Perfectly Peculiar Pixels [#16]

If you don’t agree with today’s subject line, I would urge you to look up how to visualize objects in higher than 3 dimensions. Thankfully, for the foreseeable future of entertainment, the world we inhabit and the worlds we’ll be creating are very likely to stay within 3 spatial dimensions, occasionally messing with the temporal one. Yes, that includes the impossible hallway in the Stanley Parable. That is not to say that your future endeavours in this space can’t be helped with better tools.

Arrimus 3D has been active on YouTube for a very long time, providing tutorials in 3D Studio MAX, Blender, Plasticity, and quite possibly some more tools I haven’t caught him show. He goes over advanced things, but also the very basic things, making his channel incredible valuable to beginners. Depending on the tools shown, some principles can be used between programs as well, accounting for the different names and UIs of tools you might use. Because there’s a suspiciously few videos on his channel, I suspect that he cordons off his stuff behind a (very likely well-worth) paywall of Pateron and online courses. Still, there’s also a channel that seems to be following him and trying to recreate the archive of his work. Grey area? Grey area, but take knowledge where you can get it, and suss out the bill when you can.

The rate at which Inspiration Tutorials channel dishes out content on a weekly basis is mind-numbing to me, considering how many of the tools shown therein would have altered my entire pipeline for certain things. I linked a specific video on plugins that while e.g. not as powerful as Marvelous Designer, certainly compete with it on the price. If you’re serious about 3D, I would urge you to subscribe to the channel as the neverending torrent (pun intended) of abilities it showcases is the prime example of just how quickly the industry is moving, even well outside the A.I. space.

As good as Blender’s plugins are, much like I like to discuss in class, sometimes it’s hard to beat the tools with a monetary incentive behind them. Especially when they’re dealing with one of the most tedious tasks in 3D creation UVW mapping. Rizom UV can stand on its own, but can also hook into Blender, MAX and plenty other industry software that might care for having its UVWs mapped, for a very streamlined experience. I would have personally had days of my life saved had I known about it at the right time, so I suggest trying it as soon the mapping question rears its head.

Amanita Design makes games that you can’t necessarily tell were all from the same studio by looking at them, as they like to experiment with graphical styles, but you can definitely feel it when you try them. While their games are largely characterized as “point and click adventure games”, this is technically correct in about as much as FPS’ are as well, “but the only action you have is ‘use bullet with head’”. They have carved out a niche audience for themselves though and have consistently put out decent games of increasing quality, in, if nothing else, graphical fidelity. There is a certain stiffness that has persisted since the early days of Samorost, which was definitely there during Machinarium, and has only slightly been shaved off in Botanicula. The soft 2D design might offer a free refuge from the gruelling 3^rd dimension!

14 years ago, the cake was no less a lie