Building Tools

[@scottishrob13]

For my money, this is the most important video of yours that I've watched for programmers. This understanding is something I often find missing from my colleagues, and it's how we get so many brilliant tools that just lack the fundamental useability to make the life of designers better.

[@karamzing]

My most satisfying programming has been making tools for coworkers. You have a tight feedback loop with an appreciative end-user whose work-life you get to make 10x or 100x easier. Since the tool will likely never be released into the wild, you have a lot more freedom and agility to get things done. It's how all software development ought to be.

[@Anubis1101]

Yea even just making tools for myself has been way more fun than I thought it'd be. Almost makes me want to specialize in it!

[@aNerdNamedJames]

That Charlie Brown shirt is by far the most fabulous shirt we've seen so far.

[@ProrokLebioda]

I've started working as Tools programmer for a gaming company after few years working as a regular software developer and I have to say that for some reason it feels more rewarding. Not easy, but rewarding. I really like that I can communicate with tools users directly to hear what they need. So far it's mostly fixing bugs and updating main SDK used, but I can't wait to dive deeper and create tools that help Level Designers, Quest Designers, Animators, etc. It's interesting how it was different back then. Thanks, Mr Cain!

[@Noowai]

That reminds me of the in engine tool in form of plugin I had to write in Unreal Engine. At first I was going for a separate application to help me write nonlinear dialogues, but I had to export whatever I did to CSV or XML and then runtime read it to actually display conversation for the player. Writing tool in engine made it so much more convenient and I was able to write much more complex conversations. Even though it took me like 3 months to learn how to do it, it was worth it 100%

[@Silvskul]

Hi Tim, just wanted to say thanks for making your videos very easy to follow and understand for people like me who aren't in the games industry/programming. I've watched almost all of your videos so far and can't think of any moment where I've felt left behind. 👍

[@ShmilS]

Oh man, I work as a DevOps and write a LOT of scripts and tools for my clients and keeping them simple and exploit-proof is one of the most important disciplines I had to learn.

[@Anubis1101]

The top-down function in the Arcanum world editor blew my mind as a kid, id never seen anything like that and thought it was super helpful. I'm building my own mapmaker tool right now (albeit for a top-down ASCII proto-game), so youve given me some things to think about. As it is, ive gone over the interface multiple times and iterated the UI probably more than i have the actual mapmaking functionality itself. It's amazing how something that started as a quick side project for my game has ballooned into its own design & development rabbithole.

[@shadydesperado2590]

You realize this is my favorite video on the internet by default now. I'm sorry, i dont make the rules, this is simply how it is now.

[@michaelblosenhauer9887]

Thank you so much. This is the video I have been waiting for! I've been asking about level design stuff but just realized what I really wanted to know about was tools. You could do another 5 or 6 of these, please. I think tools as a concept are the perfect bridge between design and development of games and wish I understood them better.

[@thisismysuperawesomeusername]

This should be played to all Software Engineers and GD Students. Thanks Tim!

[@archaeologistify]

Building custom drafting tools in LISP for my civil engineer colegues in AutoCAD benefits from the same advice you give in this video :)

[@MatrixQ]

Yeah, building the right tools can be a game changer. But it requires a lot of fundamental understanding of the system you're working with, it's not trivial. But absolutely worth it.

[@matthewwebster3143]

Really enjoying your insight, cant believe it took me this long to find your channel!

[@backslashzero]

Hope you have a happy new year this weekend Mr. Cain!

[@Lakstoties]

I am reminded of the saying, "Too busy chopping the tree to sharpen the axe."

[@sebastianavena]

Thank you some much Tim for sharing your knowledge with us! Your content is great :D

[@danieldavis2017]

I'm curious what your thoughts are on the increase in FOSS in game development? As I understand it back when you started even a lot of the programming languages were proprietary. Now we have things like open-source game engines like Godot. What do you think about this trend?

