Indie Graphics

MAGE GATE

2011-04-14T04:44:00.003-04:00

Announcing MAGE GATE! I have decided to give another go at making my own RPG. The main reason for aborted past attempts has been the lack of programmer support. Since then I have teamed up with Ryan Dean who has agreed to help out with programming and Patrick Griffiths who will lend a hand with animations. (I can do the animation part myself, it's just one LESS thing that I will have to do myself)!

The game will be created using the venerable Realm Crafter Standard engine. Although it is pretty out-dated as is, Ryan has been creating a Community Edition with many features that will serve to bring the engine closer to 2011 such as normal mapping. Many of his planned feature expansions are things that I would require in my game so this is a turn key sort of venture.

I have a license for Garage Games T3d, and I also have some experience with Unity 3d and ShiVa -All superior to Realm Crafter. RCS however, has many RPG features all ready built in and is by far the most user friendly of the afore mentioned. My biggest complaint with it in the past was that development had stopped on it some time ago and it was left broken and incomplete. Ryan has already made huge progress towards fixing and finishing it.

The above shot is an in-game screen shot of the starter zone. While Ryan has already implemented Normal mapping, this shot does not use any normals. It was taken a day or two before Ryan released the update enabling those. For those not familiar with normal maps, they are a way of creating what appears to be 3d detail without geometry, using only texture. This allows real time rendering of detail that normally, would not be possible.

The premise of the game itself is fairly simple, all player characters are a mage of some kind. Spells are the law of the land. This is a fantasy noire genre and not for 13 and under. There will be NO elves, dwarves, halflings, orcs, goblins, or trolls! Although dragons might make an appearance.

Mage classes will be interesting and a little on the dark side. Blood mages who slice themselves to hurl flaming blood at an opponent for an example. Golemancers forging inhuman servants from rock and metal. Contract mages who bind demons to their will for power, to mention but a few of the planned character classes.

Underlaying all will be a detailed custom crafting and custom spell creation system. The best items in the game be they weapons, armor, or even spells will be player created. Players will have to brave dangerous areas and defeat mighty foes to acquire resources needed to make items of power! All in preparation for fighting their way through the MAGE GATE and doing battle with whatever dark and sinister forces lay in wait on the other side!

Justhost.com a Comedy of Errors

2011-04-07T14:32:00.003-04:00

Well my switch to JustHost.com as a new hosting solution has turned to a comedy of errors. Only to me it's not so funny.

They dropped the ball on switching over my name server, support has answered a question I didn't ask on at least 2 occasions, there have been a number of Errors with the site. One Ajax error prevented me from accessing my account. Two sequential errors that occurred when I attempted to place an online order for a dedicated IP lead me to conclude the order had not been placed. This was later confirmed by a customer service representative, and 3-4 days after the fact, they decided to attempt to manually charge my account without telling me that they were going ahead and placing the order. Then they sent me an invoice demanding payment within 7 days under the threat of service suspension, even though no dedicated IP was ever set up!

They offer extremely low monthly hosting rates, but then charge outrageous fees for services other hosts I have had have offered for free.

The Indian customer service representative was almost understandable, But I could understand about 1 out of 5 words that the oriental (Chinese?) Support rep spoke. How can a support representative assist you if you can't understand what the heck they are saying? What's the point of even having support at that point? It's like a Saturday Night Live Routine, only instead of Samurai Deli it's Samurai Customer Support - Where the customer calls in and the only English phrase the rep knows is "no Coke! Pepsi!"

Me: "Hi, I'm getting an Ajax error when I go to access my account"

Samurai CS Rep: "No Coke! Pepsi!"

And they are still trying to bill me for setting up a dedicated IP on a hosting account I cancelled!!! I would think providing a dedicated IP for a non existent service would prove a bit challenging! But no, the fine people at Just Host want my $19! And they are making it happen!

So this has been a complete disaster. I'm waiting to see what bungling antics they come up with next, because I am sure they aren't done yet.

At any rate... In all my years of having one web site or another hosted, JustHost.com has been the absolute worse!!! If someone is considering them and reads this, it is my hope that you take heed and spare yourself the headache!

SPAM SPAM SPAM SPAM!!!!

2011-03-26T22:39:00.002-04:00

The upcoming virtual currency site virtapay, is sponsoring a cash promotion right now. If you click this link http://www.virtapay.com/r/indiecreative and sign up, I get $10 added to my account and you get $25 added to your account. The money can be used for downloadable purchases such as game assets and more.

The guys the referred me claim to have accrued $400 and $800 respectively, but they have been with the promotion for some time. Anyways, what have you got to lose but 3 minutes for the effort?

Give it a go!

