Vitor Gonçalves Rodrigues
Game Developer & Digital Artist. Complete solutions for independent games: from 2D concept art and animation to 3D technical development, mission architecture, and NPC artificial intelligence.
Project: My Kingdom (Technical Prototype of Core Gameplay)
Technical demonstration focused on validating the basic lifecycle of an RTS and hybrid aesthetics, combining the identity of stylized 2D art with advanced lighting and dynamic shading effects.
2D Tech Art: Dynamic Metallic Reflections
Demonstrating real-time volume and specular highlights on a completely flat 2D plane.
Asset Pipeline: Hand-drawn base art using clean, hard lineart.
Texture Mapping: Custom Normal and Specular maps authored in Laigter to define surface gradients, bevels, and material roughness.
The Result: Real-time calculation of 2D light vectors against the texture maps, making the hand-drawn metal edges catch the light dynamically based on the light's position.
Code Architecture & Tooling
Code Architecture: Modular Self-Registration UI System: For managing the RTS interface, I developed an intelligent button system that eliminates the need for manual signal connections in the Godot editor. The developer only needs to attach the script to the button and select the corresponding type from an enumerated menu (enum). The component itself takes care of registering with the global managers and triggering the correct actions.
Btn.cs: Accesses the Canvas Manager to self-register based on the chosen enum.
Canvas Control: Since the Canvas Manager is auto-loaded, this class (scene) is responsible for setting the values of the variables within the Canvas Manager.
Canvas Manager: The entity actually responsible for emitting the signals from the buttons when clicked by the player.
Game Events
There are other parts of the code that would be interesting to mention, but they would make the presentation too long. What I've shown here is an excellent example of how to make the mechanical aspects of game development more automatic and considerably less stressful.
Game Play of My Kingdom prototype
Note: The link to the Steam page contains the content of my 3D game Ecto Corporations, developed in Godot 4.6 with C#.
Note: The soundtracks included in the project are demonstrative placeholders used only for testing and technical prototyping of the environment.