Post by BobHstone in Just Get Started jam comments

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Well that was the wildest fever dream I ever had :D Also a lot of fun. I was very confused at first but at the end I couldn't get enough from exploring all the rooms. I've also never seen credits so well implemented in a game jam. Your materials/shading guy is WILD, I thought I was tripping the entire game already but then I reached the graphics room lmao. I seriously need to know how you managed to create all those visual effects! Do you have some tutorials that you could recommend?

I think you absolutely rocked it for your first game jam. This definitely deserves more attention, I loved it. But also, insanely spooky to download. Downloading from google drive feels very off for a jam. Then this weird start that made me feel like you're just trying to waste my time with this spooky application running. I'm glad I pushed through that initial feeling, it was absolutely worth it :D Well done!

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Umb_28156 days ago(+1)

I truly appraciate your feedback and I'm happy you enjoyed the game! About the download thing, I know it was not the best choice, I'm really sorry about that. We still have to learn a lot about optimization and maybe the next time we will be able to upload on itch.io. Btw do you happen to know any better alternatives to google drive?

When I saw the material stuff, it was crazy for me too ahah. I definitely have to ask my friend, because if I don't get wrong he did almost all the materials itself. He would like to become a tech artist, so he's studying shaders and how they work and then experimenting.

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BobHstone155 days ago

I don't know about an alternative to google drive. But I also can't really see why your game has to be that big. Did you have starter content enabled? I think that might pack quite a lot into the packaged game. Our UE games for game jams have always been less than 1GB, most of the time around 600MB.

Hats off to your shading artist! I got inspired to learn shading myself by your game :D

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Umb_28155 days ago(+1)

Not the starter content, but probably some unused assets/textures. Unfortunately I couldn't make an accurate selection on time. I think I will fix this and other issues in the next few days.

Then , I'm glad you got ispired by our game. If you wanna know I asked my friend, he's studying the book "The unity shaders bible" and obv experimenting.

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BobHstone155 days ago

"The "Unity" shaders bible"? Your game is made in Unreal isn't it? He's able to apply what he learns from the book to UE? Sounds like a good book then :D

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Patagatto154 days ago

Hi BobHstone, I'm really glad you enjoyed our game—your words truly made all the hard work worthwhile.

As you probably guessed, I'm the shader guy. I'm still a student hoping to specialize in Tech Art one day, so my advice and suggestions might not always be 100% accurate.

Umb_28 mentioned that my work inspired you to start creating your own shaders and that you're looking for good tutorials. The Unity Shaders Bible is the only book I've found genuinely helpful so far… mostly because there aren't many others, especially here in Italy.

That book is a great starting point, in my opinion. Most of the effects I used in this project can be edited directly through UE’s Post Process and Material Editor, but the heavier effects should be created using a shading language. UE5 supports HLSL (High-Level Shader Language), which is what I’ve been using.

Feel free to add me on Discord if you'd like to chat more or need help!

PS: i'll leave you a YT channel that i personally like once you got a bit of understanding of shading
Visual Tech Art - YouTube

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