So yes, I love Godot. Don't get the wrong idea. I think it's the best, which is why I am using it. But marketing and branding are very important. It's the first thing people see, and it's the feeling they get from the product and service. So it's not unimportant. I mean, it's not the biggest deal ever, but it's not nothing either. It's just a matter of if the devs want Godot to forever be an engine for amateurs playing around or something serious.

Well if the topic is heated and there's a lot of arguments about it, that means there are two sides to it. So I don't really think it's fair to say the devs aren't listening to their users feedback, because clearly it's a divided issue.

I want Godot to become the Blender of game development just as much as the next guy, and I don't think the logo will hold it back. I kinda like it. Also blender is 20 years older, and I doubt it was as good as Godot is now when it was only 8 years old.

That's a good point. Blender only really got good about 4 years ago, in 2018. Coincidentally, when they finally listened to users and switched to left-click and replaced the obtuse GUI. The app was mostly the same, they just improved the user experience. That is what I am saying about listening to users.

I don't like the Unreal logo. The design looks like one of those kit rae knives, too many pointy bits. Plus a letter U as the logo is a bit too generic, considering it's competitors include Unity and Unigine.

Here's the Ren'Py logo: :)

I like RenPy logo (I played with it before Godot). It's out of nowhere and I don't question how/why they came up with it. It just is.

Yes, I'm not fond of the Unreal logo either. I guess it has history from the game Unreal, but no one even remembers that game except some old timers. And why don't they make Unreal 3? Huge IP they are sitting on. Any bets to whether Half-Life 3 or Unreal 3 comes out first. I like the Ren'Py logo actually. I'm fine with funky or cartoon logos.

So you can search Godot logo redesign on Google, this topic comes up every few days on Reddit, people do care about it. And many of them are amateur and/or memes, but some are from legit artists. I think these were the best concepts I saw that still keep the original spirit, but look clean and professional.

Haven't even played Half Life, but if Epic Games made a Unreal 3 before a Half-Life 3 I would be so confused and question their sanity. A Half-Life 3 could be huge if done right, and make boatloads of cash.

@cybereality said: but no one even remembers that game except some old timers. I remember it, it was one of the first Ubisoft games I played. :)

I feel really stupid because I just realized that Epic Games doesn't own Half Life. I knew this earlier, but somehow because of the way Cybereality worded their comment my brain decided that Unreal and Half Life 3 were made by the same company. Facepalm.

If anyone has tips on 3D modeling practices to optimize a game for the lowest of low end hardware(64-bit), I'd appreciate it.

@fire7side said: Unity software lost almost 30 percent of it's stock price in one day because of lower than expected revenue projections.

Unity: But we're still going to earn almost $1.5 billion this year -- that's at least 6% growth... Investors: It's not enough. You FAIL!

@duane said:

Unity: But we're still going to earn almost $1.5 billion this year -- that's at least 6% growth... Investors: It's not enough. You FAIL!

The market is crazy right now because the federal reserve is starting to raise rates to fight inflation and everyone is afraid of a recession.

Well Steam is kind of sneaky like that. I've read articles about developers getting their game pulled, because they sold at another store at a lower price. This is a monopoly tactic, if I am a developer, it's my game. I set whatever price I want, not you.

@some_lame_kid said: If anyone has tips on 3D modeling practices to optimize a game for the lowest of low end hardware(64-bit), I'd appreciate it.

Depends on what style you are aiming for. Imphenzia is good for a blocky look, but if you want your low-poly not to be obvious I'd recommend looking at Grant Abbit's work, and in particular look at sculpting and baking from high to low poly using multiresolution modifiers.

Also, highly recommend this blender plugin (not free), as a huge amount of the detail can be driven by and baked into textures. Doing this without the addon is possible, but far more painful.

Geometry on the left, middle and right are driven by textures

What I end up doing most of time is I find a free or cheap model. I use the decimate tool to reduce the polys to where it's not too noticeable, then I take the textures, turn them to jpegs and make them smaller in gimp using the scale tool. Most of us can't model everything plus program a game, and cheap and free models use a lot of polys, sometimes.

