That high jump that looks ‘juuuust out of reach’ is actually pretty easy to clear when the invisible hand is there to help you the rest of the way up. Sometimes when you're platforming though, its absence makes it seem as if you are playing worse than you may perceive. This is pretty frustrating, and can lead to situations where you’re telling yourself (and maybe the game) things like:

“I definitely jumped at the right time!”

If you’ve ever thought one of these to yourself, it's because you’ve encountered? a rough edge. The Invisible Helping Hand rounds off these rough edges to make your journey through the video game as frictionless as possible. That high jump that looks ‘juuuust out of reach’ is actually pretty easy to clear when the invisible hand is there to help you the rest of the way up.

Today, I’m going to help you understand how to craft your own hand with your own fingers.

Sometimes, when slowly walking off a ledge, it’s possible to end up getting caught on a corner, stuck in a strange state where the character believes that it is falling, but there’s just enough friction to actually keep the character on the ledge.


The capsule’s grounding raycast isn’t hitting the cube platform, and yet the player is not falling due to the capsule sticking on the corner.

Instead of going into the code that keeps us on the ground, my preferred solution to this problem is to actually just ‘push’ the player the rest of the way off of the ledge by adding a small amount of velocity relative to the player’s forward direction. You really only need to add enough to make that invisible hand gently push the player into that bottomless pit you just so ‘happened’ to install right there.


“But what if I didn’t want to get pushed!? I wanted to make the jump at 

the last possible moment!” Well let me tell you about an old American cartoon called Looney Tunes and its conception of a popular video game mechanic, 

Aptly named after Looney Tunes’ Wile E. Coyote, any time this animated mammal runs off a ledge, he is completely unaffected by gravity and able to move however he wants… Until a second passes and he realizes that he’s been performing physics crimes, at which point he’s suddenly snapped back to reality (ope there goes gravity) and is swiftly taken to the ground.


How this actually applies to video games, is letting your character perform their jump (or another applicable action) if they’ve been off of the ledge for a short amount of time. How long your character’s coyote time lasts is mainly dependent on your game’s feel, I’ve made games with anywhere between 0.05 - 0.2 seconds. Although it seems like an insignificant amount, changing your timing from a 60th to a 20th of a second is enough to make a huge difference (3x if you care to count).

So we’ve been pushed over the ledge, and performed our coyote time jump—it’s time to hit the ground properly. There’s some kind of low obstacle up ahead that requires us to jump as soon as we land (maybe the ground is hot and hurts if we stand on it for a short amount of time).

We need to be able to time our jump to minimize the amount of time on the ground. I pressed my jump button “the 

 moment” we touched the ground, but I didn’t jump! What gives?

What actually happened was that we pressed the jump button 

 we landed, and the game just ate our input. How delightful. This small point of frustration can be resolved by measuring our input over time instead of a single instance, also known as Input Buffering.

The big idea behind Input Buffering is changing from “if this button was pressed this frame” to “if this button’s value is greater than 0”. This is accomplished by creating a helper script that takes your inputs, and assigns an amount of time you’d like that button press to remain valid. This catches inputs that were pressed a little too early, so a frame perfect input is not required to perform a frame perfect action.

Both capsules have pressed the Jump button at the same frame.

Left Capsule successfully jumped because its input was buffered.

Now we’ve successfully jumped as soon as we landed, but there’s one final touch when getting our friendly invisible hand to help out. Which is adjusting our 

The Effective Jump Arc is the volume through which the player travels over time while jumping. If you’ve ever run into a position where you’re happy with how high your jump can go, but you’re still having difficulty clearing hurdles easily, it's because your Effective Jump Arc is taking up too much space.

This fix doesn’t force you to just make you jump higher. Instead of increasing the upward velocity, it's possible to bring the bottom of your collider upward, while also making the overall height shorter. This motion simulates the bringing up of your feet while you jump, making your Effective Jump Arc smaller.


