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Lars Thießen

@larstofus.bsky.social
445 followers 274 following 236 posts

Senior Gameplay Programmer and former gamedev professor. he/him Blog: larstofus.com DMs are open.

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Lars Thießen @larstofus.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
I commented under a pull request today giving tips to get it merged. Now, after looking through the github account I think the pull request as well as it's description might have been ai-generated. Now I have this weird sense of betrayal, like I was cheated out of a social interaction 😑
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Lars Thießen @larstofus.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
I'm seriously considering now to re-create all of my open pull requests on the release branch, just to make it more likely to get them merged... But that would probably mean hours of work and re-compiling the engine for the n-th time 😖
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Lars Thießen @larstofus.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
Even the (great) pull request tutorial on Unreal Garden still refers to ue5-main. unreal-garden.com/tutorials/ma... Maybe this could be updated? 😊 @unreal-garden.com
unreal-garden.com
How to make a pull request to Unreal Engine
Be the changelist you want to see in the world.
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Lars Thießen @larstofus.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
Looking through the most recent pull requests I don't seem to be the only one missing the change. At the time of me writing this, only 2 of the 10 most recent pull requests target the release branch.
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Lars Thießen @larstofus.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
Did anyone else notice that Epic changed the branch that your pull requests should target? Because I for sure didn't 😵‍💫 #ue5 #gamedev dev.epicgames.com/documentatio...
Two cropped screenshots of Unreal's documentation. The left one (5.2) states that pull requests should start from master, the right one (5.3) states that you should start from release.
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Lars Thießen @larstofus.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Windows forgot how time works... (Also, a good reminder to not hardcode adjustable settings into description texts) #windows
A cropped screenshot of the energy saving settings of Windows. The shown option is "Make my device sleep after" which is set to 2 hours. The description text however states that the device will enter sleep mode after 5 minutes.
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Lars Thießen @larstofus.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
The moment if you get a compile error in a templated function which is only declared from inside a macro and called from a different, triple nested macro... At least I think that's what happening, Intellisense already gave up three layers before the error 😿
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Lars Thießen @larstofus.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
That's something: Artstation finally decided to fight against the Ai flood But in practice those actions amount to just enabling the "please-don't-scrape-us" checkbox by default and block known ai scrapers. Really hoping that this is just a first step 🤞 magazine.artstation.com/2026/09/ai-u...
magazine.artstation.com
ArtStation Should Put Artists First - ArtStation Magazine
ArtStation is enabling default NoAI protections and partnering with Cloudflare to limit AI crawlers and content scraping.
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Lars Thießen @larstofus.bsky.social · 16/08/2026
After speeding up the Unreal Editor launch by not by not spawning 38000 tooltips and not opening 5500 files let's get ready for the conclusion of my trilogy: Speeding up the Unreal Editor launch by not loading 1585 files (source code included) larstofus.com/2026/08/16/s... #gamedev #ue5
larstofus.com
Speeding up the Unreal Editor launch (again) by not loading 1585 files
After writing one article on how to speed up Unreal’s editor launch by not spawning 38000 tooltips and one on how to speed it up further by not opening 5500 files and getting the described fi…
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Hauke Thiessen @haukethiessen.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
New #gamedev blog post: haukethiessen.com/taking-contr... This time, I'm adding a new option to the mesh build settings in #Unreal, making it possible to adjust the Lumen mesh card generation in more detail. Had some fun getting this to work, and depending on your project, it can be quite useful.
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Lars Thießen @larstofus.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
As a German I can assure you, it's not a misunderstanding. It's sadly not even surprising anymore... Our rail system is a disaster by now.
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Lars Thießen @larstofus.bsky.social · 09/08/2026
No worries, they "fixed" it 🫠
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Lars Thießen @larstofus.bsky.social · 02/08/2026
(Regarding the last point . the local data of the launcher version at least is smaller, the 5 GB only applies if compiled from source).
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Lars Thießen @larstofus.bsky.social · 02/08/2026
If at least the download of all those languages were optional. But no, everytime I install a new engine version I can delete 5 GB of (for me) useless loca data afterwards 😵‍💫
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Lars Thießen @larstofus.bsky.social · 02/08/2026
In over 10 years of working in Unreal in Germany I never met a single german developer who used the editor in german. At the same time localizing all of this text and keeping it updated can't be cheap, so I guess there must be some data that proves to Epic that it's worth it? 🤯
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Lars Thießen @larstofus.bsky.social · 02/08/2026
Because of reasons, I am tinkering with the editor localization of Unreal again, and I just can fathom why anybody ever thought this was a good idea. Half of the text in the editor consists of untranslatable variable names anyway, so every label ends up looking like this: #ue5 #gamedev
A cropped screenshot of the Unreal Editor, showing a label and it's tooltip. Both are partially translated into german.
The label reads "Override Weltschwerkraft".
The tooltip reads "Bei 'true' wird GlobalGravityZ anstelle der Projekteinstellung DefaultGravityZ verwendet.".