[@Sumoniggro]

The last bit reminds me of the addage "No matter how idiot-proof an engineer makes something God will just make better idiots"

[@zhulikkulik]

The part about tiles not matching reminded me about fence sprites in homm(or maybe hota) map editor. There's no way to tile them properly so when you try to make a diagonal wall of them - they always go in a zigzag pattern. I guess they just were never intended to be used to build actual walls. Rather as additional obstacles next to something else. They also don't quite connect with gates or other objects so making them look good is hard.

[@colin-campbell]

Being a tools programmer is probably the closest I’ll get to getting into the games industry.

[@Baltasarmk]

I am not sure what impression you got from this video, but tools programming is second or as challenging as engine development. If you check salaries, tools developers are among the most paid, maybe after engine developers. Building pipelines for seamless transfer of art assets into the game is a very challenging task.

[@nothankyoutube]

Please get into the industry, everyone is in dire need of tools!

[@stabbermcstabby3659]

Why aren't you in the industry? Tools programmers are highly valuable and you can make a lot of money doing it. Capitalize man!

[@daniltryapchev257]

having a good set of tools which can make your team and you efficient - is really valuable. even outside gamedev, also web, engineering at general, and so on

[@lillybyte]

The story of Godot-- the developers never used to the tool to make a commercial game; which is why everything in the engine is so useless, broken, or bug riddled. Great for game jams, or smaller games that you can do in a few months. Once you scale to a larger game, the whole engine just falls apart because it is clear the developers have never used the engine to make large games. And when people who DO make large games try to lend Godot their experience and point out the mistakes they are making in developing Godot, Godot developers just tell them "You don't know what you're doing". Also no Godot roadmap, so you don't know what is coming, what is being depreciated, or what is being straight up changed on a whim-- a company paying people to build games cannot rely on a tool that doesn't let them plan the future work on their game because that work may have to be redone on a whim of the engine developers-- this is why studios don't use Godot and it is straight up considered a "toy engine" by pros.

[@OpenGL4ever]

In the past, Blender behaved similarly compared to commercial products. The latter were designed to streamline the workflow. They allowed you to go back steps and edit the middle step in a 3D model that consisted of several processing steps without having to re-edit the steps at the end. They were also optimized so that different process stages of a 3D model could be edited by different people. Someone who used one of these commercial 3D modeling programs explained this to me. At that time, Blender was still at version 2.x.

[@LTPottenger]

It amazes me many engines you can't just import the geometry and any animations pop an object up programmatically or just get at an image directly from C++ and make GUI from there. They are all geared to a FPS with no GUI to speak of and very few characters so I guess it should not be a surprise.

[@UlissesSampaio]

Epic made Fortnight in Unreal, which was a huge success. Likely they used custom-made internal tools, though.

[@MFKitten]

The third party commercial engine problem is so interesting to me. I always found it interesting that these "next gen" top shelf engines always had a few things in common: -weirdly large minimum install size. Pixel art side scroller with no sound assets or textures? 658MB install! -oddly poor performance. So much time spent on amazing technology. So little time spent on making it actually run well. -poor level creation experience. Building level geometry is slow and sluggish vs the older brush based engines of yester-yester-year, but also compared to Valve's current Source 2.

[@drnecrotery3228]

hi Tim, could you give an insight on how preproduction works in CRPG/RPGs in general? What aspect of the game must be completely fleshed out in preproduction? Do planned features shift mid-development? If so, how often? does that necessarily mean a problem?

[@CainOnGames]

I talk about productions stages here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/f3KnhJuVhZVod9U Does that answer your questions?

[@pongod5751]

Great shirt. 50s Peanuts is delightfully depressing

[@RedTickseed]

Hi Tim, You previously spoke about what changes and updates you would want to see implemented in a potential Fallout remake. I'm curious about what you'd like to see if Arcanum were to either be remastered or remade? Thanks so much for your channel. Your videos are a great insight into the behind-the-scenes and thought processes involved in video game development. :)

[@CainOnGames]

I have a Thoughts On An Arcanum Remake video coming up, in about a week

[@vast634]

And the math: only make a tool, when the time making and supporting the tool is less than the time user of the tool save when using it. Basically for things that have to be done often. Otherwise a much simpler tool, generator script or manual editing does the job also.

[@OpenGL4ever]

For such tasks, I have often had the case that you can solve the task very well with a spreadsheet without having to write an extra tool.

