Reid Hannaford

Stuck in the trenches... #GodotEngine #indiedev #gamedev

Finally migrating off Vimeo in favor of self hosting videos on my website. Feels good - been meaning to make the shift for ages. #indiedev #b3d

AI can't write well because it was trained to produce what's expected. Great writing is never what's expected. Even GPT-2 was more creative than today's frontier models. Every post-training constraint that improved reliability degraded creativity. AI's limitations are human comparative advantages.

Hyped about vertex snapping ✨

The practically universal pushback on DLSS 5 from both game developers and gamers has me feeling optimistic, and relieved that this tech isn't just being welcomed with open arms. Realism is tired. Stylized is where it's at! #indiedev #gamedev #godot

I need your small game recommendations! What are people's favorite browser games on itch? I'm trying to play more tiny games ✨ to fill my creative cup, so to speak. Your own games count too ;) #indiegames #indiedev #gamedev

Does this look like the appropriate amount of wiggle on the hat? Trying to strike a balance between noticeable but not distracting. #godot #indiedev #gamedev

Pleasantly surprised how easy it is to add jiggle physics in #Godot with the SpringBoneSimulator3D. Look at the little wizard hats! Also! This is the first look at my current project, a multiplayer tennis game with magic and spells! Art is still super WIP but it's coming along! #indiedev #gamedev

Using vertex color painting in Blender to add moss on top of my stone tiles, w/ a grunge texture mask to make the edges crispy + more detailed. Thanks @passivestar.bsky.social for the basis of this method! Slowly locking in the asset pipeline for my current project. #godot #indiedev #gamedev #b3d

Hoping this gets merged for 4.7 🤞

This morning's experiments in #MaterialMaker! I'm totally in love with procedural texturing. Something a little more stylized this time. #godot #gamedev #indiedev

So cool to be able to make quick procedural changes to the shapes and textures. Definitely going to start incorporating material maker into my pipeline.

Experimenting with Material Maker, an open source alternative to something like Substance Designer. Quite fun! I made this stone tile material entirely procedurally. I'm used to working more with photo textures (and Blender's shader graph). Great app @rodzlabs.bsky.social #godot #indiedev #b3d

Honestly I think I could probably daily drive GIMP over Photoshop for a lot of my graphics work if I could resize a text layer without it rasterizing the text. So, smart objects. That would solve most of my complaints. #foss #gimp #indiedev

Picking digital painting back up after years of focusing exclusively on 3D and wow it's kicking my ass. Here's painting #2. Challenging myself to use a simple hard brush, full opacity, one layer, and avoid using undo as much as possible. #heavypaint #digitalart #art #painting #stilllife

Is it weird that I have an iPad but I actually prefer digital painting with my intuos pen tablet? Drawing maybe is easier for me directly on a screen but I find painting way more comfortable with a traditional pen tablet separate from my monitor. #heavypaint #indiedev #art #digitalart

Why can I not just set a mesh's origin to the selected vertex in edit mode in Blender? I know how to select a vertex, shift+S to set the 3D cursor to selection, switch to object mode and set the origin to the 3D cursor, but this has always felt like way more steps than necessary. #blender #b3d

Games teach us we don't play to win, we play to struggle to win. The constraints are an intrinsic part of the goal! You could drive a marathon but that defeats the whole point. Same with making things. The goal was never the finished piece. A tool that skips the process robs you. #gamedev #indiedev

We’re witnessing the very real death of the open web in general. Something needs to be done, or we risk losing the web entirely to bots. #godot #foss

This is really interesting. I think it's happening across the board in entertainment, like Stranger Things taking 3+ years between season 4 and 5 when we used to get a new season of a show every year. Hard to maintain excitement and hype when the creative cycle is so slow. #gamedev #indiedev

If I'm working on my game, it's the end of the day, and I'm tired, I start making poor decisions. Messy code, rushed architecture, sloppy work. My fatigue turns into impatience. Stuff I'll need to fix later. A good reminder that it's better at that point to stop for the night. #indiedev #gamedev

I'm super impressed with @blender.org's built-in video editor (sequencer). Should not have slept on this until now... the only major deal breaker I've encountered is the lack of audio tools and effects. For quick stuff though or edits without the need for audio tooling this is pretty amazing.

Credit where it’s due: @adobe.com reversing course on Animate is great news, and how this should’ve been handled from the start. But the fact they were willing to brick the app is still a huge red flag. This can happen again. If your livelihood depends on Adobe, prep an exit plan.

I can’t overstate how bad @adobe.com's move to shut off Adobe Animate is. They aren't just sunsetting the software. They’re bricking the app. Your files and projects will become inaccessible. If you rely on any Adobe software, this should scare you. Time to jump ship.

End of an era. This is one of the many reasons I try to only rely on open source software. @blender.org and @godotengine.org for life!

Digging into learning low poly character modeling. Definitely a bit outside my comfort zone but I'm enjoying the process! #blender #modeling

Nothing humbles me like scrolling my entire following list trying to find someone whose username I forgot. This happens often.

Blender Foundation is thrilled to announce that Netflix Animation Studios is joining the Development Fund as Corporate Patron. This support will be dedicated towards general development, to improve content creation tools for individuals and teams working in media workflows. fund.blender.org #b3d

This is my monthly post in anguish that Linux has no viable Photoshop competitor. If this were only solved I could fully switch to Linux across the board. For now I'm stuck flipping between MacOS for Photoshop and Linux for literally everything else.

Godot 4.6 is out! This is a huge one. P.S. @heytibo.bsky.social the release website looks so good! godotengine.org/releases/4.6/

Had no idea Godot supports blend shapes! And they can be keyframed like anything else. Incredible.

Don't underestimate the importance of good assets in 3D. Godot looks great out of the box when you use nice models & PBR materials. Other render engines like Lumen or Cycles allow you to get by with comparatively "lazier" asset work, as the engine itself (mainly lighting) does more heavy lifting.

The proliferation of AI slop is less of a problem than the algorithms that incentivize that kind of content. I would be less worried about slop flooding the market if we didn't all consume everything through the filter of algorithmic discoverability.

This Blender EEVEE tech demo from @glebalexandrov.bsky.social is incredible. I want to give learning EEVEE a real shot in 2026 www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGUc...

Asset packs should always come with a demo scene arranging all the assets in a grid (i.e. a “museum”). Bonus points for multi-engine software support (Blender, Godot, Unreal, etc). Even better: include a showcase scene that demonstrates how the assets are meant to be used too.

Donate if you can! By giving to the foundation you're directly supporting making the engine better. I happily donate on a recurring monthly basis.