Overhauling the Graphics in my Game Engine

Devlog video about "Homegrown", a casual farming game I'm creating using my own engine.
Support the channel on Patreon and get access to the code for this game, the city-builder, and Equilinox:
/ thinmatrix
My previous game "Equilinox":
store.steampow...
You can follow the progress of the game on my social media:
Twitter: / thinmatrix
Instagram: / thinmatrix
Facebook: / thinmatrix
Trello: trello.com/b/W...
Email: [e-mail]
Background music by Jamal Green:
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#devlog #Homegrown

[@romanyefimets454]

"I'm not an artist" - Goes on to make some beautiful art.

[@CODEDSTUDIO]

😂😂😂👍

[@banditodog]

“I’m not a rapper” - Is the most famous internet rapper.

[@Mikelica69]

So true

[@river6634]

I wish I weren't an artist

[@luigitho9560]

That’s what artists do

[@ebb632]

Things for the terrain: - Different heights - Ponds and streams - Rocks and pebbles - Maybe small animals such as birds, bees, dragonflies or frogs - Groupings of trees (they often grow together) - Sunflowers that follow the sun - Generally more varieties of the items you already have - Footpaths? - Hedgerows - Hives on the trees Idk just some ideas off the top of my head! Also the art style is very nice! I would like to see how it would if the roofs of the buildings were bevelled too.

[@CloudPhase]

I agree with all of these! One of the first thing that came to mind was how flat it was, I feel like a lot of game devs miss out on how much terrain with varying height can give life to a scene. Whether inside or outside of the play area.

[@ShinoSarna]

Height could be hard, since this has to take into account plant growth, which could be tricky on slopes.

[@CodeParade]

Really like the new look! I have some recommendations for the wind effect to improve it. Instead of trying to calculate it from trig functions (which makes it look 'wavy') you can instead use a repeating Perlin noise global texture that translates over the scene and sample it. In the texture, red could be translation in x and green in y for example. In addition to making it look more natural, it's usually faster to sample a texture than doing trig in the shader. Plus it's very flexible and you can use different textures for different kinds of wind if you ever want to add weather.

[@DanielHaanMusic]

Or Simplex noise instead of Perlin, as it has a more organic and less grid-ey look

[@ThinMatrix]

Ah good idea, thanks a lot for the suggestion!

[@localvoidlander8093]

imma take note of this

[@Jejkobbb]

Love the artstyle. Someone else said the grass could be more saturated and I agree. Since you’re doing shadows next time I would love to see the shadow of clouds floating by on the ground. I think that would add a lot to the look. I hate when these videos end cause I JUST WANT MORE!!! Cant wait til the next one!!

[@tzeege]

Excellent points 👌

[@himdo1]

The art style looks great! one quick suggestion is that I see all your crops are in a perfect grid which looks a bit out of place, I would recommend trying to do what minecraft does with plants (flowers and grass) and offset each plant by a bit inside the grid. as well as all your plants are "constant size" meaning your carrot are 1 per grid same as your cabbages, where as real life you should be able to fit more carrots per spot then melons or cabbages. To help with the last point I've been using "square foot gardening" for spacing in my real life garden

[@ThinMatrix]

Thank you! Nice idea with the offsets, I'll definitely add that. I know what you mean with the sizing, and I will be adding other crops that take up more than one tile (fruit trees, for example), but I think for the sake of gameplay simplicity I'm fairly content with there not being too much of a range when it comes to tile sizes of crops, even if it's not particularly realistic.

[@Effectlife]

@@ThinMatrix Maybe you could make the carrots model have 3 or 4 carrots, while keeping a single cabbage for example. Gameplaywise there would not be a difference, but it would look better imo.

[@ThinMatrix]

@@Effectlife Yeah, could do! I guess I already kind of did that with the wheat, where there's two wheat plants per tile. Maybe I should do it for some of the other plants as well.

[@cheeze7910]

@@ThinMatrix yeah, it would defiantly look better with better scaled crops. also, I use blender, and noticed that you where realy good at it. realy nice game, I will probly buy even if it came out pretty mutch like it is now. not saying that you should put it on steam like this though. :D

[@AgsmaJustAgsma]

I think you nailed the art direction. It has a claymation vibe to it and the models look superb. And the color palette is terrific. the fruit and vegetables look eye-popping, even without the shadows, and the soil looks suitably dark and saturated when moist. Looking forward to see the art direction even more fleshed out later down the line.

