iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Nolram @nolram.cimbrian.net · 03/10/2026

Sorry the Horripilant soundtrack still isn’t out - there’s just still a few things in the pipeline before we can out it out ;D

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Nolram @nolram.cimbrian.net · 03/10/2026

I’m so happy to hear this. I feel like I’m loosing my mind as a professional indie dev with how many people left and right - indies, AAA - are resorting to and defending slopcoding, while ignoring the supply chain issues associated with it.

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Nolram @nolram.cimbrian.net · 02/10/2026

Same thing goes for game technology too. Almost every common opinion on game graphics/performance/networking & servers, game engines and so on is wrong about something in some way. Even (or well, ESPECIALLY) the loudest/biggest voices tend to be :)

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Nolram @nolram.cimbrian.net · 02/10/2026

The Green Parrotfish. Why does it look like that and why does it chew on rocks

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Nolram @nolram.cimbrian.net · 01/10/2026

Here are a few highlights: 1. You MUST assume your player is a minor until they go through age verification 2. You REQUIRE a PEGI/USK rating to sell your game (costs hundreds to thousands of Euros) 3. You NEED to write content disclosures about every potential minor-unfriendly thing in your game.

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Nolram @nolram.cimbrian.net · 01/10/2026

and no this is not just about mobile games: Every game that isn’t 1. 100% offline 2. Sold physically is affected. Yes, that includes YOUR indie game!

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Nolram @nolram.cimbrian.net · 01/10/2026

Hey everyone I feel like we should be talking about how the EU is trying to KILL INDIE GAMES (and most other games!) through child safety and age verification policies (EU Kids Act) www.pocketgamer.biz/europes-trip...

pocketgamer.biz

Europe's triple-threat for mobile gaming

There was a lot of concern about the impending announcement around the European Union’s Digital Fairness Act.

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Nolram @nolram.cimbrian.net · 30/09/2026

But it’s an optional plugin you have to enable - not that it’s great that it exists but it just seems like some tangential thing? Did you read the actual blogpost? Alternatives are also sadly really sparse. Shopify for instance odoes way more scummy AI stuff… E-Commerce just always sucks

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Nolram @nolram.cimbrian.net · 29/09/2026

Mostly because there are also barely any publisher deals these days.

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Nolram @nolram.cimbrian.net · 28/09/2026

The stepping is more due to probe interpolation than placement. Depends on how the probes are integrated - I feel like this is an artifact that should be possible to avoid though

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Nolram @nolram.cimbrian.net · 27/09/2026

Especially as a perfectionist getting the lightmaps all looking juuuuust right can eat SO MUCH time. I don’t mind having to align a volume once and having it automatic from there :) But they are undeniably stupidly effective for geometrically simpler scenes and low end targets.

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Nolram @nolram.cimbrian.net · 27/09/2026

But I think to me with lightmaps the biggest issue tends to be just iteration and bake speed, which is why a real-time raytraced preview is one of the biggest quality of life improvements one can add to a lightmapped project. I’m happy to not work on lightmapped projects in general right now though.

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Nolram @nolram.cimbrian.net · 27/09/2026

I agree that they are useful for different scenarios, but I think we’ve had some different experiences with lightmaps :) I’ve worked on a ton of stuff with lightmaps, and almost always there’s a large amount of stuff required to tweak, other than just texel density, from biases to leak fixing.

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Nolram @nolram.cimbrian.net · 27/09/2026

Unity APV is a good example, or I think even Godot’s voxel baked lighting. Many games have shipped using this, from The Division to Quantum Break, and almost every lightmapped game needs one as a fallback for dynamic stuff anyways (like Half Life 2’s Ambient Cubes)

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Nolram @nolram.cimbrian.net · 27/09/2026

Personally, I prefer meshless precomputed GI to lightmaps - Irradiance Probes and the likes are what come to mind. They just don’t have all the texture-related issues of lightmaps (UV seams and such), are still are very cheap to render, and dynamic objects can receive GI from them too.