Here’s what that would look like if our player was standing still while jumping:

The green vector represents velocity, the greater the magnitude of your velocity vector, the shorter your player will be. Obviously this should be capped so you don’t unintentionally shrink yourself down to microscopic levels when you jump (unless you want that—could be a cool game). If we apply this change in motion it’s very easy to see how changing the Effective Jump Arc affects platforming.

It’s now much easier to clear that somewhat small obstacle. It’s the same idea as a crouch jump in a first person game, but we’re doing it automatically based on the upward velocity;


And that’s it! Combining all of these tools together eliminates many friction points when your players traverse your game worlds. Now go forth and share your knowledge to your players’ benefit. Thanks for watching, be sure to like, subscribe and ring that bell icon.

Give our team a call on (972) 299-8937 or set up a no obligation consultation through the button below.

That high jump that looks ‘juuuust out of reach’ is actually pretty easy to clear when the invisible hand is there to help you the rest of the way up.

The Invisible Helping Hand

Light Bake Tips to Keep You From Pulling Your Hair Out

Lighting in games can sometimes be a confusing mess of seemingly broken textures, jagged shadows, and that one corner that for some reason is too damn dark. Here’s a quick cheat sheet of everything we’ll be discussing.
Quick Tips:

If your lights appear broken, first check the lightmap UVs

Make sure the UVs are a proper scale in the lightmap

Set your light range further than the surface and adjust intensity to get the desired light level

Make sure your environment normals are facing the light & extrude geometry to make sure the light has a surface to use

Try to only use one directional light in a single scene and be careful using additional directional lights

90% of the time when someone asks why their lights are broken, the answer usually involves lightmap UV’s. Pretty much every model you throw into an engine will need to have lightmap UVs. This can be done within Unity or Unreal pretty easily, but larger studios working on bigger projects opt for having artists create them. Lightmap UVs are a separate set of UV unwrapped textures optimized for lightmaps. While models usually have good UVs that work well with their texture maps, these can usually cause problems for Lightmaps. This is really obvious on models that are low poly and use a color instead of a texture map. These almost never have proper UVs, as they don’t have complex textures to wrap around the model.

Okay, I’ve got Proper Lightmap UVs, What Next?

Once the Lightmap UVs are made, the next step is to make sure UVs are at a proper scale in the lightmaps. The scale of an object's UVs in a texture is referred to as its texel density.


Texel density Checkerboard overlay in our VR game 

For the sake of explanation, let's say that we have a cube that has a length of 1m and a texel density of 1 cm. This means that 1 cm is 1 pixel of the texture. If we were to cast a shadow on this object and bake the scene, the shadow would look super jagged up close. By increasing the texel density, you can increase how many pixels a texel gets. If 1 cm gets 10 pixels, the shadow will look much better as more pixels are used in the texture. If you want to learn more about texel density, Leonardo Lezzi has a 

Using realistic values sounds like common sense, but many times I find people using wild values without realizing it. The most common mistake is cranking the light’s range to increase its brightness. This will very quickly provide undesired results. Set your range slightly further than the furthest surface that needs to be affected, and then increase the intensity to achieve desired brightness. It’s really easy to accidentally turn up the range instead because at first it appears to do the same thing.


If you’ve got some strange highlights in places you think they shouldn’t be, it's probably a light leak caused by your geometry. To accurately calculate how light should be blocked, an object needs normals that are visible to the intended light source. So for example, a one sided plane won’t block light coming through its back side. Or if your environment is just an inverted cube, light will leak through the edges as the engine attempts to figure out what to do. I like to solve this by extruding the geometry at least a few inches so the light has something to work with. There are many cases, including Unity’s HDRP example scene where it's easiest to have a large box around the environment geometry. If it’s closed off, the player/user will never see it. Shadow boxes are a very common solution.


Last but not least, be careful using more than one directional light. Directional lights are infinite light sources, and so shadows will behave strangely when you’ve got two directional lights in opposite directions. If your goal is to have weird, non realistic lighting, go nuts (not too nuts. There’s a limit in the engine for a reason). If you’re throwing in another directional light because the back side of a building is too dark, look into adjusting the ambient light, or shadow color within your scene/level. Alternatively you can change the light's bounce intensity.


