Happy Holidays

Our online store h0liday sales event was a tremendous success! A couple of people even purchased one of every asset available for their game engine. A special thanks to everyone who participated, we are glad we could help you flesh out your game world.

My son has been home with the flu and I have been busy as heck, so I haven't got as many projects completed as I wanted to. I still want to get out a Holiday thank you gift to our store customers, finish up the Dungeon Dressings kit and get that into the store, and get back to a couple of other projects I have been working on.

Happy Holidays to all!

It's been a busy November. I seem to be working on many projects and not finishing as much as I would like.

Some new stuff... The above top image is a sample of some content from my Dungeon Dressings content pack. The Dungeon Dressings Pack will feature an assortment of various 3d dungeon props and is designed for us with my Labyrinth Level Construction Kit. So far I have created some rugs, a long table with plain wood, or a red or blue table cloth, the sarcophagus featured here, an altar, and some lighting accessories (torches and such).

The above lower image is a screen shot of the GUI I made for Lucus's ipod game. I spoke with Lucus last week, and he indicated he would like to try and finish the game during his winter break. There is a working alpha, but it does not feature my art work.

Remember, you can get a larger view of blog images if you like, by clicking on them.

I have also been lighting and converting some of my TGE buildings to Realm Crafter and making them available in our online store (www.golemgraphics.net/shop). I am looking into another game engine called Reality Factory. It is possible that my Realm Crafter content may work for that as well, but I have yet to test that theory.

New Software

Well I was finally able to get Lightwave 3d. Working to get my head around that now. I picked up about 1500+ pages of "how to" to go along with it, so that might take me a bit of time to sift through. If I had my druthers, I would have gotten XSI , but the $3000 price tag made that rather cost-prohibitive.

I did some Alpha testing with the Labyrinth Kit. Some issues that I didn't like with it were that 3/4 of the models are for smaller spaces. The character moves through them fine, it's just a bit claustrophobic. If I fix that, that means some major redesign work. Also, I built a fudge factor into the doorways so they did not have to be lined up perfectly. Unfortunately, after stringing a few models together and then hooking them back up, the fudge factor became magnified and the doors no longer aligned properly. Not a show stopper, the model can be scaled in the game engine a bit along one axis to force an alignment. I would just rather that not have to be done. It can make a mess out of your textures if too much scaling is used.

Right now I'm thinking about releasing a "core" kit with the most basic parts needed to create a level for ~$19 U.S.D., and then offering additional parts in $10 bundles. Then I want to move into constructing complete, premade levels using Lightwave that can be used together with each other and the kit.

The fellow programing the ipod game I was doing the graphics for went back to school and put development on that on hold until after the semester.

From The Players Perspective

Here is a quick video of what the Demon Gate looks like to a player inside a game....

Got some weird specular areas, that's the game engine and has nothing to do with my model.

Oh, and the sound is REALLY loud, that's the game recorder, again, there are no setting for sound levels so you will have to adjust for that on your end.

-D

Demon Gate

I have been preparing this model for Halloween! I call it the Demon Gate. I borrowed the head piece from my earlier Temple of Tears effort. It still required a substantial amount of reworking to get a functional interior for it. And it still needs a bit of work, but it's coming along. Ideally I want to have some sort of movie of a player running through assembled portions of the kit for some time around Halloween.

Don't look for this one in TGE though. I could probably export it OK as a DTS format File, but Porting it to DIF ain't happening!

ipoding...

A couple people have been asking me for an update on the Labyrinth Kit, so here it is....

Unfortunately I need to put it on hold for a week or two in order to get some other work done. I have some character work I am doing for a client that is eating up a lot more of my time than expected, and I also am involved in an ipod game collaboration (see concept art screenshot). It is still in VERY early alpha. Right now it's looking like kind of a pin ball game with the twist that you will use physics to direct your ball/game piece to score points instead of the traditional paddles. This is to be accomplished by the player placing "bumpers" on the playing field which repel the game piece. The computer randomly places black holes and suns that attract or suck in the game piece if it gets too close. The speed of the piece and objects available for placement increases in scale to the points scored.

