iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Jean-Paul Software

Count Mysterioso @mysteriosox.bsky.social · 27/11/2024

If you see this post a picture of a flat-roofed murder pub

Jean-Paul Software @jeanpaulsoftware.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

Just in case you didn't see it- the vehicles never turn right, only forward or left. This means no cars ever cross each other's path at intersections. I think this is fine for now, particularly for dumb traffic- I'm not building #GTA6 here. #screenshotsaturday #gamedev #ue5 #cityplanning 2/2

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Jean-Paul Software @jeanpaulsoftware.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

For this edition of #screenshotsaturday I present basic traffic AI now working with #ue5 ZoneGraph (sans Mass) complete with traffic lights at intersections. I've used a rather sneaky trick to reduce the need for complex turn logic- can you spot what it is? 1/2 #gamedev

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Jean-Paul Software @jeanpaulsoftware.bsky.social · 15/08/2026

This week in #gamedev: I finally got #ue5 ZoneGraph working without Mass. Given the typical lack of Epic documentation on either, I'm calling this a big win. I am aware that this currently looks like a bunch of ants looking for sugar, but fun traffic AI is now very possible! #screenshotsaturday

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Jean-Paul Software @jeanpaulsoftware.bsky.social · 15/07/2026

Here's a bouncing rock. The rock will not be in the game. #gamedev It's bouncing because this morning I wrote a simple 'tweening' plugin for basic procedural animation in #ue5, modelled on the ones popular in the #flash / #as3 days. I'll stick it on Github when I've thought of a name- suggestions?

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Jean-Paul Software @jeanpaulsoftware.bsky.social · 04/07/2026

Blood is applied by a set of decals, each with a texture. When a hit is detected, a circle is drawn on to that texture. Mapping the transform of the impact to the correct UV space was a bit annoying, but it does mean things accumulate properly, and the number of decals required is capped 5/5 #ue5

A screenshot showing the placement of image decals on a pylon for accurate blood accumulation from punching

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Jean-Paul Software @jeanpaulsoftware.bsky.social · 04/07/2026

Here's that blood close up. This was a very useful guide on dynamic textures at runtime- dev.epicgames.com/community/le... - which I adapted to add alpha blending and dithering (and also remove a potential memory leak) 4/5

A man regarding his own blood on the surface of a pylon

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Jean-Paul Software @jeanpaulsoftware.bsky.social · 04/07/2026

...but while I was at it I added the additional bones I needed for steering and doors. Importantly, I also gave it the number plate that Inspector Morse uses. I believe this is known as environmental storytelling. 3/5 #gamedev #inspectormorse

The car above, with the skeleton visible, and the doors open

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Jean-Paul Software @jeanpaulsoftware.bsky.social · 04/07/2026

I also needed a better model of a car, but models of right-hand drive cars (such as we have in the UK) are thin on the ground. So, I converted this one from the free Epic 'Vehicle Variety Pack' from left-hand drive to right in #Blender. This was not fun, as it's not a straightforward flip... 2/5

A 3D model of a car that has been converted from left-hand drive to right-hand drive

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Jean-Paul Software @jeanpaulsoftware.bsky.social · 04/07/2026

#screenshotsaturday this scene is still a testbed for developing tech for elsewhere, but it's quite fun in it's own right. Dynamic texturing allows me to accumulate blood on the pylon over time, and there's some subtle IK used to make sure the punches connect. Sound too! #ue5 #gamedev 1/5

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Jean-Paul Software @jeanpaulsoftware.bsky.social · 30/05/2026

It's #screenshotsaturday! Following on from last week: I present a man's futile battle with an electricity pylon, as filmed by a camera drone which I simulated using the #UE5 Gameplay Cameras plugin. Next up: hitting the pylon, blood loss, and exhaustion. #gamedev #existentialism #rochdale #pylons

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Jean-Paul Software @jeanpaulsoftware.bsky.social · 23/05/2026

As for the traffic itself- it's a single Niagara emitter for *all* cars using a mesh renderer, sampling from a spline and then using the particle index to determine which lane it should be in. Lanes have different speeds. A headache to work out but looks depressingly simple now I've done it 6/6

Niagara scratch module that lays cars out along a spline

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Jean-Paul Software @jeanpaulsoftware.bsky.social · 23/05/2026

This also allows me to mark all BSDF properties including emission, again without needing to muck around with multiple textures for each object, which is a big time save. I will need to add extra lights to get a proper night-time effect but this is a good start, and it's good to know the limits. 5/6