Lighting in games can sometimes be a confusing mess of seemingly broken textures, jagged shadows, and that one corner that for some reason is too damn dark. Here’s a quick cheat sheet of everything we’ll be discussing.

Genshin Impact and the Future of Gacha Games

was released into the world. With millions of players worldwide, the game has amassed over $3 billion in revenue in its first year, with that number only rising as more updates continue to come out.

might be more than just another successful game, though. It’s the first of its kind: a financial success of a game that released not only onto mobile devices, but also for the console market. Being the success that it is, it’s hard to believe that some studio out there doesn’t want to follow in its footsteps.

 is an action RPG where players explore the world of Teyvat, unraveling the mysteries of the world as they progress through the story. Along the way, they can explore the massive open world the game has to offer, along with plenty of enemies and bosses to fight throughout their adventures.

One of the defining features of the game is its wide cast of playable characters, which are unlocked through the game’s gacha system, called “Wish”: a type of game mechanic where players use currency earned in-game to obtain random weapons and characters, with a small percent chance of getting any one specific high rarity character or item. Most importantly, this currency can be bought using real-world money, giving players more chances, and is where the game’s primary source of income comes from.

A wish for Shenhe, the newest character to be released in 

. A normal wish has a 0.3% chance of getting her.

Gacha games are nothing new, though, and the mechanic/monetization method has been around for more than a decade. Popular in Japan and other east-Asian countries, gacha games are typically mobile games, designed to grab your attention in short bursts and keep you playing for the long run. 

, however, broke that mold and released not only onto mobile, but also onto PC and the PlayStation 4 and 5 (with a Nintendo Switch version announced… coming eventually™).

Whereas your typical gacha game on a phone is laid out in individual levels or similar methods, which is perfect for short bursts of gameplay, 

 vast open world is meant to keep players exploring for long periods of time, and resembles its console inspirations like 

If the concept of gacha sounds familiar to you, that may be because it’s very similar to loot boxes, which involves getting a random item with only a chance at something you may want, and you can get more chances by spending real money.

While loot boxes have existed for a long time, they truly made waves through the gaming world around 2016 after the release of 

, and could be found in countless games around that time. Of course, after a series of criticisms and controversies, they have become less common, but you can still find them here and there even after all that.

Just like how loot boxes made their way through the industry, we might start to see a rise in gacha games for home consoles and PC in the coming years. Gacha systems are already an extremely effective monetization method, as proven by the millions and billions of dollars existing gacha games bring in. And now that gacha has been proven to work outside of the mobile market, surely at least a few studios out there are taking notes for their next projects.

Of course, such a feat wouldn’t be easy to replicate. Gacha games require lots of planning beforehand and a roadmap of post-release content in order to be successful. 

itself has years of content planned for the future, with only 3 out of 7 major nations having been released so far and with new updates coming every 6 weeks. It would be a massive undertaking to try and recreate such an experience.

So what does this mean for the future of games? Although 

 Impact is far from the levels of cultural impact of 

, it has certainly left its mark on the internet. It’s proven that gacha mechanics are effective outside of the mobile market, and that there is definitely an audience for such games.

’s footsteps, and have more gacha games come to the world of home console games within the next few years? With the financial success that 

continues to be, it’s hard to believe that no one has at least thought about it.

There’s also controversy to consider, though: loot boxes started dying down after waves of backlash and gambling controversies. Will gacha games see a similar rise and fall, or will such criticisms keep gacha games from spreading out farther in the first place?

Will it be another studio known for gacha games like miHoYo that decides to take the next step forward, or will a different kind of company make the leap ahead? Will it be another original IP like 

, or will it be a well-known franchise that marches onward? Or will nothing happen? Am I just imagining things? Only time will tell. All we can do is wait and see what the future holds.

Give our team a call at (972) 299-8937 or set up a no obligation consultation through the button below.

