D20 devlog

How tech and art collides

Using every resource I have which includes an RTX 3090 graphics card and lot of JSON.

By opariffazman

probe

As a solo developer, I have to make use of every resource I have. Mine starts with an RTX 3090 I bought dirt cheap from a mining unit after the crypto crash back in 2022.

The mining card

I’m no artist, I’m color blind even, so the card is being pushed to the max, and I really mean like extreme max, a lot of image generation, one after another, until a specific moment I’ve visualized came through.

It definitely helped because when the scene is only in my head, it is hard to judge, because I can describe it all day and still miss the thing I actually want.

Icons from everywhere

For icons, I’m well aware there’s a lot of free icons already exist out there. Considering I do a lot of info-graphic posters and slide decks as a corporate trainer and my favourite is always Google's Material Design icons

Sometimes it is like they say, “Don’t reinvent the wheel”, so my first move is always to look online to see what’s free and available. Then I compare all those game icons to the cel art direction and check if they sit fit.

probe
1 Oct: Icon sheet comparison

I ended up with two sources. Kenney's Input Prompts for the controller and keyboard glyphs, which are CC0, and game-icons.net for the game concepts, which is CC BY 3.0.

HUD icon sheet
1 Oct: Battle HUD Icons restyled

Props as code

Learning from my past experience doing DevOps keeping everything as code, so why not keep the props from simple shapes as code too? A sword is a JSON spec, and a scabbard is another.

The script builds them from primitives, pack materials and pack textures, and the game loads them through its own prop kit in the cel look. It is a pretty direct translation of how I already work.

And the first ones are a sword, a scabbard and a skull mask. A box guard, a cylinder grip, a sphere pommel, a torus strap, that kind of thing.

A JSON excerpt of the sword spec on the left and the finished sword render on the right.
1 Oct: the sword spec next to the sword it builds.
A JSON excerpt of the scabbard spec on the left and the finished scabbard render on the right.
1 Oct: the scabbard spec next to the scabbard it builds.
A JSON excerpt of the skull mask spec on the left and the finished skull mask render on the right.
1 Oct: the skull mask spec next to the mask it builds.

It is faster to iterate this way, and I have a track record of every change for later. The same way a server configuration should not live in someone's memory, a sword should not live only in a model file.

Meaning I can diff it, review it, and roll it back, DevOps style!

Wren in her battle idle, holding the props-kit sword in her right hand with the scabbard on her left hip.
1 Oct: Wren with the sword in hand and the scabbard on her hip.

Next fight

Next up is the static combat slice, where the sword and the scabbard finally get used in a fight, and I want to see if the props hold up.

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