[@ThinMatrix]

Thank you very much, glad you like it!

[@JhonCarp]

This is one of the few channels where I like the video before watching - You just know its gunna' be good

[@guillermogonzalez9937]

new art style 10/10 . when i see the first attempt i think "oh looks more realistic now, nicee👌" and then when i see the cartoon one it was like "😍yo this is the way". Keep going this is promising!!

[@popwwy]

The new style reminds me a lot of old "claymation" children TV shows I used to love, think Wallace and Gromit. I know there were some old video games that adapted that style, and I wonder how much work it would take for you to push that aesthetic a bit further! I know there are some claymation shaders on Blender, they could serve as inspiration, and perhaps a simple depth-dependent blur effect to create a miniature/tilt-shift photography vibe a la Link's Awakening. It could really evoke the feeling of playing with physical miniatures!

[@ThinMatrix]

Thanks for the suggestions! I definitely want to try adding a depth blur effect once I've set up post-processing in the engine, I agree that it would work well here :)

[@grunchchristmas]

I do like those ideas

[@popwwy]

Just poking a bit online I found that a little Worley noise/cell noise using Blender's Voronoi texture option goes a long way to making a model look sculpted!

[@jonas2560]

Oh yes great point. One interesting source also is the making of for the lego movie. Not exactly the same but there were some great ideas like adding fingerprints to a reflection map and stepping the animation to give it the stopmotion feel.

[@bennymeister]

I love the Supercell (HayDay/Clash of Clans) artstyle. Also very cartoonish and reminiscent of childhood shows

[@Pontypants]

Very cute looking! Super impressive that you are doing all of this from scratch. One day I will also make my own engine 😅 Love your videos

[@ThinMatrix]

Thanks a lot :)

[@micka190]

Absolutely love the art style at 8:00! You might want to up the saturation a little bit, though (especially in the grass color). I think it would make the art style pop-out more. Currently, it looks a bit autumn-y. Making the grass a bit more green with a hint of blue would go a long way on its own, I think. Especially once you add the shadows.

[@ThinMatrix]

Thanks for the suggestion! Colours are definitely a bit of a weakness of mine. I always worry about making the grass colour too saturated because I then feel like it could overpower the objects that are in front of it. But I know what you mean. And I just tried making the grass a bit more blue, and you're right, it looks nicer!

[@GnuSnu]

ngl this style is looking really nice

[@ramoncf7]

Games are oversaturated these days, and too much bloom added. I like the art style and the most important aspect is that it stays consistent. Maybe saturation could be a factor to indicate the crop status, but the game looks great as it is.

[@zaynoelbasnoe9077]

Yes, I agree with upping the saturation a bit.

[@lukasneugebauer2462]

@ThinMatrix you could add a saturation setting to the games settings as soon as you implement post processing. That way everybody could tweak it to their liking.

[@RobLang]

Your devlogs are a simple joy and inspiration. Heading to my desk to fight with Netcode. Thank you.

[@grimland2615]

Hands down one of my fave devs to watch, quality is 101%

[@client3052]

I love the video style, with the neat transitions.

[@jdh]

The new graphics look great! Have you considered adding some basic ambient occlusion (or was that going to be included with the "shadows" part)? I can see it's there in the blender scene and it looks like it adds a lot to the look, especially the smaller details on the house stick out more.

[@ThinMatrix]

Yes, I definitely want to add ambient occlusion at some point. I've never implemented it before but I've been reading up about it recently and I'll have a go at adding it soon!

[@hugo4it]

oh wow it is handsome danish man

[@AndrewDavidJ]

Always a good day when you post a new devlog video :) Your content is always so cozy for some reason.

[@FMontanari709]

Been watching the updates on Twitter and really looked forward for this! Let's goo

[@AaronGrosch29]

It never fails. I have a particularly anxious day and turn to KZbin for a moment of reprieve and TM drops a gentle, quiet and satisfying Devlog.

