Perfectly Peculiar Pixels [issue 1]

And away we go!

Author

Igor Kolar
December 29, 2024

Happy holidays everyone! We're kicking things off on the softer side, making sure it's malleable in the future, and receptive to any improvements it picks up along the way.

The simplest way to explain UVW mapping

If UVW unwrapping were 1% as tasty as this, I might not hate doing it as much.

Don’t have an eye for pixelart? You can buy one!

At nearly 90€, it’s hardly a knick-knack you can just jump on, even if it wasn’t currently completely sold-out.

Nothing to GTA in 3 hours (if you squint, really hard)

The thumbnail text is utterly misleading, but the content is genuinely amazing for something that can be done in 3 hours in Unreal Engine.

Get ‘Kill Knight’ on the Epic store FOR FREE, before 5PM on the 29th

If you’re not already exploiting the Epic store to build out an entire library of free games they give away every week, you might want to start during the holidays when they’re giving away a new free one every day!

Speaking of malleable, I've never seen UVW mapping explained better before than that chocolate Santa candy wrapper. And yes, the analogy still holds with chocolate bunnies too.

I thought the Monoli Pixlens was super interesting because it reminded me of the old monocular lenses directors would carry around a film set to get a precise understanding of their shots. Can you justify 90€ worth of well-crafted glass as a business expense if you're a pixel artist? Probably not, but as is bound to be the overall theme of links I'll be sharing in the future, it just seemed very neat.

The GTA-like tutorial amazed me, not because it lives up to the text in the thumbnail, it doesn't, but because it really is amazing what you can conjure up in essentially an afternoon, in terms of interaction and visual fidelity. Is it the next GTA? Of course not, but it can be a good stepping stone to a game.

Not gonna lie, Kill Knight is the least interesting title Epic had on this week, especially after Control and a Micro Machines racing game, but, if a writer must read twice as much as they write to be a good writer, well, so does an interaction designer have to be exposed to designs compared to making them. You should absolutely exploit the Epic store's commitment to putting out a free title each week if for no other reason than to get exposed to a variety of games, even ones you wouldn't spend your hard-earned money on.

Festivus is upon us, and you may now begin airing your grievances (anonimously)!

Because I think a general poll about our school won’t give us any actionable results in specific courses, I made you an anonymous form where you can air out any and all grievenaces you have with me and/or the UI Design Course, so we can work on improving it further.

Where do we go from here? No idea. Actually, that’s a lie, lots, and lots of ideas, but you’ll have to stick around for those to emerge. Happy holidays!