-End Spam-

Spring Projects 2011

2011-03-24T10:13:00.005-04:00

-Click to Enlarge-

Waiting for the domain transfer over to the new host so I can start rebuilding my website there. It shouldn't be too much longer.

Been putting in about 14 hours a day working on Tarl's World, Mage Gate, the upcoming Realm Crafter Standard Community Edition, and my online store assets.

Got some hax in place for RCS (realm Crafter Standard), I managed to create a work around for RCS's lack of alternate font support. That will be going in to the community edition as well as Mage Gate. I'll post a WIP shot showing the new font from Mage Gate above... (it doesn't want to go here without a fight).

What you are looking at here is a test zone with a stock RCS character and moon. As you can see from the text bubble, I managed to get a slightly modified Gemelii font working. it replaces the rather unattractive stock RCS font. I chose the Gemelii font because it has some personality, lends an organic feel to the character speaking, and it is not Comic Sans!

I've been donating an assortment of miscellaneous Mage Gate graphic and audio assets to the Realm Crafter Standard Community Edition being created by Ryan Dean, as I probably wouldn't attempt to produce Mage Gate at all without all the cool improvements that Ryan has been adding to the game engine.

I'm going to try to head outside today and do some audio recording to see if I can't improve some of the default sounds for RCS. Those will most likely get included in the Community Edition Release.

Regarding the RCSCE... I have no idea when Solstar intends to make RCS public or release the source code as promised. An official release of the community edition may hinge on that. The RCSCE developer Ryan, has told me that he is targeting next weekend to start Alpha testing. Yours truly has been selected as part of the limited alpha test team. I'm looking forward to seeing normal mapping in RCS, this is very exciting!

I hope to have indie graphics AKA www.indiegraphics.net back up and in full swing sometime next week. I am contemplating a name change to something more inclusive of game graphics AND audio assets that can currently be found int he indie graphics online asset store. But I don't want to let that cat out of the bag until I have it all set up.

That's news for another week!

Changing Host

2011-03-10T11:24:00.002-05:00

indie graphics ( www.indiegraphics.net ) has up until now been hosted on GoDaddy. I have been wary of their marketing practices in the past because they try to up sell me or just plain sell me services I don't want or need, and they do that in such a way as to make you think they are required. Recently they lost my business permanently when they attempted to auto bill me $50 for a service I originally paid $12 for! I'm sure they have some clever terms of service or legal mumbo-jumbo somewhere that says they can annually auto bill your account for 5 times what a service is worth, but in my book that is basically attempted theft! No two ways about it! And who wants to do business with a company that indulges in those kind of underhanded marketing practices anyway? Not I!

Needless to say that I will be changing hosts, so folks visiting Indie Graphics for 3d game art assets, music, and game content might experience some warnings, errors, or interrupts in service. I apologize for this in advance and will get Indie Graphics back up and running smoothly on a new host as soon as possible!

Indiegraphics EPIC Game Tracks Promo

2011-01-31T19:08:00.000-05:00

The Chronicles of Riddick

2011-01-16T20:31:00.005-05:00

Yes, I'm, going to review it >:]

I rather enjoyed the movie, I found the art direction rather fresh. So when I saw The game on sale in Steam for $5, I figured what have I got to lose!

Well I now have an answer to that question... my 5 bucks! lol

What were Ken Finney's 4 "F"'s of good game design? Feasibility, Feedback, Fun, and Fair! And that's pretty much a list of what the game lacks. :o

I died about 6 times at the very start of the game because it took me a while to figure out you had to go back and talk to an NPC a second time, at which point he opens a secret hatch for you in the floor. Without that your character has 2 possible options, get blowed up in the mine field or charge the mini guns in the wall at either side of the main door. That was neither fun nor fair.

Missions in general are vague, and you have to hunt around for newly opened zones or subtle flashes that indicate a particular object is now interactable. In one instance, you must climb down a ladder to progress. The ladder is not visible unless you are practically on top of it.

Melee combat is OK. Workable blocks and attacks. What I don't like about it is that the actions your character takes seem to be based on timing and response to what your opponent is doing rather than on what you want to do.

Ranged combat is nerfed down to the point where you may as well be trying to kill each other with paint guns. And that is a good thing too because you are often facing several opponents. Unfortunately, your movement becomes impaired for some reason once you start taking hits, so doing a Mass Effect tactic of retreating behind cover usually doesn't work. Instead you stand there like an ass and get shot until you die, doing your best to take everything out before that happens.

So far about the most satisfying aspect of the game that I found is sneaking up behind an opponent and snapping their neck, and that fact in of itself is a little unsettling. Sometimes it is about all there is to do while you try and figure out what you are supposed to do next. "OK... I killed everything, now what"?

