12:30 Designer here: Those trees were put there so you could easily grab/copy them later on and so you could actualy see it in game and decide which tree is going to fit the best the area you are working on. Then they most likely just forgot to remove them
10:52 VR Developer here - the gridded boxes are leftovers from a stage of production called "grayboxing." In this phase you're solving problems like figuring out how big a room or hallway should be. Using boxes with grid textures as placeholders makes it easy to test out a lot of different options before going through the insane amounts of work needed to make it all look pretty.
and in case anyone misunderstands, it's not specific to VR; it's common throughout game dev. raven software, the developers of the FPS Singularity, used to have a "developer diary" on their old blog that went over things like this, with screenshots and more. sadly, it's not there anymore. it's possible to find remnants of the developer diary series on the Internet Archive, though some visual assets are missing.
Level designer here, I agree. I think most people use that method, I am just one of the disturbed ones that makes everything precise based on the concepts I make first. Doing stairs was a pain (problems with collision) till I started building room by room for testing XD
i have a question, so basically theyre sketching with 1 simple block, to visualize the final results? like an alpha v.1 or something? Then, assuming that, they would take more 'finished' boxes every time they feel like they have an idea of where to go, correct?
In the ending scene where you’re walking up the stairs there are other cats underneath the level. Someone on the Stray subreddit managed to glitch through a wall. Makes you wonder if originally you’d see the cat fam at the end.
It'd be funny if there had been like a secret ending or something where they do show up, maybe if you completed the game fast enough to where they wouldn't have gotten too far.
What if that's the actual ending first but decided to remove it for a sequel, but who knows. I just only wished stray would go back to his/her family or friends after what happened to B12
@@sonic10130 one thing I didn’t put together (I think I had just been playing too long/late) is that the computer panel flicker as you’re walking up the stairs suggests B12 may be back inside a computer system, kinda like they were at the beginning of the game… which is better than nothing.
15:09 I like how they use an aura around different areas kind of signifying which area is where Blue - Dead City Yellow - Slums Green - Dead End Red - Rooftops
It gives each a different and fitting vibe with the colors chosen, too! The blue of the Dead City makes it feel cold and still, bringing to mind being in a frozen tundra or some sort of big refrigerator/cooler of some sort. The yellow in the Slums makes it feel a bit dirtier, almost sickly, as though the movement and activity there is kicking up a lot of dust and the like. The green in Dead End sort of seems more alive, although maybe not in a good way - the color is _almost_ like plants, but could just as easily change a shade or two paler and become another sickly one. And the red of the Rooftops matches the Zurks and their accent color, being an angry, hostile shade of red-orange. Excellent environmental and visual design for all that.
@@KairuHakubi yes I've been watching this show for years and the new guy basically instantly is up to the same quality I've come to expect from this show. That takes a lot of talent for sure.
Hey, I was a junior art dev for Stray! If anyone has any questions, I may be able to answer them. I worked mostly on scenery, not so much on animation or character models but I still have some knowledge on the behind the scenes workings.
I noticed in this video that the top of the city roof has full texturing, though I can't tell if it's just mirrored from the bottom or not. Is that because there was at some point perhaps plans for a part of the cutscene of the roof opening being from above the city, looking in? I imagine it wasn't done because of the mechanisms required if so, or even was just for the devs to watch it open from the top (because it does look damn cool even without anything really holding those pieces up), but do you know anything about that?
I wish you had done close-ups of the low-detail city after the ceiling was open. That was the one thing I was looking forward to. Sure, its not as detailed, but seeing the familiar areas with light would have been cool.
Man i love this show but he keeps missing stuff we actually want to see Sure as a game designer its cool to see stuff like how the lights are rendered and placeholder objects But thats not really what i want to see I feel the same with uncharted 4 he showed some cool stuff but he never even touched on libertalia with whats what i was looking foward the most
I agree, as soon as I saw the city through the windows in the last chapter, I thought that I needed to check if there was a Boundary Break about Stray to get an opportunity to see the city from up close. It would be great if they made another, smaller video about this.
You asked if we wanted anything done differently... I'd love to see the low level of detail locations that we should be familiar with. Looking at the low-poly distant versions are always my favourite bit. I'm thinking of the Mario Kart 8 episodes. That said, you are doing an utterly brilliant job. I was worried it might be jarring having a new host but nope - you're bossing it!
Yes! The only other thing I would have requested from this video would’ve been a closer look at the low-detail city at the end of the game. I can’t imagine it would reveal anything too shocking, but I’m interested in seeing it just out of curiosity!
5:53 The eye thing shown here is to simulate the type of refaction our eyes do. What's seen here is what would be more resource saving effective, whereas in animations where eyes are used for expressions, you might see one of two things; 1. The eye is broken into 3 pieces, the Ball itself, which is used for the refraction and scelera; and the pupil; in this method, the pupil can be animated to contract. 2. The eye is driven on the texture level where the Texture Space used by the eye is animated to change its position. The method shown in the video is a very realistic method to pull off what our own eyes look like, which is why you see the odd distortion of what is otherwise a concave surface hidden behind a wall of transparent mucus.
TLDR; The reason this looks realistic is because it's matching the actual anatomy of the eye. This method has been used in CGI for a long time but now the realtime engines as well are getting fast and accurate enough.
