i-am-thedragon

[i-am-thedragon]

Anyone who follows me on Twitter probably knows that I am incredibly disgusted with the genocidal actions currently being taken agains Palestinians.

Selfishly, I have neglected to highlight the cause here on my Tumblr blog, as I suppose my Twitter account (To which I rarely posted art, and which had not many followers,) was easier to 'sacrifice'.

I started this drawing of my Spaceland characters back in January of this year, but became very discouraged by the idea that it may be tone-deaf to associate cartoon characters with such a serious topic. Today though I decided to get over myself and finish the drawing anyway.

Eight months into the genocide this is probably too little, too late from me, but I just want to make it clear where I stand. I will NOT tolerate genocide, its supporters, or those who make excuses for it. Palestine WILL be freed from Israel's violent colonialism and the dehumanisation of the Palestinian people will NOT be tolerated.

Useful resources:

Arab.org - Generates donations to the UNRWA for free by clicking the button once a day. I've linked directly to the click for Palestine but the other causes are worth clicking for as well. It can be done on multiple different browsers; I click every day on both Chrome and Firefox.

BDS Movement - Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions. A Palestinian-led movement for freedom, justice, and equality.

CareForGaza - The funding page for a team working to distribute cash, food, medicine, and other vital supplies to displaced Palestinians in Gaza.

DecolonisePalestine - A collection of resources for educating oneself on the Palestinian cause. A great source for news, education, and to know which brands and products to boycott.

Operation Olive Branch - A grassroots organisation dedicated to amplifying Palestinian voices and supporting their critical needs through fundraising. They also have a masterlist of verified families and medical aid partners in need of support.

I highly recommend seeking out additional resources, as there are too many to list here, and donating where you can and within your means. Currently there are many families desperately in need of funds to escape Rafah, which is under brutal attack by Israeli forces.

#free palestine #palestine #gaza #end genocide #thedragon's geometric pals

[i-am-thedragon]

The Mama Mewon and Wee Mewon actually have unused yellow variant textures. I decided to make them Un-Unused.

The Yellow Mama Mewon is not a legendary like its red counterpart, but is a giant snak living on Broken Tooth, wandering on the shore.

The Yellow Wee Mewons live just out past the shoreline of Simmering Springs, sitting around waiting until something (the player, a tool, another bug) catches their attention.

The idea is that the Mama Mewon and Wee Mewons were somehow separated between the two islands. I had to do a fair bit of behaviour editing on the Wee Mewons, and trigger editing so that they'd both only spawn after the player is introduced to the DLC island (and so that the mama isn't visible during the departing scene).

Anyway you are all so lucky I decided not to call them "Yewwow Mewons"

#videogame modding #bugsnax

[i-am-thedragon]

Update on the progress of my custom Bugsnax

So, I've fixed all my major issues, it seems!

Flutterfairy: Turns out the issue was caused by some of its files being in the mod's ZIP folders, while others were still in the game's file directory. I realised this when I accidentally caused the same thing to happen to the Fluttermite.

Blue Picantis: This one bothered me for ages, but I'm pretty sure I have it solved. Essentially, each bug has its own .irr file, which is referenced within the level file it lives in. The .irr file has a bunch of subcategories and behaviours in it. If these are edited within the level file, the level file will basically just have an altered copy of all that data saved within it, rather than saying "Yeah just grab the data from the .irr file". For reasons I'm not sure of, this breaks things. So now I just make sure I only edit the Bugsnak's .irr file directly, not the clone of it within the level file.

Fluttermite: Same as above lol.

Blue Cheepoof and Red Grapeskeeto are fine. The grapeskeeto seems to stick around during the daytime, which it's technically not supposed to, but in all honestly I'm not so bothered by that.

#videogame modding #bugsnax

[i-am-thedragon]

This is what the Flutterfairy snakifications look like! I wanted to go somewhere between the game's style of snakification and my own.

Fun fact, yesterday I went shopping and I passed by a bakery that was selling sprinkled finger buns just like the one depicted in the Flutterfairy.

#videogame modding #bugsnax

[i-am-thedragon]

Anyway here's the current status of each of my custom Bugsnax

Red Grapeskeeto: Works fine from what I can tell but given the state of the other snaks I'm side-eyeing it intensely.

Blue Picantis: Is supposed to explode into its component Bugsnax when it approaches the player. This behaviour works in the Horsepower Editor, but not in-game for some reason? Also the stunning and catching mechanics are massively broken and I've no clue why

Blue Cheepoof: Fine as far as I know but I can't test it properly when the Blue Picantis's exploding mechanic isn't working lol

Fluttermite: Doesn't properly become catchable when stunned with cheese sauce. Can be grabbed with the grappler in this state but not the bug net? Also after it recovers from this state I can't lock onto it with the sauce slinger anymore. The catching mechanic is broken in other ways too.