I don't care for the approach to the game art either. Normal mapping is relied upon WAY too much and used at such small resolutions that it looks like aluminum foil pressed over pixel blocks. (See below)

This appears to be yet another example of Deep Media crap - A hastily thrown together game using only mechanics that have been thoroughly vetted. It lacks imagination and creativity which runs contrary to the actual movie it is supposed to be supporting.

Oh.. and did I mention the 10 gig of disk space needed?

I want my $5 back!

Content Submitted to Unity

2011-01-03T15:49:00.003-05:00

I decided to upload my 3d Dagger Pack to Unity's new online store today. After all, It should be simple right?

No such luck! I ended up loading each dagger in the pack twice into Light wave to take various required screen shots. I had to compose 4 additional composite images, and all of the above had to have RGB + an alpha layer. I was also having a bit of trouble using OBJ, so I ended up re-exporting the entire pack in FBX.

Once all that was done, I had to manually import each 3d object into Unity, assign textures, and configure it. I didn't like the way one looked, so I had to load that back into ZBrush and create normal maps for it.

Then there was also the time required to learn unity enough to get all this done and figure out how to use their asset tool.

All of which took 8 uninterrupted hours!

I hope it sells well ^ ^

UV's done!

2010-12-20T16:15:00.003-05:00

I finished all the UV's for the new sword pack today!

I had been exporting to OBJ file format from Lightwave, importing that into ZBrush, and then creating the displacement maps and UV's, porting back to Lightwave to complete the textures and then back to ZBrush to hand paint any needy areas. And... Back to Lightwave to apply the bump and specular maps. GAH!

The problem was that Lightwave does not port to ZBrush well. I was losing or getting jumbled polygons, even on simple primitives, and then I would have to go in and manually fix that before I could continue. The one click optimized UV map maker plug in for ZBrush is WAY COOL, BUT.... doesn't always put the seems in good places, even when you try and make it place them where you want them.

This whole process was taking too long, and I was spending a lot of time recreating textures or repositioning models to try and get them to UV map properly. SO.... I got frustrated, threw them all into UU3d, and did a simple 2 sided UV map for them. (OK, maybe I did a bit more than that, but in the end, that's what it will look like). The UV's for swords 4+ will not be optimized, and there is going to be some pixel stretching along the hilt top and bottoms, but I don't think anyone is really going to notice. (Those with textel ratio fetishes probably just shouldn't buy the pack)!

In short, I can now concentrate on just creating color maps and MAY still have this thing done by Christmas! (Or close)!

Who Needs Food?

2010-12-16T13:16:00.002-05:00

I splurged and bought some much needed quality photo reference this month.

Still struggling to get the weapons pack skinned. I keep getting hung up on odd little technical hiccups that if I had more experience with Lightwave , probably would not be a problem. The latest of which being my textures are coming out slightly smaller than the model when I go to bake them. I'm working to figure this one out now.

2010-11-10T13:14:00.002-05:00

Here is a pic I cobbled together that show the basic progression of wire frame to complete model for folks who are not very familiar with the process.

This is a Machete from the new sword pack that I am working on for my online store.

As always, you can click the image to zoom for a better view.

Good Stuff In Progress

2010-11-06T12:26:00.003-04:00

Again, haven't posted in a while, but that doesn't mean I haven't been very busy! Got some great new art in the works including 2 new character models that I plan on adding motion capture to, and I am well into a new sword pack that I hope to have available by the end of the month.

Shown here are the models in progress with JUST the color maps. They have yet to get bump mapped, normal mapped, specular maps, or normal maps. So they are still pretty raw. Next I will be taking them into ZBrush to fix the color mismatches created by the seams and subtle variations in the reference photography. There will be a lot more work required on the female character, but the reference work was free and not the best.

Neither character has eyes yet. I think I may model in the brows separately. The hands and feet have yet to be detailed.

The male shot is from the modeler with no special rendering, the female shot is done with some lights and shadows, but still pretty basic. the black areas on the female model are areas where for whatever reason, the UV map did not get color. I'll fix that in ZBrush.

SWORDS! I have been meaning to make more weapons packs for some time. As you can see here, I have 7 of the 10 planned swords modeled. I still have them in Quads, but they are all very clean and I am estimating between 140 and 300 polys once triangulated for final game use. These will be released with bumps, normals, mount and effect nodes.

Thanks for the read!

Game Character In Progress

2010-09-17T14:18:00.005-04:00

I have been fairly quiet for a while now. That is because I was working on something and then for one reason or another I ended up jumping tracks about 3-4 times. The fantasy Labyrinth Level Kit and Sci-Fi Level Kit are still in the works, just back burnered for a bit.

