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Plan for Timothy Aste
Plan for Timothy Aste
| Name: | Timothy Aste |  |
|---|---|---|
| Date Posted: | Jun 17, 2004 | |
| 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
Time for a new plan! Screenshots, movies, and sketches galore along with 4AM ramblings.
Wow, been awhile since I last updated a GG plan, I try to keep these for when I have decent content to show, the curse of a perfectionist. Lots of work going on, and yes I am still alive. Lately I have been doing contract work on Guru.Com (for all your graphic design needs!) and I have now have rent paid through August. That means I can get back to work on my Torque stuff finally, seems like ages since I've touched the stuff I was last working. So anyhow, as a personal challenge (and practice of course) I wanted to see if I could design a whole town, so I've been chipping away at that. The theme I settled on "Rust town". I wanted to do something semi-original, I love fantasy and sci-fi like the next guy but I wanted to see what would happen if I say mixed the two. My idea was (is) what if the world stopped, and 300 years passed and humanit regressed into a second medieval or dark age? So anyhow, I've been chipping away at this.
So far I have:
-16 unique buildings (homes, bars, taverns, etc with many more to come)
-12 Unique "Nature" Barrier Walls (for cutting off landscape like this.
As you see, it's kinda ugly to just DROP off the landscape real quick like that in a rendering engine, real stretchy and not natural looking. You don't always have the room to allow a nice natural smoothing element though, so instead, you simply place a barrier wall on this to cover up this ugliness (Think Mayan Ruins), instant solution!
-6 City walls + 2 City gates (note all walls are units that are individual modules that are placed along a spline in order to create a much larger wall of any shape or size, say like these which would surround a village or town of some sort)
-1 City Well, 1 Huge Windmill thingy, 3 Housing Additions (Shacks), 1 Fence (modular too)
-4 shops
-51 unique beds
-Tons of everyday items you'd find in a house.....(like above)
And I've barely scratched the service! I have to do all kinds of character type stuff, tons of little details, tons more textures, etc etc etc etc etc. In fact, I have this huge 10 page list of things to make, and I've only gotten a decent chunk of the buildings out of the way. However, I'm back in swing full time so I'm hoping to have this done sometime in August, it all depends on how hung up I get on characters. Hey, if anyone wants to help, feel free, though it's more a personal challenge I'd love any help given the size of it.
Luckily, my friend who happens to be in the Fashion Design industry threw me an awesome tip on how to speed up costume design for NPCs. When he needs to prototype stuff fast, he has a pre-made template of a male/female that he made and he just designs over it. I tried his idea and it works really freaking awesome, I may put my templates (m&f) up as a resource on GG so everyone else can benefit. I was amazed how fast it works, I was able to get 5 different ideas down in 25 minutes. Here are three below:
Yeah just in 25 minutes! If there is a demand for the body templates I made, just ask and I'll try to get GG to put it as a resource (there are so few of those for us artist types, though props to Alex Swanson for working on that, I've noticed quite a few lately from him.)
Been playing around with the Torque Shader Engine a lot lately. I've gotten Normal maps down solid and have made at least 60 of them in the last week....ugh! Thank god for NVIDIA's plug in, except that it doesn't always make it the way it should so usually you have to go in and clean it up substantially, but it still takes a huge bulk of work out.
So anyhow, tonight I decided to throw a handful of my houses together to see what it looked like in TGE for the heck of it, it came out pretty nicely. This is a very rough mockup, and I just compiled about 10 shapes, and 4 wall types in Hammer to get this done with instead of going through ALL of them. A lot of stuff is still very rough and lacking polish but it's looking good so far. This is barely scratching the surface of what I've made so far since I'm freaking L A Z Y and tired and this plan took longer than I planned (hah).
And a short movie up at www.gremlinstudios.com/gg/movie.mov
(Note: That's my original attempt at a soundtrack)
Sorry for the horrible editing on the movie, like I said it's 4am and I'm getting sloppy and tired. ;)
I entered another Contest over at Acidplanet.com since I won third place last Fall in another contest. Hopefully I will place again, but ya never know....wish me luck and check out my entry here: www.acidplanet.com/artist.asp?PID=394161&T=8474
If ya feel kindly I'd love for people to leave feedback since freaking stuff gets buried there in 30 minutes and no one ever sees it, but hey don't go to any trouble because it's a pain in the butt to leave feedback since you have to register. :)
About an hour ago I had a lot more stuff to say but my mind is kinda muddled at this point and I really can't remember what else I was going to put.