I know that this is random but, I’ve got this topic on my mind for a while and I just want to talk about it. I promise to stay clear of political examples. However, I suspect that the examples could get political in the future( due to factors beyond my control). I just want to talk about the concept of social constructs. Personally, I don’t deny they are indeed social constructs. Still, I’m questioning to what extend it’s important to call something a social construct. To me, a good argument can be made as to why species are social construct. Even though The Species Problem wasn’t originally used to argue that species are indeed social constructs, I do think it at least implies it.

Nevertheless, I don’t know what could be accomplished by asserting that species are a social construct; hence, you don’t see people going around doing it often. I think a case could also be made that color blindness is a social construct. A person who suffers from color blindness isn’t necessarily incapable of seeing colors; they’re just incapable of seeing all the colors a normal person has.

It is rooted in biology but, the only reason it’s called a blindness is because it’s not normal. It’s pointless to say that the color blind person isn’t viewing reality accurately, as all color is a biological construct imposed on an external reality( that we may never fully understand); optical illusions have proven this. It’s also can’t say that the color blind person isn’t seeing all the colors that a human/animal should see. I mean, they’re humans that can see more colors than the average person and yet we don’t call the average person color blind. Heck, they’re many animals that can even see more colors than the average person. The reason why the label of color-blindness became necessary is just because of society; it’s a social construct. Now you might be saying, who cares? Well…that’s the point I’m trying to make. Sometimes I feel that the term social construct is overused; it doesn’t always add to conversations or implies anything worth considering. Anyway, what do you guys think?

Well it's part of our DNA. Even ants and bees have whole societies. It's not uniquely human. And natural evolution gives rise to mutations, that could be detrimental or beneficial, either of which would be considered abnormal, but not unnatural. And many of these things. that were initially abnormal. lead to the creation of more complex creatures, including eventually humans. So we have been driven here by nature, we didn't invent anything.

@cybereality said: Well it's part of our DNA. Even ants and bees have whole societies. It's not uniquely human. And natural evolution gives rise to mutations, that could be detrimental or beneficial, either of which would be considered abnormal, but not unnatural. And many of these things. that were initially abnormal. lead to the creation of more complex creatures, including eventually humans. So we have been driven here by nature, we didn't invent anything.

Yeah, I agree with everything you just said. Still, I wonder. If everything you said is compatible with the idea that species are a social construct, what would that imply?

I think it has to go outside of biology to consider it a social construct: : an idea that has been created and accepted by the people in a society Class distinctions are a social construct.

I think it's mostly used to denigrate people who are inherently not different in a meaningful way such as race, ethnic origin, etc. I don't actually hear it used very much. But yeah, it seems like any way of grouping people would be considered a social construct. I think we should have given up the term "race" a long time ago.

I am saying that the universe itself is social, and we spawned out of it. We are creations of physics and nature, so we take on those properties. The social existed before there were even animals. For example, you can compare it to mathematical relationships, or the relationship between the Earth rotating around the Sun.

@fire7side said: I think it has to go outside of biology to consider it a social construct: : an idea that has been created and accepted by the people in a society Class distinctions are a social construct.

Yeah. I think this would appeal to the intuitions of most people; myself included. Still, I'm not sure to what extend it has to go outside of biology/physical reality.

I think it's mostly used to denigrate people who are inherently not different in a meaningful way such as race, ethnic origin, etc. I don't actually hear it used very much. But yeah, it seems like any way of grouping people would be considered a social construct. I think we should have given up the term "race" a long time ago.

I'm a bit indifference to whether or not we should use the term race. If it goes away, I'm cool with that. If it doesn't, I'm also cool with that. Still, I'm more concerned about how the term is used. As long as we can look past arbitrary differences, that is all that matters.

I always understood "social construct" to mean any non-material system created and used by a society to better operate and manage itself.

Social - relating to society and its methods of organization. Construct - A complicated structure put together by simpler parts.

Colors as a concept of the interaction of light with matter, I would not call a social construct. The organization and designation of colors based on perception of that interaction, I would.