You asked for opinions, just sharing again that you're a fantastic fit for the channel, definitely a great decision on Shesez to have you join the team! Excited I get to see more of the channel thanks to you joining Snipey! You rock!
that doc model being loaded in for a future cutscene answers a fun little oddity i noticed in my first playthrough! after bringing him back to the slums, the HUD gave me the "meet" option as if i'd never interacted with him. i figure this sheds some light on how those flags work. this video was excellent! it really illustrates all the love and care that went into stray, and how efficiently things were implemented
All the characters were "Meet" for me at that part, and all the objects I collected and bought were reset. Was really confusing, honestly, I don't think they should've left it like that.
4:46 Oh cool, shell texturing. This technique is used in a few games. One interesting example is the original Ōkami, at least for the Nintendo Wii. After beating the game, you could unlock alternate character skins for Amaterasu, the wolf that you play as. One of those skins is a much more realistic wolf texture, and it uses a single shell (far less than Stray!) for its fur. I'm not entirely sure, but I _think_ they actually retexture Ammy's black cel shading outline to turn it into the fur shell.
Great video Snipey. Loved learning about the eyes and how they achieved reflections. I have not played Stray, but the setting really gives off Midgar vibes to me, and that scene with the light texture giving the illusion of the sunshine (13:44 ) really made me think of the sun lights on Midgar. I still have no notes for you- you are doing fantastic as a Boundary Break host.
As a map creator, I can say what those red boxes are. They are "untextured" walls. Most map makers use "Dev" textures with grids on them to align walls roof and such easier. These 2 were most likely forgotten as they are out of bounds.
Just finished Stray today. Man I loved every minute of it. I was hooked on the game when it was first announced and it didnt disappoint at all. Well worth your time and money if you like an indie game and want a game that let's you chill and makes it care free
7:40 that ball you're controlling is a default unreal engine player character the world spawns in and the controller possesses if there is not a character enabled to be controlled in the scene. typically, the ball is an object representing the camera in the flying character's internal hierarchy, but since you are controlling a separate "freecam" the ball is rendered in view.
That untectured Ball in the menu, that's likely the default UE free cam or spectator actor you get when creating the default level template. The fact it controls weird might just be down to the camera tool messing up the mouse position input for the spectator
I wonder who came up first with the idea of rendering fur in layers. I know Mario Galaxy did it with the bee's fur but I would really like to know it's origin. It is a really clever trick! I'd really love to see a compilation of efects like these across many games. Great episode!!
Microsoft published a paper titled “Real-Time Fur over Arbitrary Surfaces” back in 2001 that detailed this technique. Quite an interesting read since it also included some extra rendering features which solves some of the limitations of this technique, such as a special lighting model for hair strands and a solution to the shells being visible along the silhouette of the mesh. Not sure if the technique actually predates that paper but the earliest game I can think of that used it was Star Fox Adventures, which came out in 2002. In some ways the technique is similar to the inverted black shell technique used for creating cartoon outlines of meshes, which is something artists were experimenting with years before.
@@kvendy It can be done *using* a realtime displacement map, but that's not what this approach is called and realtime displacement maps have tons of other uses.
Stray is the first game I sat down and actually beat in a long time, it took me a few sittings with work and the baby, but i didn’t get bored with it, it had me hooked the whole time, I was actually looking forward to my next time I was able to play the game, the atmosphere and how everything plays out is so well set and played, the story is good, this is a 10/10 game, gonna run through it again to try and get more achievements this is one of my favorite games, thanks for showing what we don’t see, it’s super interesting and it’s making me want to play it again lol
4:46 I remember first learning about this technique being used in mario galaxy, and I'm surprised that it's apparently effective enough and simple enough that devs are still using it to this day
I do hope Stray gets a sequel. I loved the story, and the play style totally fitted my needs. Slow, explore, take your time without getting harassed. It's fun to literally talk to everyone, purr at everyone, play with/toss over everything... I think it took me a week to do the first play through, and then another few days just to go back and explore areas that I felt I hadn't fully explored.
I must say im surprised at how good this game is. It has been a long time since ive played a single player game that really took me on a adventure of discovery that really evoked emotions. I really hope they make either DLC / Expansion or Stray 2. I really want to know more about this world, it's characters, story and lore.
Dudeee. I'm actually getting your stuff in my recommended! Despite being subbed for years I rarely see your stuff on my home feed. I think this decision for a second host is going rlly well man!! :D
The 2d-picture "room beyond the window" trick reveal is great! Seems like an inverse of the basic environmental reflective effect like I first saw as a "chrome" effect in Half-Life, Mario 64, and Goldeneye, that eventually turned into a full mirror/reflection. Seems so simple when you show it but I never would have thought those rooms worked like that.
man i would've been curious to see what's beyond the area where you first fell down into the sewers. just wanna see how far it continues, and what the other cats do once the player falls
Yup absolutely loving the new guy Snipey he's perfect for a spot on the channel. I have no problem with him what so ever. I love seeing this channel grow. I love this channel and everyone behind it. Thank you for what you do and all your hard work!!
That ball at the loading screen resembles Unreal Engines 'default pawn'. It spawns in automatically when no player is selected. (For example in the loading screen, where a moving player isn't needed.)
i think snipey is as good a boundary break host as anyone could be who isnt Shesez (if that sentence makes sense). That being said, there's just something about Shesez's vibe and overall tone of voice that really drew me into the series and can not be replaced. I wish Snipey the best of luck and I know he will become an essential part of boundary break going forward. CONGRATULATIONS Snipey!! Now lets BASICALLY take the camera, anywhere we want, to find secrets and discoveries in some of our favorite games!