I'll be diving back into the Labyrinth kit as soon as I can wrap up these two smaller projects.

Thanks for the interest!

Right now I am in the process of relighting about 50 models and adding textures sets 2 & 3.

The lighting is fairly labor intensive. With the old kind of crappy lighting, I could slap in a light or three, render, and in a matter of minutes be done with it. The new better lighting takes a lot of fussing and trial and error. The benefits being that it looks better and takes up less disk space, using just 1 light map texture file as opposed to the often numerous light map files the old light mapper would create. (80+ for a large detailed model).

I have had to go back to removing the light sources (IE Lamps and braisers) due to a glitch where I could not get them to light properly. Having a dark flame looks more unnatural than having no flame at all, so they got yanked. I will still include the light source models with the kit though. If folks wish to use them, they can place them near light blooms and maybe even add in a nice particle effect to make it look really good.

Lighting Redux

Some friends referred me to a new lighting application, which is a bit buggy and temperamental. But after hammering at it for a few days, I finally managed to get some improved lighting into my model. (click to zoom)




It's still not exactly what I wanted. To get the deep shadows I had to disable certain rendering options. This created other issues like muted colors and my candle flame turned black at some angles. I'm working on that.

This version also represents a major design change - I'm now including light sources. Originally I tried to keep the light sources ambiguous, with the intention of providing the maximum amount of flexibility to the developer. But the lighting tends to look surreal with out an identifiable source. So, I caved on the issue and created a series of lamps that I will use throughout the Labyrinth Construction Set as light sources.

Progress Shots

I have a few more shots of buildings for the Labyrinth Construction Set.

The dome gave me quite a bit of trouble. It won't light map properly, and crashed the exporter when I tried to port it to DIF for Torque. So it's one model that won't be making it's way into the TGE version.

Room II

I've completed the second of the hub/special/accent rooms for the Labyrinth Level Construction Set, shown here in all it's glitchy light mapped glory! (click image to zoom).

This room is ~8k polys with 80+ light maps (It's OK, they are small and can be ripped if you don't like them). This is why there will only be a few of these rooms included with the set. Most of the sets other components run in the 100 to 200 poly range. Faulty light mapping is responsible for the hard shadow areas at certain points where the brush cubes join. If you can get past those though, I think it's a nice scene.

This is a bare room, the developer can decorate it with additional items included in the set.

This particular room features 10 access points, any of which can be blocked off or made to lead somewhere else. Passage ways run under the mezzanine on each side of the room.

Onto Room III!

Starting now on some of the larger "plaza" or hub rooms of the Labyrinth Level Construction Set now. (click image for zoom). The export attempts to the Torque Game Engine failed. It seems TGE can't handle some of the brushes. This is not uncommon for large or complex MAP format models being ported to TGE, it usually chokes on something. Normally at this point I would delete all the offending brushes and reconstruct them, but Instead I've decided to back burner the TGE release and focus on the RC and Collada versions.

This screenshot was taken inside the renderer and uses light maps. The Realm Crafter version should look similar in game, the TGE version will be much brighter due to the way TGE renders lighting.

Below is a renderer shot of what some pieces of the set looks like exploded. To create a unique continuous level, the developer would push all these components together. Open doorways can be blocked off with wall pieces or rooms with no exit. Separate doorway components can be used to link 2 components without a door unit and still give a little room for error so that the two components don't have to exactly match up. Keep in mind that this set was not intended to be viewed from the outside.

Labyrinth in TGE 1.5.2

The TGE tests were a little bit disappointing. While at least the engine didn't crash on relight (as it has in the past with other models exported with lights), TGE exaggerated the lights providing too much bloom and making the wall textures go flat. It outright ignored anything that was not a point light. The latter I'll blame on the exporter and not Torque.

Here is a shot taken at the models true scale...


You will probably need to Zoom (click on pic) to see the Torque Orc clearly. These should probably be scaled down by half. If I get motivated enough, I MAY try passing them through Constructor and doing the lighting and scale there.

