#visual code

[someblakearts]

System Shock 2 in Unreal Engine 5

Tools, tools, tools

Back when I worked in the games industry, I was a tools guy by trade. It was a bit of a mix between developing APIs and toolkits for other developers, designing database frontends and automated scripts to visualise memory usage in a game's world, or reverse engineering obscure file formats to create time-saving gadgets for art creation.

I still tend to do a lot of that now in my spare time to relax and unwind, whether it's figuring out the binary data and protocols that makes up the art and assets from my favourite games, or recreating systems and solutions for the satisfaction of figuring it all out.

A Shock to the System

A while back I spent a week or so writing importer tools, logic systems and some basic functionality to recreate System Shock 2 in Unreal Engine 5. It got to the stage where importing the data from the game was a one-click process - I clicked import and could literally run around the game in UE5 within seconds, story-missions and ship systems all working.

Most of Dark engine's logic is supported but I haven't had the time to implement AI or enemies yet. Quite a bit of 3D art is still a bit sketchy, too. The craziest thing to me is that there are no light entities or baked lightmaps placed in the levels. All the illumination you can feast your eyes on is Lumen's indirect lighting from the emissive textures I'd dropped into the game. It has been a fun little exercise in getting me back into Unreal Engine development and I've learnt a lot of stuff as usual.

Here is a video of me playing all the way up to the ops deck (and then getting lost before I decided to cut the video short - it's actually possible to all the way through the game now). Lots of spoilers in this video, obviously, for those that haven't played the game.

What it is

At it's core, it's just a recreation of the various logic-subsystems in System Shock 2 and an assortment of art that has been crudely bashed into Unreal Engine 5. Pretty much all the textures, materials, meshes and maps are converted over and most of the work remaining is just tying them together with bits of C++ string. I hope you also appreciate that I sprinkled on some motion-blur and depth of field to enhance the gameplay a little. Just kidding - I just didn't get around to turning that off in the prefab Unreal Engine template I regularly use.

Tool-wise, it's a mishmash of different things working together:

There's an asset converter that organises the art into an Unreal-Engine-compatible pipeline. It's a mix of Python scripting, mind numbingly dull NodeJS and 3dsmaxscript that juggles data. It recreates all the animated (and inanimate) textures as Unreal materials, meshifies and models the map of the ship, and processes the objects and items into file formats that can be read by the engine.

A DB to Unreal converter takes in DarkDBs and spits out JSON that Unreal Engine and my other tools can understand and then brings it into the Engine. This is the secret sauce that takes all the levels and logic from the original game and recreates it in the Unreal-Dark-hybrid-of-an-engine. It places the logical boundaries for rooms and traps, lays down all the objects (and sets their properties) and keys in those parameters to materialise the missions and set up the story gameplay.

Another tool also weeds through the JSON thats been spat out previously and weaves it into complex databases in Unreal Engine. This arranges all the audio logs, mission texts and more into organised collections that can be referenced and relayed through the UI.

The last part is the Unreal Engine integration. This is the actual recreation of much of the Dark Engine in UE, ranging all the way from the PDA that powers the player's journey through the game, to the traps, buttons and systems that bring the Von Braun to life. It has save-game systems to store the state of objects, inventories and all your stats, levels and progress. This is all C++ and is built in a (hopefully) modular way that I can build on easily should the project progress.

Where it's at

As I mentioned, the levels themselves are a one-click import process. Most of Dark engine's logic, quirks and all, is implemented now (level persistence and transitions, links, traps, triggers, questvars, stats and levelling, inventory, signals/responses, PDA, hacking, etc.) but I still haven't got around to any kid of AI yet. I haven't bought much in the way of animation in from the original game yet, either, as I need to work out the best way to do it. I need to pull together the separate systems and fix little bugs here and there and iron it out with a little testing at some point.