Really I think you are a wonderful addition to the channel. I was fearing monotone speaking, the voice of a certain top 5 channel style. But you did a wonderful job, I could hear the expression in your voice. It felt very warm and I truly look forward to your next episode!
@7:23 that is Unreal Engines default pawn, if you don’t set a player character/pawn Unreal will automatically spawn in a ball that you control. You mostly don’t see it since the camera is suppose to be inside the ball
The fur effect looks pretty much exactly like what was used by Rare in Star Fox Adventures to render fur on the main characters. Pretty sure that game pioneered it, so it's turning 20 years in a few months.
I'm a character artist, but took a realtime fx class on Niagara in Unreal Engine 5 this year, they forgot to turn turn Sprite facing to custom facing vector and Sprite alignment to custom alignment, that would fix the fire. Eyeballs often have a transparent layer, although in AAA games they usually use a custom shader to save on the second layer.
You should consider breaking the tomb raider trilogy that came out between 2013 and 2018. Lots of close-quarters levels with stuff to see behind the scene. I think it would be awesome!
The amount of pure effort and energy put into this game is amazing. The story, the visuals, the art, the script. This game HAS to get some kind of award for best game of 2022 (at least so far?) The game is so unique and creative, I haven’t seen anything like it in a while
Oh man, this game has gone on such a journey. I still remember the first, awkward cat animation videos surfacing online many years ago. It was just an untextured cat model jumping from one box to another, climbing a mountain of stacked up boxes. But even back then I was hooked and promised myself I would play the game if it ever came to be. And here we are!
Having finished this game recently I was SO HOPING this would be a upcoming episode but I didn't dare expect it anytime soon but here we are, AWESOME thanks for covering this game!
Just finished this game today and it's a little gem and something different. The level of detail in the environment is impressive. Thanks foe the video!
Clearly you’ve never had a cat before. My cat freezes in mid air all the time. Right now my cat’s been falling from my bed for abt 12mins so far. Silly cat
Snipey you honestly nailed the format of the show. Shesez and you could honestly be clones and i don't think anyone would bat an eye. Only thing that is different, you sound like you drink less coffee.
You picked the perfect person for this, this was the first Boundary Break I've watched in a few months, and I didn't even notice a change in style. I didn't notice him saying his name at the start, and just thought it was Shesez. Perfect choice, y'all are both clearly passionate about the show!
Viva pinata boxes you in a single area with a town and all kinds of stuff "Pinata Island is amazing! There's a swamp over there and just around the corner, there's a desert." An easy episode
This video was great, my only gripe is that it was too short. I loved this game. I was a bit scared knowing there would be a new narrator on shesez videos but you are great
you truly have such a great voice and presentation when narrating man, you're doing such an amazing job. got so much respect as ive wanted to do this kind of thing or a while, narrating or reading stories seems like so much fun
I love when you show off the tricks indie developers use to get by with (generally) fewer resources than the big developers. I loved learning about the reused lights and forced perspective windows!
My favorite part about these videos is getting to see all the perspective trickery game devs pull on us. Interestingly, I notice the more interesting and creative the trickery, the better the game typically is. As an aspiring game dev I really look up to these people. lol
As an indi developer I just learned SOO much. Thanks!! By the way, the red grid is called a blockout tool. Blocking out is the step in level design after drafting and after (or during) concept art. Essentially it’s modeling the map cheaply and quickly, during the early production phase. Unreal engine cannot create 3D models very well, but does have boxes, steps, triangles, and rooftops, all with tools to easily manipulate the mesh, to get a feel for the map layout and scale of things without burning hours creating assets. Designs can change easily in this stage, and complex assets like the houses, pipes, vines, are added in after the director is happy with the layout. The reason for the grid is to add depth, as without the grid, objects appear very plain and without depth information.
great work! As a gamedev it's always super interesting to see the ideas that others come up with to solve some of these challenges! Animated sequences are always fun lol that's the part where any physics and logics go out the window and the only important thing is that it looks great in the shot. The city was really impressive. It's so packed with assets that make it feel alive and some of the best lighting I've ever seen and all that in UE4! I can only imagine how some of this could even further improve simply by using nanite, world partition and possibly lumen.
I love the effort they put into the individual RGB pixels of the robot heads and tvs, as well as actually modelling the clear parts of the cat's eyes (instead of just throwing a reflection layer on an eye orb)
Feedback - honestly I have to say I was a little hesitant, knowing that there be a new guy doing some of the narration and play Throughs, but pleasantly, I am very satisfied, you’re doing a great job. I look forward to videos from you just as much as Shesez.
Small constructive critique! The purpose of low poly models is typically that they look normal from far distances. So for instances like the windowed city, showing a pan from that distance doesn't really come across as anything out of the ordinary. But it is a cool cinematic shot! So instead, if you get closer shots of the low poly city first, and then do the fancy pan shot, that would be more effective at getting the point across! Hope that helps 🙂
7:33 That ball is the default UE Player Controller, if you dont define any sort of player pawn in the gamemode asset or have no gamemode selected, UE just throws that Default Pawn in
to answer the red grid, there is a plugin in Unreal called "blockout tools" it allows you to make gridded blocks that snap to 1m grids, perfect for early prototype (we use it in our game too!) not sure if it had been answered here, but its essentially a 3d ruler! clearly this was left after the prototype stage by accident
Unreal Dev Here. The ball in the Main Menu is the default "pawn" when the player spawns into a level. Yes, even the Main Menu is running in it's own level as well. Usually in menus, players don't possess a character yet, so the Unreal Sphere is essentially an automatic place holder if you don't assign a character. This is really common for menus, even in my games.
