Devlog #4 — I Scrapped Everything and Went 3D
And honestly? Best decision I've made so far.
In Devlog #3, VICI: Ashfall was a fully playable 2D RTS — two factions, bases, units, combat, production queues. By every metric I should have kept building on it. Instead I deleted it all and rebuilt from scratch in 3D. Here's why I made that call — and why I'd make it again.
The moment I knew
I was looking at my 2D sprites — the tanks, the buildings, the terrain — and something felt off. Not broken, just... flat. Literally flat. I kept thinking about Command & Conquer, the game that inspired all of this, and how even the old C&C games had that sense of depth and weight to them.
I started asking myself: if I ship this in 2D, will I be proud of it? Will players feel like they're commanding an army, or will it feel like pushing cardboard cutouts around a table?
The answer was uncomfortable. So I made the call.
The pipeline that changed everything
As a solo developer with no 3D art background, I needed a way to get assets into the game without spending months learning Blender. I found a tool called Hunyuan3D that converts concept art into 3D models.
The workflow is almost absurdly simple:
Take a screenshot of concept art (I already had all my Luma Labs artwork)
Upload it to Hunyuan3D
Select "Geometry + Texture"
Download a fully textured 3D GLB file
Left: the original concept art generated in Luma Labs. Right: the same building as a fully textured 3D model in Godot, generated by Hunyuan3D from that exact image. The whole process took about 2 minutes.
What used to take a 3D artist days now takes me about 2 minutes per asset. The quality isn't AAA, but for an indie RTS viewed from an isometric camera? It's more than good enough.
In one evening I generated 30+ assets — tanks, infantry, buildings, environment props — for both factions. The entire asset library for VICI: Ashfall, built in a single session.
One thing worth mentioning — I checked Hunyuan3D's terms before committing to this way of working. Commercial use of generated assets is permitted, though I'll verify this again before the Steam launch. If you're considering a similar workflow, do your own research on the current terms as these things can change.
I know AI tools are a sensitive topic in the gamedev community. I wanted to be upfront about what I use. As a solo developer working evenings after a full time job, these tools are what make this project possible.
Building the map
This week I built Map 5 — the contested border map where the two factions first clash.
The design concept: left side is the Remnants' territory — grey ash wasteland, cracked earth, toxic pools. Right side is Architects' territory — struggling grassland, the last patches of green on a dying planet. A river runs between them, the contested resource both sides are fighting over.
I used a plugin called Terrain3D for Godot to sculpt the actual terrain. I'll be honest — I had no idea what I was doing at first. The 3D viewport navigation alone took me 20 minutes to figure out.
I sculpted the river channel by hand, added a water plane with a blue material, downloaded seamless ground textures from ambientcg.com, and painted the two biomes. The whole thing took one session.
When I ran the game and saw it on screen for the first time — grey wasteland on the left, dry grass on the right, blue river cutting between them — I genuinely couldn't believe I'd made it. It looked like a real RTS map.
Where it's going
The map is just the foundation. Next up:
Buildings — placing the Command Centers, Barracks, and Vehicle Bays on the terrain
Environment props — burned trees, craters, and ruins on the wasteland side; sandbags and supply crates on the Architects side
Atmosphere — overcast sky, volumetric fog, the grey Ashfall aesthetic
Water shader — replacing the flat blue plane with animated rippling water
And beyond that, all the gameplay systems need to be rebuilt for 3D — resource collection, unit production, combat. There's a long road ahead.
But for the first time, I can actually see the game. Not just imagine it — see it. The terrain is there. The river is there. The two factions' territories are there.
VICI: Ashfall is starting to look like the game I had in my head when I started this.
Building an RTS from scratch — one session at a time.
Follow the journey on Twitter/X: @VICI_Ashfall Bluesky: @vici-ashfall Blog: vici-ashfall.hashnode.dev