DAU 2026 - Slime Mechs! Dev Log (Ongoing)
This post will contain the post-mortem of the mentorship and also ongoing updates to the game
dddddd

shark vs the universe
DEAR READER
Lint Roller? I Barely Know Her
Misplaced Lens Cap

PR's Tumblrdome
taylor price
styofa doing anything

Discoholic 🪩

izzy's playlists!
Acquired Stardust
Peter Solarz

Andulka
Sade Olutola
we're not kids anymore.

oozey mess
AnasAbdin
Game of Thrones Daily
Cosmic Funnies
🪼

祝日 / Permanent Vacation

seen from France
seen from United Kingdom

seen from United Kingdom

seen from Brazil

seen from Malaysia

seen from Malaysia

seen from France

seen from United States

seen from Türkiye

seen from Malaysia
seen from United States

seen from South Africa

seen from United States

seen from United States
seen from United States

seen from United States

seen from Saudi Arabia

seen from Malaysia

seen from Malaysia

seen from United Kingdom
@daniellecole
DAU 2026 - Slime Mechs! Dev Log (Ongoing)
This post will contain the post-mortem of the mentorship and also ongoing updates to the game
dddddd
Cosmetics/Shop Creation - Technical Art
I contributed to the game's customization systems by creating cosmetic content that allowed players to personalize and collect vehicles through the in-game shop and garage.
🎩 Hats & Wings
Created 3D cosmetic accessories, including hats and wings, designed to fit all playable vehicles while maintaining the game's stylized visual style.
Vehicle Skin Collections
Developed themed skin lines for all 12 cars, including Fire, Water, Metal, Wood and Night variants, giving players a wide range of customization options.
🔥 Fire Skins (Day and Night versions)
The models were in blender, I textured with photoshop for this one because substance painter wasn't available. Tested the glowing parts in Unity.
💧Water Skins
🦾Metal Skins
🛞 Custom Wheels
🌲Wood Skins
😉Emoji Emotes
Emotes pop up above the player when something either happens in game or they cue it. Example: hitting another player with an ability, or finishing last place.
This work gave me experience creating cosmetic content pipelines that connected shop systems, player collections, and vehicle presentation features within a shipped mobile game.
Unity Realtime VFX w/Shuriken for Zodiac Attack
I did a couple of the character powers/effect, plus some environmental vfx that spawn in! ✨
Ox Plow Ability: Normal Dirt VFX and Neon
All Rain Effects for "Mudslide Madness". The goal was to easily convey the feeling of a very rainy, wet day! 🌧️
Some errors in the rain vfx, but then I fixed it to be more realistic haha. The difficult part was attaching to the camera of the player so it felt like they were driving in the rain. By keeping the particles to a small box area, I reduced particle count in the scene to keep loading times low.
Time Portals ⏱️
First Iteration of the ground clock portal:
Second attempt, more magical:
Vertical time portals for the players to jump through:
Rat "Stealing" Effect (lightning animation etc) ⚡
Frozen Screen Effect (for the snow canons in the level) ❄️
Level Design for Zodiac Attack
In my experience, the most fun part of game design. A lot of my work goes through many phases, being reassessed, redone and endless polish.
Core Level Design Challenge ->
A major challenge across the entire project was designing environments that worked around a fully adjustable racetrack system. Every level had to support flexible track movement, we had to be ready to move the track into an entirely different position at a moments notice! Meaning every model touching the track was connected to splines.
Great Wall Dash
Worked on all Great Wall materials and simplified the brick models based on client and art director feedback to better match realistic sandy brick textures... while remaining low poly. I also used billboard trees to reduce draw calls, scripted floating sky balloons, and built raised track supports using modular brick placement.
Frozen Fiasco
Helped design and construct the large spiral mountain environment using a highly optimized modular workflow built from only a few repeating rock assets. A major challenge was ensuring the mountain wrapped around the spiral track cleanly without intersecting lower track sections.
Snack Attack
Contributed to the candy-themed environment by creating interior candy walls, ground textures, and stylized water materials. I also helped assemble market props and designed a modular bridge system that blended seamlessly into the racetrack using custom wood assets and spline placement.
Rapid Rabbit Rush