I would have watched this sooner, but had to finish the game first. First off, I love the work you guys do as always! I think there is more than enough content to do a second episode, in particular I'd love to see what is on alot of the smaller objects with text on it such as the books and sticky notes
The eye thing is really cool because that's what cat eyes look like. They have this gap between the ball itself and where the pupil is sitting, which looks so far back. Like a marble almost. I'm pretty sure most animals are like that, but I always found it SO noticeable on cat's
I love this show concept but I hate how uninformed they always seem to be on concepts. Like yeah, speculation is fun but google it for three seconds and you’ll find out that the outer layer of the eye is a clear slice of tissue called your cornea. There wouldn’t be depth or reflections without it. That’s why all of the eyeballs have them. It’s like being surprised growths are found at the tips of our fingers called nails 🙄 Bleh. Rant over. Keep up making these videos because They’re super interesting… just please research a little bit.
@@scav3167 I’m glad you feel similarly, it’s always frustrated me. But because it feels so petty to nitpick something like this, I’ve just figured I was being a pretentious jerk. Though we both could be pretentious jerks I suppose lol 🤷♂️
i really feel this too! especially as an aspiring gamedev that knows far more about these things than most people, it's kinda painful to watch him make these really dumb naive guesses
I love that we now have double the content thanks to gaining a second host. Keep up the amazing work u two of giving us videos that are both entertaining & educational
The first 1,000 people to use the link will get a 1 month free trial of Skillshare: skl.sh/shesez08221
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Awesome video
Thanks
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The cats freezing in mid air or floating to get into the cutscene isn't an animation trick actually. Cats just don't care about gravity.
Then why are my cats so often testing whether the gravity is still working, huh?
@@SebastianKrzyszkowiak To make sure they can still land on their feet
Lol
That’s why they land well
Lolz
As an animal I ask my cat friends and they say they don’t care for gravity
12:30 Designer here: Those trees were put there so you could easily grab/copy them later on and so you could actualy see it in game and decide which tree is going to fit the best the area you are working on. Then they most likely just forgot to remove them
Cool
10:52 VR Developer here - the gridded boxes are leftovers from a stage of production called "grayboxing." In this phase you're solving problems like figuring out how big a room or hallway should be. Using boxes with grid textures as placeholders makes it easy to test out a lot of different options before going through the insane amounts of work needed to make it all look pretty.
this stage of production can also be called 'blocking' or 'blocking out a level'. at least with the devs i have worked with.
and in case anyone misunderstands, it's not specific to VR; it's common throughout game dev.
raven software, the developers of the FPS Singularity, used to have a "developer diary" on their old blog that went over things like this, with screenshots and more. sadly, it's not there anymore. it's possible to find remnants of the developer diary series on the Internet Archive, though some visual assets are missing.
toilet shitter here nobody cares ur a vr dev LOL owned swish
Level designer here, I agree. I think most people use that method, I am just one of the disturbed ones that makes everything precise based on the concepts I make first. Doing stairs was a pain (problems with collision) till I started building room by room for testing XD
i have a question, so basically theyre sketching with 1 simple block, to visualize the final results? like an alpha v.1 or something? Then, assuming that, they would take more 'finished' boxes every time they feel like they have an idea of where to go, correct?
In the ending scene where you’re walking up the stairs there are other cats underneath the level. Someone on the Stray subreddit managed to glitch through a wall. Makes you wonder if originally you’d see the cat fam at the end.
It'd be funny if there had been like a secret ending or something where they do show up, maybe if you completed the game fast enough to where they wouldn't have gotten too far.
@@nologin5375 it is the same ending even when people speedrun the game 1hour 30minute, same ending.
@@sety5591 yeah, which is why he prefaced it with "it's be funny if"
What if that's the actual ending first but decided to remove it for a sequel, but who knows. I just only wished stray would go back to his/her family or friends after what happened to B12
@@sonic10130 one thing I didn’t put together (I think I had just been playing too long/late) is that the computer panel flicker as you’re walking up the stairs suggests B12 may be back inside a computer system, kinda like they were at the beginning of the game… which is better than nothing.
even low-LOD, looking down on the entire city from up in the control room was a total WOW moment for me. the artistry in this game is incredible
I appreciate that you keep the videos "meaty" - very little filler. You get straight to the point and show us cool stuff. Love that.
I appreciate that you appreciate that!
@@BoundaryBreak Oh yeah?
Well I appreciate that you appreciate their appreciation of that.
@@BinaryBolias I appreciate that you appreciate that I appreciate that they appreciate that!
@@BoundaryBreak Ahh yes. The appreciation wars.
@@BoundaryBreak I appreciate that you appreciate that and they appreciate that and you appreciate that they appreciate that!