The main reason is that a certain game developer messaged me asking costs on a custom game character. This usually runs $300 to $1500. (all though I have occasionally made exceptions, it's always been with regret). The problem is that this game developer is 13 years old and can't afford that. So, I agreed to step up production on my game characters for my online game art store at www.indiegraphics.net as I have been meaning to get them done for some time. The model will be substantially cheaper there. I'm leaning towards the $30 to $50 range.

Here's a WIP. The textures are still place-holder quality. (click image to enlarge)...

Haven't decided if I am going to fix the feet yet, I'll have to see what they look like textured, they may not need it. The smoothing group seams will also not be as apparent in the final model. I haven't color matched the individual smoothing groups yet, or fixed mirroring issues with the textures.

The model is currently in the 2500 poly range. It has eyes capable of blinking and moving, a speaking-capable mouth with a rough textured interior that should suffice as long as there are no close ups of prolonged screaming.

I am finally getting the cameras to tie into my optical motion capture software. I'll be testing that out with this model, and if all goes well, it will come with a good sized mo-capped animation library.

Once the base model is complete, I will create add-on/genre packs specifically for the model with additional clothing, hair styles, armor, and weapons, maybe some props and/or equipment. I am planning to make those available for $7 to $10 each.

2010-07-20T12:47:00.003-04:00

An early TEXTURED shot of the sci-fi Level kit, a base hall component. (slick Image to zoom). I have yet to add normal maps and lighting to the object.

Sci-Fi Level Kit

2010-07-18T20:17:00.002-04:00

Devoting several hours a day to the Sci-Fi Level Construction Set. It's coming along nicely!

This is a shot of a generic un-textured bay that could be used as a cargo bay, warehouse section or even a landing bay or small ship hanger bay.

I even created a skybox for it (seen in the distance) should the developer choose to leave the doors open. There will be 1 box for planet side and another for space.

The cargo containers will be included but separate from the main model so that devs can place them as they would like.

Skunk Works

2010-06-27T08:46:00.003-04:00

Some WIP shots of the Sci-Fi Level Construction Kit that I am working on. Currently it is un-textured, these are just shots of the bare meshes cobbled together to give some sense of what a partial level might look like.

I am still waiting on a replacement for the graphics card that fried last month. I am currently making do with a much older card and I am not sure I want to tackle materials and textures for this project using it. Hopefully, I will be able to replace it soon.

Always Something...

2010-05-30T16:56:00.001-04:00

My video card burnt out. Might be a few weeks before I can afford a new one.

Porting Problems

2010-05-14T14:01:00.002-04:00

I'm running into some 'porting issues with Lightwave. I typically use 3-4 different programs to create a final game-ready 3d object. Somethings I still don't know how to do in Lightwave, or it's just a pain to do them in Lightwave, so I export the object and do what needs to be done in another 3d application. I still like to do my UV mapping in UU3d for example.

The problem with exporters and importers is that they tend to lose things that aren't basic to the file format that you are porting too. They also can wreak havoc with your groups and naming schemes.

I had a number of Labyrinth Kit objects nearly finished up, ported them back into Lightwave and although all the properties look correct, they are not rendering correctly.

I also downloaded some new decimation and UV mapping plugins for ZBrush that look pretty awesome, haven't been able to get either of those to work yet.

So it looks like I will be hammering away at some technical issues before progressing on new artwork.

Store Is Live!

2010-04-28T15:28:00.004-04:00

Transition to the new site is now complete, and the new online 3d game content store is again active. Check it out at www.indiegraphics.net

The NEW-NEW-Dagger pack is available in the Generic section. I think I will focus on the Labyrinth Kit remake for my next store item.

New Site Sneak Peak

2010-04-12T18:30:00.007-04:00

I'm in the process of setting up a new site and online store for my game graphics. Possibly a few friends will be joining me on the site and offering their art content as well. I don't have all the pages built yet, but here is a sneak peak of the main page. I'll post a link once everything is completed and the store is online again.

EDIT: The site is now live at www.indiegraphics.net HOWEVER; I have not set up the online store yet. I either need to get the fellow who coded our old online store to tell me how to move it, or go with Rampant Coyote's suggestion to use an online commerce service such as Plimus.

New Site

2010-04-10T13:36:00.003-04:00

I have just set up a new hosting account for Indie Graphics. Waiting for the domain to be set up and the security certificate to be installed. That could take a day or two. Then I can rebuild the site and set up a new online store. Hopefully, my art will be available again by the end of the week!

Art With Character

2010-03-22T16:30:00.002-04:00

This is a WIP shot of a new character I am developing for Tarly's online RPG. The game is to be developed using the new T3d game engine and a working title is currently up in the air. The arrangement I have with Tarly allows me to also sell any art I create for his game, so once finished and animated, this model may end up appearing in a store at some point. I will probably release a generic OBJ and Collada Version, and make one up for RC as well. The model will include a couple of outfits/armor, different face skins, a melee weapon or two. I also want to create a Sci-Fi version of the model.