Lighting-wise, this is all just Lumen and emissive textures. I don't think it'll ever not impress me how big of a step forward this is in terms of realistic lighting. No baking of lightmaps, no manually placing lighting. It's all just emissive materials, global/indirect illumination and bounce lighting. It gets a little overly dark here and there (a mixture of emissive textures not quite capturing the original baked lighting, and a limitation in Lumen right now for cached surfaces on complex meshes, aka the level) so could probably benefit with a manual pass at some point, but 'ain't nobody got time for that for a spare-time project.

The unreal editor showcasing some of the systems and levels.

Where it's going

I kind of need to figure out exactly what I'm doing with this project and where to stop. My initial goal was just to have an explorable version of the Von Braun in Unreal Engine 5 to sharpen my game dev skills and stop them from going rusty, but it's gotten a bit further than that now. I'm also thinking of doing something much more in-depth video/blog-wise in some way - let me know in the comments if that's something you'd be interested in and what kind of stuff you'd want to see/hear about.

The DB to JSON tool that churns out System Shock 2 game data as readable info

Anyway - I began to expand out with the project and recreate assets and art to integrate into Unreal Engine 5. I'll add more as I get more written up.

[canisalbus]

✦ Fashionably late ✦

[kinky-cas]

I love everybody because I love you

[wh1sp3rr]

jjk twitter prn links!! ft. toji, sukuna & choso

masterlist

-ˋˏ ༻✿༺ ˎˊ-

he’s fuckin hunggg ft. sukuna

he’s always down for u to sit on his face ft. boyfriend!choso

pussy & ass spanks till ur red! ft. toji

slow touches after sex ft. all of them tbh

more slapping lol ft. toji

invite him over n it’ll lead to this ft. boyfriend!choso

human pussy is the best!! 😫😫 ft. virgin!choso

sucking his finger whilst he chokes u ft. choso

he’s js so big 😣😖 ft. toji

feelin domestic lowk ft. husband!toji

this is SO sukuna ft. sukuna obvs lol

he dwarfs u so bad ft. sukuna & toji

© WHISPER 2K24 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

[kroovv]

Some backgrounds for Gravehearts

[laskito]

Fireworks.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Lan Wangji Goes To Lotus Pier AU: Part 4: Deranged Bedfellows

(Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4.5)

[hhowell12]

Things that I scripted that just make sense.

Just 'cause I've no ideas to script so maybe I could help you

﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌

The butterfly effect does NOT affect scripted scenarios (I've nothing to say).

The night is never completely dark, you can see a little, like in the series, it doesn't matter if there is a new moon (most of my realities are dystopian and I don't want to find anything I don't want as a surprise because I can't see).

I have a very strong mentality; gore doesn't affect me (maybe zombies and stuff). I can't be traumatized; situations may affect me in the moment, but they don't pose a mental problem in the future (because I'm such a baby).

In my apocalyptic realities I have cassettes with all kinds of music (I couldn't live without it).

My period lasts two days at most and is always painless with little bleeding (girl, my DREAM).

I can't get pregnant unless I want to (I don't even have to explain that).

There's no miscommunication or unnecessary drama between my friends and I—we solve everything by talking (trauma ahh script).

I sing well and my voice is always on key (I don't care if it's not my fame reality. I want EVERYONE to ask me to sing so we can have good moments).

──⃝─⃝⃝⃝⃝──

[sforzesco]

machiavelli and biagio (and a third person), hard at work in the office :)

[winchestergifs]

STACKEDNATURAL ⇉ 187.5/327

9.13 The Purge Written by Eric Charmelo & Nicole Snyder Directed by Phil Sgriccia Original Air Date: February 4th, 2014

[vincenzonova]

Whoops! Forgot to post this outside of Reddit. Adult Yumi Redesign! No spoilers but when someone isn't virtualized for a long time, the DAVINCI.exe program resets their Avatar.

[respectthepetty]

I would be sad about Akin's photos being leaked at the very beginning of Top Form's ninth episode, but the visual of both him and Jade being isolated, caged, and with a barrier between them, while Akin's side kept getting smaller was just too good for me to sit in despair.

Because even when Akin goes to make a deal with a devil, he is surrounded by greenery.

