It probably had looked like some lumpy, shadowy thing before her vision had adjusted. “Can you stand? …Should’ve never made Chrono walk ahead of you, huh. Rotten luck.” 

She might have seen the fall coming. She’s never been the easiest to read, as far as humans go, but mild perturbation on his part isn’t going to lead him to begrudge her secrets. Chrono seems taken enough by her, which is an observation that is utterly meaningless as much as it is, at times, a source of dry fascination – it is his brother, after all – and so most days, that’s enough.

Chrono frets, of course, when he hears of the injury, which is a far more amusing spectacle, and, after a second of confused flailing, tears away a scrap of his jacket to stem the bleeding. They’ve set up a temporary camp; the fire clings to the shadows on her face, the crinkle of sadness in her smiling eyes, the fragile shiver of her shoulders even as she coos and teases Chrono over the attention he’s giving her all over a minor wound. 

“Are you blushing on me? How charming.” Her hand twitches, as if about to cling to Chrono, but withdraws at the last moment to tuck stray strands of pale hair behind her ear. Her hesitation, painfully and boringly human, is another secret, but it’s not one Aion particularly cares to unearth the roots of. “Don’t worry too much, though,” she murmurs. “I’m not afraid of a little pain.”

“What are you afraid of, Holy Woman?”

The question comes out casual, slightly superior, a little challenging. He’s not really sure what he’s expecting.

“I fear wide-open spaces,” replies Mary, looking up at Aion, her sweet smile turned sharp with blitheful rue. “They just seem to go on forever, with no end. Don’t you think so too?” 

.

She retained her fondness for reading even after it stopped being a habit she took on to fill in the empty days and compulsory loneliness of her long imprisonment. Mostly it’s Shader who joins her, the two of them giggling in tandem as they discuss physics and mathematics and Pandaemonium’s memories etched like genetic ink, but one day Aion makes his presence known on the other side of the table, stacks of books and tomes and misplaced notes smelling of coffee and catnip forming a makeshift fortress between them. 

Mary just nods and smiles politely in greeting. There’s nothing to fear here. Aion mostly minds himself, and he minds himself well; she knows he spends time in Eden’s library too, having procured a good chunk of the books himself, but they keep missing each other just barely. There’s nothing to be worried about there, either. 

“Does this place not remind you even a little of the Abbey? It’s hard for me to imagine why you’d spend so much time in this part of Eden, replicating the conditions of your birdhouse.”

“Birdcage,” she corrects gently, glancing up from the pages of the book in her lap. Aion pouts rather than blushes, and embarrassment is less satisfying to witness on him than it is on Chrono, in her private opinion, but she can’t help a faint smile regardless. “And it’s different. I had no choice then. But now I’ve finally found them … the wings that will set me free.”

“And what do you mean by that?”

“Chrono,” Mary says simply. 

“Interesting. You’re giving him that much credit?”

“Never mind if the cage isn’t locked, Aion,” she explains, her voice soft. “Don’t you know already? Without wings, a bird will never be able to fly.”

.

“Does human culture really interest you that much, Aion?” she asks, looking over his shoulder at the novel he’s reading. 

“In a sense,” he replies. “It’s relevant information to know when us Sinners need to blend in, anyhow, so it’s not mere entertainment. Though I’ve found human stories exaggerate. They dramatize. Is it because your kind is so short-lived that they seem to love drawing out the pathos and tragedy and bliss of their brief existences?”

Mary ponders the question. “I think people write stories to live with themselves,” she says. Her expression tightens with something hot and fleeting, quickly smothered like the last dying embers of a violent blaze. She draws her hands to her chest, and her heart deeper into herself. “Yes. Things make more sense to them that way.”

“They wrote legends and fairytales after you, didn’t they? And look at what you have to show for it.”

“Thank you for your concern,” Mary says, almost amused. There’s something about the glint in her eyes that disconcerts him. “But I’m free now.”

“You recommended this book to me,” he says, changing the subject. “Our tastes don’t perfectly align, but it’s enjoyable enough so far.”