Genshin Impact might be more than just another successful game, though. It’s the first of its kind: a financial success of a game that released not only onto mobile devices, but also for the console market. Being the success that it is, it’s hard to believe that some studio out there doesn’t want to follow in its footsteps.

What Unity + Weta Digital Means for the Future of Game Development

As a Technical Artist working in Unity, the more that I learn is possible with the tools available to us today the easier it is to imagine a world filled with creations that rival the real world in their level of detail. Though some of the most awe capturing creations are well beyond recent. Characters such as Caesar from Planet of the Apes and the Xenomorphs of Prometheus continue to mystify the mind with their realism and the attention to detail of the creators. These reality-defying characters along with many, many others all have one thing in common. They were made with the powerful creation tools of Weta Digital.

On December 1st, 2021, Unity bought Weta Digital for $1.625 billion. This deal included Weta Digital’s powerful VFX tool suite and team of 275 engineers that Unity has since integrated into their Creative Solutions division. Marc Whitten, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Create Solutions at Unity, had this to say on the acquisition:

“By bringing this team and technology to Unity, we can enable more storytellers to reach their creative potential by giving them access to the diamonds of all diamonds of VFX tools, underpinned by the power of real-time 3D.” 

- Marc Whitten, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Create Solutions at Unity

What is Weta Digital and Why Should I Be Excited?

Weta Digital itself has been a powerhouse name in the visual effects industry for the better part of the last two decades. It’s sophisticated software playing a vital role in productions such as Avatar, Lord of the Rings, Planet of the Apes, and more. With their acquisition, we should expect to see the same level of quality available to the average creator for free.


Personally, I think that sounds cool as hell. As one of the many creators that will be utilizing these Hollywood grade production tools, it’s exciting to see the expansion of freedom and accessibility in the production process. Even moreso, it’s exciting to think about all of the reality-defying characters we are going to see in our Unity games, films, and other works in the next coming years. These tools being free to the public will be especially useful with the recent push towards digital realism and metaverse technology. Allowing creators to have the peak level of detail in their creations running seamlessly in real time.

Lord Of The Rings (2003) featured the CG character Gollum made using the Weta production suite.

What Tools are Included in Weta’s VFX Suite?

The most exciting section for the creators! This is by no means an exhaustive list of Weta Digital’s VFX tools, but some of the biggest name tools we could expect to see implemented into Unity’s software. The tools creators could expect to see available to them in the near future are:

Weta Wig for creating complex and realistic hair and fur. Complete with intuitive grooming tools such as brushes and blow-dryers, creators will be able to edit every hair on their character’s body with direct control.

Weta Eddy for volume simulation and physically-based rendering allowing for quick iteration and artistic control in the final stage of the production pipeline.

Weta Tissue for lifelike tissue movements and skin weighting. Giving creators the ability to layer muscle and fat tissue over a skeleton and have their character simulate realistic physics for each type of tissue.

Weta Lumberjack for realistic tree creation based on extensive research into real-world tree growth.

Weta Totara for realistic ecosystem simulation expanding on Lumberjack’s logic to create sprawling rainforests and jungles.

Weta Synapse for realistic CG fire, water, explosions, and smoke VFX simulations

Weta Gazebo for real-world shading based on the actual physical properties of the surfaces calculated down to the level of individual wavelengths of light.


The timeline on when we could expect these VFX tools implemented into Unity and ready for the public has remained undetermined. Though with such a lineup, these Unity implementations will be patiently awaited.

Avatar (2009) utilized Weta Digital’s VFX suite in every step of creation for its race of the Na'vi, from hair made with Weta Wig to lighting and shading in Gazebo.

The future appears exciting for Unity and creators everywhere. We’ll soon have the power of a Hollywood production team at our fingertips! I can’t wait to see the first Weta powered video game characters enter the scene.


As a Technical Artist working in Unity, the more that I learn is possible with the tools available to us today the easier it is to imagine a world filled with creations that rival the real world in their level of detail.