I find it ironic that Realm Crafter can display the models properly but TGE does not.

Also in this shot you can see the new door construction. I didn't like the way the old door geometry "cluttered" at the joins, so I created a separate door piece that can be placed between components to connect them. To speed up the placing process, I pre-set them into all the doorways on connector components such as the room depicted above.

Labyrinth With Basic Lighting

Here are some shots of Labyrinth components from inside of Realm Crafter Standard.

One thing that is noticeable to me are some lighting artifacts where breaks in the mesh occur (over the doors for example). Not much I can so about that as the models were created using a "brush" application that builds the model in sections, and that's just the way it renders. Personally, I feel the look of the lighting and shadows is well worth it.

I'm interested in how people feel that might use a graphic set like this in their games, could you live with the lighting artifacts?

Also, how do you feel about the current level of texture repetition, and is there too much clutter around the doors?

-D

The Labrynith Level Contruction Set

It's been an unusual week. My WIP post in one game engine forum regarding my upcoming dungeon kit was met with a mix of both anticipation and troll flame. I think the trolls successfully trashed the thread for everyone. A forum moderator even insisted that I was posting work by another artist. Which is just straight crap! Just looking at the screen shots you can tell it is plainly not the same textures or models. I contacted the "other" artist and discovered that he also created a Dungeon Kit about 4 years ago. While explaining to him the inspiration for my work, it's features, and how it was unique, I realized that maybe my project was perhaps poorly named.

What I am creating is really a game developer kit containing the graphic assets for one or more sprawling labyrinth(s) of rooms, passages, and stairs - Some of which may be used used as a traditional "dungeon", but it is really more expansive than a medieval type of prison. Of course the developer using the set could create a level with very few rooms to make a classic dungeon, but they could also create something on the scale of Tolkien's Mines of Moria, which became known as a "dungeon" in the D&D sense.

Some of the design features I've worked into the set are a door coupling system to allow some forgiveness when positioning the rooms. It gives a little more margin for error. The components of the set are grid based, normal components are 1-4 squares in length and or width and 1 or 2 squares high.

The kit is being produced to allow export to MAP format, which means curves are not an easy thing. So geometry wise, it's not very organic and may look a bit dated. I also don't currently have the means to attach normal maps to my exports in non obj format. So what I had to do was bake the texture in ZBrush, and then tack that 2d baked texture onto the models. I think it came out looking pretty good considering, but it doesn't have the nice shader 3d effect of true normals. On the positive side, you can use them in engines without advance shader support.

I've done a lot of work on the project this week, adding a more finalized texture set and about 20 more components.

Click the pic to zoom in!

Dungeons For Realm Crafter Standard

It took a bit of work, but I managed to work out a pipeline that gets my buildings file format properly into Realm Crafter Standard. So, I am planning to include a release of my modular dungeon kit this fall in the Realm Crafter format as well as for TGE.

This screen capture shows a curved hallway section of the kit that I used for testing. You can zoom in by double clicking the pic.

More For The Store

I was intending not to create any more TGE specific art, instead planning a software upgrade that would allow proper normal maps to be assigned to 3d models so that they could be used in more current game engines like TGEA, T3d, Unity 3d, ShiVa, etc... But upgrading the software needed to create that level of work has been slow going as it is a bit expensive.

In the mean time, I've fallen back to creating some MAP/DIF work for ye old die hards using TGE. Running with my recent dungeon efforts, I have started a fully modular dungeon system that will allow the developer to manually connect a series of pre-made halls and rooms to create completely custom dungeon-crawl style level(s).

So far I am up to 44 parts in 2 texture schemes. Most are various sized rooms and halls with 1-4 doorways, but I'm also creating smaller "parts" like plain floors or walls so that the developer can build a totally unique type of room or hall to best fit their needs.

Unlike previous TGE interior releases we have made, this one will come with optional animated doors, and DTS dungeon props.

I also intend to include 3 complete dungeon levels so that developers can quickly drop a pre-made level into their game.

I expect to make this available in our online store at www.golemgraphics.ca some time in the fall.