“Oh? I’m pleased to hear that.” She tilts her head, her laugh a gentle trill that spreads to the ruddy flush on her cheeks and slight shake of her shoulders. “Just don’t tell me how it ends.”

Aion looks at her skeptically. “You haven’t finished it?”

“I always stop halfway,” Mary confesses. Her hands clasp together, not in prayer, and she isn’t asking for forgiveness. “I prefer to think of my own endings.”

.

Mary Magdalene is only human in the end. Just a person like any other, trapped circling their lives in a never-ending staircase built on other people’s bones, on pointless hesitation, shackled and subservient. Even her unfathomable powers hadn’t changed that. How boring. How disappointing.

His talons seize around her neck, pressing on her pulse running hot with the rush of blood. He wonders if Pandaemonium can feel it. 

Mary Magdalene doesn’t fear suffocation or high places. She doesn’t fear drowning or disease or being bled to death. When she’d stepped to the edge of the outer ring of Eden’s protective barrier, surrounded by thin air and a cruel drop, she hadn’t been looking straight ahead. She’d let her attention stray to Chrono’s oblivious form the entire time without a care in the world. 

He knows what she really fears.

“Are you afraid? Of this future you didn’t foresee?”

Her prophecies had brought her despair. But despair, bottomless and cold, had protected her, shielded her, caged her heart and soul better than any wall or bars her fellow humans in the church could have constructed out of wood or stone. She had been its most loyal mistress, labouring under the weight of her unchangeable, immutable fate, a shackle around both ankles like any other delusion or myth or system.

She doesn’t answer. She’s losing breath. She’s crying, but the tears are messy, choked, nothing beatifically tragic like she had probably dreamed of. 

“Well, rest easy. Whether it’s me or him… The end result will be the same.” 

He’ll liberate her from this, too. And Chrono, and the rest of the world, will soon follow.

[zephthepto]

Nebula topic 6 - Shader graphs (part 2)

Bush Sway

This is just a very simple shadergraph for one quick effect. It just makes the leafy bits on the bush armor sway about a bit. It was my first proper time working with the vertex shader, but following some documentation, I was able to add a bit of noise displacement. This is already something I’ve done before in blender geometry nodes, so applying the idea wasn't too difficult.

This makes some noise textures pan around with a sinusoidal time. These correspond to the different axes, making the bush get mildly displaced as if it was swaying in the wind.

Space

This was a pretty big important shader and it had gone through a handful of iterations. What I wanted to do here is replicate an effect similar to the shaders used for the Minecraft End dimension portals but also a general space look to it.

This is broken into a few steps. First of all, we have a sub-graph which defines everything a shader might need to know to be able to make a space effect. This has a few layers of panning noise, and a few layers of stars. You can also adjust the colours and scales of the different patterns to really perfect it.

The space effect turned out pretty good at the end, its very reusable too, though it admittedly has a lot of settings. Arguably, this could be replaced for a static texture for lower graphical settings, but I haven't gotten around to setting up anything like that yet. 

The first go at it was done with a plane fog effect interpolating in my own method of doing the space look. It was using a lot of complex maths and I didn’t really feel like I understood the operations.

This can be found at:

 How this worked is that it made the fog appear behind a plane, being more opaque based on the depth of the closest item behind it. This worked pretty alright for making the environment disappear vertically down, but the illusion easily broke if you were trying to make the bridge fade off in the distance on either end. I soon enough decided to construct my own take on it, one that solves these issues.

Similar to the dither shader, this one also relies on being a render feature. How it works is that it has two vector positions defines within itself, together these form the corners of a bounding box. I then have settings as to how far the fog should fade in each direction. With that I can separately choose the depth the bridge goes down before disappearing, along with how far the bridge stretches on outside of the walkable environment.

This makes for a very convincing effect in game.

This shader effect is only applied to specific layers of the scene.

The skybox being used is actually just a plane far below the level, also being affected by the render pass.

I really like how this one turned out, it gave me a bit of trouble, and I can foresee a few things might appear to be strange with it later down the line based on camera angles, but it should remain stable for a pretty good while i think.