15:09 I like how they use an aura around different areas kind of signifying which area is where
Blue - Dead City
Yellow - Slums
Green - Dead End
Red - Rooftops
It gives each a different and fitting vibe with the colors chosen, too! The blue of the Dead City makes it feel cold and still, bringing to mind being in a frozen tundra or some sort of big refrigerator/cooler of some sort. The yellow in the Slums makes it feel a bit dirtier, almost sickly, as though the movement and activity there is kicking up a lot of dust and the like. The green in Dead End sort of seems more alive, although maybe not in a good way - the color is _almost_ like plants, but could just as easily change a shade or two paler and become another sickly one. And the red of the Rooftops matches the Zurks and their accent color, being an angry, hostile shade of red-orange. Excellent environmental and visual design for all that.
Yeah it's really cool how they used different colors
I would genuenly use it as a wallpaper XD
I am so grateful that Shesez has a second host now for double the content. This is great
and the new guy is really cool
@@JudeTheTH-camPoopersubscribe I'm glad he's humble and knows this is a big deal to be included in :>
@@KairuHakubi yes I've been watching this show for years and the new guy basically instantly is up to the same quality I've come to expect from this show. That takes a lot of talent for sure.
@@JudeTheTH-camPoopersubscribe talent AND hard work I'm sure :D you need both.
100% agree
I was JUST thinking about how cool a Stray Boundary Break would be while playing it. PURRRFECT TIMING!!!
it was basically confirmed like a week ago on twitter so i was very pleased to open youtube just now and see it.
Purrfect?
@@naithungoal609 dang it i was gonna make that pun lol
@@midnighttheumbreon sorry, it was too good to skip lol
SAME
Hey, I was a junior art dev for Stray! If anyone has any questions, I may be able to answer them. I worked mostly on scenery, not so much on animation or character models but I still have some knowledge on the behind the scenes workings.
Oooooh
were there any tricks used to allow the world to look as good as it does while still being able to run smoothly on most modern hardware?
I noticed in this video that the top of the city roof has full texturing, though I can't tell if it's just mirrored from the bottom or not. Is that because there was at some point perhaps plans for a part of the cutscene of the roof opening being from above the city, looking in? I imagine it wasn't done because of the mechanisms required if so, or even was just for the devs to watch it open from the top (because it does look damn cool even without anything really holding those pieces up), but do you know anything about that?
If you worked in an office, what was the atmosphere there? Were they allowed to pet cats?
@@Woopendy Asshat's, the majority were asshat's. Cindy had a fat ass though, she was cool.
I wish you had done close-ups of the low-detail city after the ceiling was open. That was the one thing I was looking forward to. Sure, its not as detailed, but seeing the familiar areas with light would have been cool.
Man i love this show but he keeps missing stuff we actually want to see
Sure as a game designer its cool to see stuff like how the lights are rendered and placeholder objects
But thats not really what i want to see
I feel the same with uncharted 4 he showed some cool stuff but he never even touched on libertalia with whats what i was looking foward the most
Yeah! There were a lot of areas I would have liked for him to look at. He didn't seem to look at midtown or the control area at all!
I agree, as soon as I saw the city through the windows in the last chapter, I thought that I needed to check if there was a Boundary Break about Stray to get an opportunity to see the city from up close. It would be great if they made another, smaller video about this.
If anything, seeing the low detail is kind of the whole appeal, like seeing the low detail Gotham out of bounds in Arkham City
Where's antvillage after the opening?
You asked if we wanted anything done differently... I'd love to see the low level of detail locations that we should be familiar with. Looking at the low-poly distant versions are always my favourite bit. I'm thinking of the Mario Kart 8 episodes. That said, you are doing an utterly brilliant job. I was worried it might be jarring having a new host but nope - you're bossing it!
Yes! The only other thing I would have requested from this video would’ve been a closer look at the low-detail city at the end of the game. I can’t imagine it would reveal anything too shocking, but I’m interested in seeing it just out of curiosity!
me to
Same here. Crazy that we only got a panoramic view of the end (something that we can already see by ourself…)
I was about to post this exact thing, but you typed it out perfectly
5:53 The eye thing shown here is to simulate the type of refaction our eyes do. What's seen here is what would be more resource saving effective, whereas in animations where eyes are used for expressions, you might see one of two things;
1. The eye is broken into 3 pieces, the Ball itself, which is used for the refraction and scelera; and the pupil; in this method, the pupil can be animated to contract.
2. The eye is driven on the texture level where the Texture Space used by the eye is animated to change its position.
The method shown in the video is a very realistic method to pull off what our own eyes look like, which is why you see the odd distortion of what is otherwise a concave surface hidden behind a wall of transparent mucus.
Having seen my cats eyes from the side many of times, they do indeed look like a clear ball with an eye inside.
TLDR; The reason this looks realistic is because it's matching the actual anatomy of the eye. This method has been used in CGI for a long time but now the realtime engines as well are getting fast and accurate enough.
You asked for opinions, just sharing again that you're a fantastic fit for the channel, definitely a great decision on Shesez to have you join the team! Excited I get to see more of the channel thanks to you joining Snipey! You rock!
We need part 2 of this. There are so much to explore with Midtown and the Ending
specially the ending, after he turns right, there are supposed to be his family
that doc model being loaded in for a future cutscene answers a fun little oddity i noticed in my first playthrough! after bringing him back to the slums, the HUD gave me the "meet" option as if i'd never interacted with him. i figure this sheds some light on how those flags work.
this video was excellent! it really illustrates all the love and care that went into stray, and how efficiently things were implemented
My game did that too lol
All the characters were "Meet" for me at that part, and all the objects I collected and bought were reset. Was really confusing, honestly, I don't think they should've left it like that.