I didn't watch the video, but I suspect it's just pointing out that any system of classification has difficulty at boundaries. For example, in America, eighteen-year-olds are capable of making decisions about their sexuality, but seventeen-year-olds aren't. Do they suddenly unearth a trove of wisdom at midnight on their birthday? No, it's a practical consideration. There's no point in expending resources to allow a mature fourteen-year-old more latitude, even though it's arguably unfair to her.

Color blindness is a classification of visual frequency sensitivity. Everyone has a different range of color-sensitivity -- even every cell in your retina has a slightly different range. We call someone color-blind when we want to give them additional support because they have a harder time perceiving some frequencies.

A member of my family is classified as color-blind. He learned this after he'd taken a job as an electronics maintainer. Normally, that would have kept people from hiring him, because at the time, the only way to tell the values of some components was by colored bands printed on them. He could still tell the difference most of the time, but he had to get a second opinion occasionally.

Species are traditionally classified by their body shape, but the usual rule is that if they can't successfully inter-breed, they're a different species. That's not a social convention, it's fairly provable. Donkeys and horses can produce viable offspring, but the offspring are sterile, so donkeys and horses are different species. All dogs can interbreed, so they are all the same species.

There are a few social conventions thrown into taxonomy. Dogs and wolves are technically the same species, but are still classified differently. Humans are not considered to be great apes, even though we meet all the requirements.

However, even in taxonomy, there are some difficult boundaries. Consider an exhibit of photos of all of your ancestors, going back 10 million years. If you start at one end, there's a creature that looks a bit like a chimpanzee (to us). At the other end, there's you. So it's easy to see that they're different species -- but where do you divide them? Every child looks like her parents, all the way down the line. Any division you make is going to be somewhat arbitrary.

I'm Red/Green colourblind (the most common) according to colorblindness tests, but that doesn't mean I can't see red & green.

In fact, I had no idea I was even colourblind till I did the tests and it seems the only real-world case I find is a certain shade of orange text on a certain shade of green background I find hard to read.

I've certainly never needed any of the colorblind support offered in many RTS games, but there are levels of colourblindness. I know someone who described the world as being effectively monotone to them and would always ask what colour something was as to them it was just a shade.

@some_lame_kid said: I always understood "social construct" to mean any non-material system created and used by a society to better operate and manage itself.

Yeah. I think this one appeals to the intuition of most people.

Colors as a concept of the interaction of light with matter, I would not call a social construct. The organization and designation of colors based on perception of that interaction, I would.

I think this is a good way to ground the "meaning" of a word. When we apply descriptors to things outside of language, the question of internal cohesion becomes pointless. The issue of internal cohesion, only becomes a problem when the sign is separated from what it suppose to signify. This way of grounding "meaning" implies that the true "meaning" of a word isn't actually grounded in how it's defined and is instead grounded in how it's used; I'd agree with this. Still, It seems people might disagree to what extend we should put the descriptors on physical reality. Also, a person could argue that everything is a social construct on the basis that it can be deconstructed. Here is a short video explaining deconstruction. Disclaimer: I don't agree with this video in it's entirety. This video is also an over simplification of Derrida.

Now one could say that I'm missing the point. Well...That's apart of the point I'm trying to make.

Edit: Even though I did put up a disclaimer, I think I should be more specific about to what extend I agree with the video. I agree with almost the everything that was said in it; I do question to what extend language shapes perception.

As for 'social constructs', tricky topic, and I'll have to watch the video at some point, but chiming in randomly I would say....

'Normality' IS quantifiable, to the point you could define it literally as being the IQR*1.5 of a given set of observations (generic outlier detection). But 'normality' changes over time, and people's perceptions of 'normality' vary hugely. These perceptions are also often not based on adequate observation, or observations at all such as inherited perceptions (which would be where the social construct element sits imo).

For example, one may expect an American to think it is 'normal' to have a BMI of ~25-30. In America this is largely true, but in Japan, that may be considered abnormal, where 'normal' would be more like ~20-25. Statistics would bear out the quantifiable nature of the above assertion of what is 'normal' in both regions, but the 'social construct' is the subjective belief of the individual American or Japanese person that they are 'right'.