Taking the base space shader, I decided the enemies could do with looking a bit more interesting. I made a version of the space material that just keeps it solid and gives us a bit of control of the surface properties, such as smoothness, metallic and also a bit of fresnel glow.

This turned out giving the enemies a much more interesting identity than just having them wearing boring standard materials. It helps bring them together overall.

This also ends up having a very cool aesthetic when used with terrain. This hasn't been used for anything yet, but it would be really cool to do something with it at some point in the future.

Health Bar

Pretty early on in the project, I had made a health bar setup as a placeholder, using some images with a fill percentage to lower their health displays. Eventually it just looked very outdated and frankly not good. We needed a way to display a health bar and its 2 shield bars in a way that can be easily readable with a more concise colour coding.

This is the inside of the health bar shader, this has variables that let you tell it how much health the character has, and what their max health is. This also has a lot of different settings for defining how tall and wide each mark should be. You can also define a major mark, which adds a larger line for each X amount of health. This also has a bunch of gradients that make the bars have just that little extra detail of depth. Admittedly the maths gets a bit complicated with this one, but it's essentially splitting it into the right amount of sections, then making each section have the correct size shape inside it with some stepping and masking.

It took a few iterations with actually trying out different layouts, but eventually I got it to a place we liked. A lot of planning went into the actual new layout of the health bars and it’s in a really good place right now.

Unfortunately I’m not fully satisfied with this implementation, as cool as it may look. There is a part of it that defines how wide each mark is, and I struggled for a really long time to make the maths on that work consistently with stretching to fit different sizes. It works as is, but it is not fully entirely customisable the way I like it. If I were to revisit this, I would make sure the marks actually scale correctly with the variables.

[s444turn]

Preview

completely forgot how to properly take screenshots and i’ve been pressing the wrong button for a good 10 mins (◎-◎；)

we will work through it !

.

.

now just realizing i haven’t had my shaders on either.

[mollydrawsroblox]

Autumn Maple drawing on SA

I’ve been playing Starving Artists on Roblox for probably a year now but I would have long breaks from it or Roblox in general. Apparently a new feature was added where it puts a printer emoji above your drawing if it suspects it’s been scripted, but it’s clearly not been implemented well as I would see obvious scripted images not flagged but my genuine drawing was... Anyway, here’s some screenshots:

1. This is the photograph I used as a reference. It was for the October Autumn contest 2022 so I put a lot of effort into it!

2. I first drew the basic colours on Photoshop(this was especially useful when back then the colour picker in SA (starving artists) was really bad).

3. This is where it makes it worth pre-drawing something outside SA then redrawing it again ingame even though it makes it so time consuming; LAYERS. And as you can see in this screenshot, blending modes(overlay). I drew the bokeh effect to make it look like a photograph.

4. This is the earliest ingame screenshot I have of it because someone donated me in chat, I already started the leaf here. I simply, well, meticulously copied what I already drew but then blended the colours in using basic dithering(pixel art 101, it’s just a checkered pattern). I think this blending and the overlay layer circles/bokeh is what made the algorithm think this was scripted? You can see me draw similarly in this older drawing:

Pre-making your picture or parts of it on a drawing program of your choice still has its benefits even after updates to the colour picker slider. I already mentioned layers but one thing that is annoying in SA is when you use the eye dropper tool and try to adjust it, it just goes back to the previous colour. If you want a slightly lighter colour that you used for the background ages ago it’s awkward. Either way, it’s nice that the colour picker was improved and I’m looking forward to future QOL updates.

5. The leaf was the easier part of the drawing but getting the shape right was still hard. Unfortunately, the details get lost when put up on sale because of all the shaders the game uses, red colours seem to suffer the most but at least I now know. At least you can see its full glory in your inventory(plz buy :D).

6. I think I just used the darken brush to create a vignette + minor shading adjustments and that’s it!

Hope you somewhat enjoyed reading this even though the tone was sort negative, it was a bit of a rant after all after being marked by the printer emoji. Seeing the process can be interesting though, I will start a Youtube channel and show some speedpaints too.