I am still under agreement with Turbo Squid not to sell online until the end of the month. Once March 31st rolls around, I will begin offering my 3d content for sale again. I'll make some posts once it is available.

Turbo Fail

2010-02-28T13:03:00.003-05:00

Turbos Squid has turned out to be a complete and utter failure. Not a single sale in the past month. I did better in my first month of Golem Graphics. I'll most likely switch to a new sales site this week some time.

I have been doing some world building (pictured here) using Unity 3d. I'm a bit torn over it. there are some things I like, but the extreme tileing really bothers me. It might not be so obvious from a players perspective with world fog, plants, rocks, buildings, etc. I'm on the fence about weather to continue with it as is, or restart from scratch.

My efforts to eliminate the visual patterns resulted in detailess blah. I think the world scale might be fairly large which is requiring dozens of texture tiles in a realatively small space that results in some pretty strong patterns. 3d scale is a very difficult thing to judge with no reference. It tends to be what you make it.

Click the image to zoom. Please keep in mind that it is a work i nprogress, there is not sky box or lighting that would make the scene seem more realistic.

The NEW, NEW Dagger Pack >_>

2010-02-02T15:23:00.003-05:00

After giving it some consideration, getting a 25% royalty/commission/whatever off of a sale once Turbo Squid and Corbett take their cut really wasn't working for me. (SORRY CORBETT)! ^ ^

So, I recreated a dagger pack that is 100% done by me. Finished texturing it today. I need to write up some docs and port it to about 6 different formats in an effort to make it as generic as possible. Then I can put it up for sale.

(click the image to zoom).

New Challenges

2010-01-27T11:02:00.003-05:00

I usually don't like to post about things unless they are up and coming or finished/near finished. Lately I have been working on a number of more in-depth projects and nothing seems to be getting completed.

Lucus was not only unable to finish our ipod game Starcade over his winter break, but decided on a different art direction which means I will end up re-creating a good portion of the game art from scratch.

I scrapped the current version of the Labyrinth Level construction Kit. As-Is Realm Crafter and TGE versions went out to a few developers so the effort is not totally wasted. I will be redesigning that from the ground up and I am going to try and construct it using Lightwave 3d this time.

I will be redesigning the way our Golem Graphics game content packs are made so that each pack contains all the formats for different game engines instead of trying to sell them separately.

I was experimenting this week and finally got one of my buildings to port from Deled Pro nicely to Collada, (had to reassign 150 smoothing groups to do it, but it worked)! although I have not had the opportunity to test it in a game engine yet. Once I can add normal maps and test it, then I will include that format it in our packs and make it available to developers using engines such as unity and ShiVa.

My latest task has been learning to do 3d terrain blocks in Lightwave. (pictured above). The reason for this is that I have seen some screenshots of Lightwave terrain that looks very nice (better than that which can be produced with game engine terrain editors). The thought is that I should be able to hammer out a few really sweet looking terrain zones and offer them to developers as content packs. This should be a big time saver to developers who can then just drop a pre-made terrain into their zone and get straight to creating their town or mission/quest area rather than having to spend time on trying to make the ground look good first.

On my first attempt (pictured) The geometry portion went really well, but the procedural textures failed. I ported the geometry from another application and I believe it failed because the port created multiple layers which probably interfered with the procedural layers I tried to add. I'll be experimenting more with that today.

The above pic weighs in at around 25k polys. The high poly version used for the texture, lighting and shadows is closer to half a mil. The trick is to texture the 500k poly version and then drop that onto the 25k poly version for use in game.

Once again, Golem Graphics will be discontinued in May. The products currently for sale at www.golemgraphics.net will be moved to www.alluvionstudios.com . I already have our dagger pack available there. Golem Graphics will be re-branded as Indie Graphics.

I am deciding whether I want to mirror content on Turbo Squid with a 60% mark up to cover their outrageous commissions.

That's news!

Farwell to Golem Graphics

2010-01-20T10:49:00.003-05:00

My Golem Graphics business partner Corbett, is moving to China in May of 2010. This will prevent us from maintaining our companies registration in Canada (since a physical address is required). So it looks like we may be closing up shop.

I will be re-pricing all content produced by Golem Graphics to $9.95 until we figure out where to move/host it.

Thanks to all our Golem Graphics customers! We appreciate your support!

Best of luck in China Corbett! I hope everything works out for you!

(Note that Indiegraphics will still continue to opperate).