[@domenico9992]

Man...you working on your garden when also working on the game...that is Soo deep...it's very inspiring. You are a great person. Keep up the good work!!! Thank youuuu

[@fireworksstudios9171]

I actually really like the extremely flat rendering at around 9:12 before you added any lighting. I think the flat colors add to the minimalistic stylized look you're going for and reminds me of cute paintings/illustrations. The layers of lighting you added later makes it obvious that it's a digital render but the flat colors feel very organic and down to earth IMO. Regardless, I love seeing you back making devlogs! Your videos always brighten up my day 😊

[@ketoes]

I’ve been waiting for this for months and I’m so glad I get to see this game grow so much!

[@desklawn]

Your desk setup with all the plants surrounding you and the window open to all those trees is absolutely gorgeous

[@muddasheep]

@7:07 You can write "@echo off" (with an "@" before "echo") to suppress the output of that command. Great video as always!

[@ThinMatrix]

Ah thanks!

[@muddasheep]

@@ThinMatrix You're welcome! Keep up the good work!

[@TheBreadSniffer]

Great work! I really felt that the old graphics felt to dry. Its a very nice change!

[@Wolfendeathx]

I've been watching for years and I just want to thank you for both how informative and pleasant your dev logs are. Love the videos, and love the new art style ^.^

[@ThinMatrix]

Thank you very much, I'm glad you like it :)

[@Leowzc]

firstly I would like to wish you well and to say a huge thank you for uploading these videos as they have been an invaluable resource to

[@MrAnimator05]

The jump from the first to the second Art Style is huge in my oppinion. I am glad that u gave it the time that it need.

[@benjoe1993]

Such happy times when I see a new ThinMatrix videoo upload on my sub feed. Love the progress and love the style. Keep it up, mate.

[@PixelShroom1]

Hi, just came to say your devlogs are so relaxing, and what a great setup with all the nature around it, great work

[@Groovecharge]

Its always a treat when you upload

[@Frosty-zd4rl]

I just randomly came across this, and dude... Your setup/room is just beautiful. Just felt the need to say that.

[@Atomic67G]

I think the new art style is so whimsical and delightful! You are creating something really special .It's a feast for the eyes yet not overwhelming . I also think it's worth mentioning that it's very good to know one's ultimate limits . I respect how you push on the boundary walls of your skill and creativity at this point in time yet you know when to stop. Some devs go way beyond their scope and then it can go pear shaped quickly .Instead of going back to something they can handle ,they just release it anyway . You are a very intelligent and talented gentleman and I always look forward to seeing what you have next to show us all !

[@bobbelcher6742]

I love the look of those plants! You settled on a perfect art style, everything looks plump, perfect for a gardening game. This might already be planned, but I liked the look of the garden plots in the first demo with the organic rounded parts. It fits in with the new smooth models

[@ThinMatrix]

Thanks! And yes, I plan to round off the terrain edges soon :)

[@ana33604]

Animation or stages of growth. This is where the pure psychology of reward comes into play. This is what you've been working for when playing a game. Good luck and great life!

[@ArmanNobari]

It always makes my day to see a Homegrown devlog, and I love the new style!

[@chadzulu4328]

Your mastery of the whole process is both mind-boggling and inspirational! The new art style is great, I think that the cartoon look fits this game really well.

[@ThinMatrix]

Thanks, I'm glad you like it ^^

[@MoonacreHandmade]

I love the new art style! I just started playing around with blender! Your game dev videos are great inspo!

[@kh5322]

I just love your videos and your thought process on each thing. It’s so relaxing because of how “green” your setup is. Love to see more trello board status updates!

[@sabahoudini]

Looks awesome, I'm a fan of you being a programmer yet somehow seem to like nature and gardening as well. A little unexpected, love it!

[@zadeviggers]

I really like the art style - it kind of looks like everything is made out of clay, which is a really cool look!

[@steve_gatsis]

I seriously love this artstyle to pieces man🤩🤩🤩. It is genuinely so great and makes me feel relaxed just by watching it. I played a lot of equilinox lately (trying to get an unstoppable hoard of spitting cammels ), and i linda got tired of the low poly artstyle. This new approaxh look fresh and really spot-on. Great job as always!!!

[@thelialewis]

Beautiful man, you're the only one who could help me, I watched 8 videos and yours was the only one that saved me

[@rejoininghottako3861]

Beatiful! I loved the new models, im eager to see this with better lighting, and also shadows :D

[@GamerMickey87]

The new style looks amazing!! It looks so cute and so good!! I love it!