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Hooded Horse @hoodedhorse.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
mods are asleep, i can post hog on main corsair cove releases tomorrow btw
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Lars Thießen @larstofus.bsky.social · 30/06/2026
A "no-Ai-whatsoever" stance would have been even better in my opinion, but still: A win is a win! Maybe I should give Godot another try? 👀
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Lars Thießen @larstofus.bsky.social · 29/06/2026
If you follow my blog you might have noticed that I'm quite a fan of Superluminal, a fantastic CPU profiler that *just works*. (yes, really). So far it was Windows exclusive, but this finally changes 🥳 Do yourself a favor and try it out!
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Lars Thießen @larstofus.bsky.social · 28/06/2026
"Hopefully we'll never have to discuss movies again."
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UZDoom @uzdoom.bsky.social · 21/06/2026
Helping out our brothers and sisters in the Quake mapping scene! NextBroom, the non-generative-AI fork of Trenchbroom, is welcoming contributors to lend a helping hand! Head on over to codeberg.org/NextBroomTea... to check it out!
codeberg.org
NextBroom
NextBroom, your trusty idtechx Map editor.
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Lars Thießen @larstofus.bsky.social · 18/06/2026
Almost forgot the link: godotengine.org/releases/4.7/
godotengine.org
Godot 4.7, Lights, Camera, Action!
Like a cult classic movie, Godot 4 has only gotten better with age. This brings us to Godot 4.7. With 3 years under its belt, the 4.7 Director’s Cut offers colors of never-before-reached intensity.
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Lars Thießen @larstofus.bsky.social · 18/06/2026
Godot 4.7 is there and with it, as usual by now, some of the best release notes in the business. Videos, side-by-side comparisons, and even direct links to the pull requests! And look at this new drag-and-drop indicator😍 #godot #gamedev
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Lars Thießen @larstofus.bsky.social · 17/06/2026
#UE6 introduces Verse, a programming language that can distribute large-scale computations over hundreds of servers and thousands of CPUs automatically, in real-time. Which is proably Epic's best shot at making their launcher run smoothly 💀
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Lars Thießen @larstofus.bsky.social · 17/06/2026
"The power of UE6 brings Fortnite skins into YOUR GAME!!" Hot take, but maybe they should stay in the game they were specifically designed for? 🫠 #ue6
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Lars Thießen @larstofus.bsky.social · 16/06/2026
How many files do you expect a program to read from disk to fill a drop down menu with 14 entries? A) 0 A) 1 B) 14 C) > 1.5k Bonus question: What do you guess is Unreal's answer to this question? 🫠
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Lars Thießen @larstofus.bsky.social · 15/06/2026
The Steam Next Fest is upon us! If you haven't already, check out the Corsair Cove demo and drop us a review! People really seem to like it so far (>90% positive reviews right now)🏴‍☠️ store.steampowered.com/app/3858730/...
store.steampowered.com
Corsair Cove Demo on Steam
Build a sprawling pirate haven, raise a fleet to explore the high seas, and take on the Crown to keep the Age of Piracy alive! From ale to flintlock pistols, and from scallywags to swashbucklers, you’...
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Lars Thießen @larstofus.bsky.social · 02/06/2026
The demo for Corsair Cove, the most recent game I worked on went live a few days ago and so far the feedback has been amazing. If you haven't yet I really recommend trying out the demo 🥳
A cropped screenshot of the steam review rating of the Corsair Cove Demo, sitting at 92% with 220 reviews.
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Lars Thießen @larstofus.bsky.social · 01/06/2026
Do you remember my collection of fixes for Unreal's renaming issues? The first of them got merged and will be shipped with 5.8! (Actually, it got merged a while ago, but I just noticed it now) #ue5 #gamedv larstofus.com/2026/04/26/h...
larstofus.com
How Unreal struggles with renaming stuff (and how to fix it)
Normally, if a developer complains that “naming stuff is hard,” they are talking about the difficulty of finding a good name that is descriptive, clear, and unambiguous. But sometimes, …
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Lars Thießen @larstofus.bsky.social · 28/05/2026
I thought about it 😃 But if you want to use logs to debug crashes you might miss out on a queued message right before the crash.. not sure if there is a way to have both... maybe a separate logging process?🤔
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Lars Thießen @larstofus.bsky.social · 28/05/2026
The performance of Unreal's message log isn't great, especially if you log a lot of messages. Luckily, it's easy to fix and to make it a looot faster: larstofus.com/2026/05/28/h... #ue5 #gamedev
larstofus.com
How to make Unreal’s Message Log 100 times faster
One of the quirks that Unreal beginners are often irritated by is the fact that the Unreal editor has not only one, but two log windows. The more commonly used one is called ‘Output Log&#8217…
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Lars Thießen @larstofus.bsky.social · 26/05/2026
hm, that's weird, that's the page I was referring to: www.amazon.fr/-/en/Game-En...