New Store Content

2010-01-05T18:33:00.004-05:00

Here is a screen shot of our latest online store content. A low poly Dagger Pack intended for use with 3d games. I hope to have a version for the Realm Crafter Standard game engine and possibly a generic/Collada version in the store on Wednesday. I still need to create collision meshes, LoDs, and docs for the TGE version, so it may be the weekend before the TGE version shows up.

8]

Note: The graphics has been updated to show the proper texture for Dagger #4. Click on the image to zoom!

Happy Holidays

2009-12-24T10:37:00.003-05:00

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!

2009-12-07T11:56:00.010-05:00

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

2009-11-08T13:11:00.003-05:00

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

2009-10-21T12:47:00.002-04:00

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

2009-10-09T13:33:00.004-04:00

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...

2009-09-24T07:44:00.003-04:00

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!

2009-09-11T13:37:00.001-04:00

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

2009-09-05T12:11:00.003-04:00

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

2009-08-30T14:51:00.004-04:00

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

2009-08-20T07:51:00.004-04:00

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!

2009-08-11T09:57:00.003-04:00

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

2009-08-01T11:48:00.005-04:00

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

2009-07-29T15:33:00.003-04:00

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

2009-07-28T08:45:00.006-04:00

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

2009-07-21T12:19:00.002-04:00

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

2009-07-12T11:19:00.005-04:00

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

2009-06-15T11:57:00.001-04:00

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

2009-05-13T17:10:00.002-04:00

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

2009-04-26T10:07:00.002-04:00

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.

2009-04-10T16:30:00.001-04:00

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

2009-03-24T09:00:00.002-04:00

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

2009-03-10T16:25:00.005-04:00

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.ne t. 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

2009-02-25T10:10:00.002-05:00

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

2009-02-15T08:56:00.002-05:00

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

2009-02-06T13:25:00.002-05:00

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

2009-02-05T13:58:00.002-05:00

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

2009-01-27T14:27:00.002-05:00

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

2009-01-27T14:22:00.004-05:00

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

2009-01-14T12:51:00.004-05:00

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

2009-01-08T09:15:00.002-05:00

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.

Setting Up Shop

2008-12-18T11:50:00.001-05:00

Treboc and I are working this week to set up an online store for licensing of our 3d game content to 3rd party game developers for use in their games.

We hope to have that up and running soon!

I'll keep you posted.

Before and After

2008-11-13T13:13:00.004-05:00

A fellow indie recently came to me with a level that he had done, but needed some fine tuning. The above is a before and after screenshot of that effort. The whole level ended up having to be reconstructed from scratch because the DIF exporter for Torque couldn't handle a lot of errors in the original model. I think that after lighting, the final product came out quite well.

You can click the image for a full sized view.

Note; I used stock textures for this project and modified them as needed. This greatly reduced the time and effort needed to complete the level quickly.

When It Rains....

2008-11-10T14:18:00.003-05:00

When it rains, it pours. Within about 48 hours of election day, I got 4 new contracts. I'm wondering whether the changing of the guard made people feel more optimistic at some level.

At any rate. Tarly has been helping us test the Weapons pack for Realm Crafter and pointed out that some inventory icons would be very helpful. So, I whipped up some icons and they will now be included in the pack.

We have yet to hear a word back from Solstar Games (The folks who make Realm Crafter) so at this point I can only assume they are not interested or did not get the email. That means finding an alternate store for the product.

2008-10-29T10:38:00.003-04:00

I forwarded 3 of our completed 3D weapons content packs to the folks over at Realm Crafter today, to see if we can't get them into their online store by the holidays. Looking forward to hearing back from them, AND looking forward to these assets generating a little revenue. Corbett and I have been working on them a very long time now.

Next, I have to polish up the versions for the Torque Game Engine and get those over to the Exis online store.

2008-10-22T05:30:00.002-04:00

Hey all!

Finished up another guild hall for Crowns of Power.

Working on a new fantasy MMORPG game called Mystral, being created with the Realm Crafter Engine and STILL working out vendors for our 3d weapons content packs.

Here is a screen shot of Mystral in progress....

Chrysalis

2008-10-01T14:43:00.004-04:00

It seems like everything has been in a state of chrysalis the past couple of months waiting to metamorphose and be reborn.

After numerous technical hick-ups, delays, and changes, Rampid Games finally approved the Guild Hall they commissioned (see WIP pic). It is being used in their new free to play mmorpg - Crowns of Power.