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Jean-Paul Software @jeanpaulsoftware.bsky.social · 23/05/2026

If you're interested in that last part, I wrote a blog post about encoding semantic data into 3D models using UV maps here: jeanpaulsoftware.com/2026/03/29/b... - and there's the code for some Blender plugins to help on GitHub here: github.com/EdBoucher/Bl... 4/6

jeanpaulsoftware.com

Potentially Dumb Idea #767: Packing Semantic Data Into 3D Models

There’s a very fine line between stupid and clever Update: code is now on GitHub should you wish to have a play So I have been getting back into gamedev after six months in the real world, and I decid

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Jean-Paul Software @jeanpaulsoftware.bsky.social · 23/05/2026

There's only one shader for all non-foliage props- cars, pylons, street furniture. Data encoded into UV maps marks which parts should change colour, and then the 'instance random' property is used to pick a colour from a (statistically accurate) texture of the most popular car colours in the UK. 3/6

Showing off colour variation on distinct models

A texture where the size of each colour bar is directly proportional to how popular that colour is as a colour for UK cars. People like to drive cars in boring colours.

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Jean-Paul Software @jeanpaulsoftware.bsky.social · 23/05/2026

The general layout is driven by splines and / or PCG, aided by- as usual- the wonderful PCGEx plugin by @nebukam.bsky.social . The road is a landscape spline placed manually, the fields are entirely PCG, the pylons a mix- manual spline, with PCG adding spline meshes for the power lines. 2/6

Splines and paths showing how the scene is laid out

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Jean-Paul Software @jeanpaulsoftware.bsky.social · 23/05/2026

#screenshotsaturday some fun stuff this week prototyping a traffic system using #UE5 Niagara- but doing so in style, by attempting to capture the feeling of the M62 motorway near Rochdale. 1/6 #gamedev #unrealengine #motorways #pylons #rochdale #flytipping

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Jean-Paul Software @jeanpaulsoftware.bsky.social · 01/01/2026

If nothing else, the finale of #StrangerThings really shows how a public execution can bring a community together

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Jean-Paul Software @jeanpaulsoftware.bsky.social · 18/11/2025

London tourists- be sure to get away from the main attractions while you're visiting and do some exploration, because there's beauty around every corner #Kensington #London #travel

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Jean-Paul Software @jeanpaulsoftware.bsky.social · 12/11/2025

Shortcuts! Also that "convert" node is wonderful

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Jean-Paul Software @jeanpaulsoftware.bsky.social · 02/11/2025

Beating your shit into pineapples is the 2025 equivalent of beating swords into plowshares

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Jean-Paul Software @jeanpaulsoftware.bsky.social · 24/10/2025

Working a contract- someone has created a "socials" page that links to some short videos on Instagram The caption they have used for this? "Explore our Shorts"

media.tenor.com

a man with a surprised look on his face .

ALT: a man with a surprised look on his face .

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Jean-Paul Software @jeanpaulsoftware.bsky.social · 07/10/2025

Yeah that is a bit confusing at first... but once you get that set up it's quite easy to handle different controllers and keybindings and switch between control schemes for different bits of the game. It's a trade-off. Slightly more up-front complexity means fewer blueprints from hell later

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Jean-Paul Software @jeanpaulsoftware.bsky.social · 07/10/2025

I disagree; there's just more stuff in there, and a lot more concepts to pick up if you want to know everything, but the core is much the same. PCG, Control Rig, Metasounds, Nanite Substrate, Mass, GAS, Geometry Script, State Tree etc- you don't *have* to use any of it.

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Jean-Paul Software @jeanpaulsoftware.bsky.social · 06/10/2025

#gamedev still on the backburner while I refill the company coffers with some "real" programming work. Office life sucks in a lot of ways, but cycling home through #London at sunset almost makes up for it... #barbican

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Jean-Paul Software @jeanpaulsoftware.bsky.social · 25/09/2025

Gamedev on the backburner for a bit while I do some paying work to get the company funds back to health. This means cycling to Kensington every day, a place where people love cars more than humans. There's a lot of Ferraris here, but the owner of this car is clearly rich in things other than money

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Jean-Paul Software @jeanpaulsoftware.bsky.social · 02/09/2025

Tom Waits is currently on display at the Natural History Museum #london #tomwaits

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Jean-Paul Software @jeanpaulsoftware.bsky.social · 30/08/2025

#screenshotsaturday #ue5 #gamedev fixed up and extended Lump, my "Mass for Idiots" system- now you can't see where it switches away from ISM to mesh or actor. Framerate stays nice and high thanks to object pools, and only using physics where needed. Next job: use it to make cars and pedestrians.