Rumor has it I may be working on a Content Pack like how Bravetree has theirs since I have tons of art resources that may be useful to some people and are just gathering dust on my hard drive...Rumor only though.... :/
Blah my mind is warped, I'll just save whatever it was that I can't remember for another plan in a few weeks or something. Gonna be gone for a few days since I have to head up north for various family events (kid sister graduating high school, mother broke ankle two weeks ago so I'll help around the house, etc. etc. etc.) but I'll be back around Sunday then it's back to work until I run out of food money and need to take on more graphic design contract work. I should still have access to E-Mail through Friday however then I'll be on the road visiting friends from the old country...
So far I have:
-16 unique buildings (homes, bars, taverns, etc with many more to come)
-12 Unique "Nature" Barrier Walls (for cutting off landscape like this.
As you see, it's kinda ugly to just DROP off the landscape real quick like that in a rendering engine, real stretchy and not natural looking. You don't always have the room to allow a nice natural smoothing element though, so instead, you simply place a barrier wall on this to cover up this ugliness (Think Mayan Ruins), instant solution!
-6 City walls + 2 City gates (note all walls are units that are individual modules that are placed along a spline in order to create a much larger wall of any shape or size, say like these which would surround a village or town of some sort)
-1 City Well, 1 Huge Windmill thingy, 3 Housing Additions (Shacks), 1 Fence (modular too)
-4 shops
-51 unique beds
-Tons of everyday items you'd find in a house.....(like above)
And I've barely scratched the service! I have to do all kinds of character type stuff, tons of little details, tons more textures, etc etc etc etc etc. In fact, I have this huge 10 page list of things to make, and I've only gotten a decent chunk of the buildings out of the way. However, I'm back in swing full time so I'm hoping to have this done sometime in August, it all depends on how hung up I get on characters. Hey, if anyone wants to help, feel free, though it's more a personal challenge I'd love any help given the size of it.
Luckily, my friend who happens to be in the Fashion Design industry threw me an awesome tip on how to speed up costume design for NPCs. When he needs to prototype stuff fast, he has a pre-made template of a male/female that he made and he just designs over it. I tried his idea and it works really freaking awesome, I may put my templates (m&f) up as a resource on GG so everyone else can benefit. I was amazed how fast it works, I was able to get 5 different ideas down in 25 minutes. Here are three below:
Yeah just in 25 minutes! If there is a demand for the body templates I made, just ask and I'll try to get GG to put it as a resource (there are so few of those for us artist types, though props to Alex Swanson for working on that, I've noticed quite a few lately from him.)
Been playing around with the Torque Shader Engine a lot lately. I've gotten Normal maps down solid and have made at least 60 of them in the last week....ugh! Thank god for NVIDIA's plug in, except that it doesn't always make it the way it should so usually you have to go in and clean it up substantially, but it still takes a huge bulk of work out.
So anyhow, tonight I decided to throw a handful of my houses together to see what it looked like in TGE for the heck of it, it came out pretty nicely. This is a very rough mockup, and I just compiled about 10 shapes, and 4 wall types in Hammer to get this done with instead of going through ALL of them. A lot of stuff is still very rough and lacking polish but it's looking good so far. This is barely scratching the surface of what I've made so far since I'm freaking L A Z Y and tired and this plan took longer than I planned (hah).
And a short movie up at www.gremlinstudios.com/gg/movie.mov
(Note: That's my original attempt at a soundtrack)
Sorry for the horrible editing on the movie, like I said it's 4am and I'm getting sloppy and tired. ;)
I entered another Contest over at Acidplanet.com since I won third place last Fall in another contest. Hopefully I will place again, but ya never know....wish me luck and check out my entry here: www.acidplanet.com/artist.asp?PID=394161&T=8474
If ya feel kindly I'd love for people to leave feedback since freaking stuff gets buried there in 30 minutes and no one ever sees it, but hey don't go to any trouble because it's a pain in the butt to leave feedback since you have to register. :)
About an hour ago I had a lot more stuff to say but my mind is kinda muddled at this point and I really can't remember what else I was going to put.
