Best tips for Island Creator Building - Lost Skies

What this episode is about

The topic focuses on effective techniques for building custom assets in Lost Skies, emphasizing their aesthetic value and operational methods to enhance sky island creations. Key points include the importance of grouping objects for streamlined building, specific selection tips to avoid unwanted inclusions, and the potential for intricate designs such as ghost ships and themed museums.

Key takeaways

• Mastering custom asset groups can save countless hours—learn from my painful trials in object selection!
• The Steam Workshop is a treasure trove of community-made groups; collaboration fuels creativity in game design.
• Skip tedious grouping by holding shift; no one wants to relive the anguish of accidental mis-grouping!
• Licensing education with SNHU could be your ticket to the game development arena—get skills from industry pros.
• Great designs in Lost Skies aren't magical; they’re the result of meticulous effort and passion from developers.

Who speaks in this episode?

• Unknown Host (Host) · 13 min speaking
• Drift (Guest) · 1 min speaking
• Mule (Guest) · 1 min speaking
• Elder Pen (Guest) · 1 min speaking

What is discussed, and when

1. 0:00 – 3:00: Lost Skies
2. 3:00 – 6:00: Lost Skies, Southern New Hampshire University, Elden Ring, Doctor Strange's Cube
3. 6:00 – 9:00: Lost Skies, Ancient Sorian Vault, Jace Hammer, Gall language
4. 9:00 – 12:00: Lost Skies, Jace Hammer
5. 12:00 – 13:55: Trials of Telmon

Notable quotes from "Best tips for Island Creator Building - Lost Skies"

• Read the title of this video you'll know that today we're talking about building with custom assets and lost Skies not only because they can be very beautiful additions to the sky islands that you build and likely we'll see in the actual.

  about Lost Skies · at 0:00

• Designed by passionate developers who hone their skills through learning which brings me to this video's sponsor Southern New Hampshire University with this being the first…

  about Southern New Hampshire University · at 3:52

• And more easily see faults or discontinuities in your Creations for example during the process of recreating rikard's Blasphemous blade from Elden ring I made the actual blade…

  about Elden Ring · at 5:50

• Increasingly difficult to render based on the number of visual objects for a better reference to comparison another Island I've made called the ancient sorian Vault fitted with…

  about Ancient Sorian Vault · at 7:16

• Benefits of scaling as you make specific types of creations with a certain symmetric silhouette much like I found while working on my design of the Jace Hammer from Arcane it…

  about Jace Hammer · at 8:10

• To inversely affect the other objects nearby an interesting example where this idea is well depicted is on the island Trials of telmon by Elder pen here the entrance to the…

  about Trials of Telmon · at 12:17

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

Concepts & topics

• Lost Skies — Concept · Core topic · 5 mentions · first at 0:02
  Central theme of the episode, discussing techniques and design elements for building in the game.
• Jace Hammer — Concept · Referenced concept · 2 mentions · first at 8:15
  A design example in Lost Skies used to discuss symmetry and rotation control.
• Doctor Strange's Cube — Concept · Referenced concept · 1 mention · first at 5:23
  A custom asset in Lost Skies mentioned as part of a detailed build.
  Inventor mansion by ugly we see an immense level of detail throughout the entire build whether it be from a tiny handmade railing set Doctor Strange's Cube to trap giant spells…
• Gall language — Concept · Referenced concept · 1 mention · first at 6:42
  An in-game language in Lost Skies used for creating symbols and designs.
  Its use to a fault for example in the blank test Island I went and made a symbol structure which spells out the name lost skies in Gall language this language structure the…

Places & events

• Ancient Sorian Vault — Place · Setting · 1 mention · first at 7:22
  An island in Lost Skies mentioned as an example of complex design and puzzle integration.
• Trials of Telmon — Place · Setting · 1 mention · first at 12:22
  An island in Lost Skies used as an example of puzzle design and gameplay mechanics.

Media & podcasts

• Elden Ring — Media · Referenced work · 1 mention · first at 5:56
  Mentioned as an example of a game with detailed designs that inspired a creation in Lost Skies.

