
A Game of Tricks IV – Stylized normal mapping - cocoflunchy
http://www.alkemi-games.com/a-game-of-tricks-iv-stylized-normal-mapping/
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Jemaclus
Whoosh.

Related: I really need to learn more graphics-oriented programming.

I sometimes am flabbergasted as I look out the window of my office and see the
sunset. The skies flawlessly gradient from blue to red, the lighting of the
clouds is perfect. Nature's artistry is effortless.

To reproduce that on a screen -- or even a close approximation of that view!
-- takes an incredible amount of artistry and know-how. As a more technically-
minded person, I'm amazed at how much thought and energy goes into things like
this, and how little I know of it.

Very cool read.

~~~
tomjen3
Game dev here. Just remember we cheat like crazy. If you are never going to
see the backside of something it likely has never been shaded (or even
modeled).

Just as a couple examples: once we needed to show a which way enemies would
move for a tower defense game so we made a custom skin that looked like arrows
that moved along a path but was really just a mostly transparent image on a
plane that was slowly being offset.

Another time we needed to make it look like you were in space, but to make
that realistic you need thousands of individual stars - so we pre-rendered the
six space images needed for the sides of a cube and just made the code that
projects 3D images down to a 2D plane (ie your screen) always put it behind
everything else, even if it was technically on a 1x1 box around the camera.

These days, sadly, I do 2D which means fewer tricks.

~~~
Jemaclus
Even the cheats are impressive, though. Like, you have to think of them
first... :)