A New Playbook: Creators Redefining Game Publishing

Introduction: Creators Leading the Charge In Breaking Boundaries

The game publishing landscape has remained relatively static for decades, dominated by a few key players who set industry standards and gatekeep innovation. Yet, a shift is occurring, driven by creators who are not just part of the marketing machine but are branching out into adjacent entrepreneurial endeavors. This transformation is epitomized by figures like SypherPK, who founded Oni Studios and Metal Umbrella, and Ludwig with his creative studio OffBrand. These creators are redefining roles, moving from influencers to industry innovators. A standout example is the video game critic Dunkey, who launched BigMode to publish indie games. The successful release of "Animal Well," a game that excelled in every measurable way—critically, financially, and in marketing—demonstrates the potential of creator-led publishing initiatives.

What Is "Animal Well": Unveiling the Beast

"Animal Well" is a solo-developed Metroidvania game crafted over seven years by Billy Basso and published by BigMode, headed by Dunkey. The game has been celebrated for revolutionizing the genre with its emphasis on discovery and experimentation, earning accolades like 

"one of the best metroidvanias I’ve ever played" from notable reviewers such as Skill Up

. Its distinctive approach has set a new benchmark in indie game development.

Gameplay and Mechanics: Navigating the Depths

In "Animal Well," players explore a surreal world as a blob-like creature, navigating through a 16-bit pixelated labyrinth devoid of direct combat. The focus on exploration and puzzle-solving, coupled with a lack of explicit tutorials, encourages players to learn and adapt through environmental interaction. This design philosophy enhances the mystery and depth of the gameplay, providing a uniquely immersive experience.

Visual and Audio Design: Painting with Pixels and Sounds

The game’s aesthetic combines vibrant, retro-inspired graphics with contemporary lighting effects, crafting a captivating visual experience. The accompanying sound design, featuring both natural and eerie tones, enriches the game's immersive atmosphere, amplifying the sense of exploration and mystery.

Puzzles and Exploration: Mastering the Maze

"Animal Well" challenges players with puzzles that appear simple but require creative use of multifunctional tools. This innovation extends traditional Metroidvania mechanics, deepening strategic gameplay and encouraging a thorough exploration of its intricately interconnected world.

Upon release, "Animal Well" rapidly ascended to the top of Steam's popular titles list, initially priced at $25 with a launch discount bringing it down to $22.49. The game's marketing strategy efficiently converted its 200,000 wishlists into approximately 40,000 sales, generating an estimated $900,000 in gross sales within four days. The financial distribution included $270,000 to Steam and potentially less than the usual 20% (or $180,000) to the publisher, reflecting Dunkey’s commitment to developer-friendly contracts. This impressive start showcases the game's strong market appeal and the effective monetization strategy behind it.

Marketing Before BigMode: Setting the Stage

Prior to BigMode's involvement in the publishing of "Animal Well," the game's visibility and anticipation were strategically built through a combination of high-profile events and significant earned media coverage. This phase laid a robust foundation for the game's eventual market introduction, ensuring it captured the attention of both media outlets and the gaming community at large.

"Animal Well" was prominently featured at several key gaming events, each serving as an important platform for showcasing the game's unique features to a diverse audience. Notably, the game made appearances at TGS 2022 and Summer Games Fest, where it was introduced to a wide array of gamers, developers, and industry insiders. These events are renowned for their reach and influence, providing an invaluable opportunity for indie games to shine alongside mainstream titles. Additionally, "Animal Well" was part of the Day of the Devs showcase, further emphasizing its creative appeal and innovative gameplay to a dedicated indie gaming audience.

The game also received extensive earned media coverage from some of the most respected publications and platforms within the gaming industry. Prominent outlets like Edge Magazine, IGN, and Game Developer featured "Animal Well" in articles and previews that highlighted its development journey and the unique aspects of its gameplay. This kind of coverage is particularly valuable as it lends credibility and generates organic buzz around a game, reaching potential players through trusted voices within the gaming community.

