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| Name: | Timothy Aste |  |
|---|---|---|
| Date Posted: | Mar 02, 2007 | |
| Rating: |  5.0 out of 5 | |
| Public: | YES | |
| Comments: | YES | |
| RSS Feed: |  or Subscribe with  . | |
| Profile Page: | View profile page for Timothy Aste |
Blog post
Been awhile since I've done a blog post on here, so figured I'd throw up a quick art blog.
First though,in case you missed it, GGE has gone live for the general public, be sure to check it out at www.greatgamesexperiment.com. Congrats to the team on going live, it's an awesome site.
So some people picked up on the shots of a character I was working on in my spare time around here (not a lot of time for art in the last six months). About two months ago we had a power-surge here at GG due to old wiring kicking out the power (too many computers on this side of the building). When the power came back on, all the machines came on at once and poof, fried my two external hard-drives which were stupidly not on a power-surge strip. Lots of stuff lost on those, but one of the things was the character demo from GameFest. I think Mark McCoy actually has a copy somewhere, but it was a rush job anyway so I figured I'd spend a little time hooking up the dude I was working on in the same situation. So anyway, hooked him up, still have to tweak the animation a bit to not be a little wonky, but it runs.
So since it was rather painless to get it up and running for GDC, I figured it'd be fun to just run with it and make a quick little environment to show it off in, to show off the new lighting stuff as well. One of those rare moments where things just gel quick (did it pretty much all yesterday) so I ended up coming up with this "Gold Forge" setting yesterday (mostly because I wanted to play with dramatic lighting and glowing meshes). I think what I dig most is that it's a pretty dynamic environment, everything has some sort of movement, etc. Was a ton of fun, and still have some stuff to do, but for the most part it's going to wind down. Still on my list is to actually put some texture on the dude's back, he used to have a backpack, but due to time constraints for GDC I just took it off because I didn't think I'd have time to properly texture it all, even thought the normal map stuff was done awhile ago (I'm slow with character stuff, not my primary area of
expertise). Gotta touch up some of the textures, thinking of throwing some decal light projectors in there of some veiny looking stuff as light/shadows, maybe throw some floating stuff in the water, etc. Got a really nasty bug in there that freezes the scene, probably because I'm built this in a hacked up orbit camera directory and there angry going on. Got some script problems with particles too, again just seems to be in this hacked up demo script version I'm using. Nothing that can't get fixed today though with any luck, will bug someone to figure out why it randomly freezes up on me.
Other than that, we got some cool stuff to show off at GDC this year, everything from Torque X, TGEA, TGE, Games, GGE, TGB, and the list goes on. I don't think we have enough booth space to show off all the cool stuff properly actually. I'll be down at GDC, busy worker bee again, so if anyone will be at the IGDA, Minna Mingle, or XNA evening events, please feel free to say "hi"! Sickhead Games will have some cool TGEA stuff to show off very soon too, but want to save that little juicy
tidbit for them to show. ;)
Obligatory pictures and movie following:
www.garagegames2.com/web/images/tima/plan/forge.wmv
First though,in case you missed it, GGE has gone live for the general public, be sure to check it out at www.greatgamesexperiment.com. Congrats to the team on going live, it's an awesome site.
So some people picked up on the shots of a character I was working on in my spare time around here (not a lot of time for art in the last six months). About two months ago we had a power-surge here at GG due to old wiring kicking out the power (too many computers on this side of the building). When the power came back on, all the machines came on at once and poof, fried my two external hard-drives which were stupidly not on a power-surge strip. Lots of stuff lost on those, but one of the things was the character demo from GameFest. I think Mark McCoy actually has a copy somewhere, but it was a rush job anyway so I figured I'd spend a little time hooking up the dude I was working on in the same situation. So anyway, hooked him up, still have to tweak the animation a bit to not be a little wonky, but it runs.
So since it was rather painless to get it up and running for GDC, I figured it'd be fun to just run with it and make a quick little environment to show it off in, to show off the new lighting stuff as well. One of those rare moments where things just gel quick (did it pretty much all yesterday) so I ended up coming up with this "Gold Forge" setting yesterday (mostly because I wanted to play with dramatic lighting and glowing meshes). I think what I dig most is that it's a pretty dynamic environment, everything has some sort of movement, etc. Was a ton of fun, and still have some stuff to do, but for the most part it's going to wind down. Still on my list is to actually put some texture on the dude's back, he used to have a backpack, but due to time constraints for GDC I just took it off because I didn't think I'd have time to properly texture it all, even thought the normal map stuff was done awhile ago (I'm slow with character stuff, not my primary area of
expertise). Gotta touch up some of the textures, thinking of throwing some decal light projectors in there of some veiny looking stuff as light/shadows, maybe throw some floating stuff in the water, etc. Got a really nasty bug in there that freezes the scene, probably because I'm built this in a hacked up orbit camera directory and there angry going on. Got some script problems with particles too, again just seems to be in this hacked up demo script version I'm using. Nothing that can't get fixed today though with any luck, will bug someone to figure out why it randomly freezes up on me.