amazon.fr
Amazon.fr - Game Engine Architecture - Gregory, Jason - Livres
Noté /5. Retrouvez Game Engine Architecture et des millions de livres en stock sur Amazon.fr. Achetez neuf ou d'occasion
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Lars Thießen @larstofus.bsky.social · 26/05/2026
Ouch, the french amazon put it at 400 😵
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Lars Thießen @larstofus.bsky.social · 26/05/2026
Yea, I initially only checked the US price and assumed that the 144$ would translate to something around 120€. But the german bookstores I checked put it at around 300! 😤 Maybe I should check if it's cheaper to import it instead... 🫠
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Lars Thießen @larstofus.bsky.social · 26/05/2026
UPDATE: It's there! The 4th edition just dropped! Stay calm, everybody! 🥳
static.klipy.com
Oh My God, It's Happening! (The Office)
ALT: Oh My God, It's Happening! (The Office)
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Lars Thießen @larstofus.bsky.social · 25/05/2026
Sometimes, when I set up worst-case scenarios during profiling, I feel sorry for Unreal. This frametime graph looks like a murder scene🔪🩸
A screenshot of an Unreal Engine 5 frametime graph showing an increase in frametime that is linear and extremly fast.
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Lars Thießen @larstofus.bsky.social · 25/05/2026
Wait, wasn't UE6 the version supposed to bring all this (meta)verse stuff? Can't say I'm too excited for that 🫠
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Lars Thießen @larstofus.bsky.social · 22/05/2026
Much thanks. Hope you and the poor cone bearer are better soon!
A grey cat sitting in a basket
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Lars Thießen @larstofus.bsky.social · 22/05/2026
It seemed to have gained some traction, I see it more and more often in my site's analytics as a referrer. Maybe I should give a try, too
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Godot Engine @godotengine.org · 22/05/2026
We've been working on replacing the Asset Library with something built for the present and future. Here's what's coming. #godotengine godotengine.org/article/intr...
godotengine.org
Introducing the Godot Asset Store – Godot Engine
We've been working on replacing the Asset Library with something built for the present and future. Here's what's coming.
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Lars Thießen @larstofus.bsky.social · 20/05/2026
Did you just make a post mentioning cats without attaching a picture of said cats? 😿
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Lars Thießen @larstofus.bsky.social · 20/05/2026
If you haven't yet I would recommend Dark Messiah next. It's less open than Dishonored but gets a lot of the same things right.
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Hauke Thiessen @haukethiessen.bsky.social · 17/05/2026
New blog article📝: haukethiessen.com/better-rough... This time about composite textures in #Unreal: What they are, why you should use them, and most importantly, how to automate them, using a plugin that I wrote recently. #opensource #gamedev
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Lars Thießen @larstofus.bsky.social · 16/05/2026
Why optimization matters: When signing into Windows takes too long, Windows can activate the screen lock, and, by doing that, sign you out again before the initial sign-in is even finished! I now always have to move the mouse while looking at the login screen, just so I can reach the desktop 🫠
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DarknessFX @drkfx.bsky.social · 23/02/2026
For those not happy with the new "Home" tab from Unreal Engine 5.7.3, to remove the tab: == Edit: Engine\Config\BaseEngine.ini Section: [SystemSettings] Add line: HomeScreen.EnableHomeScreen=False ==
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Lars Thießen @larstofus.bsky.social · 05/05/2026
Glad to see I'm not the only one annoyed by this feature :D Although you can do nice stuff with it ;)
A screenshot of Unreal's Home Tab, but displaying the blog larstofus.com instead of the intended epic home screen site.
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Lars Thießen @larstofus.bsky.social · 05/05/2026
Never seen a game warn players of it's own chosen engine in the system requirements before, but there's a first for everything, I guess. #UE5
Cropped screenshot of system requirements of the game "A Bumpy Ride" on the game's steam page. The additional notes section says: "A Bumpy Ride runs on Unreal Engine 5, which is known to be a heavy game engine for even some desktops. Please verify your ability to play the game by downloading the demo before purchasing!"
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Lars Thießen @larstofus.bsky.social · 26/04/2026
Unreal has a surprisingly high number of issues when it comes to renaming things in the editor. It even refuses some renaming actions altogether! Let's investigate and fix this: larstofus.com/2026/04/26/h... #gamedev #UE5 #UnrealEngine
larstofus.com
How Unreal struggles with with renaming stuff (and how to fix it)
Normally, if a developer complains that “naming stuff is hard,” they are talking about the difficulty of finding a good name that is descriptive, clear, and unambiguous. But sometimes, …
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Lars Thießen @larstofus.bsky.social · 20/04/2026
My pull reques fixing the issue: github.com/EpicGames/Un... (your epic games account needs to be connect to your github account to view the link)
github.com
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Lars Thießen @larstofus.bsky.social · 20/04/2026
In Unreal its possible to set explicit widgets to target during gamepad navigation - but due to a bug only if those widgets were at least renamed once, otherwise they don't show up in the widget list o.O #ue5 #gamedev
Two cropped Unreal editor screenshots showing the setting of explicit navigation targets inside the UMG editor. In the left version now widgets are available for selection, on the right three widgets are available.
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