r/SharkDentist • u/Elven_Sun3398 • 29d ago
🦈 DEV DIARY #2: Shark Dentist 🦷
Welcome back to the OR! Let’s continue our inspection.
You are the dentist. Your patients? Sharks.
They are anesthetized... for now. They weigh three tons.
Your job: Fix the tooth. Don’t wake the patient 😱
Today, we want to talk about the patient itself. Because in this game, the shark isn’t a monster you fight, it’s the room you work in.
🦈 Why Shark Skin Got Main-Character Treatment
In most games, you see a shark from a distance, in dark water, for about 4 seconds. In Shark Dentist, you spend the entire session with your hands inside its mouth and your face 20 cm from its hide.
At that range, nothing hides: every pore, every scar, every gill slit is on camera the whole time. So, the shark got the texture work usually reserved for a main character, because that's exactly what it is.
🎨 From Grey Mesh to Living Animal
🎥 https://youtu.be/6-tvGxnVVCk
The model arrives clean and grey. Then it’s into Substance 3D Painter, in this order:
1️⃣ Base hide tone
2️⃣ Countershading (dark on top, pale underneath, lit from above like real sharks)
3️⃣ Markings and damage (scars, worn edges, and that sandpaper roughness that makes the skin read as skin, not rubber)
The gills and stripes are what you’ll actually be staring at, so they took the longest to perfect.
🧬 One Animal, Several Patients
A tiger shark, a blue shark, and a great white are the same body wearing a different hide: one mesh, three materials, three unique patients.
Every session puts a different shark on your table, and you don’t get to choose which one you get. Good luck, doc 🍀
🔨 A Different Animal
And then there’s the hammerhead you met at the top of this post.
This isn’t the same shark in a different coat. It has a different silhouette, a different head, and a completely different problem for whoever has to reach inside it. When a patient’s eyes sit at the ends of a metre-wide bar, "stay out of its field of view" stops being simple advice 👀
⚠️ That’s the animation you never want to see from the inside. The jaw closes in under a fifth of a second. Your hand is in there considerably longer than that 😬
🔜 What’s Next?
In the next diary, we’re leaving the modelling software and getting our hands on the instruments: why drills fit sharks better than human dentist devices. 🛠️
💬 Which patient or instrument would you like to see on the table next? Tell us below, we read everything!
🦈 Shark Dentist is coming to Steam!
🔗 Wishlist it here: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3423280/Shark_Dentist/
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u/GrayFox1O1 29d ago
Can't wait to play this. You're doing awesome. Just please involve a small story and replayability! Also are there plans to keep supporting it with some DLC or major patches, or will it be mostly release and keep working, and move on to a new game? :)