5:07 Oh god, THE CATS FACE LOOK AT THE CATS FACE
4:46 Oh cool, shell texturing. This technique is used in a few games.
One interesting example is the original Ōkami, at least for the Nintendo Wii. After beating the game, you could unlock alternate character skins for Amaterasu, the wolf that you play as. One of those skins is a much more realistic wolf texture, and it uses a single shell (far less than Stray!) for its fur. I'm not entirely sure, but I _think_ they actually retexture Ammy's black cel shading outline to turn it into the fur shell.
even the Spoings from Super Mario Galaxy use a similar technic for displaying fur
This technique is quite old. UE5 has software rasterizer for rendering hair groom similar to what EA use in FIFA. Why they don't use that?
it's gfur plugin
shadow of the colossus back in 2005 used that heavily on ps2 in all colossi
Great video Snipey. Loved learning about the eyes and how they achieved reflections. I have not played Stray, but the setting really gives off Midgar vibes to me, and that scene with the light texture giving the illusion of the sunshine (13:44 ) really made me think of the sun lights on Midgar.
I still have no notes for you- you are doing fantastic as a Boundary Break host.
As a map creator, I can say what those red boxes are. They are "untextured" walls. Most map makers use "Dev" textures with grids on them to align walls roof and such easier. These 2 were most likely forgotten as they are out of bounds.
I am SO GLAD someone that does these types of videos actually finally knows what the default texture of an engine is, already loving this new host.
Just finished Stray today. Man I loved every minute of it. I was hooked on the game when it was first announced and it didnt disappoint at all. Well worth your time and money if you like an indie game and want a game that let's you chill and makes it care free
7:40 that ball you're controlling is a default unreal engine player character the world spawns in and the controller possesses if there is not a character enabled to be controlled in the scene. typically, the ball is an object representing the camera in the flying character's internal hierarchy, but since you are controlling a separate "freecam" the ball is rendered in view.
That untectured Ball in the menu, that's likely the default UE free cam or spectator actor you get when creating the default level template. The fact it controls weird might just be down to the camera tool messing up the mouse position input for the spectator
Dude, this is the only game I never spoiled the story for, and I don't regret it, cause I cried at the end.
I wonder who came up first with the idea of rendering fur in layers. I know Mario Galaxy did it with the bee's fur but I would really like to know it's origin. It is a really clever trick!
I'd really love to see a compilation of efects like these across many games.
Great episode!!
The earliest I've seen the approach was in Shadow of the Colossus on PlayStation 2. All the colossi have their fur done this way.
it called real-time displacement map
Microsoft published a paper titled “Real-Time Fur over Arbitrary Surfaces” back in 2001 that detailed this technique. Quite an interesting read since it also included some extra rendering features which solves some of the limitations of this technique, such as a special lighting model for hair strands and a solution to the shells being visible along the silhouette of the mesh.
Not sure if the technique actually predates that paper but the earliest game I can think of that used it was Star Fox Adventures, which came out in 2002. In some ways the technique is similar to the inverted black shell technique used for creating cartoon outlines of meshes, which is something artists were experimenting with years before.
@@kvendy It can be done *using* a realtime displacement map, but that's not what this approach is called and realtime displacement maps have tons of other uses.
Stray is the first game I sat down and actually beat in a long time, it took me a few sittings with work and the baby, but i didn’t get bored with it, it had me hooked the whole time, I was actually looking forward to my next time I was able to play the game, the atmosphere and how everything plays out is so well set and played, the story is good, this is a 10/10 game, gonna run through it again to try and get more achievements this is one of my favorite games, thanks for showing what we don’t see, it’s super interesting and it’s making me want to play it again lol
4:46 I remember first learning about this technique being used in mario galaxy, and I'm surprised that it's apparently effective enough and simple enough that devs are still using it to this day
Yep! It's a really useful technique
That was so good!! Wow. I love your enthusiasm for the game and its secrets. GOTY for me personally :)
Hello
Yeah!
I do hope Stray gets a sequel. I loved the story, and the play style totally fitted my needs. Slow, explore, take your time without getting harassed. It's fun to literally talk to everyone, purr at everyone, play with/toss over everything... I think it took me a week to do the first play through, and then another few days just to go back and explore areas that I felt I hadn't fully explored.
I must say im surprised at how good this game is. It has been a long time since ive played a single player game that really took me on a adventure of discovery that really evoked emotions. I really hope they make either DLC / Expansion or Stray 2. I really want to know more about this world, it's characters, story and lore.
I’d prefer a full fledged sequel. We only really got to see the cities (which were amazing) but the outside has so much potential.
Dudeee. I'm actually getting your stuff in my recommended! Despite being subbed for years I rarely see your stuff on my home feed. I think this decision for a second host is going rlly well man!! :D
Same. Saw this in my recommended. Normally don’t
Same wtf
same here! i haven't gotten a boundary break recommendation in a while, didn't even notice the host was different until the outro.
Great job!! The bird's eye view of the low-poly city is gorgeous, but I'd like to see it up close too.
The 2d-picture "room beyond the window" trick reveal is great! Seems like an inverse of the basic environmental reflective effect like I first saw as a "chrome" effect in Half-Life, Mario 64, and Goldeneye, that eventually turned into a full mirror/reflection. Seems so simple when you show it but I never would have thought those rooms worked like that.
man i would've been curious to see what's beyond the area where you first fell down into the sewers. just wanna see how far it continues, and what the other cats do once the player falls
10:20 that has to beat portal 2 world record for biggest door in any game.