There were a few technical problems with the piece, the first being scale. The player avatar used in Crowns of Power is significantly smaller than the stock engine avatar I scaled the model too during construction. Since my model is very complex, none of my rescaling methods proved effective without a massive rework of either texture UVs or the geometry. This is in part due to the way the graphics program I used to create the model snaps points to a grid. The model is to be used in the torque game engine and can have no concave surfaces, but when scaled way down, each minuscule offset is magnified many times. Thus causing the points to arbitrarily jump points and creating unpredictable concave surfaces or bad brushes. The textures appear to loose their UV mapping to some degree and also don't always scale with the model. This translates to hours of work painstakingly checking and reapplying UVs, and aligning them properly to adjacent texture maps so that all the features match.

This meant that the model had to be rescaled in-game. Unfortunately, the collision data doesn't seem to scale well in the engine, and player characters were unable to navigate the stairs - Which lead to a complete re-work of the stairs a couple of times. Eventually, they were scrapped in favor of ramps in order to solve the problem in a timely manner. Another issue was that the lights wouldn't scale with the model when scaled with the TGE exporter plug in.

Then there was the mysterious texture issue, where several textures just would NOT export. I tried a number of remedies for that, remaking textures, removing them from the editor and reassigning them, using new textures. Eventually, I eliminated all the geometry with bad textures and the bad textures themselves, and rebuilt those sections.

Lighting caused some issues. Only the default light settings and color could be used, any other changes such as range, or intensity caused the game engine to crash on relight or just crash when you attempted to place the object in game via the game world creation editor. I suspect that this was a failing on the part of the torque exporter. The extra light data probably wasn't written into the exporter, so it... (with out going into a detailed technical explanation) fudged the works... The default settings just were not acceptable in this case, especially since there were scale issues and the lights refused to scale with the model. left at default, they created numerous excessive blooms and artifacts. I deleted all but the light in the main hall for the delivery model. This is quite a shame, I had some nice lighting and shadows set up in the render version.

There was also the top dome. Once again, you can't have any concave structure/interior geometry in TGE. So TGE really didn't like the dome I placed on top of the tower. Garage Games 3d editor for structures (labeled "interiors" for use in TGE), flat out refused to recognise the dome at all, and while I did get it into the game using a different 3d application, the first few tried were rocky, with some of the faces appearing invisible or the game engine crashing on relight. Eventually, for whatever reason, I got it to work.

At any rate, that is done and I hope to get the go-ahead soon to begin work on a second guild hall for Crowns of Power.

Also, this month I was supposed to begin working part time for Synthetic Tech Inc., which is developing the sci-fi RPG Fantasci. Synthetic tech Inc., has commissioned a number of works from me in the past. However, they had some stuff come up and our arrangement is now up in the air.

On the Golem Graphics front, Corbett and I are STILL in dialogue with potential resellers. The main hold up is communication, and getting responses from people. We did decide not to go with a couple of 3d content stores who had contacted us, mainly because we felt they didn't have adequate traffic to make it worth our while. Out of the various entities we contacted, to date, we have only formalized an account with one and are still awaiting final approval. Oddly enough, new products don't seem to be a priority for many stores. We have also discussed making our weapons packs available in the Garage Games online store with Garage Games, however, they requested we re-texture the models, and this will take some time. I would like to do that with ZBrush, and am still bringing myself up to speed on it's use.

OK, well this is turning into a novella, which I guess is what happens when you don't blog for a month!

More soon.

Until then, take care, and thanks for stopping by!

Vacation

2008-08-23T07:57:00.004-04:00

Well, it's that time of year again, and I find myself on the shores of Lake Amston on vacation (visible here past the industrial utility wire fuse and lines).

I was supposed to leave to head back to Erie today, but am being held a vacation hostage until Monday.

On the graphics front, many cool things are happening. The weapons content pack has interest from a couple of parties, and I have been quite busy with other work as well.
I have FINALLY gotten a license for ZBrush, and am looking forward to what I can do with some AAA industry software.

Ah well, I'm back to the beach... gonna work on my sunburn >_>

Slow Motion

2008-08-04T10:03:00.003-04:00

We released an Alpha version of the Weapon Content Pack Lite to most of the testers about 10 days ago. Ed from Fantasci got back to me with a couple of issues and had some nice things to say about the pack in one of his blog posts (Thanks Ed!), but we have yet to hear back from anyone else. I sent out a feedback questionnaire last night and am anxiously awaiting a response on that, although I expect it will take some time before folks get back to us. After an exhausting push to get the pack out to testers, it seems that everything is now moving in Matrix style slow motion.

I initially had attempted to email the content pack to the test group, but one or more recipients email systems rejected the 35 meg file, so I had used Pando as a fall-back to get the pack out to them quickly. I received a couple of complaints from users about Pando installing quite a bit of spam and ad-ware on their systems. In response to that, Corbett obtained a Golem Graphics SVN account with CVSDude. Until a distributor or host has been decided upon we will be setting up user accounts and making the pack, patches, and updates available there.