There are all sorts of reading material on Groupthink, confirmation bias and so on that could derail this thought, but I think my main issue lies where perceptions of 'normality' are used as a tool for prejudice without appreciation that perception is almost always skewed by one's environment and upbringing. It becomes dogmatic, and people use statistics that best reflect themselves to make their argument (inherently fallacious.... and why I didn't choose Australia or England in my analogy).

I believe (perhaps fallaciously) that social constructs are a 'normal' phenomenon, where humans by and large are pattern recognition machines and do so consciously and subconsciously. It is absurd to me to expect people not to group and classify based on observation, but it would also be absurd for one to think they have nearly enough training data from their observations alone to make a firm conclusion about those groupings. A social construct may largely be a shared perception, and in many scenarios may be beneficial to simplify things, but that alone does not constitute evidence of it being 'right', only the basis of a hypothesis that it could be.

In closing, I do not respect anyone who feels the need to assert and dictate their perception of 'normal' is 'right' and allude that being 'abnormal' is 'wrong' without peer-reviewed evidence. And even then that evidence is rarely ever absolute and may be superseded in the future. Your BMI of 27 may be entirely 'normal' where you live today, and your friends and neighbors may agree, but that does not make it 'right', or even healthy

Instead, I would always suggest to err on the side of "Be excellent to each other. All we are is dust in the wind".

@duane said: Species are traditionally classified by their body shape, but the usual rule is that if they can't successfully inter-breed, they're a different species. That's not a social convention, it's fairly provable. Donkeys and horses can produce viable offspring, but the offspring are sterile, so donkeys and horses are different species. All dogs can interbreed, so they are all the same species.

Yeah, the video on the species problem did address this. The offspring made by donkeys and horses aren't always sterile. Sometimes they can reproduce.

Social Constructs are useful for quickly making the unfamiliar, familiar. That becomes a problem when the construct fossilizes and what it describes continues to evolve. On top of this, no body is really "fully trained" in observation in order to create a perfect construct, otherwise we would have a monad of minds. If we had that, we wouldn't even need constructs. The fact we need constructs is proof enough that they're not perfect, thus "normality" is simply wrong. The day you stop questioning normality is the day you get the dunce cap.

Every since I was introduced to these ideas in college, I couldn't stop thinking about them. I don't want to bore anyone with reading material but, I found a better video on the topic of deconstruction that I watched a long time ago. It's a little long but, it's still short:

I'm in the process of watching another video on this subject; I'll share it with you guys when I'm finish.

Edit: Okay, so the other video I watched was incredibly similar to the one I already post here. So I won't post it. XD

@some_lame_kid said: Social Constructs are useful for quickly making the unfamiliar, familiar. That becomes a problem when the construct fossilizes and what it describes continues to evolve. On top of this, no body is really "fully trained" in observation in order to create a perfect construct, otherwise we would have a monad of minds. If we had that, we wouldn't even need constructs.

This is a good point. I'll add that I don't think that anyone can create a perfect construct, as bias will always come into the equation.

The perfect construct is nothingness. It is easy to say, but almost impossible to imagine. People think that nothing is like closing your eyes. But it's not. With your eyes closed, you see blackness. But black is a color, it is an experience of something, and therefore not nothing. The best way I was told to imagine it, I think from Alan Watts, was to keep your eyes open, but try to imagine what is the view looking away from the back of your head. You cannot see anything, but it is also not black. It is the absence of any experience at all, which is closer to what nothing is.

I'm not entirely sure what the criteria would be for categorizing nothingness as a perfect construct. If it's an incapability to deconstruct the concept, I'd say that fundamental particles could also be considered a perfect construct. I'd also say that numbers could also be considered a perfect construct, though that's not a position I know how to defend nor it's one that I would hold. Still I'm not sure if it would matter if we couldn't deconstruct numbers, as I'm not sure if the platonic realm is real. Even though the existence of nothing could seem contradictory, by definition, I still entertain it's existence seriously. Scientifically speaking, we haven't observed nothing( or so I've heard). However, I still think that pure absence of existence or nothing could be real for reasons relating to religion or a lack therefore( which is why I'm not going to get too deep into that).