Rumor has it I may be working on a Content Pack like how Bravetree has theirs since I have tons of art resources that may be useful to some people and are just gathering dust on my hard drive...Rumor only though.... :/
Blah my mind is warped, I'll just save whatever it was that I can't remember for another plan in a few weeks or something. Gonna be gone for a few days since I have to head up north for various family events (kid sister graduating high school, mother broke ankle two weeks ago so I'll help around the house, etc. etc. etc.) but I'll be back around Sunday then it's back to work until I run out of food money and need to take on more graphic design contract work. I should still have access to E-Mail through Friday however then I'll be on the road visiting friends from the old country...
Recent Blog Posts
| List: | 11/12/08 - Keeping busy around the lab 07/25/08 - Open Horizons! 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 |
|---|
Submit your own resources!| Prairie Games (Jun 17, 2004 at 08:01 GMT) Resource Rating: 5 |
"Rumor has it I may be working on a Content Pack like how Bravetree has theirs since I have tons of art resources that may be useful to some people and are just gathering dust on my hard drive...Rumor only though.... :/"
Let rumors be true!!!
-Josh Ritter
Prairie Games
| Dylan Sale (Jun 17, 2004 at 08:05 GMT) |
| Timothy Aste (Jun 17, 2004 at 08:21 GMT) Resource Rating: 5 |
Thanks for the kind comments. (The windmill is supposed to be the big landmark feature of the town, what it settled around...etc.) Unfortunately it's so massive that I'm encoutering engine bugs, but I'm working on it.... :) I still have a lot of refining to do, not to mention LOD's would be nice....
<---------Hi-Res
Edited on Jun 17, 2004 10:46 GMT
| mm (Jun 17, 2004 at 08:46 GMT) |
Matt
| Phil Carlisle (Jun 17, 2004 at 08:50 GMT) |
I like it!
| Mathieu (Jun 17, 2004 at 08:54 GMT) Resource Rating: 5 |
It's the best graphics I ever saw on TGE.
| Nauris Krauze (Jun 17, 2004 at 10:19 GMT) |
Some dead flora would add to the flavour, I think. As stated above - you have lots of talent and good eye.
How long exactly were you working on all this?
| Timothy Aste (Jun 17, 2004 at 10:41 GMT) Resource Rating: 5 |
Mmm hard to say because I've only been able to work on it spotty. I started about April on this project, and each building takes about an hour each, so maybe like combined so far (there's a lot more than what's pictured above....) 200 hours. There was a long stretch there where I couldn't work on it because I had 4 contracts going at once, but that cleared up last Friday and deep down in heart this is more of a for fun project.
Edited on Jun 17, 2004 10:42 GMT
| Josh Williams (Jun 17, 2004 at 10:46 GMT) |
Awesome, awesome stuff. You should definitely submit those design templates as a resource, we really want to start getting more content packs going.
I'm glad you are thinking seriously about content packs as we discussed over email. Great! I think you could easily turn the stuff you have here into a pack, and if you are thinking about other stuff as well... even better! Email me if you want to talk more. :)
So much content in your post... the video was really cool. Liked the edit job and music. That Gremlin Studios logo is a favorite of mine too. I'm not familiar with AcidPlanet... are you AjaxProject over there? Did you do the music and the artwork on that page? Looks cool, and I liked the music. No idea if you did it though.
Very exciting all around. Great work, this all looks wonderful.
Edited on Jun 17, 2004 10:57 GMT
| John Kabus (BobTheCBuilder) (Jun 17, 2004 at 11:04 GMT) |
Excellent work man - top notch stuff, I
| Anthony Rosenbaum (Jun 17, 2004 at 12:47 GMT) |
| Jay Barnson (Jun 17, 2004 at 14:16 GMT) Resource Rating: 5 |
This stuff is BEAUTIFUL, Timothy! You did a great, professional-quality job on it based on the screenshots. Excellent work.
| Robert Blanchet Jr. (Jun 17, 2004 at 14:27 GMT) |
| David \"Fulcrum\" Wyand (Jun 17, 2004 at 14:28 GMT) |
You certainly have a talent for construction and texturing. I really like the details. They add a real living quality to the images.