Great video! Snipy is doing an excellent job, his voice is really easy to listen to. Please keep up the awesome work, both of you! :)
One of the best things with Boundry Break is how invested Shesez and Snipey. They always sound interested in the game they talk about.
Yup absolutely loving the new guy Snipey he's perfect for a spot on the channel. I have no problem with him what so ever. I love seeing this channel grow. I love this channel and everyone behind it. Thank you for what you do and all your hard work!!
That ball at the loading screen resembles Unreal Engines 'default pawn'. It spawns in automatically when no player is selected. (For example in the loading screen, where a moving player isn't needed.)
i think snipey is as good a boundary break host as anyone could be who isnt Shesez (if that sentence makes sense). That being said, there's just something about Shesez's vibe and overall tone of voice that really drew me into the series and can not be replaced. I wish Snipey the best of luck and I know he will become an essential part of boundary break going forward. CONGRATULATIONS Snipey!! Now lets BASICALLY take the camera, anywhere we want, to find secrets and discoveries in some of our favorite games!
Really I think you are a wonderful addition to the channel. I was fearing monotone speaking, the voice of a certain top 5 channel style.
But you did a wonderful job, I could hear the expression in your voice. It felt very warm and I truly look forward to your next episode!
@7:23 that is Unreal Engines default pawn, if you don’t set a player character/pawn Unreal will automatically spawn in a ball that you control. You mostly don’t see it since the camera is suppose to be inside the ball
The fur effect looks pretty much exactly like what was used by Rare in Star Fox Adventures to render fur on the main characters. Pretty sure that game pioneered it, so it's turning 20 years in a few months.
11:17 DOC, WHAT ARE YOU DOING ON THE ROOF
I'm a character artist, but took a realtime fx class on Niagara in Unreal Engine 5 this year, they forgot to turn turn Sprite facing to custom facing vector and Sprite alignment to custom alignment, that would fix the fire. Eyeballs often have a transparent layer, although in AAA games they usually use a custom shader to save on the second layer.
You should consider breaking the tomb raider trilogy that came out between 2013 and 2018. Lots of close-quarters levels with stuff to see behind the scene. I think it would be awesome!
My answer to your question is don't change. You're doing great! You fit right in like a perfect piece of tetris. Keep 'em coming!
The amount of pure effort and energy put into this game is amazing. The story, the visuals, the art, the script. This game HAS to get some kind of award for best game of 2022 (at least so far?) The game is so unique and creative, I haven’t seen anything like it in a while
You mean "purr" effort? 😉😉😉
@@TimurSokol 😂😂😐
Oh man, this game has gone on such a journey. I still remember the first, awkward cat animation videos surfacing online many years ago. It was just an untextured cat model jumping from one box to another, climbing a mountain of stacked up boxes. But even back then I was hooked and promised myself I would play the game if it ever came to be. And here we are!
Having finished this game recently I was SO HOPING this would be a upcoming episode but I didn't dare expect it anytime soon but here we are, AWESOME thanks for covering this game!
Just finished this game today and it's a little gem and something different. The level of detail in the environment is impressive. Thanks foe the video!
Clearly you’ve never had a cat before. My cat freezes in mid air all the time. Right now my cat’s been falling from my bed for abt 12mins so far. Silly cat
Snipey you honestly nailed the format of the show. Shesez and you could honestly be clones and i don't think anyone would bat an eye. Only thing that is different, you sound like you drink less coffee.
Happy to see Stray got an episode, and I’m happy to see Snipey back again!
You picked the perfect person for this, this was the first Boundary Break I've watched in a few months, and I didn't even notice a change in style. I didn't notice him saying his name at the start, and just thought it was Shesez. Perfect choice, y'all are both clearly passionate about the show!
5:43 that's pretty realistic to cat eyes actually. They have lenses that are pretty far from their pupils.
The game is a masterpiece, an awesome piece of work.
Great video, thank you
Viva pinata boxes you in a single area with a town and all kinds of stuff "Pinata Island is amazing! There's a swamp over there and just around the corner, there's a desert." An easy episode
i love designers and animators so much
This video was great, my only gripe is that it was too short. I loved this game. I was a bit scared knowing there would be a new narrator on shesez videos but you are great
you truly have such a great voice and presentation when narrating man, you're doing such an amazing job. got so much respect as ive wanted to do this kind of thing or a while, narrating or reading stories seems like so much fun
This channel just has some of the best content on youtube
I love when you show off the tricks indie developers use to get by with (generally) fewer resources than the big developers. I loved learning about the reused lights and forced perspective windows!
This is my first time hearing Snipey and i gotta say… I absolutely LOVED his commentary!
Check out the New Vegas video! It was also great!
Always had to actively seek out your boundary break vids. I’m now getting them recommended so whatever you’re doing keep it up.
Purfect, As usual.
My favorite part about these videos is getting to see all the perspective trickery game devs pull on us. Interestingly, I notice the more interesting and creative the trickery, the better the game typically is. As an aspiring game dev I really look up to these people. lol
oh hell ye, that was fast tho
As an indi developer I just learned SOO much. Thanks!!