Like, yes, Akin is depressed and back to being dark believing that in order to save Jin, he'll have to distance himself from him, but there is still a tiny bit of light.

And as much as he thinks he is in this alone, Jade is in this messy prison with him.

Jin always gives Akin his color back.

Because Jin is the love of his life.

So did I think Jin would leave his man to deal with this issue all by himself? The teeny tiny emerging 🎶Blinding Light of Love🎶 tells me "no"!

So even Johnny's annoying ass wearing BLUE does not bother me nor Akin because we have bigger issues to handle, and Johnny does not present any true barriers. In this moment, he is not the enemy.

And as mad as I am at the show for whatever story it's trying to sell me about these two,

I must admit Naru's pout is cute. Johnny still gets nothing from me though.

But back to my Green Guy with his green tea trying to convince the fans he is Judy's Boy.

He is doing a good job of selling his new ship, so much so that even Akin' friends are quick to shelter his depressed black void self from any images of Jin.

But they also talk some sense into him about how when someone is in a relationship, they go through the hard times together. They share the burden. They don't go it alone!

So although I didn't know if I could actually trust this beautiful and amazing woman who has never done anything wrong in her entire life except make my heart flutter, I did trust the process.

Because there was only the tiniest barrier between her and Jin in front of the elevator.

And, of course, that barrier ended up being Akin.

But the best thing about the elevator scene, is even with Akin being the barrier between them, they are still in this enclosed space together.

It's such a good visual because just like the bars with him and Jade throughout the episode, Akin is not in this prison alone. He has people with him even if he doesn't realize.

And Judy, with her pink = 💕love💕 lighting, proves she really is a good actress because her sly responses convince the public that it was her in the photos, not Akin.

But that woman is NOT in love with Jin. She immediately drops the act once the cameras stop rolling and the biggest barrier comes up as Jin gives her back the ring.

She just isn't a gorgeous face even though her face is truly a masterpiece.

No! She is a greatly talented actress who understands the stress of trying to maintain a private relationship as a public figure, and the barriers show us that she has no intention of coming between Jin and Akin.

So the episode ends with the color-coded text telling us that Akin guessed Jin's ring size while he slept next to him THREE MONTHS AGO.

Then to cement how much Akin loves Jin, he wrote the size down on a green sticky note with a green pen.

And when he gives Jin the ring, in that peach room, Jin is magically backed by blue.

So they are finally combining and exchanging their colors!

[facts-i-just-made-up]

Got any computer science pick up lines?

No but "item.status = "rejected" will get rid of programmers who may try to use them on you.

[codemiracle]

If you put all of them in one room, who’s coming out alive

I doubt someone would attack Dr. Kurosaki, so maybe him. Seth might come out alive as well but probably using someone else's dead body if he's extremely damaged. (I think his first option will be taking over Yotsuya's.)

Seeing Yotsuya's design with a confident smile is such a weird sight lol.

[misscammiedawn]

Thinking about We Know The Devil and Heaven Will Be Mine today. A duology. WKTD the tells the story of accepting you're queer, framed as a horror story of 3 repressed teenagers at a christian summer camp fighting off their inherent queerness and HWBM tells the story of how one accepts their place in society after embracing their queerness.

WKTD uses magical girl tropes in a fairly grounded Midwestern teen experience.

Magical girl stories often involve the struggle of the forces of Good and Evil. Purity and Impurity. Corruption often being a core theme of any girl squad facing down the nightmarish forces. This can be seen from Madoka's approach to the concept which is often referred to as a deconstruction. The Pink Opaque from I Saw The TV Glow overtly uses these themes in the exact same allegory as WKTD with the evil forces attempting to suppress the queerness of the protagonists.

HWBM uses mech anime tropes in an allegorical wonderland where the setting fades away to have the audience engage with the ideas at play rather than the lore. Mech anime often uses the giant robot duels as a method of visualizing ideological struggles. Too often in these shows beam sabers will cross as the pilots yell at one another to embrace ideas of how the concepts of war and prejudice can be battled out of existence.

In HWBM the "war" in play is humans versus space... or more accurately humans versus those who are not of Earth. Versus those who are alien. Versus those who are not human.