Furthermore, PlayStation's official Twitter handle featured "Animal Well," significantly boosting its visibility among console gamers and tapping into a loyal and engaged segment of the market. This social media exposure was instrumental in reaching a broader demographic, which is crucial for the success of any indie game.

The visibility gained through these earned media efforts was substantial. Each article, social media post, and event appearance played a pivotal role in building a narrative around "Animal Well" that was both engaging and compelling. These efforts were not just about promoting the game; they were about telling its story, from its development challenges to its innovative features, creating a sense of anticipation and community interest that would later be amplified by BigMode’s direct marketing strategies.

These pre-BigMode marketing efforts were critical in setting the stage for "Animal Well’s" successful launch and establishing credibility prior to being signed with BigMode. They ensured that by the time BigMode took over, there was already a strong foundation of interest and excitement, which could be built upon with even more targeted and expansive promotional campaigns.

Marketing After BigMode: Amplifying the Echo

Once BigMode took over the publishing responsibilities for "Animal Well," the marketing strategy transcended traditional promotional avenues, leveraging innovative and engaging methods to capture the gaming community's attention.

Under BigMode, YouTube became a pivotal platform for promoting "Animal Well." Dunkey, leveraging his extensive subscriber base, created and released a series of videos that not only reviewed the game in depth but also showcased gameplay highlights and developer interviews. These videos were crafted to highlight the unique aspects of "Animal Well," focusing on its innovative gameplay mechanics and artistic design. By directly engaging with his audience, Dunkey provided authentic insights that resonated well with potential players, driving interest and anticipation.

One of the standout promotional strategies was the initiation of the BigMode Game Jam 2023, which was directly inspired by and powered by "Animal Well." This event invited developers from around the globe to create games that embodied the spirit of creativity and innovation seen in "Animal Well." The game jam not only served to foster community engagement but also acted as a celebration of indie game development, emphasizing the themes of exploration and experimentation that "Animal Well" itself champions.

By encouraging participation from both amateur and professional game developers, the game jam generated a plethora of user-generated content that kept the community buzzing and further elevated the profile of "Animal Well." The event successfully highlighted the capabilities of BigMode as a publisher that not only promotes its titles but also actively contributes to the growth and enrichment of the indie game development community.

In addition to direct content creation and community engagement activities, BigMode also orchestrated strategic collaborations that featured "Animal Well" in various gaming showcases and digital expos. Notably, the game was prominently featured in Nintendo’s official Indie World presentation, which reached a wide audience and underscored the game’s relevance and appeal in the competitive indie game market.

Through these multifaceted promotional efforts, BigMode demonstrated how modern marketing for video games could extend beyond mere advertisements and press releases, embracing a more holistic approach that involves direct creator engagement, community building, and strategic partnerships. This comprehensive strategy not only maximized the exposure of "Animal Well" but also cemented BigMode's reputation as a forward-thinking publisher that understands and innovatively engages its audience.

"Animal Well" illustrates a seismic shift away from traditional game publishing, where large studios and big budgets dominate, to a model where individual creators can wield significant influence. This change reflects a broader industry trend towards valuing quality and innovation over scale and scope. Dunkey's approach with BigMode, prioritizing developer-friendly contracts and personal engagement in marketing, not only challenges the status quo but also points towards a future where creators can directly shape the industry's landscape. As more creators like Dunkey venture into publishing, we may see a proliferation of uniquely creative and high-quality games that would otherwise be stifled by conventional publishing models. This movement has the potential to democratize game development, empowering more developers to bring their original visions to life without compromising on their creative ideals. The success of "Animal Well" and BigMode is a beacon for other creators contemplating similar paths, indicating that the future of game publishing could very well lie in the hands of those who know and love games.

The game publishing landscape has remained relatively static for decades, dominated by a few key players who set industry standards and gatekeep innovation. Yet, a shift is occurring, driven by creators who are not just part of the marketing machine but are branching out into adjacent entrepreneurial endeavors.

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