Other than that, we got some cool stuff to show off at GDC this year, everything from Torque X, TGEA, TGE, Games, GGE, TGB, and the list goes on. I don't think we have enough booth space to show off all the cool stuff properly actually. I'll be down at GDC, busy worker bee again, so if anyone will be at the IGDA, Minna Mingle, or XNA evening events, please feel free to say "hi"! Sickhead Games will have some cool TGEA stuff to show off very soon too, but want to save that little juicy
tidbit for them to show. ;)
Obligatory pictures and movie following:
www.garagegames2.com/web/images/tima/plan/forge.wmv
Recent Blog Posts
| List: | 03/04/08 - Legions @ GDC 09/20/07 - Video from GDC 03/02/07 - Art blog 01/04/07 - Products, Holidays, Job Opening, GGE Winners! 12/12/06 - GGE Contest Extension! 12/07/06 - Win even *more* Free Stuff 12/07/06 - Great Games Experiment Contest 10/12/06 - TGE 1.5 & New Products |
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Submit your own resources!| Prairie Games (Mar 02, 2007 at 19:57 GMT) Resource Rating: 5 |
| Timothy Aste (Mar 02, 2007 at 19:59 GMT) |
| asmaloney (Andy) (Mar 02, 2007 at 20:00 GMT) |
| Chris Calef (Mar 02, 2007 at 20:03 GMT) |
| Joseph Greenawalt (Mar 02, 2007 at 20:07 GMT) |
| Jon Jorajuria (Mar 02, 2007 at 20:11 GMT) Resource Rating: 5 |
| L Foster (Mar 02, 2007 at 20:23 GMT) |
Though you might want to check the texture for the back of your player model in those videos tim, looks like you might have UVW template overlay still on the back of your character there. Also why is the bloom on the gun the same color as the lava glow?
| Kory James (Mar 02, 2007 at 20:24 GMT) |
Great job you are inspiring alot of us keep up the great work
| Todd Pickens (Mar 02, 2007 at 20:50 GMT) |
Nice job Tim! Besy of luck with GDC.
| Jesse Hall (Mar 02, 2007 at 21:11 GMT) |
I'd like to see more mid level details on the pipes. Some seams and rivets would break em up and make them feel more real. Some dirt/grime to blend in the transition from pipe to structure along with a clamp.
Great start!
| Daz (Mar 02, 2007 at 21:57 GMT) |
Good luck at GDC, althought I don't you'll need it!
| Bobby Leighton (Mar 02, 2007 at 22:09 GMT) |
Thankx!!
Bobby Leighton
| Andy Hawkins (Mar 02, 2007 at 23:20 GMT) |
| Jesse McKinney (Mar 03, 2007 at 00:11 GMT) |
I do however thing its time for GG to make us a nice glass entity for constructor so we dont see through geometry when using transparent materials in game (for instance in your map the glass floors). Dont forget the field to allow light to pass through and diffuse :)
Keep it up
Edited on Mar 03, 2007 00:12 GMT
| Jeremiah Fulbright (Mar 03, 2007 at 00:15 GMT) |
| Steve Flowers (Mar 03, 2007 at 00:29 GMT) |
| Timothy Aste (Mar 03, 2007 at 02:24 GMT) |
Jeremiah, I'd say about 50/50 DIF/Static Mesh stuff. TGEA's ability to process more geometry faster (e.g. advanced) allows me to use more static mesh stuff. That said, you have to be smart on usage. I get good framerates on that scene on a medium-high end computer (which is what I was targeting) because of smart LOD use, and containing stuff smartly in portalized sections. This is the way a lot of next-gen games are going to be for the next few years until something better comes along, smart usage of foundation, structural, containing BSP geometry, detailing done through smart static mesh use. Luckily, constructor was built with this technique in mind, check out Dave Wyands and Matt Fairfax's blogs about it. :)
Worked on this a bit more (detailed those pipes, got called on it, and was too lazy to unwrap them properly, so I went in and added some more detail). No time tonight to get updated shots, but thanks anyhow for the kind words. See you guys at GDC (or afterwards when I get back).
Tim A
Edited on Mar 03, 2007 02:25 GMT
| Bobby Leighton (Mar 03, 2007 at 04:02 GMT) |
| Tom Bentz (Mar 03, 2007 at 05:19 GMT) |
Seriously though - I can't believe its Torque! Awesome work.
| T Squared (Mar 03, 2007 at 06:10 GMT) |
| Tom Perry (Mar 03, 2007 at 10:14 GMT) |
| Vashner (Mar 04, 2007 at 00:25 GMT) |
hahahahah (insane laugh)...
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