Hi everyone,
I’m a Technical Artist and a part-time indie game developer, and recently I’ve been working on a small side project called LessNode.
The original motivation came from a workflow problem I often run into when thinking through technical problems, design ideas, or pipeline concepts. Thoughts tend to move quickly, but many tools make it hard to structure them without interrupting the flow.
So I started building a mind mapping tool designed to keep up with the speed of thinking.
The idea is to allow quickly expanding ideas into nodes while mixing different types of information in the same space.
Some features I’m experimenting with:
• fast idea expansion into nodes
• combining text, references and notes in one structure
• image comparison (including channel switching for textures)
• flexible layout so ideas can evolve naturally
Since I’m working as a TA, a lot of the design comes from how I personally organize technical ideas, shader experiments, and production notes during development.
I know many artists use PureRef for reference boards (which is great for images). My goal here is slightly different — combining references with structured thinking.
If anyone is curious to try it, it’s currently pay-what-you-want on https://lessnode.itch.io/lessnode
I’d love to hear how other TAs here organize ideas or technical notes during development.