[@vast634]

@@OpenGL4ever Some simple tasks can be solved with a spreadsheet, some where you need to manipulate binary data just cant. There are plenty of tasks that require custom tools in game development.

[@OpenGL4ever]

@@vast634 Nobody here disputes that.

[@lepersonnage371]

Tim, can you talk about what you think about Deus Ex (first one), and what do you think about it's RPG aspects

[@nuave]

I've messed around with editor scripts in unity. But then I tried making an editor script for a scriptable object, I have not worked on editor scripts since.

[@MikAlexander]

What are the best naming schemes for variables? I can't figure out a unified meaning system for them.

[@estogaza5827]

Idk if I fully understand your question. But I’ll just say I like variables that have full names. I don’t like when devs abbreviate everything. Like instead of itemQuantity they name it iQty or something. Just type it out so when I read it I don’t have to stop and say ok what the heck is iQty. Is I a general counter? Like how I is often used in a for loop. Is I short for something else? Or worst they just name things x or something. Just take 1 second and type it out.

[@MikAlexander]

@@estogaza5827 I actually do that for simple stuff, but for variables designated for more abstract things i use longer names. But In case I'd forget what the abbreviate name means I always have full description in the comments. But I am wondering how should I name variables that hold temporary data. I thought Data, but maybe temp?

[@Anubis1101]

Yea don't be afraid to use long names. With autocomplete systems like Intellisense around now, it's more important that they're immediately readable than anything else. Beyond that, just stick with whatever you decide, because consistency is an important part of readability. They all get tossed out when you compile anyway, so you only need to consider the human programmer when naming them.

[@Kyl5]

Hi Tim, you often talk about taking notes. What tools do you use for that and how do you structure the data to be able to retrieve what you need when you need it?

[@CainOnGames]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/hmGxfIVvh5WLisk

[@Kyl5]

@@CainOnGames Thanks.

[@Bloodyshinta1]

I'm trying to recreate 2d retro game mechanics in UE5 and its a striaght up nightmare lol. Everything about that engine is geared toward 3d or modern 2d games, to just get UE5 to behave like a 16 bit game engine is a monumental task.

[@Anubis1101]

Yea that's more Unity and Godot's thing. Dunno about the latter, but I know Unity has an entire built-in 2D mode.

[@Bloodyshinta1]

@@Anubis1101 If i could go back a year i would have just started on godot but I guess my goal of getting me feet wet in UE5 has succeeded to some degree lol.

[@Anubis1101]

@@Bloodyshinta1 ive heard of some really interesting approaches over the years. one of them was to emulate the old-school 8-bit era and simulate individual pixel changes using a fixed "screen" grid plane that was stretched over the camera. everything was abstracted off of that, with mob sprites layered on top. the backgrounds were done with a basic raycasting engine that ran off an ASCII grid in a text file to determine how to render the different moving layers. theres probably an easier way, but the result was one of the most accurate recreations of that era of games. just goes to show, theres always a way, no matter how twisted or convoluted.

[@Bloodyshinta1]

@Anubis1101 I'm going to use a similar approach but apply a grid mask material so the camera and sprites movement will be locked to a grid. Cobra code has a tutorial on how to do it cake pixle perfect 2d in ue5. Luckily, ue5 has updated its orthographic camera recently, so some things should work better now.

[@Anubis1101]

@@Bloodyshinta1 godspeed friend after the Unity debacle, im holding off on going all-in on an engine. instead, im learning how to do things entirely from scratch in C++, and its been fun and educational. i doubt ill make a full custom engine for my games, but hopefully itll help regardless of which path i take.

[@dukenukem8381]

I like written dialogue and not AI generated one.

