Today I’ve published my first tutorial of my new series “C# Development in Godot Game Engine” on my Patreon:
👉 https://www.patreon.com/posts/first-c-in-godot-160421061?utm_medium=clipboard_copy&utm_source=copyLink&utm_campaign=postshare_creator&utm_content=join_link
In this tutorial, I explain how to set up an working development environment for Game Development with Godot Engine and the C# programming language.
Have fun,
Helge
Dear Followers,
A creative break of almost a month, combined with a tour through three countries – that’s how Karin and I spent this years May.
I visited my “old homeland” in the Westerwald region of Germany, we traveled along the Rhine, then we went to Graz in Austria to visit family and dear friends.
We experienced buzzing city life and the green Styrian countryside.
To top it all off, we treated ourselves to a week’s beach vacation in Bibione (Italy) before the holiday season started.
It was an exhausting but also very joyful and inspiring time, which we spent together with Bailey and Mickey in various locations and Airbnbs.
Now I’m back in office and I also have some new stuff coming shortly:
First of all the DevLog#3, but also some tutorial capturing is planed for the near future.
I will release these tutorials mainly on Patreon:
https://www.patreon.com/c/pixeltrain3d
Enjoy!
Helge, Karin, Bailey, and Mickey
In January I wrote an article about Material Maker on my Patreon.
This application is a free open-source solution to generate procedural materials (and even animated ones ) for 3D and games, making it a good alternative to commercial solutions like Adobe Substance Designer or InstaMat Studio.
My (free) Patreon article:
👉 https://www.patreon.com/posts/material-maker-1-156071426?utm_medium=clipboard_copy&utm_source=copyLink&utm_campaign=postshare_creator&utm_content=join_link
Now the new version Material Maker 1.6 was released:
👉 https://rodzilla.itch.io/material-maker/devlog/1491329/material-maker-16
Have fun!
Helge
#opensource #foss #indie #indiedev #indiegame #pixeltrain #helgemaus
Especially when texturing stylized NPR assets for games or animations, the comfortable painting of textures for 3D objects is necessary. For this purpose, several commercial applications such as Substance Painter, 3DCoat or InstaMAT are available externally from Blender.
However, for my own workflow for animations and games, I have been using a free Blender Extension called “UCU-Paint by ucupumar” for some time.
This amazing add-on allows me to work directly in Blender. In the background, this extension creates a standard node-based Blender shading tree and can even work with my own shaders or external textures for a PBR workflow.
This extension can be easily installed in Blender under „Preference → Get Extensions“.
https://extensions.blender.org/add-ons/ucupaint/?utm_source=blender-4.5.7-lts
Here are some of the features:
If you want to learn more about the features and workflows:
https://www.youtube.com/@ucupumar/videos
Version 2.4.5 was released yesterday, which, in addition to some bug fixes, now offers the option to paint custom Normals directly. A frequently used technique, especially for anime-styled characters.
Have fun painting in Blender
Helge
Only recently, at the end of January 2026, the new stable version Godot 4.6 was released.
With this release and the first bugfix patch shortly afterwards in mid-February, the development of Godot 4.7 is now progressing in great strides.
Today the second Godot 4.7 Dev2 was released.
So if you want to look into the future and directly dive into some new features, you can find builds for the various platforms here:
👉 https://godotengine.org/download/archive/4.7-dev2/
Some of the highlights so far:
Image from „Horripilant – A game by Pas Game“
In July 2024, I first wrote about the game “Road to Vostok,” which was in development at the time, on my Patreon page.
What’s special about this game for me isn’t necessarily the survival thriller genre, but rather its origins as a Unity game and its subsequent transition to the Godot Engine. The developer log, which is very well documented, demonstrates that even projects of this size can be handled by the free and open-source Godot engine.
Starting in April 2007, this game will be available as Early Access on Steam (a demo for Windows is already available there):
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1963610/Road_to_Vostok/
Road to Vostok is a hardcore single-player survival game set in a post-apocalyptic border zone between Finland and Russia. Survive, loot, plan, and prepare to cross the border into Vostok, a permadeath zone where one mistake can end it all.
Congratulations to the developers!
Here’s the link to the trailer: https://youtu.be/OTFgTRsz43Q?si=UT_cw2eYJytTQXg6
Projects like this motivate me to create my own worlds in Godot, in 2d or 3d. For beginners and advanced programmers.
If you’d like to learn more about Godot and Game Development, you can find my German-language online courses here: https://visualisierungs-akademie.ch/
I offer also English-language courses through the pixeltrain Academy: https://www.pixeltrain.net/pixeltrains-academy/
I look forward to seeing you there!
Helge
The new release of Material Maker 1.5 has been released and is available for download:
👉 https://rodzilla.itch.io/material-maker/devlog/1312764/material-maker-15
Anyone looking for a free open-source solution for procedurally creating materials, textures, sprite sheets, etc. should definitely check out Material Maker.
More info like that on my Patreon:
👉 https://kurzlinks.de/3p4w
Have fun!
Helge
Hi folks,
Today is my first work day in the new year, so it’s time to write my traditional years review on my (free) Patreon:
I wish you all a healthy, successful and creative year 2026.
The world needs more real (indie) artists and art than ever.
Ci vediamo, Helge Maus
P.S. For my upcoming Blender and Godot trainings, please look at pixeltrain Academy | Blender for Production | Godot Game Development for Indies
Good news for all you digital painters: Krita 5.2.14 has been released.
Krita is for me the best digital painting application on the desktop and it’s free and open-source! I use if for making game assets, drafts and also animated characters for games.
This version is (almost) entirely a bug fix release and concludes the Krita 5.2 series.
The focus now shifts towards Krita versions 5.3 and 6.0 in the next year 🙂
As mentioned, this version primarily focuses on bug fixes, but the color picker has also been improved. Nice!
More information can be found here:
https://krita.org/en/posts/2025/krita-5.2.14-released/
Have fun!
Helge
P.S. You can also read me Post on my (free) Patreon:
https://www.patreon.com/posts/krita-5-2-14-145607603?utm_medium=clipboard_copy&utm_source=copyLink&utm_campaign=postshare_creator&utm_content=join_link
The year is slowly coming to an end, and with it, our Blender training calendar for this year.
My last Blender Modeling course (2 days) in collaboration with Visualisierungs-Akademie Schweiz will take place online on December 18th and 19th. This is a german course.
Here’s the link to the course:
👉 https://visualisierungs-akademie.ch/de/kurs/blender-modelingkurs/ff1b0321-e948-41c1-bca6-1c23651e75ea
If you’d like to learn Blender or Godot online in English, check out the pixeltrain Academy website:
👉 https://www.pixeltrain.net/pixeltrains-academy/
Have a amazing weekend! 🙂
Helge
