Today I was reminded of the fact that upon first seeing the word "metaballs," I will always think it says "meatballs," and that got me thinking: what, exactly, is the use? The ability to create soft, uneven surfaces sounds useful, but the more I think about it, the more bizarre the idea of a blobmesh seems. I've used it so far to make cushiony chairs and glazed donuts, and I'm not sure how useful those are in most video games. I've read that blobmeshes are useful for "thick liquids," but when, exactly, does one encounter those? Lava comes to mind. So does honey. This might sound odd at first, but I've noticed that the sci-fi and fantasy genres (not just of video games) seem to be a little too infatuated with the idea of giant bug nests, especially beehives and spider lairs. Giant beehives tend not to be structured like beehives, and instead the honey is just spilling all over the floor. Spider lairs are typically just caves full of webs. I think a series of lofted splines covered in blobmeshes might make for an especially disgusting mass of cobweb for the player to get stuck in; in fact, I'd like to try this. A pit of honey in an inexplicably disorganized beehive also seems within the realm of possibility. Designers of giant bug nests also tend to neglect the fact that real nests tend to have dedicated areas for the babies, and instead decide it's more fun (or horrifying) to strew eggs and larvae all over the floor and walls. Why not use a blobmesh to create a disgusting little baby worm–or multitudes of them? Another thing fantasy and sci-fi love is the slime monster. Take fifteen seconds and think of all the games you've played that had some kind of slime creature, typically as an early enemy. I like making 2D slime monsters because they're easy to create, but 3D has so far proved difficult to conceptualize. I've got a plan for a flying blob monster in the works. In addition to these fantastical ideas, there is, of course, there's snow. While there are situations in which a sad smattering of frost does make sense, knee-high snow just looks better. The player character ought to sink into it a little. There's also the possibility of furniture–pillows, cushions, etc–as stated before; a plush armchair or couch in an office, perhaps. There's also food. Funnily enough, my misreading "meatballs" might be somewhat fortuitous: I want to see if I can make meatballs out of spheres covered in metaballs. So, to summarize:
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AuthorI'm moving on to my 4th (and final) year as a Game Art & Design student at Durham School of the Arts. I'd like to call myself an artist, but I'm a programmer at heart. Archives
February 2020
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