By the way, the red grid is called a blockout tool. Blocking out is the step in level design after drafting and after (or during) concept art. Essentially it’s modeling the map cheaply and quickly, during the early production phase.
Unreal engine cannot create 3D models very well, but does have boxes, steps, triangles, and rooftops, all with tools to easily manipulate the mesh, to get a feel for the map layout and scale of things without burning hours creating assets.
Designs can change easily in this stage, and complex assets like the houses, pipes, vines, are added in after the director is happy with the layout.
The reason for the grid is to add depth, as without the grid, objects appear very plain and without depth information.
*Best Indie game of the year!!!!!*
great work! As a gamedev it's always super interesting to see the ideas that others come up with to solve some of these challenges! Animated sequences are always fun lol that's the part where any physics and logics go out the window and the only important thing is that it looks great in the shot.
The city was really impressive. It's so packed with assets that make it feel alive and some of the best lighting I've ever seen and all that in UE4! I can only imagine how some of this could even further improve simply by using nanite, world partition and possibly lumen.
OH HELL YEAH LOOKING FIRWARD TO THIS
God damn it *forward
I love the effort they put into the individual RGB pixels of the robot heads and tvs, as well as actually modelling the clear parts of the cat's eyes (instead of just throwing a reflection layer on an eye orb)
1:56
robot: escapes
robot: no clips
ROBOT IN
______________|_________
\🤖___/___ // \_____________
THE BACKROOMS
Stray is a beautiful game. That last camera pan over the city is great
Feedback - honestly I have to say I was a little hesitant, knowing that there be a new guy doing some of the narration and play Throughs, but pleasantly, I am very satisfied, you’re doing a great job. I look forward to videos from you just as much as Shesez.
The ball in the title screen is actually used. If you wait and watch the title screen long enough, you will see the cat playing with the ball.
Small constructive critique! The purpose of low poly models is typically that they look normal from far distances. So for instances like the windowed city, showing a pan from that distance doesn't really come across as anything out of the ordinary. But it is a cool cinematic shot! So instead, if you get closer shots of the low poly city first, and then do the fancy pan shot, that would be more effective at getting the point across! Hope that helps 🙂
7:33 That ball is the default UE Player Controller, if you dont define any sort of player pawn in the gamemode asset or have no gamemode selected, UE just throws that Default Pawn in
3:24 NO BRING HIM BACK
to answer the red grid, there is a plugin in Unreal called "blockout tools" it allows you to make gridded blocks that snap to 1m grids, perfect for early prototype (we use it in our game too!) not sure if it had been answered here, but its essentially a 3d ruler! clearly this was left after the prototype stage by accident
5:30 That's just the cornea, isn't it?
Yup, so not really an "extra sphere".
I dunno why, but that ceiling opening is really good. Lol
5:18 bingus
You got games on your phone?
Unreal Dev Here. The ball in the Main Menu is the default "pawn" when the player spawns into a level. Yes, even the Main Menu is running in it's own level as well. Usually in menus, players don't possess a character yet, so the Unreal Sphere is essentially an automatic place holder if you don't assign a character. This is really common for menus, even in my games.
This game: "Press X to do some cat thing". Gamers:"Wow this game is amazing!"
Every Game: Press Buttons to do thing
Cynical Gamers: so lame
doesn't mean it's bad though
I would have watched this sooner, but had to finish the game first. First off, I love the work you guys do as always! I think there is more than enough content to do a second episode, in particular I'd love to see what is on alot of the smaller objects with text on it such as the books and sticky notes
Have no idea if the game is outdated or not, but it would be cool to see the Cars GameCube game Boundary Break…
Great video, loved seeing all the cool stuff that we would never normally get to see. Seamless host-to-host transition 👍🏻
1:18 wdym? my cats do this all the time
The environment and world design of this game is top notch!! Especially the use of lightning and colors.
4:25 the sponsor ends
The eye thing is really cool because that's what cat eyes look like. They have this gap between the ball itself and where the pupil is sitting, which looks so far back. Like a marble almost. I'm pretty sure most animals are like that, but I always found it SO noticeable on cat's
I love this show concept but I hate how uninformed they always seem to be on concepts. Like yeah, speculation is fun but google it for three seconds and you’ll find out that the outer layer of the eye is a clear slice of tissue called your cornea. There wouldn’t be depth or reflections without it. That’s why all of the eyeballs have them. It’s like being surprised growths are found at the tips of our fingers called nails 🙄
Bleh. Rant over. Keep up making these videos because They’re super interesting… just please research a little bit.
This has always been an issue with this guy's videos, i just mute them and enjoy the interesting sights.
@@scav3167 I’m glad you feel similarly, it’s always frustrated me. But because it feels so petty to nitpick something like this, I’ve just figured I was being a pretentious jerk. Though we both could be pretentious jerks I suppose lol 🤷♂️
i really feel this too!
especially as an aspiring gamedev that knows far more about these things than most people, it's kinda painful to watch him make these really dumb naive guesses
at the end of the video i think just a 20-30 second fly through of the map would be awesome if thats possible. like flying a drone through the map
I wasn't sure I was going to like a new guy on the channel, but this changed my mind. Keep up the good work, guys!
The scene of the cat meeting b12 is one of my favorite cutscenes of all time. It's so cute.
I love that we now have double the content thanks to gaining a second host. Keep up the amazing work u two of giving us videos that are both entertaining & educational
Our pleasure!