The dominant culture versus queer culture.

WKTD frames its tropes via the dating sim mechanics popular within its visual novel medium. But rather than choosing which of the 3 girls the player wishes to romance you must choose which of the 3 you wish to exclude. The idea being to scapegoat one's struggle with queerness by attacking outward, blaming the other, by shaming others into the closet to keep yourself in there.

Lashing outward to prevent reflecting inward.

The only good ending of the game is to accept a polycule dynamic where everyone is seen, accepted and embraced for who they are unconditionally. God's love, in this world, is conditional and one must always be excluded. The devil has room for three.

There is no room in normal society for a polycule. It is inherently queer. The dominant culture is binary and there's no version of a polycule where only a 0 and a 1 are represented. The binary is incompatible.

I recently told a friend that the duology tells the journey of a thousand miles and how it begins with a single step. WKTD is the story of that first and all too important step acceptance.

HWBM is the story of what comes after acceptance. After that first step.

It tells the story of the thousand mile journey.

The ideologies at play are the concepts of assimilation, activism and separationism. In the allegory Earth/Humanity represents the dominant "straight" society and the three characters represent each of these ideologies. Assimilation is to return to Earth, to integrate into the dominant culture and lose some of the inherent joy and "otherness" that being queer brings. It's no coincidence that the character representing this path is a trans woman who is known for defecting from her faction and crossing over to every other side while repeating the mantra "I've never betrayed anyone in my life", it is a coincidence however that her faction's war efforts are lead in part by God's Strongest Chaser herself (as far as I'm aware the Halimede Twitter Account is not affiliated with the game, but I find it funny that the assimilation path is represented by someone who a character whose gimmick account argues "t4t is incest"). It is a life of peace. But it is a life of compromise. Of giving up humanity's dream of the stars. To be grounded and tethered to Earth forever.

The Activism Path represents the idea of staying in Earth's orbit but never surrendering even an ounce of the queer identity for the sake of acceptance. Forcing the dominant culture to argue with us on our terms. Accept us on our terms. It is a life of constant battle but in that battle we will save those on Earth, invite them into the stars, embrace them with acceptance and love. Let them join us or remain where they are. This is a life of constant war, knowing that until all are loved and accepted, no one is and so we continue fighting. Letting people change sides. Nothing changes but maybe it's better that way.

Separation is the idea of abandoning Earth entirely. To become so incompatible with the dominant culture that we are no longer "human" to those who remain tethered. We are unapproachable. Separate. Unique. Other. Queer above anything else and incapable of creating a rational dialogue with the dominant culture. It is picking up your toys and walking away. Going far enough away from the culture war that it will never be able to reach you.

The author of the Halimede account once wrote, while in character, that this is the saddest ending of them all because it's unsustainable and that it does not address the inherent intersectional fighting between communities, allowing wars to simply break out further away from our blue marble in the distant stars. It is a life of abandoning war without embracing peace. To live separate in bubbles apart.

The ending of the game forces you to pick. There is no existing outside of these options. Maybe one day we'll find other ways to be but within the view of this game they are all we have. Embrace Earth, declare war on Earth or abandon Earth.

Choose.

I admit. Since the pandemic and coming out as trans, I've favored Saturn's ideology more than others. Completely giving up on "humanity" and only working within circles of those whose acceptance of queer culture is baked in. I fought so hard to accept who I was and "know the devil", so to speak, that I pulled back and withdrew.

Both games have a lot of themes about the demons ones must face within queer culture and outside of it. The way we hurt ourselves, hurt our allies and how the world outside societal, structural and individual will force us to compromise, to cut away parts of ourselves.

These games are masterpieces.

I wish I found them earlier in my life. I want everyone able to read these words to find them now.

[mara-phelion]

so i finished my first playthrough of seekL and got the seekLove ending

person a (edited as odxny): "i was gonna say i'm from dc i got pajamas on at 2am-"

person b (edited as thrim): "i'm gonna be honest, i'm ONLY looking at your titties right now"