Sponsors

• Southern New Hampshire University — Company · Sponsor · 1 mention · first at 3:56
  Sponsor of the episode, offering game development degree programs.

Full transcript with timestamps

0:00 read the title of this video you'll know that today we're talking about building with custom assets and lost Skies not only because they can be very beautiful additions to the sky islands that you build and likely we'll see in the actual game but there is actually a ton of different methods techniques and design elements that can be used to enhance any creation that you might be working on whether that be large mysterious ghost ships making massively split and shattered Sky Islands or even a whole skyw museum inside of a lost inventor's Mansion which we'll cover a little bit later on but before you get into actually designing them it's important to understand understand how to actually make one as well as get to utilize them yourself even if you don't plan on making any builds more technical terminology for custom Assets in the island Creator is to form a group a group is simply as it sounds A small

0:42 collection of multiple objects that can be formed or identified as one thing in the island Creator regardless of whether or not these entities are actually touching in order to create a group you simply need to select a number of objects together within the edit mode of the objects Tab and by holding left click to drag in highlight an area you can select multiple objects to become grouped together as one thing however it can be quite difficult to ensure that a highlighted area doesn't accidentally become selected with other unwanted objects so in order to fix this issue you can hold control and then left click a specific object that you don't want included in your group in addition if you've already selected a group of objects and converted it into a group you can still remove the specific objects in that array by clicking ungroup then using control and left click again to remove said object then

1:32 regrouping the remaining parts back together this was and is an absolutely important piece to understand when it comes to building your own array of assets to use because if you're anything like me not having known this information is what leads to working on multiple projects and Recreations some of which have taken me literal real Minecraft days to make where over half of that time was spent with me thinking the only way to select objects to be grouped was just by stitching together hundreds of tiny interlac pieces one by one only to accidentally group a random tree in the background ungroup the entire thing and do it all over again multiple times so if you can please try and learn from my mistakes as much as possible because I wouldn't want anyone to have to go through with that in addition you can also skip the highlighting Al together and by simply holding shift and left clicking the

2:19 intended objects individually you can add what you want to a group which in general is just a much easier way to do it understanding at least the basics of making custom objects it's good to know that they're actually ton of pre-made objects that you can use even right now for your Creations right below the Customs groups there is a green tab labeled subscribe groups now these much like the islands shared on the creater are all Community made groups that players choose to share which if you haven't used before will simply be empty so in order to quickly get this and actually add a bunch of new custom objects you can select the Steam Workshop Tab and then in the bottom left corner click the workshop tab again once you have opened this you can select the type category on the right and then select groups thus far there are about 60 shared groups for you to use which is always increasing as more people share

3:04 their stuff which has everything from furniture to Wi turbines and even entire train set which can all be added by simply hitting the plus sign to subscribe and download not to be confused with the red subscribe button which you should also be furiously mashing with your finger if you want to share a creation or object that you have made to this list you can go back to any custom group that you have saved select the little upload icon next to it which lets you upload and asset as a new item to the work shop or override it as an object that you have since decided to make changes or updates to the next best technique when it comes to creating effective designs is beautifully shown off in a community made Island known as the grand inventor Mansion but before I get to that I want to quickly take a moment to mention that the incredible mechanics and breathtaking scenes in Lost Skies didn't appear out of th a

3:51 they were crafted meticulously and designed by passionate developers who hone their skills through learning which brings me to this video's sponsor Southern New Hampshire University with this being the first ever sponsorship of the channel I wanted to make sure that it was something that can truly offer you guys real value being a full-time college student myself and with having covered so many different changes and updates in the realm of game development for lost Skies whether that be gray box renders mechanics changes storyboarding sky ship design or just using the island Creator snhu is a perfect opportunity to start learning much of the very same techniques used by some of the best game developers in the industry learning Real World game development skills at your own pace for some of the lowest online tuition rates in the nation they offer an extensive degree program to help you learn new skills from faculty with real

