iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Sam Bloomberg @xbloom.io · 02/10/2026

My previous blockout does the same, though it's not as obvious since it's to transition between brushes that don't otherwise line up as opposed to going from a high detail section to low detail.

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Sam Bloomberg @xbloom.io · 02/10/2026

The water is subdivided like this because it gets animated in the vertex shader, so I need to have additional verticies for that animation to work with.

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Sam Bloomberg @xbloom.io · 02/10/2026

Working on yet another blockout...

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Sam Bloomberg @xbloom.io · 30/09/2026

Gameplay volumes make this map truly incomprehensible.

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Sam Bloomberg @xbloom.io · 30/09/2026

Finally finished a bunch of more underlying technical work, so starting on a new blockout. Wanted to make something more open-ended and with canals/waterways for this one.

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Sam Bloomberg @xbloom.io · 28/09/2026

so I added a "surface_type" metadata to each texture resource, and wrote a simple context menu plugin to allow mass-assigning surface types. Makes lookup at runtime pretty easy, no static table of surface types to maintain, and it's easy to make new surface types and assign them out.

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Sam Bloomberg @xbloom.io · 21/09/2026

And now... Thief-like light detection. Wasn't originally planning on implementing this but it solves some situations where I felt I shouldn't be visible but enemies could spot me anyway, without having to adjust level geo or add manual visibility blocking volumes.

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Sam Bloomberg @xbloom.io · 20/09/2026

Starting on another quick art pass for a third level.

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Sam Bloomberg @xbloom.io · 19/09/2026

New ranged enemy! And some other miscellaneous polish - dead bodies (which enemies can see and investigate) weapon switcher HUD elements, and some new audio implementation.

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Sam Bloomberg @xbloom.io · 19/09/2026

It is very funny to me that Bad Rats, a game that came out over 15 years ago and has basically been used as a joke-gift on steam, ended up in the "Artwork" section of that festival somehow.

the artwork section of the festival being discussed, showcasing a link to "Bad Rats"

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Sam Bloomberg @xbloom.io · 17/09/2026

Doing just enough of an art pass to give this level the right vibes I think. Also got room-based reverb and acoustics working for first-person sounds (footsteps/weapon fire), it really makes a difference in making you feel like you're in the space.

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Sam Bloomberg @xbloom.io · 17/09/2026

Crazy how quickly this is coming together, just from applying a few textures. Only an hour or two of work (some of which was unrelated, spent some time improving the behavior of doors and NPCs)

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Sam Bloomberg @xbloom.io · 16/09/2026

Starting to do a basic art pass on a second level now.

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Sam Bloomberg @xbloom.io · 16/09/2026

Physics interaction just begs for physical keys you have to bring to physical doors.

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Sam Bloomberg @xbloom.io · 14/09/2026

I also had a whole bunch of issues with making it possible to define acoustic portals via brushes in trenchbroom. That was mostly my own issues with figuring out the right way to transform a brush's geometry into an oriented bounding box though (portals can only be OBBs, they can't be complex geo).

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Sam Bloomberg @xbloom.io · 14/09/2026

I also don't think I've posted this but it was *very* important that I add source engine-style light flicker patterns, I assure you.

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Sam Bloomberg @xbloom.io · 14/09/2026

Did a whole bunch more work this weekend: directional damage indicators, fall damage, some audio implementation for enemies, and basic impact vfx, implemented the basics for wwise acoustics (rooms + portals), among 20 other more hidden things.

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Sam Bloomberg @xbloom.io · 10/09/2026

I think this is coming along pretty well, if I do say so myself. Though with the environment now being more medieval, I should probably replace the pistol with something more appropriate...

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Sam Bloomberg @xbloom.io · 07/09/2026

Having a lot of fun working in a BSP editor again. Working on little details at low fidelity with simple and easy tools really is nice.

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Sam Bloomberg @xbloom.io · 06/09/2026

Doing some exploration on the art side of things. Playing with low-res textures that still use the full PBR featureset.

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Sam Bloomberg @xbloom.io · 31/08/2026

It's impressive how bad fab is at being a "trusted" place to sell assets. You see horrible listings like this one (www.fab.com/listings/5ce...) which is made up of ripped models from Pragmata (without even changing the names) and you can't even report it for what it is without filing a proper...

Image from fab showing a bunch of blatantly ripped models of pragmata weapons, without the names even being changed from what they are in-game.

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Sam Bloomberg @xbloom.io · 29/08/2026

Getting a basic game loop together, with progression from level-to-level.

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Sam Bloomberg @xbloom.io · 24/08/2026

...something is wrong with my boxes

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Sam Bloomberg @xbloom.io · 24/08/2026

it's kind of impressive how much better interaction feels with even a really basic "grab" indicator

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Sam Bloomberg @xbloom.io · 24/08/2026

Something is wrong with my doors

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Sam Bloomberg @xbloom.io · 24/08/2026

Tired after traveling all week, but rest can wait - physics-based interaction won't implement itself!

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Sam Bloomberg @xbloom.io · 06/08/2026

This is what has consistently annoyed me about using AI-generated art even as placeholders (on a purely practical level). Placeholder content should look placeholder so that it is not judged or assumed to be close to shipping quality.

This is the part of cheap generation that makes me uneasy. Promotion pressure scales with how finished a prototype looks. A grey-box level with placeholder audio is obviously provisional and everyone treats it that way. A prototype assembled from generated assets and generated code reads as close to shippable, which makes the case for rebuilding it much harder to win in a room full of people looking at a screen. Dicken describes generative AI as automated scaffolding, useful for putting up a frame and incapable of building the house. The failure mode of scaffolding is somebody deciding it looks solid enough to live in.

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Sam Bloomberg @xbloom.io · 24/11/2024

Since I expected to have to occasionally re-flash the board as I inevitably broke something, I designed the enclosure in two pieces: a mount for the touchscreen/board, and a magnetic wall plate that it would attach to.

The wall panel enclosure and wall mount, showing magnetic attachment points

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Sam Bloomberg @xbloom.io · 24/11/2024

The enclosure is a simple 3d-printed mount that I drew up in Solid Edge - I haven't done any CAD work before so this was a fun learning experience. I made way too many revisions of the board as I slowly learned a good workflow to designing around physical constraints.

examples of a number of revisions of the wall panel enclosure

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Sam Bloomberg @xbloom.io · 24/11/2024

So I did! This is an adafruit ESP32-S3-based board hooked up to a 4" 480x480 TFT touchscreen. OpenHASP didn't support this board out of the box, so it's running a lightly modified distribution that took me a while to figure out how to get running.

Image of an adafruit ESP32-S3 qualia RGB666 development board mounted on a 3d-printed enclosure for a touchscreen.

image of the toucscreen showing a basic thermostat control UI in OpenHASP

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