Dungeon Dwelling

I'm a little busy this week, but I managed to create an extensive dungeon interior with a couple of levels and a secret passage. Although the geometry is pretty much complete, it needs to be tightened up to eliminate any possible light leaks. Textures also need to be generated and UV mapped to surfaces. So it there is a bit of work yet remaining on it.

I'm not sure if we will release it as a MAP/DIF interior for TGE or make another effort for a Collada conversion. I'll see how the process goes.

I'm not releasing the modular apartment at this time due to lack luster response in the forums.

(Click Image to zoom).

The Old Apartment

This is my latest creation for our online store. It is a modular apartment building. Each floor is individually placed allowing the developer to create buildings with as many floors as they like, or even create unique profiles by positioning the floors laterally as well.

It is still a work in progress. I have yet to create the doors and windows. I intend to attempt to poratlize it so that larger structures can be assembled without an excessive drain on the CPU/frame rate of the game engine. I also want to light it. These lat two depend on how well it imports into Constructor, as Lights and portals don't export well into TGE directly from Deled Pro.

I also plan on including several placeables with the Module such as chairs, tables, beds, barbeque's, etc.

I'm also planing a post apocalypse version done in the style of Fallout 3, but that probably won't be ready for a few weeks yet.

What's New

The irony being that this will be old by the next time I look at it xD

Got a couple of small contracts going on. Still working intensively with ZBrush. I have discovered that non-primitive models constructed in Milkshape and ported to ZBrush will not work in ZBrush (Thus my Dark Temple model will have to be recreated from scratch).

Many software applications only show one side of a shape (which should be facing outwards). The backface, or inside of the shape is not rendered/processed/shown to require less CPU power to process. This is know as backface culling. During creation of a model in Milkshape, I often create my own custom shapes by manually connecting 3 points (vertexes) to form a solid face/polygon. The final model is composed of points and faces. When creating something like a leaf, it is easiest for me to create one side, copy it, offset it slightly downward, and weld the the points together along the edge to create a 3 dimensional shape. Since the underside is a copy of the topside, it's shown face will now be to the inside of the leaf. Easy enough to fix, I simple flip the facing of the polygons. ZBrush doesn't recognize the faces or sides of the model that I manually flip. So the model ends up with a lot of invisible surfaces and is pretty much unusable. I think I may end up recreating the entire Dark Temple model solely within ZBrush and then try and decimate an exported version to a game-usable low poly model via Milkshape.

Other things I am working on currently are a modular apartment building for use with Torque Game Engine. I have the basic geometry done. I still need to work out how the modules will fit together and where the stairs will go, and it needs to be textured. I'll be putting that in our store once it is complete and tested.

I have a couple of irons in the fire right now, but am still turning out new content for our online store.

We had some requests for science fiction content, so to address that, I started off with a simple outpost tower. This is an 851 poly MAP/DIF intended for TGE (If someone really needs it in DTS, that could be arranged). It has 2 ground floor entrances, 2nd floor and roof access, ramped stairs that ensure your character models will be able to get up them! As always, our content is indie-priced!

The Dark Temple and Collada Experiments

My vision for a Dark Temple model (originally titled the Temple of Tears, but apparently that is a Burning Man reference, so I changed it), proved a little too challenging to create in MAP format. Well, I could have created something, and it would probably have been cool, but no where near as cool as I can make it using ZBrush. The above pic shows the redux in progress.

I'm still roughing out the layout. There are certain technical challenges in modeling both inside AND outside. The player accessible areas must also all lay above the game terrain level, which means some heavy skirting will be required here.

The basic layout of the model involves a demonic skull-like head that acts as the main entrance. from there, players can access the main chamber and a kind of dungeon chamber below that containing 6 cells. I have yet to create the tail, which will be player accessible and wrap around the model like a wall.

I expect to be another week roughing out the layout, then it should take a good week or two after that to detail it, texture, and test.

The completed model will most likely be made available in Collada format in our online store.

Which leads me to talk about my efforts to export models to Collada. Total fail!

