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taconite.bsky.social
Taconite
@taconite.bsky.social
2.7K followers 1.5K following 1.4K posts
Game Dev and Math Nerd.

Making a couple projects:
- Physics-based archery retro-FPS
- Meditative canoeing game about learning First Nations toponyms for the Great Lakes region

https://taconitegames.itch.io/
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taconite.bsky.social
More work on the vision approximation system. I'm able to get the data out, but the interpolation needs some work (there shouldn't be any discontinuities).

If anyone has a method getting barycentric coords based on angles, I'm all ears!

#gamedev #indiegame #fps #indiefps #unity3d #solodev
November 12, 2025 at 11:55 PM
taconite.bsky.social
Had a visitor
Photo of snow on a porch, bird feeders hanging over the railing. Photo of blue jay on the porch, eating seeds that fell from the feeders
November 11, 2025 at 5:40 PM
taconite.bsky.social
Neat
Photo of skyscrapers lit up at night
November 9, 2025 at 5:32 AM
taconite.bsky.social
Adding the vision checks meant that the old "store in texture" version needed to be upgraded.

The data itself wasn't bad, but storing it on disk took a couple of versions. Best of all, it compresses into basically nothing!

#gamedev #indiegame #unity3d #solodev
Screenshot of unity editor showing the inspector viewing a Text Asset called "Humanoid Mask_OLD". The file contains a JSON serialization of some structs, with all the fieldnames baked in. How many million bytes are wasted storing "distances" every damn time... Screenshot of the unity editor showing the inspector viewing a Text Asset called "Humanoid Mask". The file contains the same structs, as custom Base64 encoded bytes. Apparently unity 6 has binary serialization, but I haven't updated yet... Screenshot of windows explorer showing the two files (and associated compressed versions) and their relative file sizes. The old version is 242MB (6MB compressed), the new is 11MB (1.6MB compressed). Screenshot of VS showing a function in C# called ToBytes: public static byte[] ToBytes(Map mp) { byte[] buf = new byte[mp.GetSizeBytes()]; uint indx = 0; // Record size MathExtras.IntToBytes(buf, ref indx, mp.size.x); MathExtras.IntToBytes(buf, ref indx, mp.size.y); MathExtras.IntToBytes(buf, ref indx, mp.size.z); // Record data for (int i = 0; i < mp.storage.Length; i++) Map.Data.ToBytes(buf, ref indx, mp.storage[i]); return buf; }
November 8, 2025 at 2:22 AM
taconite.bsky.social
Hey #PitchYaGame, for the past 18 months I've been workding on 𝘚𝘩𝘳𝘪𝘬𝘦, a sword-and-sorcery retro-FPS!

⚔️ Fast and impactful combat
🏃 First person stealth and parkour
🎮 Gameplay inspired by Dying Light and Chivalry: Medieval Warfare

Follow here on Bsky for updates!
November 7, 2025 at 6:46 PM
taconite.bsky.social
Adding in pre-calculated vision approximations: each voxel gets 26 casts and the distances are recorded, totaling just 30 bytes per voxel!

Still need a way to query this, but this will help enemies choose sensible locations in combat!

#gamedev #indiegame #fps #indiefps #unity3d #solodev
November 6, 2025 at 11:04 PM
taconite.bsky.social
Due to a race condition in the initialization, you could occasionally kick your own ass.

Might consider this bug a feature 🤔

#gamedev #indiegame #unity3d #fps #indiefps #solodev
November 4, 2025 at 6:14 PM
taconite.bsky.social
My current version allows agents to query hundreds of potential destinations because they're just looking at precomputed data. Basically just a voxel grid with info about each area baked from the editor.

I'm hoping to maintain this general system, as it's already proven pretty useful...
November 4, 2025 at 5:09 AM
taconite.bsky.social
I'm not sure unity provides options for running searches on the NavMesh directly, everything just points towards the CalculatePath function, which the docs indicate is expensive to run.
Screenshot of the unity documentation for NavMesh.CalculatePath: "This function is synchronous. It performs path finding immediately which can adversely affect the frame rate when processing very long paths. It is recommended to only perform a few path finds per frame when, for example, evaluating distances to cover points."
November 4, 2025 at 5:04 AM
taconite.bsky.social
Fixing an issue with steps (that the NavAgent doesn't recognize) and added jumping/dropping to round out the humanoid movement.

Still need to update the animations to match, but this should be all the control systems done!

#gamedev #indiegame #fps #indiefps #solodev #unity3d #screenshotsaturday
November 1, 2025 at 4:05 PM
taconite.bsky.social
It's nice watching old movies
cause that shit actually
happened sometimes
Screenshot of the wiki page for Attack of the Killer Tomatoes: The finished film contains footage of a real helicopter crash. In a scene showing law enforcement officers firing their weapons to ward off tomatoes in a field, a $60,000 Hiller Aircraft UH-12E that had been rented for the production was supposed to land in the tomato patch behind the officers. But during the landing the Hiller's tail rotor struck the ground, causing the craft to spin out of control near the ground, roll over, and burst into flames. The helicopter pilot escaped without serious injury.[6] The crash was caught on film, as the cameras were rolling at the time, and later worked into the final product with added dialogue about a "kamikaze tomato" hitting the helicopter.
November 1, 2025 at 3:50 AM
taconite.bsky.social
Well, they aren't exactly passing with flying colors,
but I'll count it as progress...