[@J4YL4444]

Hey Tim, thank you for your videos. As a young LGBT game developer I find your videos really helpful. Thank you very much. The main thing I struggle with is actually getting into the industry. Although I'm doing my best to slowly get qualifications and money in the IT sector. Then hopefully it would be easier. Do you have any advice on how to actually get a job in the industry? 😁💖

[@CainOnGames]

Yes I do! kzbin.info/www/bejne/jWnLlqaknsmkp6c

[@PretendCoding]

He does have a few videos on this topic. One of the things he mentions is that trying to follow what he did is super unrealistic (that is, knowing how to code for a specific chipset). There's a lot of different ways, but getting qualifications will help, and a portfolio will be even better. If you can show a developer that you know what you're doing *and* you can actually produce something, that goes a long way to getting hired.

[@nathanielguggenheim5522]

tbh from my own XP it's the most rewarding Coder job in Game Dev. In terms of social reward.

[@J4YL4444]

@@nathanielguggenheim5522 thanks very much, already gaining as much as possible 😁

[@J4YL4444]

@@PretendCoding thank you, really appreciate the detail in your answer. It does genuinely help. Thank you

[@The-cyber-imbiber]

Although I understand that it's bad to name drop, sometimes I wish you would 🤣I was thinking about Unity DOTS the whole time

[@houseofosborne1173]

Hey Tim!

[@realizewave1513]

bet obsidian had a great time developing the rpg "toolset" for the outer worlds 😅

[@empessah]

Did you ever have a ux designer help build out tools? Or was this all a dev making tools for other devs?

[@CainOnGames]

I'm a little confused by your question, since a UX designer is a dev. So...yes?

[@empessah]

@@CainOnGames sorry for the confusion but i am asking about a ux designer specialist or is it more of a dev who code it up and does the user experience

[@CainOnGames]

@@empessahUsually the tools dev asks the team what they want/need and codes based on that. Sometimes the UX designer, as part of the team, gives feedback that is incorporated too. Obsidian has some tools that they have been honing for more than a decade, and those tools are really good at what they do.

[@empessah]

That help as a ux and ui design I always thought that working on game dev tool would be such an interesting job solving problems for creatives such as game designer animators and writers

[@kafamalmyor5418]

Hi Everyone Its me Tim

[@coldwarpgates622]

Hi Tim, it's me, everyone

[@Vault-14_Kingdom]

Hi Tim, I know this question might be treading on NDA Territory here, but I just wanted to know... Are you & Leonard Boyarsky going to be credited as "The Creators of Fallout" in the upcoming Fallout TV Show?

[@CainOnGames]

I don't have any information about the show. I am not involved. And they should credit more people than just Leon and me.

[@Vault-14_Kingdom]

​@@CainOnGamesTrue true, there are more people to credit for Fallout's creation. Thanks Tim! 😎👍

[@arcannar]

Building the right tools has made Game dev easier a small investment goes along way. how do you or studio choose which games/game genres to work on? I'm currently building a mini Morrowind and fear that I have bitten off more than I can chew, I have about 3 other Ideas I would like to make but the RPG is what I'm passionate about & I figure I can write the dialogue easily on my commute home from work. but I am a solo dev so need to be realistic. Thanks for these videos, Including the reboot presentation you previously did.

[@schitzoflink8612]

Hi Tim

[@PorkotylerClips]

I'm a long-time fan of this channel so I'm saying this with all due respect but I've noticed a double standard here. In a previous video " Job Interview Questions " you mentioned you were annoyed at Valve for asking you to go through a technical interview as a designer. You failed the elevator control panel test and thought it was counterproductive since you’re a designer and shouldn’t have to write code anyway, but here you speak about going beyond your own discipline and how you like working with designers who also know how to code. Just an observation.

[@CainOnGames]

No double standard was intended. I would not give a programming test to a design candidate. But I do like working with designers who know how to code, because their designs are often cleaner and easier to code. But some of the best designers I know cannot code, so it's not something I would screen for in design candidates. I'd screen them based on their designs.

[@r.rodriguez4991]

There's a difference between appreciating something and requiring it.

[@BADC0FFEE]

There's a big difference in something that is a nice perk and making someone fail a design interview because of a coding test

[@michaelblosenhauer9887]

Thank you so much. This is the video I have been waiting for! I've been asking about level design stuff but just realized what I really wanted to know about was tools. You could do another 5 or 6 of these, please. I think tools as a concept are the perfect bridge between design and development of games and wish I understood them better.