I attempted to export to Collada from Deled, Milkshape, and UU3d. Each resulted in missing textures and mesh portions when loaded into the Torque Collada Test program.

I'll be trying the Collada models this week in some other game engines to see if this is an exporter issue or Torque specific.

New Stuff

I finished up the Merchant Shop I was working on (as seen above). That is currently available for 3rd party license to game developers via our online store at www.golemgraphics.net. I think it would make a fine addition to any medieval style setting.

I'm getting a bit bored with the same-ole-same-ole so I decided to switch genre and do something a little fantastic...

The Temple of Tears.

The idea is to create a 3d interior structure that creeps people out. And that's not as easy as it might seem. I spent a whole day online just taking a look at pictures and art that people have posted as "terror" or "horror" "[insert scary terminology here]". I was looking for imagery that struck a chord emotionally with me, something I might find disturbing beyond scantily clad emo or goth models with wrists bound sporting a razor blade... Well... That's scary in it's own right, but not what I was looking for. Slice-n-dice, while it might turn the stomach - doesn't quite hit the nail on the head either.

At any rate, after a long day, I began to piece together some concept art that I hope will inspire some "creep" and or "chill". The concept is a dark temple of sorts with 3 levels and lots of corridors and rooms for players to explore. The facade will be that of a demonic skull. I'm going to TRY and get a bit artsy and make the 4 towers surrounding it blend with the center structure until you approach them at a certain angle, at which point they will appear to fall away. The structure will be generated in MAP/DIF format, so I am limited in my use of angles without kicking the poly count way up. We'll see what happens.

Anyways, below is a screenshot of the concept art and 3d in progress. The textures are VERY temporary, just enough so that the mesh doesn't all blend together while I work. I intend to do some organic, low saturation custom textures for this piece.

February Blues

Admittedly, the year to date has been sluggish at best. We had quite a scare when a rather invasive search bot (possibly Garage Games related) probed our online store and set off a rash of false sales info that caused me to take the site down overnight while our programmer figured out what was going on. We have since then tidied that up so it won't re-occur and instituted some additional security and reporting protocols.

I'm continuing to add content to the store. This weeks featured content is a Pub and Inn interior 3d model for the Torque Game Engine. I'm quite pleased with the detail and the way it came out. It is just under 1000 polygons - Not bad for a 2 story building with beamed ceilings, shelves, a hearth, and wall keg! I'm torn between creating a couple of 3d shops next, or converting some of our existing content to generic formats like .collada, .OGRE, and .map so that they will be available to more people.

Golem Graphics Online Store Goes LIVE

Our online store for 3d graphics game content is finally LIVE!!!! you can access the store HERE.

With our store going live last night (Valentines Day), I sat back and reviewed what a trek it was to get going.

When Treboc and I decided to create 3d content packs and license them for use by game developers, we never dreamed it would take almost a year to manifest that concept. On the surface, it seemed like a very simple thing, we are both 3d artists, we create some content, find a vendor and sell it.

As with many things the concept is a lot easier than the reality. The packs took a lot longer to create than we anticipated, there was fine tuning that needed to be done, conversions to different formats/game engines took longer than we thought. Negotiations with various vendors did not pan out to our liking. We tried a few online shopping carts but never quite got a commercial cart working 100% before turning to a friend programmer for assistance. Even getting the SSL certificate took weeks as it was a back and forth process between the certificate issuer and the web host admin.

Once in place the store had some bugs, those took weeks to iron out and get everything running smooth. The final days before getting the store online, I reviewed and revised over 850 files, organized them, wrote docs for them, and got them to where they needed to be.

Now it's time to sit back, hold our breath and hope our efforts were not in vein!

Ye Old Farm House

As mentioned in my last entry, I have created a small farm house which I intend to make available for Torque in our online store as soon as it becomes operational. Our coder says that will be some time tomorrow, but it may take me another day or two to get the web site revised and all the content entered properly and make the conversions to the appropriate formats.