Flutterfairy: It's spawning behaviour works suprisingly well. Honestly, I'm suprised how easy it was to get it to spawn during the Daddy Cakelegs fight. Unfortunately, when I catch one nothing happens. It does not appear in the inventory or journal at all. I have no clue why this is the case.

Conclusion: Making these custom Bugsnax is a lot messier than the simple model/texture swap job that was Snakification Modifications. But I'm keeping at it.

#videogame modding #bugsnax

[i-am-thedragon]

Fairy bread bugsnak sticker.

Replicating the game's sticker style was honestly tricky, partly because I wasn't using the digital brush the original sticker artist was using, and partly because it took a few attempts to get the sprinkles looking good.

So far this snak is somehow the least broken of my custom snak attempts, despite its unusual spawning condition (multiple spawn during the Daddy Cakelegs fight)

#bugsnax #videogame modding

[i-am-thedragon]

I had another dream last night in which I was so angry with myself that I couldn't contain it. I became violent, wanting to break things around me and to hurt myself in the process.

I was angry because I was back in high school and I had lost my school bag. I finished school years ago.

I never feel emotions this extreme in my waking life, but I have had recurring dreams like this. What might this mean?

#thedragon's dream journal

[i-am-thedragon]

i love your modded stuff sm!!! if you’re not done with them, do you think there’s a snack that would give grumpuses downward horns (like a bull or those really wrinkly hound dogs lol)?

Thank you! I've finished Snakification Modifications (You can find a link to the mod in one of my recent posts), but I will keep that idea in mind for the new custom Bugsnax I'm making!

#bugsnax #videogame modding

[i-am-thedragon]

Fairy Bread

#bugsnax #videogame modding

[i-am-thedragon]

10:17am boys' club meeting

#videogame modding #bugsnax

[i-am-thedragon]

Snakification Modifications!

Nearly eight months in the making, my Bugsnax mod is finally here!

Download it here, or read more about it and download it on Nexus Mods.

#videogame modding #bugsnax

[i-am-thedragon]

Wee Melon Snakification Modifications!

Well, not much to say about the process here, but I am happy to say that this was the last of the Bugsnax to have its snakifications modified!

So what now?

Well, I do plan on releasing the mod very soon, of course, but just not right this moment. I am going to first fix up some of my earliest modifications, which were made without the guides I used for later ones, and then try to properly document which textures and other files were replaced.

I will try to have the mod properly released this weekend, maybe.

#videogame modding #bugsnax

[i-am-thedragon]

Mama Mewon Snakification Modifications!

The first thing I did with this one was recreate the body texture. I knew the subtle veiny patterns were just voronoi cell patterns, which was easily recreated in TextureLab, and the stripes looked to be masked with some sort of jittered dots at their edges. I masked out the stripes in blender, which was a bit more tricky because texture painting directly onto the 3D shape was finicky.

The limbs and nose were easy, the round melon gave a very nice simple organic shape to work with, and cutting a rind out gave a sharp shape for the claws and horns. The head part was originally just going to be some watermelon slice spikes, but I found that too dull and ended up replacing it with some vine whiskers instead.

Next up is the Wee Melon... The last one

#videogame modding #bugsnax

[i-am-thedragon]

Oh if anyone's wondering what I'm referring to when I mention TextureLab, I'm referring to this: https://www.texturelab.io/

#videogame modding

[i-am-thedragon]

Waffstackarak Snakification Modifications!

Definitely my favourite part of this one was the body texture. Recreating the waffle grid was surprisingly easy, it just required some tiled squares with subtle circular gradients in them, and then run through a colour gradient map. For the normal I just used the same grid with a basic noise texture overlay.

The sausages as limbs was a no-brainer, though I wasn't really sure how to work with the waffle model. I don't think I've ever eaten waffles before anyway.

#bugsnax #videogame modding

[i-am-thedragon]

Do you have any plans to release these mods? Maybe if or when you finish the whole dex?

Yes! I am VERY close to finishing and I will release once all the snakifications have been modified!

I have left now only Waffstackarack, Mama Mewon, and Wee Mewon. After that I might touch up some of my very first modifications (The snakpods) and then release the mod to the public.

#bugsnax #videogame modding

[i-am-thedragon]

Tropicabug Snakification Modifications!

I once again got to flex my TextureLab skills by recreating the grilled pineapple and prawn patterns to use for the body, and I think that turned out nicely! I also spent a fair amount of time turning the prawn model into horns, which I am very pleased with the end result of.

I didn't mind the original pineapple teeth at all, but with my new body texture they blended into it too much. Making them purple onion slices helped them to stand out more.

Though to be fair, I should keep in mind more that the whole point of snakifications is to mix and match looks. That said, I've hit the randomizer on a few grumpuses and been pretty pleased with the result most of the time.

#bugsnax #videogame modding