📖 Devlog
13.8.2025 (part 2) We’ve also discovered that the name Sylvistra is already in use.
A new title has been chosen, but we’re keeping it under wraps… for now.
13.8.2025 (part 1) We’re currently developing fully procedural roads using Blender’s Geometry Nodes.
This approach allows us to generate highly detailed, customizable road surfaces and borders with complete artistic control.
5.8.2025 We’ve let our name flow — from Sylvistra to Sylvistra Springs — where the waters of our land carry stories beyond the rising steam.
30.7.2025 Current focus is on the cinematic teaser — not the game demo yet. It's being crafted in Blender with Cycles, to capture the world through light, not logic.
29.7.2025 (part 3) After running a clean stormy build, I monitored VRAM usage closely. It gradually climbed to 9 GB, then dropped slightly before rising again — Unreal’s usual memory dance. No crash occurred; stability held.
Currently using a 12 GB GPU, which still performs well under stress, but it’s clear we’re approaching the ceiling. With most 24 GB cards off the market and the RTX 5090 as the only next viable option, a hardware upgrade is not urgent but foreseeable.
For now, optimization and scene management remain my focus. The tools are holding. So am I.
29.7.2025 (part 2) GearBlood now compiles cleanly for Linux – another step toward freedom under the hood.
29.7.2025 (part 1) Seven days of silence, but not of stillness. The windows have finally opened – glass now breathes with light and memory.
*Rust speaks through mirrors, and the garage whispers: „It may be broken, but it’s ours.“
22.7.2025 Hand-unwrapping part of the car body with a focus on consistent texel density, orientation, and smooth polygon flow. Test checker maps are used to verify UV layout stability before exporting to Mari. You can find it in Gallery
19.7.2025 After some trials, we chose to rely on Blender’s Zen UV and UVPackmaster instead of RizomUV — not for technical reasons, but simply because launching Rizom through Wine felt like too much of a ceremony.
15.7. Somewhere between dusk and a dangerous decision, the dashboard learned to speak. New render added to gallery.
14.7. Sometimes, the work feels overwhelmingly exhausting.
The kind of fatigue that wraps around your spine and hums behind your eyes.
But then a detail clicks — a keychain swings just right, a shadow falls where it should — and you remember why it’s worth it.
For now, our studio goes by the working name Sylvistra.
It’s not final. But it fits. A little wild, a little noble — like the machines we’re building.
10.07. Today, we're diving deep into the forest — refining our flora and stepping out into the wild for fresh textures and inspiration. New render added.
06.07. Today’s battle is real – me versus RizomUV.
After hours of wrangling seams like a mad tailor, I’m genuinely considering surrendering to Blender’s Smart UV.
But somewhere along the front line, a strange kind of beauty emerged.
An accidental texture flood – chaotic, burning, elegant.
I saved it. You'll find it in the gallery.
03.07. Section "Gallery" with fresh render was added. 01.07. I didn’t plan to write a shader today. Just noticed how the pine needles under the car looked flat in shadow. So I started plugging nodes. 30.6. Unwrapped the first handle with auto-seams in RizomUV and brought it into Mari. The UVs hold nicely – one more piece locked in place for the teaser. 27.6. Somewhere in the dark, the curve is already waiting. 22.6. After ten iterations, the river finally emerged — and so did the road beside it. 21.6. The front end takes shape—not with noise, but with patience. Rufus is watching. 17.6. The grille is breathing now. Fog knows it too. 16.6. GearBlood isn’t about crossing the line — it’s about finding one more left unplayed. 13.6. Second attempt at a handmade procedural tree: four UDIMs, Mari-painted bark, no glitches this time. It finally stood still in Unreal — and felt like it belonged.🌲 9.6. Today I learned that even a tree can open a dimensional rift if you feed it the wrong normal map. 🪐 6.6. A feather fell into place. Geometry sings when logic dances.🧠 4.6. Transformed thousands of delicate fiber curves into clean geometry without breaking a single strand — sometimes, magic wears a wireframe coat.🪶 2.6. One feather, one step closer — Rufus gets his first plume today, and Mari’s just warming up.🪶✨ 1.6. Today, we’re carving socket joints into Rufus’s wings—where bone meets brass and instinct becomes interface.🛠️🪽✨ 30.5. Laid down the first structural lines of Rufus’s maxilla — the silent beginnings of a beak that might one day speak. 🪶 29.5. Spent the whole day wrangling edge loops around a magpie’s skull – Rufus no longer looks modeled, he looks like he’s about to judge my topology choices. 🐦🧠 26.5. Rufus refused to flatten himself into a map today. Quite the noble beak." 🐦🎩 25.5. Six UDIMs, four gigabytes of feathers, and Rufus is finally ready to breathe in Mari. 🖤 24.5. Today, Rufus got his wings.
Not figuratively. Physically. Digitally. Fully formed geometry. The model is now:
cleaned and topologically sound
fully UV unwrapped across six UDIMs, each one named like a knight on a quest
ready to enter Mari, where it will gain its identity – scratches, dirt, memory. The work clocked in at over 7 hours. The sculpt ran with symmetry, yet somehow the soul of it didn’t. Rufus is becoming more than an asset – he's beginning to feel like a silent witness to a story, with eyes that are not yet open, but will soon learn to look backward. 22.5. A real maple leaf from my backyard is now part of GearBlood’s world. 🍁 21.5. A decision was made today—one not about frames, but about presence.
We chose silence in some places so a voice can be heard elsewhere. 20.5. Textured a wall today. It didn’t collapse, so I’m calling it progress. 19.5. Today’s pit stop:
We wrestled a bit with HTML and CSS — alignment, styles, and a few forgotten tags. Nothing a well-placed semicolon couldn’t fix. 18.5.2025 Went texture hunting right after the rain.
Wet boots, muddy roads, and at least three confused pigeons.
But hey — rust never sleeps, and neither do I. 🎯📸 17.5.2025 Today’s sound gathering was a joy. We’re bringing a piece of the real forest into GearBlood — with every rustle, chirp, and breath. 15.5.2025 GearBlood is officially moving to Unreal Engine. 14.5.2025 marked the creation of our first fully hand-crafted 4K seamless grass texture.
One HeightLerp, one ShadowPassSwitch. No idea if it’s “right,” but it works.
Now the shadow keeps the depth. That’s enough for today.
Our upcoming teaser, Before the Curve, approaches
The morning began by sweeping through a web of polygons. As the day wore on, we sculpted talons, sealed beaks, and wrestled UV shells that refused to behave. One claw in particular put up a fight – maybe symbolic, maybe just a rogue edge loop that didn’t want to fall in line.
But in the end, it did.
Biggest victory today?
The silence in my head when Blender's UV grid didn’t flash a single red "overlap" warning.
🖋 Written between 3D cables, the click-click of Blender, and a quiet coffee break.
Zdeněk & Tris
Less light. More weight.
Fewer reflections. More reflection.
Mari paints with cinematic precision —
and Unreal listens without losing a single stroke.
From a single mobile photograph — through Krita and Blender — into a polished 4K render.