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Jean-Paul Software @jeanpaulsoftware.bsky.social · 23/08/2025

Needs a bit of polishing but sure why not?

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Jean-Paul Software @jeanpaulsoftware.bsky.social · 23/08/2025

Oh and (5/4) there's also a load of object pooling and reuse, which helps a ton with performance. Creating objects at runtime is pretty heavy; reusing them is a lot quicker. All this is templated too, so nice and generic. No macros though, sorry @nebukam.bsky.social #gamedev #ue5

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Jean-Paul Software @jeanpaulsoftware.bsky.social · 23/08/2025

@nebukam.bsky.social suggested I drop the 'M' and call this 'Ass'; I pointed out that since it's doing quite a lot of culling, I should call it 'Cul'. If you speak any French this is HILARIOUS - indeed, a name that is a multilingual pun is probably the best thing about this system #gamedev #ue5 4/4

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Jean-Paul Software @jeanpaulsoftware.bsky.social · 23/08/2025

...of which you can have many. There's two above- one for cubes, one for cones. So, like Mass, you can have a ton of stuff moving around and only worry about collisions where required, which keeps things very performant. It'll never be as optimised as Mass, but it's close enough for me. 3/n

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Jean-Paul Software @jeanpaulsoftware.bsky.social · 23/08/2025

Everything here is in an ISM until you get close; then it gets turned into a regular Static Mesh, or actor if specified. Get far enough away, it gets switched back, but you can specify the conditions under which that happens. Movement is controlled by a class that can be extended in C++ or BP... 2/n

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Jean-Paul Software @jeanpaulsoftware.bsky.social · 23/08/2025

#screenshotsaturday #ue5 #gamedev Turns out the bits of Mass I wanted to use are dependent on ZoneGraph, and ZG can't be rebuilt at run time, so I can't use it. Mass is also fully C++ and honestly a bit of a headache. So, I nicked the ideas from Mass I wanted and built something a lot simpler. 1/n

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Jean-Paul Software @jeanpaulsoftware.bsky.social · 22/08/2025

Neuron here is watching my Pain au Chocolat like it's his ancestral birthright

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Jean-Paul Software @jeanpaulsoftware.bsky.social · 20/08/2025

Would love to be added if there's space...

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Jean-Paul Software @jeanpaulsoftware.bsky.social · 16/08/2025

Right but a sticker that isn't stuck to something is just a piece of paper in a drawer. I've got inappropriate health and safety hazard stickers on mine- 'explosive' on the desktop PC and 'irritant' on the laptop: ehs.princeton.edu/news/know-yo...

ehs.princeton.edu

Know Your Hazard Symbols (Pictograms)

As a result of updated OSHA chemical labeling requirements, 2016 marks the first full year of adoption of the Globally Harmonized System of Classification and Labeling of Chemicals (GHS) in the U.S

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Jean-Paul Software @jeanpaulsoftware.bsky.social · 13/08/2025

Today in fun #gamedev bugs: the SUV Centipede, coming to a school run near you very soon.

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Jean-Paul Software @jeanpaulsoftware.bsky.social · 10/08/2025

By definition, everyone who is not at the extreme ends is a "moderate", so any claim you make about the beliefs of those people will either be trite, or untrue for all but a subset of them. Given that, what is it you want to say about them?

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Jean-Paul Software @jeanpaulsoftware.bsky.social · 09/08/2025

"The bad spatial metaphor is used everywhere. That's just inarguable fact." - I agree, which is why it's important to talk about the things people actually believe, rather than placing labels on them, and then talking about the labels.

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Jean-Paul Software @jeanpaulsoftware.bsky.social · 09/08/2025

Probably something like "left, but in favour of some market-based policy" or "right, but in favour of a strong welfare state", both of which are positions people actually hold. This isn't an attempt to defend those positions, I'm just saying they exist, whereas what you're describing doesn't

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Jean-Paul Software @jeanpaulsoftware.bsky.social · 09/08/2025

Right but that means it's not a definition that anyone actually applies to themselves- so if someone is calling themselves that, then they probably mean 'moderate'

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Jean-Paul Software @jeanpaulsoftware.bsky.social · 09/08/2025

I don't think your definition of 'centrism' reflects anyone's actual beliefs- beliefs aren't vectors, nobody is computing the geometric mean of all opinions and then adopting that as their world view, or thinking "Elon Musk has had another child, I must reduce my favoured tax percentage by 0.002%"

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