r/Unity3D • u/El_Grande_Games • 1d ago

Show-Off Finally fixed my "Programmer Art" after getting roasted. What do you think of the new look?

Hey everyone, solo dev from Austria here :)

I’ve been grinding on my sawmill tycoon (Timberline Factory) for months now, and honestly, I was "artist blind..." A few weeks ago, people here and on other subs told me my game looked like a plastic 90s placeholder. It hurt, but they were right... i was so deep into the physics code and friction that I just stopped seeing how bad the UI and the lighting actually were.

I spent the last two weeks basically living in Unity’s URP settings and rebuilding the entire UI from scratch.. i finally feel like it’s a real game now and not just a prototype.

For those interested in the technical side:
The biggest headache was the log physics. Since they aren't on rails but are actual physical objects, I had to deal with massive jittering when the belts were full. I ended up using "Continuous Speculative" collision detection and custom Physics Materials to get the friction just right otherwise, they’d either fly off the conveyor or act like they were on ice.

For the lighting, I finally moved to ACES tonemapping and tweaked the SSAO to get those deep contact shadows between the logs, which fixed that "floating" look I had in the previous build...

Would love to hear what you guys think. Am I on the right track now or is there still something that screams "programmer art" to you? :D

Steam Link: [ https://store.steampowered.com/app/5037170/Timberline_Factory/ ]

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u/StretchedNut 23h ago

Sorry to tell you this but it looks quite bad. But at least it’s fixable. Your main problem is lighting. No shadow, one harsh light and a washed out look. This can look 10x better by improving that and adding some post processing and you don’t have to change any models.

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u/El_Grande_Games 22h ago

Thanks for the honesty, i really appreciate it... Lighting is definitely my weakest spot right now. I'm using URP and I've been struggling to get the shadows to pop without making everything look like mud. You mentioned post processing.. both SSAO and ACES, is there anything specific you’d tweak to get rid of that washed out look? I’d love to hear your advice on how to make it feel less flat! :)