As far as the pack is concerned, I'll be making an update and posting that as soon as I have some additional feedback from the test group.

Got a couple of other interesting projects on the table. I don't want to spill the beans on any of those until there are some beans to spill though!

The Night Before Christmas... Well, Sort Of....

2008-07-24T11:21:00.003-04:00

Well, after months of hard work, Corbett and I have managed to compile a limited pack with over 50% of the intended models complete.

I think I see now why many content packs complete at 50 or so weapons, it looks simple enough, but there are an incredible amount of details to attend to in producing a quality, fully functional and tested library of assets this size. I expect it will take another 2 to 3 months to complete the remaining 45+ existing models yet to be included in our intended full content pack. When we started this pack, neither Corbett or I dreamed it would take 6 months to complete!

The limited pack features 55 richly textured 3d weapons complete with LOD, and over 60 pages of accompanying documentation which includes poly counts, node, and texture information.

We are making the pack available free of charge for a limited time to active finalists of Dream Games 1 year game contest in exchange for testing and feedback, and hope to have that out to them in the next couple of days. Although we designed the content pack specifically for use with the Torque Game Engine (we even scaled each item to the Torque Orc!), Kevin has offered to test the pack for compatibility with the Realm Crafter game engine, which may increase the packs market appeal.

Our short term goals are to get the Golem Graphics website and forums out of the place-holder stage and up and running, and maybe get some feedback from potential distributors.

In the mean time, I personally have about 12 hours of audio post production work I committed to doing for Nick over at Indie-Zen Radio, which I will try to tackle before starting in on my next 3D contract work.

Moving Along

2008-07-13T14:36:00.002-04:00

A more updated compilation screen shot with some of the weapons featured in the sidebars to show how the weapons content pack is coming along.

I ended up pulling some of the textures I didn't like, so not everything is shown here. As mentioned, Corbett is very close to completing the modeling work (100 weapons and such), and has acquired a web host from propacket for our newly formed partnership Golem Graphics.

I'm going to make push this week to see if we can't get this done!!!

Missed Milestone

2008-07-02T12:39:00.003-04:00

Work on the Weapons Content Pack continues to progress nicely. Corbett did an interview discussing the pack for Indiezen Radio yesterday. Not yet sure when that will be out of post production and available for public consumption.

Corbett and I also had a long talk about business form. I believe we left off with the pack being produced under the auspices of Golem Graphics, which is Corbett's business entity, instead of Indie Graphics.

We seem to have missed our "end of June" milestone for completing the pack. If I don't get too much contract work, we are going to shoot for getting it finished by the end of July.

What's New?

2008-06-29T17:55:00.002-04:00

I have been meaning to give Indie Graphics a home of it's own for a while now. FINALLY got to that!

What is Indie Graphics?

Well for the moment it is just me doing freelance 2d and 3d freelance artwork, so far it has been primarily for Torque Game Engine users, as I have become fairly familiar with the graphics requirements of that engine.

In between contract work, I have teamed up with Corbett, a former team member of another project. Together we are producing a 3d weapon content pack specifically for use with the Torque Game Engine.

The side bar graphics shows the content pack at about 50% completion. We are shooting for 100 or so fantasy style 3d weapons and textures. The models will contain nodes and collision meshes specifically designed for TGE, to include LOS collision, mounts, and particle effect nodes. We also plan on scaling the weapons to the infamous Torque Orc (although not all orcs are scaled the same), and testing each in TGE show for proper mounting and facing. The pack will come with the original meshes in ms3d and obj format. For those who are interested in the pack but do not use Torque, we are considering .X, .OGRE, and possibly Collada formats as well. A detailed PDF containing information on each object (such as node names, poly count, UV map etc.) is also planned.

Ideally, this pack will be distributed through a 3rd party and licensed to developers so that they may quickly add quality ready made 3d content to their games.

After the weapons pack is complete, I think I would like to dedicate some time to doing an Aztec motif interior content pack. "Interiors" refers to a special 3d format known as .MAP files used in the Torque Game Engine for large objects or building/structure interiors. They are ideal for this purpose because they render quickly and cast shadows and such. I won't bore the laymen with talk of portals and detailed lighting. The problem is that this file format is a little temperamental to work with and doesn't like things like concave surfaces or curves in general. I've developed a bit of skill with the format and would like to try my hand at making some modular, ready made levels in an Inca or Aztec style motif for use in games.

I'm also planning a software upgrade as soon as I can swing a spare $1000. At which time I have a couple of very short animation films? (for lack of a better descriptive), I would like to do.

Well that's news! I'll update on the weapons content pack and post some more pictures when I have something worthy of post!

Until then... Thanks for stopping by!

-D