4:38 world experience with snhu being one of the largest accredited nonprofit online degree programs in the country you'll have opportunities to connect with people in the industry both during and after your studies snhu offers multiple term starts throughout the year allowing you flexibility to complete your degree at your own pace if something like this at all interests you by using my link in the description or by going to snhu edu slad drift putting in your basic contact info and requesting for free information a real actual person will hop on a call with you and discuss how the program can benefit you personally to help determine if snhu is right for you which of course all goes directly toward helping support the growth of this channel in the grand inventor mansion by ugly we see an immense level of detail throughout the entire build whether it be from a tiny handmade railing set Doctor Strange's

5:25 Cube to trap giant spells giant spider robots with leftover Parts lying about or hand making entire fossils of Sky Wheels the sky island is a beautiful example of how to properly use the technique of merge in scale one of the best ways to actually use this is by simply creating additions at a much larger size than plant the reason for this is because creating in scale allows you to make much more detailed changes and more easily see faults or discontinuities in your Creations for example during the process of recreating rikard's Blasphemous blade from Elden ring I made the actual blade size up to scale being bigger than most trees this allowed me to focus more on adding the small details and side profile curves seen on the edge of the blade near the hilt however while it made for more uniqueness in the creation there were still many interlace parts in the build that naturally popped out from the blade

6:16 which did not completely follow suit with the exact look that I wanted though being able to more easily see and make changes at Large Scale would benefit me more down the road when it scaled down because it would reduce the need for concern on consistent error when I can more easily ensure preciseness in visuals to a much tighter threshold however while using this technique can be useful in Island design it does have its use to a fault for example in the blank test Island I went and made a symbol structure which spells out the name lost skies in Gall language this language structure the devs put together using a mixture of Japanese kanji and Egyptian hieroglyphs or an in-game culture which I've covered on videos before however in my attempt to recreate this I ended up shrinking down an otherwise massively grouped array of literally hundreds of tiny blocks to achieve a specific look that I wanted

7:03 and while it allowed me to gain a high level of accuracy in the creation it equally shot up my Island complexity to 73% this is from what I can tell a meter that helps to gauge whether the island or object you were composing can become increasingly difficult to render based on the number of visual objects for a better reference to comparison another Island I've made called the ancient sorian Vault fitted with full island integrated puzzles monoliths enemy spawns and crossmap relay puzzles with an enormous number of floating rocks is at 93 complexity which I found out by Googling 93 is a bigger number than 73 although it just goes to show how concerningly close this one small object is to that massive Island which has an enormous amount of objects however it's also true that even if you make hundreds of objects super small there does appear to be a falloff range for what the player can see where in the actual

7:52 Island crater I can see each of the tiny circle-shaped blocks but in a player mode view the object becomes basically invisible I imagine this is to help mitigate complex loads that something like this would otherwise cause in game which leads me to the next technique rotation control this is one that effectively Works in tandem with the benefits of scaling as you make specific types of creations with a certain symmetric silhouette much like I found while working on my design of the Jace Hammer from Arcane it can be very difficult to ensure perfect symmetry on different angles of objects which is why utilizing precise rotation angles can be a very useful technique when making something new while you're able to manhandle the angles on different objects being able to set certain wall structures beams or other metal parts to specific angles and determine the opposite angles in increments of 90 45

8:40 or 60° allows you to stay very consistent on keeping symmetry in your design which is why after spawning in a new object much like the number of chicks I get I almost always set these starting rotation values to zero and when I want to change the starting point of a freehand rotation change I try and input easy to adjust values usually either 91 180 or 270 in different reference planes to help with setting up its starting placement before I make those changes however while this is important technique it's also important to know that many of the ruin structures are made with predetermined asymmetries in the actual Parts design so much like in the case of the Jace Hammer prepping the part to an incremental easy to memorize angle then freehanding Minor Adjustments caused by the part asymmetries worked very well for the creation process in addition I also found it beneficial to use a mix of