One thing you could try in your TGE mission is a coloured fog. In your first image the distant hills really standout rather than fade into the background.
I was also curious as to what software packages and/or hardware you used to create the music in your video?
- LightWave Dave
| Ben Garney (Jun 17, 2004 at 15:22 GMT) |
| David Grace (Jun 17, 2004 at 16:40 GMT) |
| Canon (Jun 17, 2004 at 16:49 GMT) |
| Brian Ramage (Jun 17, 2004 at 17:53 GMT) |
| Timothy Aste (Jun 17, 2004 at 22:57 GMT) Resource Rating: 5 |
Really freaking tired and I'm off to crash after this post, on hour 51, I'm getting too old for this.
@Nauris: While driving for a few hours I though more about the time I spent and I think I overestimated greatly, even though I started on April 1st, I haven't worked on it really that much and I think the real number is closer to probably in the 60-80 hours of work time, but that's for everything including many things not included above.
@Josh: Hey I got your email thanks! Great email, I will definately reply tommorrow to all your questions once coherent thought comes back to me after a nice nap. Acidplanet.com is merely the indie community site for the homemade mix program (one of many I use) called Screenblast ACID (by Sony). Fun little easy program to play with. Yes, my nick over there is ajaxproject. Music is all mine, it's a silly little hobby and not a serious or professional venture in any way I'm just a hobbyist, in fact I know little about technical mixing skills but I do play a few instruments and am pretty handy with a few synthesizers. :) I figured I'd plug that for the heck of it to maybe increase my chances of winning the remix contest. I got some nice software from them for a contest I entered last July and placed 3rd. Thanks for the comments on the Logo...I actually spent three semesters in an art specialty college before dropping out because I was pissed off at the program and it's faculty (though how I landed up in the Army coming from an art school I'll never know). I'm actually finishing up college now with a degree in Political Science of all things not art related....Eventually. :)
@JohnC: Hah, I've toyed around the idea but I always get overwhelmed by the massive scope of creating a project from scratch and with real life and all I usually end up just experimenting and practicing (it's fun for me!) Yes, I did use the lighting pack and I was blown away, on a whim last night I downloaded it and dropped the executable into Torque (since it was taken years to create the lightmaps for my unpolished difs) and was really impressed, I'll definately be picking up a copy once I get back home (on the road at the moment). I'd also be willing to help you test whatever you need, I started following Synapse back in February after a plan you made and would be honored to help.
@LightwaveDave: Hehe yeah I actually tried that the colored fog thing, but for some wierd reason it didn't translate well in screenshots(although it's a little noticeable in the video). I'll definately have to work on that thanks! :) As for music software, I use Reason, CakeWalk, ACID, & FruityLoops3. I also use a plethora of little freeware programs I've found on the internet. I also have quite a small collection of various instruments, many synthesizers, and a few processors. It's an expensive hobby unfortunately!
@David: Yeah, I'll get to the bottom of it, it's probably bad geometry somewhere. BTW, Giant Robot Monster looks awesome!
Finally @ Brian: I would love too but unfortunately I am on the road and without the tools to make a proper collage. If anyone feels creative and bored and feels like doing anything like that, by any means feels free but no biggie. It was just a late night ooo lookie project anyhow to put this all up in a plan... :)
Honestly I'm overwhelmed by the feedback! Thanks a lot everyone...now I feel peer-pressured to get back to work and produce something more tangible and serious... :)
Now time to pass out..... just as the clock ticks 8pm!
| Adam deGrandis (Jun 18, 2004 at 01:31 GMT) |
| Dan MacDonald (Jun 18, 2004 at 01:55 GMT) |
| Andrew Dean (Jun 19, 2004 at 07:42 GMT) |
It's freeware and really insanely powerful. It's easy to mock up some basic stuff too :)
http://www.buzzmachines.com
| Timothy Aste (Jun 20, 2004 at 06:34 GMT) Resource Rating: 5 |
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