We're replacing every borrowed asset with our own
By Encrypted Cat / 0xKOT · Originally published on itch.io
A behind-the-scenes update today, about what the game is made of.
Where we started
Until now, The Cradle used a lot of free third-party assets: beds, chairs, desks, lamps, radios, about 44 props in all, plus some textures. They’re great, generously shared under CC0 by Poly Haven and ambientCG, and they helped me ship the game fast. But I want The Cradle, and every episode after it, to be entirely our own work.
What we built
So the next step is replacing all of them. Every prop is now generated from scratch in Blender by code: shapes, materials, wear and labels, with no downloaded models or textures at all.
The first batch is done: 58 assets in four groups.
- Hospital furniture: iron beds, a bunk bed, bentwood chairs, a wheelchair, crutches, shelves.
- Office and storage: steel desks, cabinets, a Soviet sideboard, crates, jerrycans, «тушёнка» tins, a first-aid box.
- Electronics: a station radio, a portable TV, a CCTV camera, cassette recorders, a film projector, a «Слава»-style alarm clock, a wall telephone.
- Lamps and paperwork: bulkhead lamps, a milk-glass globe, a green desk lamp, «Дело №» folders, a GP-5 gas mask… and a rubber duck.
Each one matches the size of the prop it replaces, so it drops straight into the existing rooms. They’re also light enough to run on phones.
The machine behind it
Generating and baking all of this takes a lot of computing power, so I set up a spare Linux box with an RTX 3090 as a render machine. Four builds ran on it in parallel, each baking its own group of props, while I kept working on the game.
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It also made the map itself much faster to rebuild: the lighting bake went from about 6 minutes to about 20 seconds.
What’s next
- A grit pass. Right now some of the new props look a little too clean. They’re getting a shared layer of rust, dirt, scratches and faded paint, so they fit the decaying 1996 sanatorium.
- Swapping them into The Cradle. Once they look right, they replace the third-party props in the game.
- Giving them away. I’ll publish the whole set for free on Sketchfab under CC BY 4.0: use them in anything you like, as long as you credit The Cradle by Encrypted Cat (0xKOT).
Future episodes will be built from this library, so every new location will be 100% made for this world.
Questions about the process? Ask in the comments. I’m happy to show more of how it works. 🛠️