- MollyisPongy

[alexod]

Rare GameDev update May 2023: Good news and bad news.

Hello all, it’s been a while since I gave a proper update or #screenshotsaturday as to what I’ve been up to with the game. There are several reasons for this which I’ll explain later but essentially the main two reason are 

1. Most of the outstanding framework/refactoring work I’ve been grinding away at, like most software work isn’t really something you can “show off”, and there hasn’t been any art-side work to demo either because of this. 

To give you an example in 2023 I have:

• Refactored the entire rendering (twice cause I’m an idiot) to support transparent views within buildings

• Refactored shadows so they can be cast backwards

• Refactored collision again cause its my most hated gamedev aspect

• Implemented sound/music with spatial audio

• Created a nested GUI/Menu system from scratch

• Developed a full day/night cycle across all maps

• Calendar system

• Questing sytem

• Inventory stuff

• Save/load data stuff 

• Gamepad support

• Weather shaders

2. Life stuff and, again, working on this in my own hours on top of a full time job means that this takes time

--

This leads me to talk about the good and the bad:

The BAD NEWS is that the “BIG ONE” is delayed until further notice, because the GOOD NEWS is I’m going to be working on releasing a smaller scale game made with the same framework first.

So what lead to this decision?

• Uncertainty with releasing a game and how my game engine framework will cope

Due to the nature of one-man development, it’s safe to say there will be bugs and issues that will fly under the radar, which is why with working on a smaller scale game I can highlight these problems before they impact something a more larger scale project.

To give a real life case study, compare Breath of the Wild to Tears of the Kingdom. A lot of the time and hardwork with BotW you can see probably went into getting the damn thing to work, hence why TotK has a lot more going for it gameplay element wise, as they had BotW groundwork to build upon.

• I want to release something in a smaller timespan and build an audience for the “big one”

• Apart from the “Big one” I’ve been fixated on working on this one for a long time now.

• I want to show the flexibility of what I’ve made and potentially make it open source

--

Outside of things like launcher->deployment->release piplines, the framework itself is basically done, and it’s safe to say outside of gameplay specific elements I have all the building blocks to actually make a “game”.

We’re at the point now where I can actually start cracking on with pixel art work again, and I’m looking forward to hopefully showing off the direction the new game is going soon.

TL:DR: The big game I wanted to make is being put on the backburner while I make a smaller game using the same framework that the big one was being made in.

What kind of game? Well... you’ll see in due time.

[lpfreakification]

(PART 10 of 10) (finally) By far the best attempt of using shiny metallic watercolors on Dratica in the doodle notebook X3 *grabs doodle notebook* 1. Blue Ballpoint Pen (Bic Atlantis or Papermate Inkjoy) 2. Sample Mix Light Blue (aka I mixed every light blue sample I received into one) 3. No.81 by @iuilewatercolors 4. Zebra Sarasa Porous Pen (Red) 5. Daniel Smith Duo Chrome Cactus Flower (for the shading) 6. Faber-Castell (B) Pitt Artist Pen Brush - White 7. Sakura Gelly Roll Yellow Moon The best part that made my face lit up was using the Daniel Smith Duo Chrome Cactus Flower for the shading 0.0 I was surprised how well that worked. From what I can remember, I was trying to figure out how to implement a shiny metallic watercolor red for Dratica in the doodle notebook. However, most of the shiny metallic watercolor reds i have are either too dark, too shiny, or not the right shade (+ shine). I think I tried using the dark red as a shade color b4 but didnt work out. The Cactus Flower was my 2nd option bcuz from what I've learned in the past was purple makes a good shader :) (The reason I saved this for last is bcuz I got a lot to talk about) I love using OCs for experimentation XD There were other good attempts here too I'm eager to show X3 Like using a thin liner brush for an outline or a better border around Dratica. Slowly wanting to art some more again X) *sighs* I cant wait to add so many stickers later in life too. *clock turns 8* Oh what timing! I need to make a grocery list :P Yep! #doodlenotebookpages ... #lpfocdratica https://www.instagram.com/p/CoxBz4fugGB/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=