Placed large-scale foliage using Unity’s terrain tools and created a stylized waterfall effect using a custom scrolling shader and animation inspired by hand-painted animation styles. I also adjusted custom lighting settings to achieve sharper stylized shadowing across the environment.
Temple of Time
Built and textured terrain, placed environment props, and designed the garden area from concept art. To enhance the scale of the environment, I created custom fog materials and horizon masking techniques to give the illusion of an endless landscape.
Hilltop Conquest
Developed the full level from greybox to final implementation, including terrain sculpting, texturing, spline editing, obstacle placement, and environment assembly inside Unity.
Unreleased Levels
Created early environment concepts for the unreleased tracks Twisted Ravine and Dragon Skyway, helping establish their initial gameplay direction and visual themes.
Higher Ground VR
Higher Ground VR on SideQuest Oculus Quest Games & Apps including AppLab Games ( Oculus App Lab )
I worked on the upcoming "World Traveler Pack" DLC for Higher Ground VR, contributing environment layouts and spaces across locations such as the Rocky Mountains, deserts, coastal regions, and volcanic landscapes.
My role included designing playable patios and crafting 3D environment assets to make themed board game areas for players.
Lighting Development Process
Experimented with Unreal Engine 5's HDRI Backdrop system to test different lighting scenarios and establish the desired mood for the environment.
I iterated on light intensity, shadow quality, and environmental lighting settings to achieve realistic results (as close to real life lighting and temperatures as possible) Here are some of the bad test shots I acquired before nailing the process and making sure there were no bugs in the headset 😅
3D Modelling, Environment Art & Low-Poly Asset Production!
Overview
I created stylized low-poly 3D assets and environments for a Unity-based game, working from concept art through to in-engine implementation with a focus on performance and a cartoony style (black outlines on EVERYTHINGG).
Prop & Environment Asset Creation (Blender/Maya/Photoshop)
I modelled stylized props and environmental assets from concept art, ensuring they were consistent with the game’s visual style.
For 2 ish months I made props everyday, we wanted to fill up 10 levels with stuff! I must of made maybe 100 models, I can't find all the pictures anymore haha.
Building Design & Modular Environments
I developed modular building assets and structures for use in Unity, supporting quick assembly across multiple scenes
Asset Fixing & Optimization
I was often given some assets that had too high of a poly count, so I reduced them. Other times normals would be flips or there would be trouble with UVs or vertices, so I helped out there as well!
Modular Garage Assets
I built the garage environment and props. I took inspiration from the concept art and made some quick props in maya. The garage had to be lightweight so all props and walls only use 1 texture atlas/trim sheet to save space
Zodiac Attack Mobile Racing Game | Toonrush x Genting Studios
Zodiac Attack is a shipped mobile racing title developed at Toonrush for Genting Studios. I contributed across game design, environment art, level design, cosmetic systems, skybox illustration, and audio production while working within a Unity mobile pipeline.
Google Play: Zodiac Attack - Apps on Google Play
IOS/Apple: Zodiac Attack App - App Store
Since I contributed to several different 'departments' of the game throughout the year, I've split the different sections into new blog posts. Please take a look and enjoy!
🔗 Environment Art & Asset Production (link) ->
🔗 Level Design (link) ->
🔗Cosmetics & Shop ->
Skybox & Visual Identity Work
🔗VFX & Animation (link) ->
Coding & Technical Art
Claws of Change XR
VR & Desktop Educational Experience
Developed for the University of Ottawa Faculty of Engineering MakerLab Claws of Change XR by Dani C ☁️
Claws of Change XR is an educational experience developed for VR headsets and desktop that explores the effects of climate change on ocean ecosystems across multiple time periods. Players embody a lobster living off the coast of Nova Scotia in the Gulf of Maine and explore three environmental states: present day (2025), near future (2050), and far future (2100).
I originally joined the project as an Asset and Texture Artist, creating environmental models in Blender for the underwater world before expanding into level design, environment assembly, and gameplay implementation in Unity for both VR and Desktop builds.
Custom Models and Textures (Maya, Photoshop)
Environment design was largely inspired and directed to match the Hopewell Rocks in eastern Canada, with unique red rock and sand texture