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Nolram @nolram.cimbrian.net · 26/09/2026

You can’t keep showing up out of nowhere with the most beautiful ImGui interfaces known to mankind

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Nolram @nolram.cimbrian.net · 25/09/2026

What's the memory use of this like? I would imagine this works great for small scenes, but would struggle on larger scenes.

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Nolram @nolram.cimbrian.net · 25/09/2026

For any fellows europeans - yes, the shipping costs are insane (this is for the 12€ pancake mix)

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Nolram @nolram.cimbrian.net · 25/09/2026

1GB STL LOL good luck printing that topological nightmare

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Nolram @nolram.cimbrian.net · 23/09/2026

Yes they are, why would they not be? Together with cost they are the primary metric by which game performance gets judged. How else would it be?

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Nolram @nolram.cimbrian.net · 22/09/2026

Yeah, Microsoft and other such Megacorps of course work under different rules. But the same core still applies - they still see the data and make decisions based on it, even if internal politics as a factor. But especially "independent" AAA (Remedy, IOI…) is still very dependent on customer support.

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Nolram @nolram.cimbrian.net · 22/09/2026

To clarify - indies are AWESOME and 100% worth your support, but for the games ecosystem to be healthy we need all sizes of developer - from small indies able to make small weird experiments to AAA furthering the craft and tech and getting the broader public into the medium. And AA as the inbetween.

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Nolram @nolram.cimbrian.net · 22/09/2026

FYI this will lead to more layoffs. Sales numbers are directly tied to whether people get to keep their jobs, whether further instalments are made and if Studios get to stick together. Support good AAA games when they happen. Indies will not save us (and I’m saying this as a full time indie).

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Nolram @nolram.cimbrian.net · 22/09/2026

I’m curious what they’ll use for it, whether it’s IW (I doubt it) or something else. But generally Activision/Blizzard are technologically competent so this could be a good change. Or maybe they’ll just keep a UE5 subteam. I don’t think the deployment of UE5 in Campaign Evolved was that great tho.

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Nolram @nolram.cimbrian.net · 22/09/2026

… the editor is restricted by that limitation too. Luckily enough though our editor layout is very straight forward and heavily tabbed, and we don‘t have a lot of always-open windows to worry about. I will consider perhaps taking some time to make the existing panels move-, dock- & resizable though.

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Nolram @nolram.cimbrian.net · 22/09/2026

That‘s true, though I think *for now* it‘s probably fine as is. True window flexibility is hard to achieve because that requires creating and rendering to new windows dynamically, something not supported by our core rendering tech - and since our editor runs ontop of the game runtime…

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Nolram @nolram.cimbrian.net · 22/09/2026

Is this my wakeup call to switch to the imgui docking branch and not do fixed ratio UI layouts?

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Nolram @nolram.cimbrian.net · 20/09/2026

It was published by Epic so yes it is stuck there

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Nolram @nolram.cimbrian.net · 20/09/2026

From what I know, some shader-like effects could be done on the PS2 CPU because of the unified memory making that accessing relatively cheap - plus probably some prerendered matcaps putting in good work. Don‘t quote me on that though, I‘ve not done PS2 development :)

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Nolram @nolram.cimbrian.net · 20/09/2026

And it‘s not like they don‘t have labor issues of their own, from intentionally depriving their employees of work in sensory depravation chambers to force them to resign, to 11 hour workdays, uncredited work and overly strong NDAs…

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Nolram @nolram.cimbrian.net · 20/09/2026

Take Stray, an absurdly detailed game made primarily by 2 environment artists over a span of 6 years, mostly as a hobby project (funding only came in about 4 years into the process AFAIR). It is however also only about 5, maybe 6 hours long. There so many factors at play in the economy of art.

A screenshot of the video game "Stray" showing a highly detailed neon-futuristic street.