#gamedev #indiegame #fps #indiefps #unity3d #solodev
October 30, 2025 at 12:00 AM
taconite.bsky.social
Updating AI navigation in support of the new movement update.

Nav Areas can be masked in/out from destination selection, allowing states/actions to only consider relevant destinations.

#gamedev #indiegame #fps #indiefps #unity3d #solodev
Screenshot of unity editor showing a caverns scene with some debug overlay. The overlay is a grid of widgets showing the candidates an NPC scanned to find a destination. Some of these candidates are up on the cavern wall, a reachable area, bug not useful for attacks and the like. Screenshot of unity editor showing a caverns scene with some debug overlay. The overlay is a grid of widgets showing the candidates an NPC scanned to find a destination. The candidates are restricted to the "Floor" Nav Area
October 28, 2025 at 3:55 PM
taconite.bsky.social
At least they're funny sometines

#gamedev #indiegame #solodev
Screenshot of the unity editor showing some Inspector UI. Inside the array "Nav Areas" is a single entry; "Flooor"
October 28, 2025 at 3:48 PM
taconite.bsky.social
Remembering the reason for the season (watching Pumpkinhead (1988))
Frame from Pumpkinhead (1988) of an old woman saying "now it begins".
October 27, 2025 at 4:40 PM
taconite.bsky.social
Walks are good bc
you see good stuff
Photo of a small lake seen from above. Fall colors and partly cloudy sky. Photo of limestone wall. Many horizontal layers, with cracks between them. Photo of orange mushrooms growing on gray tree bark. Blue sky in the background Photo of fragile gray lichen on tan granite.
October 26, 2025 at 8:17 PM
taconite.bsky.social
Why do his boots have buttcheeks?
Cropped version of the original picture, showing that the back of the cuff of the character's boots do indeed have buttcheeks.
October 26, 2025 at 8:07 PM
taconite.bsky.social
Initial version of the updated humanoid movement, showing the automatic changes based on NavMesh area; locomotion, orientation, speed, can attack, etc.

His animator hasn't been updated, but imagine a BoTW style system.

#gamedev #indiegame #fps #indiefps #unity3d #solodev #screenshotsaturday
October 25, 2025 at 7:45 PM
taconite.bsky.social
Fun fact, it's a shape
Screenshot of wikitionary: Etymology: From Middle English losenge, from Old French losenge (“rhombus”), of uncertain origin. See the Old French for more.
October 24, 2025 at 6:03 PM
taconite.bsky.social
TODO: Make a snateboarding game

They have a little trouble in areas with tight corners, but that's just something to watch out for in level design. And hey, it's otherwise pretty resilient.

#gamedev #indiegame #fps #indiefps #unity3d #solodev
October 24, 2025 at 5:57 PM
taconite.bsky.social
The new movement update means that agents can automatically choose a mode of locomotion based on the NavMesh area!

Would benefit from some secondary motion, but this is a reliable base dovetails nicely with the other systems.

#gamedev #indiegame #fps #indiefps #unity3d
October 24, 2025 at 3:07 PM
taconite.bsky.social
Here's a peek behind the scenes

The snail is following a NavAgent (yellow sphere), and creates the armature (cyan, magenta) and then casts towards the surface (red), resulting in an averaged surface normal (yellow)
Screenshot of unity editor showing a snail and yellow sphere moving over some green cubes. The snail and sphere are connected by two lines (cyan, magenta) that meet at a corner. Starting from these lines, several red lines aim right, and a single yellow line aims left.
October 23, 2025 at 2:56 PM
taconite.bsky.social
Going back to my snoots

#gamedev #indiegame #fps #indiefps #unity3d
October 23, 2025 at 2:34 PM
taconite.bsky.social
I love refactoring I love refactoring I love refactoring I love refactoring I love refactoring I love refactoring I love refactoring I love refactoring I love refactoring I love refactoring I love refactoring I love refactoring I love refactoring I love refactoring I love refactoring
Screenshot of Visual Studio, showing 84 errors due to a type change :)
October 21, 2025 at 10:14 PM
taconite.bsky.social
As an example, this is how I've been setting my enemy animators; three layers, with most anims being played by name, then returning to an idle/rest state.
Screenshot of unity Animator with three layers on the left; Base Layer, Actions, and Automatic. The Base Layer is selected, and shows that the enemy just transitions between two blend trees; Airborne and Grounded. Screenshot of unity Animator with three layers on the left; Base Layer, Actions, and Automatic. The Actions layer is for actions triggered by the enemy AI, and contains 3 animations (MeleeAttack, Shout, and FireProjectile) that all transition back to an idle state Screenshot of unity Animator with three layers on the left; Base Layer, Actions, and Automatic. The Automatic layer contains involuntary actions triggered by hits, death, or near-misses.
October 21, 2025 at 6:16 PM