Shadowfall By Xecution Studios
Fantasy Multiplayer Arena Combat Game
Link: https://shadowfall-game.com/
I contributed to Shadowfall on a volunteer basis as a 3D Modeler, Texture Artist, and QA Playtester on this ongoing multiplayer arena combat project.
My work included character texturing and sculpting in ZBrush, completing texture art tests for the team, and helping reskin and re-explore character model variations. I also participated in playtesting and QA feedback sessions, providing gameplay observations and usability feedback while watching the project’s arena and map designs evolve over development.
This experience helped me strengthen my skills in stylized character art and collaborative pipelines with an international remote team.
Demo Screenshots Provided by © Xecution Studios 2025
Texturing/Sculpting/UV Unwrap : Xarandur Male
Ranger Bow Model - Maya + Substance Painter + Unreal 5
Rigging Demo Reel 2025
Game Dev Demo Reel
Crabsassin Short Animated Film
A stormy night at the docks, a killer is out for his target...
A short film created in 1 week with 15 animators and 3D artists. Rendered in UE5 during my time in Sheridan Computer Animation.
Responsible for Rigging and Layout of the crab character, human detective character, and seagull feet rigging. Developed custom IK/FK Switch crab claws, because our crab had to hold lots of props!
'Moth Guard' Zbrush + Maya nHair
In a land of mysterious bug people, a moth acts as a dutiful royal guard!
My capstone character design, sculpted and rigged while studying at Sheridan. With feedback from supervisors, I used Zbrush, Maya Xgen, Substance Painter and a custom rig to bring her to life!
Trafalgar Law 3D Model
A 3D model made in Zbrush and Maya, with Xgen hair for the hair and stubble + feathers on the cape. Fully rigged with a face rig!
STS Odyssey: Cross Platform Multiplayer VR
4-Player XR Space Shuttle Launch Simulator Built with A-Frame
STS Odyssey is a multiplayer WebXR experience that challenges four players to work together to successfully launch NASA’s space shuttle Discovery. Two players take on the role of Mission Control, while the other two serve as astronauts aboard the shuttle, coordinating in real-time to complete mission-critical tasks.
Developed using A-Frame, an open-source WebXR framework, STS Odyssey features a fully interactive, networked simulation accessible across VR headsets, PCs, and mobile devices. The experience integrates real-time multiplayer interactions, physics-based mechanics, and synchronized task systems, requiring players to manipulate cockpit controls, monitor telemetry, and execute precise launch sequences. Custom A-Frame components were developed to handle user interactions, interface elements, and mission-critical logic.
The project was made by 4 developers across a 4 months sprint for the Ingenium Museum of Science and Technology as part of a student-client course experience.
My role focused on 3D modelling in Blender, user experience design and testing, and event programming in Javascript.
You can view the code, and learn more about the A-Frame/Circles VR framework at our repository!
StacyG15/STS_Odyssey: IMD 3901 - Final project using CirclesXR framework
Houdini 19.5 Simulation Tests
Last year I started diving into Houdini, trying to form a new understanding of simulations and procedural workflows. I've focused on three core areas: rigid body dynamics, vellum fluids, and particle effects. With advice from my professor, I've developed a couple projects related to common simulations.
Pouring Liquids – Vellum Fluids
Adjusting viscosity, surface tension, and meshing helped refine the look of syrup vs whiskey in a glass.
Marble Run – iSpy
For my final project, I built a marble run through an I-Spy-themed course, using Houdini’s particle system. Along with my project partner, the challenge was including a ton of different simulations in one scene.
Rigid Body Simulations
Spiral Path
Peg Board
Teeter-Totter
Fracture Simulations
Crackers Breaking
Soft Body Simulations
Curtain Cloth
Carpet Rug Fibers
Soft Body Fracture Simulations
Beach Ball Popping
Car Wash – Soft Body with Vellum Hair
The Orb Keeper - Game Development
In a 48hr dev sprint, we created a we made a game inspired by Zuma, BOTW and Shadow of the Colossus. Players face off against an giant Dragon snake-thing, with PSX style graphics.
We won 2nd place in Ottawa, competing against 80 participants as a team of 5 game developers.
Responsible for main character model, texturing, environment design, set dressing (Unity terrain), dragon models/PBR materials. PSX shader implementation and scene management.