[@BarneyCodes]

Really like this new art direction, it's looking great! I feel like the shadows will add a lot and hopefully help break up the grass a little bit, maybe adding some slight undulations to the terrain could help give the ground some texture without being too distracting? Looking forward to the next video as always!

[@CE-ly4gf]

Hands down tNice tutorials is one of the best tutorials I've seen on any subject, ever! Clear, concise and incredibly informative and easy to follow.

[@darkmayhem9767]

Absolutely love the new art style. Can't wait for the next video!

[@ghinaaudhiyanabillah1626]

With your videos my learning curve will shrink drastically. Thank you.

[@LifeOfMohammed]

I love the cartoon look and even better with some animation and maybe even a little player model running around but amazing progress as always love ur videos!

[@AlexLusth]

Wow, The new art is looking stellar! Great work!

[@ThinMatrix]

Thank you :)

[@camoriekai4114]

TNice tutorials is THE most helpful tutorial on KZbin imo. I am starting production in Hardstyle, and I find soft soft really useful

[@floxyi]

Yay waited for this day sooo long. Happy to see you here again :)

[@kylemason01]

I love how this project is progressing. I also feel that your loving this one more than your city builder.

[@otoS97]

I was waiting this one so long, I'm the guy that was commenting about graphical update in past videos. I love this. This looks great!! This creates so much more excitement! Love it! I'm actively following you and commenting on twitter too.

[@CESTLEDU]

New art style is on point, chief 👌I love your devlogs!

[@LaurensHouweling]

it would be cool to see day night cycles added to the game. I bet this scene would look even more amazing during a sunset or sunrise. occasional rain showers would also make the scene feel more alive and it would make your play trough feel more unique due to that little bit of unpredictability. maybe you could even add other weather conditions that are more rare. I love where this game is heading. there are really infinite possibilities with this concept and I’m excited to see which ideas you will explore. great job!

[@KamranWali]

Awesome video! The progress is looking super kool. I think the art style looks really good and it matches the theme of your game. The game is coming along very well. Adding the shadows will make your environment pop even more. Looking forward to that. Keep it up! :)

[@Tylru]

With the ground, I would suggest creating a very dense coverage of grass blades across the entire surface, with a patchy colour variance based on world position. Have them render without self-shadowing/shading, so they are essentially a block colour, but casting shadows onto other objects around. It will still look 'flat' but it'll add a nice 'fluffy' grass edge around anything it draws over. If your custom mesh grass are then scattered amongst this lower-laying 'soft grass', they'll poke out the top and create some nice depth.

[@percydowning3147]

The new models look awesome!

[@infinityplays2296]

Just simply: AWESOME! Great artstyle you decided on and duper nice implementation. Props to you

[@Georgerpw]

I absolutely love the new art style, reminds me a lot of the new Link's Awakening remake. Brilliant work.

[@ThinMatrix]

Thank you!

[@OllysCoding]

Awesome update! I'd love to see more blending between the tilled soil & grass. I also think the well should have a few stones around it on the ground, or something which helps it 'bend' into the ground better - help it look more 'in' the environment!

[@aestheticv5771]

Hey man thanks a lot. I was really overwheld and confused but now it all makes sense. Thank you.

[@jamesderaja]

The art style looks really amazing. You can’t say ur not good with design|texture/art. They look amazing. This could go straight to steam page and look awesome and pull in some wish list.

[@yassinehzami1670]

TNice tutorials was a fantastic beginner's guide, straight to the point, very clear. As a long-ti teacher I can tell you are quite apt at teacNice tutorialng!

[@Play_Streams]

This looks beautiful. Definitely looking forward to see the rest of the graphics updates.

[@tarugoviajante2711]

I dont know how i didint meet you before, your games are amazing!! Good lucky on the farm game from Brazil🇧🇷🇧🇷

[@zeddlegion]

Love this, Wish more game dev videos would talk more about their art styles an progress. love the art!!!

[@manishsharma7]

that smooth transition from camera footage to screen capture looks neat!

[@timothymakesgames]

This is a personal favourite man, I love this video. Very interesting to see you iterate on the art style in blender like that, I must try this aswell.

[@timothymakesgames]

I think adding some green splotches to the grass plane using some noise / repeating texture would be a easy quick improvement :)

[@AmfistomosAtlas]

7:49, that's the art style of the game! Period. It's just perfect!

[@GamedevLlama]

The artstyle turned out to be so cute and well pleasing to the eye. I think a game which is intended to be relaxing should rely on smoothness 🙂so that said: well done!

