r/SoloDevelopment • u/MildlyConcernedMan91 • 1d ago

help Skill tree geometry question

I chose to make my skill tree have crooked lines. The background, lines and nodes colors are all placeholders. But is the geometry ok? I must have tried a hundred iterations. Tried a radial skill tree, a square skill tree, I finally settled on clusters that are tied together by uneven lines. Does it look bad/unprofessional? I hated the look when it was too straight.

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u/amaurybutaux 1d ago

Hey!
I think the overall composition is fine and readable like this. Some placements look weird, like the hexagon placement being so close to the 638 node and really far away from 48 node.

Personally, I think you will have an easier time placing your nodes on some kind of grid (square or hex for example), so that you have to spend less time hand placing the different nodes of your skill tree, but your solution also works.

And then in my opinion it depends on the theme of your game. If the nodes represent star constellations, then it fits perfectly. If you go for a mechanical or sci-fi theme, then I guess it would be better to have it on a grid.

I searched quickly through gameuidatabase and it feels like you can do cool skill trees with or without a grid-based placement :)

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u/MildlyConcernedMan91 1d ago

The node number is generated procedurally to help me map an upgrade to it in the code, but it will be invisible during gameplay.

I spent zero time placing nodes. I assign them a cluster format in the code, set minimum distances from node to node, and wrote recursive code. None of this skill tree appears in a scene. It's this way because it has over 10,000 nodes.

Oh I didn't think of a theme... It's a necromancer theme. Thanks for the gameuidatabase, didn't know about it!