9:30 gameplay puzzle Tech objects and integrate their respective lighting functions into the central blue light for the hammer which is a very useful technique for helping to properly mix your custom objects into the world that you design leading to my last Point gameplay integration this is a very important concept when you are trying to work on not only specific custom assets but making their style and uniqueness fit within the world itself and when it comes to actually designing with the puzzle Tech available in the currently available region of the island crater there are a number of different types of physics objects relay puzzles interactable switches and doors as well as light indicators and story generation tool sets that you can use to enhance your ideas to help with getting a better perspective on these tools and how they can be used I highly recommend you check out drifts Island puzzle Labs who very

10:17 professionally put together a number of different puzzle examples of how different gameplay mechanics can be used in tandem relating relays to upholding physics objects with energy walls and many others to help a new person get a feel for their in-game structure and functionality drift is also a very cool YouTuber who has made a number of Awesome videos covering Creations which we've shown off on this channel including the stone query data research facility and a new recent creation the sorian training ground all of which are beautiful examples of how to mix different functionalities of puzzle logic with parkour as well as tactical and strategic uses of enemy turret placement and unlocking mechanisms I'll make sure to have his channel and Island Links below in the description of this video so I highly recommend you check them out if you haven't already however while there are a ton of examples of how

11:05 the puzzle Tech and lost Skies can be used so much so that I'd actually believe it needs its own video there are also many other ways to achieve different designs in puzzle activation than what's conventionally accepted one example comes from the Lost guys Discord a player by the name of mule who figured out that you can create makeshift delay systems despite they're not actually being any timer puzzle in the actual game to achieve this he set a switch connection to a central light switch then instead of pairing it to the secondary one ties it to a door which once opened allows a data relay puzzle to activate which is then tied back into the secondary switch in the line where this is then repeated until each of the light sensors turns green this is actually achieved because of the fact that the door openings have a set delay in their animation when they actually open which allows for that actual kind

11:53 of delay that we want to see conceptually this is an idea that could be further expanded into a room introduction where you open a doorway either to make a long Runway leading to some Grand chamber help indicate the player where to go or even just spell out numbers or information to the player which might hint at another step in a puzzle that you might actually have second to this function you can also tie the same output of a switch SL actuator to inversely affect the other objects nearby an interesting example where this idea is well depicted is on the island Trials of telmon by Elder pen here the entrance to the trials inside the island is sealed with a long series of shootable switches in order to find the access code by exploring the map to the South Side through a small hole in a wall you can find a listed wall of numerical values which go into the trial's entrance by inputting the

12:43 respective number left to right reading top down the puzzle inversely locks the other inputs to that side with energy walls preventing you from being able to hit just every switch until the entrance opens it's a very unique example of how as a designer you can use different profiles of puzzle logic to make and integrate differently into how you want to design your own custom assets as well as custom gameplay mechanics but more than all of this the main takeaway when it comes to asset design in any world that you make comes down to you and more than anything understanding the fundamentals of how custom assets can be used to make extremely unique looking structures as well as how to integrate those custom groups into your own puzzle designs in your world regardless I hope you all found this video at least somewhat informational and if you have any questions regarding functionality or or even interesting ideas about your own

13:31 Islands design feel free to let me know in the comments below because I love hearing about them either way thank you all so much for watching and like always have a beautiful rest of your day boys peace

Questions about this episode

Who speaks in "Best tips for Island Creator Building - Lost Skies"?

Unknown Host (Host), Drift (Guest), Mule (Guest), Elder Pen (Guest).

What is "Best tips for Island Creator Building - Lost Skies" about?

The topic focuses on effective techniques for building custom assets in Lost Skies, emphasizing their aesthetic value and operational methods to enhance sky island creations. Key points include the importance of grouping objects for streamlined building, specific selection tips to avoid unwanted inclusions, and the potential for intricate designs such as ghost ships and themed museums.

What is mentioned in this Adrift episode?

8 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Lost Skies, Ancient Sorian Vault, Trials of Telmon, Jace Hammer, Elden Ring, Doctor Strange's Cube. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "Best tips for Island Creator Building - Lost Skies"?

The episode runs 14 min; the transcript is about 2,808 words in 18 timestamped sections.

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