[@shirkit]

That second house version looks fantastic! Those squares popping up is great

[@ianboyer2224]

When you imported the models for the first time I actually thought it looked really good with no lighting! I think some sort of cell-shaded approach would look great for this game! Also, love your videos and your voice is very soothing. It’s kinda like watching Bob Ross painting. It’s a nice ASMR kinda thing to have in the background while I’m working haha

[@TheDreno33]

Love the new look! As for the watering, consider a "flooded" level of watering. Similar to flood irrigation in agriculture. Your floor models are perfectly setup for this with the dirt being lower than the grass.

[@mikeohc]

So great to see the progress! I think graphics is sort of like programming. When you come back to it, you'll always find ways to improve!

[@furball_vixie]

the new art style looks really cute! i like it alot! kinda interested to hear about you implementing shadows, about the technique and maybe some more details, looking forward to seeing more!

[@AudioCorrupted]

Whoah it looks so pretty now! looking forward to see what you do next! :3

[@ChristianDufrois]

I love the style of all the plants. They really look good when they are all together. It's pleasing to me at least to see all the vibrant colors of the plants. For the terrain, I think you should trying to not make it as straight/flat but rather add some bumps to the surface and edges, just like dirt and grass.

[@UnburntStudios]

Love the art style! This will be a really aesthetically pleasing game to just sit and chill with.

[@wesleyjones1667]

I love how it looks! I think that if you increased specifically the grass saturation it could make it look even better and I would love to see what a grass model would look like or just make a grass texture

[@theitatit]

Art style is just beautiful. For a game like this less is definitely more!

[@SuperDutchrutter]

Too notch as always. The game has come along so far!

[@xCALYPTOxGaming]

Absolutely love the cartoony style you chose. Everything looks fantastic, especially the plants!

[@dd25DD25]

year for all of us, for so- it's still ongoing. i respect you for being honest as that's what's been keeping a bit sane recently, just being

[@irishbruse]

woah i love the second art style the plants look great kinda baloony

[@dombibence]

Great video! The art style you've found is really an inspired one! :)

[@MrDaDisha]

New art style look wonderful man! Good job

[@PatrickNusbaum]

@ThinMatrix Can't wait for the shadows! They'll definitely make the whole scene look much, much better!

[@sirflimflam]

Every time I see one of your videos I get really jealous of those bay windows behind your desk.

[@mert_2577]

I think the cartoon style fits really well the game, it looks very well!

[@bensanchez6912]

This art style gives me Links Awakening vibes which is very nice and calming and interesting to see!

[@simplex6468]

I am brand new to DAW and soft soft - these tutorials are excellent an very helpful to get soone like up and running. Appreciate

[@dugtrioramen]

I really love this art style. It's just so fun and inviting

[@ModerateDev]

I really like the new art style ! great update :D

[@ArtemShoobovych]

absolutely love the new art style! might be worth adding melons and watermelons since they would be pretty simple to make, I think

[@МаксимАгрызко]

Nice new looking! Keep going with this style! Good Job!

[@RialuCaos]

I love the new art style. It looks a lot more professional now.

[@drepple]

Absolutely love the art-style! Instantly made the game look very professional. I do think the soil tiles look a bit sharp and square for the art-style. Maybe some randomness for the vertex positions followed by smooth corners would make them fit just a little bit more, but it's not a huge deal.

[@ThinMatrix]

Thanks, and I agree! I'll definitely be rounding off the corners of the terrain tiles soon and I have also been considering making the whole grid a bit less uniform. I love the organic grid system in the game Townscaper, but that's probably a bit more complicated than I'm planning on going!

[@GamesBySaul]

The new art style is fantastic honestly! I love how you've done it, and it's quite interesting especially when you consider what you said about also focusing on hard edges work, looking forward to seeing what else you create in this style :D Also unpopular opinion I imagine, but those trees with no lighting or shading had a certain charm to them I can't describe

[@ThinMatrix]

Thanks, I'm glad you like it! And I know what you mean about the non-shaded look, it reminds me a bit of the graphics in "Untitled Goose Game".

[@GamesBySaul]

@@ThinMatrix Yeah! That's what it reminded me of, couldn't think what it was, but yeah it's absolutely Goose Game, that has some lovely charming graphics!