The smithy and farm house are only available for use with the Torque Game Engine at the moment. I need to make them seamless in order for them to work properly with Realm Crafter. I have experienced problems moving the player avatar across non-seamless 3d objects in RC. The RC engine appears to treat the seem as a collision mesh or appears to be having an issue with the collision mesh or bounds of the player avatar extending slightly into the mesh below the walk plane which is causing it to get hung up.

At any rate, it will take some time to convert these models for non-MAP/DIF format use, but it is planned.

The Bedlam Heath Smithy

As always, you can click the image for a larger view. This is the Bedlam Heath Smithy. First in a line of interiors designed for the Torque Game Engine that I will be including in our online store.

The structure is currently in MAP/DIF format. It contains 2 floors and a ramped stairway to prevent avatars from becoming stuck on the stairs. The structure has been scaled so that the bottom of the windows are at the level of the Torque Orc's waist.

The original had lights, but the export software for the application I use to create the interiors does not place them correctly and I had to remove them.

Next, I have planned a small farm house, and then a shop row featuring a pub with merchant shops on either side. The idea is to continue to add quality interior content until an entire village scene can be created from Bedlam Heath interiors 3d content.

New Stuff

Once the store is up and running properly, one of the new products featured will be the Loot and Drops Starter Pack for those wishing to use a 3d object driven loot and drop system. This assortment of 26 3d meshes can be used to provide iconic representations of loot scored from defeated enemies or as placeables to help decorate your world.

As with all our packs, this low poly pack has source models and UVs included, 2d inventory icons, and extensive documentation regarding the specifics of the pack contents including thumbnails of each item so you can easily scan the pack and find what you need.

Creation of this pack was inspired by a number of indie developers requesting these types of assets.

Trudging on

Our online store is in place! We are having some errors processing transactions we still need to fix. Ben (who is generously doing the coding), has taken the week off to celebrate the Chinese new year. This is appropriate because he currently resides in China! He has informed me that he will get everything up and running once he returns this weekend. So, for those of you who have patiently been waiting on our store. It will be another week :/

And to all... Happy Chinese New Year! For those participating, Enjoy the spring festival!

The Online Store Debacle

Treboc and I have produced some nice game content intended for licensing to indie game developers, and have received a number of emails requesting the content either through direct sales or from persons interested in placing our content in their own on-line stores.

Let's just say that for one reason or another, it hasn't panned out.

So some weeks ago, we decided to do our own online store.

This has been a bit of an adventure.

I spent a good couple of weeks just going back and forth between parties on getting the SSL certificate set up. Many thanks to Tom at Propacket, who hosts our site. As usual, he went above and beyond the call of duty, and eventually we got that in place.

Although a friend warned me of troubles with Zen Cart, it seemed full featured and the web site babbled on about how easy it is to set up. So I gave it a try and indeed, it WAS fairly easy install. Getting it configured and working is another matter. For one thing, it is TOO full featured! All the guys I know that set up online stores don't want to mess with it. If you enjoy PHP coding, I suppose you would be right at home with Zen Cart. I don't code, so I decided to scrap that plan and move on.

I tried a couple of other free store apps. None that I was thrilled with.

My friend Ben came to the rescue with some software that he had written a while back that he feels would do what we need. So he has set that up, and it is now in place. Once again, it just needs to be configured and it will be good to go.

I've been saying "our store should be live soon", for a few weeks now. I just wanted to explain that each time the store was in place, but we were unable to get it working. Since Ben wrote the app we are using now and it is proven, I'm confident that we should be good to go this time!

Loot-n-Drops

A short while back a friend expressed a need for 3d objects to use as loot for the game he is developing. This inspired me to create a 3d loot-n-drops content pack for game developers. The first 3d object completed from that is pictured above. I'll be working over the next week or two to complete the pack which I plan to feature 3 different treasure chests. 3 pouches of coins, various jewelry, potion and beverage bottles, a couple of food items, and some generic sacks.

The Loot-n-drops pack will be available via our online store at www.golemgraphics.ca

Note that the store is under construction. My friend Ben is helping us out with that, and tells me it should be up and running in a couple of days.

I'll keep you posted.