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Nolram @nolram.cimbrian.net · 20/09/2026

Also so many people seem to immediately think that cost = fidelity when in reality cost = work * quantity. Some things considered high fidelity CAN be quick and easy, and even when not can still be very economical when done on a small scale or longer timeframe.

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Nolram @nolram.cimbrian.net · 20/09/2026

I also wish people would uncouple style from production value. Something cartoon looking is not necessarily cheaper or easier than something more realistic (I hate that term, I prefer grounded since something can be stylised even while basing itself of reality)

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Nolram @nolram.cimbrian.net · 19/09/2026

I think they're probably aware of the fact that they have in essence burnt any kind of public trust with anyone in the industry doing this; so I imagine that we don't see The Machinery nor the team return after their move to Apple. Deeply unfortunate, I was REALLY looking forward to their tech.

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Nolram @nolram.cimbrian.net · 19/09/2026

There was clearly a lot of goodwill and momentum built up there, with there being quite a bit of velocity behind The Machinery given the unique approach. Such a sudden implosion, with 0 trace of where they went is quite odd because of t hat - Apple must have offered a lot of cash and tight NDA.

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Nolram @nolram.cimbrian.net · 19/09/2026

It is quite fascinating for a few reasons. Before this, I was always quite surprised about the transparency of the team, not just with The Machinery but also their prior engine, Bitsquid/Stingray, like the walkthrough of the engine codebase of that engine for example ( youtu.be/LgbSYxf9vT4 ).

youtube.com

Stingray Engine Code Walkthrough: #1 Overview

YouTube video by Niklas Gray

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Nolram @nolram.cimbrian.net · 19/09/2026

Not sure if this is just because I’m on a phone but the second image looks fine to me? I don’t think the added resolution takes anything away here, the artwork looks great on both

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Nolram @nolram.cimbrian.net · 19/09/2026

Just realised it’s not a subscription - much better, though I feel like core trust issues still sort of apply. Your programming language is REALLY something you need some control over. Especially with how scarred the game tech world is from i.e. "The Machinery" incident and Unity’s licensing debacle

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Nolram @nolram.cimbrian.net · 19/09/2026

The only other case of programming languages like this getting properly funded is to have a company that uses them fund their development (see i.e. Odin), but that‘s a hard thing to achieve when you‘re already monetising it…

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Nolram @nolram.cimbrian.net · 19/09/2026

Oh I fully agree that a developer has gotta eat somehow, but I feel like a subscription in particular is just a poor fit (a perpetual license and perhaps some services would probably work better). Though really, given how omnipresent open-source languages are, it‘ll be a hard sell one way or another

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Nolram @nolram.cimbrian.net · 19/09/2026

It‘s a really nice language syntactically, but for something as core and essential as a programming language a subscription model (where the licensing can change any moment) is not worth the risk

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Nolram @nolram.cimbrian.net · 18/09/2026

If you can give me the name of the provider I can have a peek at which of these options might possible!

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Nolram @nolram.cimbrian.net · 18/09/2026

Classic situation :) If you want to do a blog then there‘s 3 options I‘d think: - See if there is some internal feature akin to a blog - See if there‘s a way to somehow mash a blog into it (via iframes or similar, custom code blocks?) - Make a new website (scary but can be worth it)

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Nolram @nolram.cimbrian.net · 18/09/2026

How are you doing your website currently? Depending on that there‘s a variety of options really!

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Nolram @nolram.cimbrian.net · 17/09/2026

Thanks for the info! I‘ve been struggling to get anything going forearms wise for a while, so I‘ll give some of this a shot perhaps :)

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Nolram @nolram.cimbrian.net · 17/09/2026

What‘s your forearm routine like?

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Nolram @nolram.cimbrian.net · 16/09/2026

Do we know anyone from there that could elaborate?

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Nolram @nolram.cimbrian.net · 16/09/2026

Screenshot from @skillup.bsky.social's review of the game

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