site banner
ArjinFerman  Tinfoil Gigachad  2d ago (text post)   149 thread views

Tinker Tuesday for July 1, 2025

This thread is for anyone working on personal projects to share their progress, and hold themselves somewhat accountable to a group of peers.

Post your project, your progress from last week, and what you hope to accomplish this week.

If you want to be pinged with a reminder asking about your project, let me know, and I'll harass you each week until you cancel the service

0
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Little to tinkering this week, maybe some bugfixes. How are you doing @Southkraut?

Played around with Unreal physics a bit. Scripted some semi-random physical movement. Nothing big, but just about the first time I wanted to do something with Unreal and just got it done on the first try.

Homies: Ride or Die

FINALLY got most major issues with car solved. Switched to PBR ("physically based rendering") from old school Phong-style. Really took this to the next level (pic attached).

Also the wheels now spin properly, the lighting and normal maps stay consistent, I can even select the brake callipers and steer them along with the the front wheels.

The problem the entire time is seemingly that the obj/mtl data files were garbage, and I lost several weeks worth of time using those instead of going with gltf. I cannot believe how consequential stupid shit like choice of file format is. I'm sure there are dev teams that have wasted millions of dollars from this one decision.

Anyway! I'm told the next thing I want to do is add environment mapping (having the skydome, etc reflect off the car) to really make it pop.

TRON bike lighting

Finally getting back to this. The parts arrived for the $4 PC case fan and charcoal filter and I made myself a fume extractor that impressed my daughter.

/images/17514121085223546.webp

Gotta say that looks quite cool!

You probably explained it earlier, but I don't recall catching it, is there any particular reason you're doing rendering from scratch (are you? that's the impression I'm getting)? Just to learn how the stuff works?

I originally got into computer programming as a teenager because I wanted to make video games, but I found windows insufferable and got distracted by Linux and a career in SRE.

I've since decided to try to go back to my roots, so to speak. This would all be a lot easier if I just used UE5, but what's the fun in that?

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats