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Environment Pack release, Bundle

Name:	Apparatus
Date Posted:	Jun 26, 2008
Rating:	5.0 out of 5
Public:	YES
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Blog post

The Environment pack is available on my website. Also, Apparatus Bundle Pack featuring BridgePack and Environment Pack is available there.

An important note - I dropped the prices (now in USD) and will try to keep them as long as possible (maybe reduce again); it is hard to keep it that way but otherwise it would miss the point of content packs: providing affordable content for indie developers. I have a couple of side projects I hope will keep me afloat to make more packs and as fast as these (12 days between 2 releases).

I am almost satisfied by the content, though some of the stuff couldn't make it; the river is not included as I still have to figure out a decent way to make it look better, though a hack would be to use the waterfall model for small creeks with loads of water splashes and boulders to hide the connections.

I still work on some other stuff (birds fx and tree animation); Overall the pack is a good starting point for everyone aiming at making rich environments. An example video (with stock TGE sounds) can be viewed here (with audio).

The pack features a whole bunch of trees and grass, wood rails and barrels, the waterfall, the rainbow, example mission, fixed detail maps tge executable, big rocks and boulders, particle effects - splashes, falling leafs.

I have a lot of ideas coming up and I might need a programmer to help me out; one thing I want to fix is the particle editor - i don't really focus on realtime editing - as it is the particle editor 1.3 is a good start, it really could use an update on the code - slightly different than the 1.5.2 particle datablock format.

Now I have some contract work to go figure out but in my spare time I will try to push the Siege Pack (still in prototype but is already fun).

Thanks for reading!
App.

Recent Blog Posts

List:	11/04/08 - Kork 2.0, halted work 09/24/08 - Constructor Pipeline (I) 09/23/08 - Interior Guide Pack Free Download 09/23/08 - Kaboom! Pack for TGEA 09/15/08 - About Constructor 09/11/08 - Interior Guide Pack Released 09/10/08 - Associate Rant 09/08/08 - Interior Guide Pack update

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Morrock (Jun 26, 2008 at 16:16 GMT)

Looks great. The textures go together perfectly, and the models have great detail. But how come the trees are not casting shadows. Shouldn't it cast shadows from their collision meshes? As for the river.... Maybe you could create pre-made bends and curves in the river, so the pieces would connect from flat end to flat end well enough, and the actual model could be made of curves, is that possible?

I'd be glad to help you with the programming if no one else offers. I don't have any game dev work I need done for myself for a while.

Apparatus (Jun 26, 2008 at 16:20 GMT) Resource Rating: 5

I have a couple of test models still working on better ways to achieve it; as for trees, they do cast shadows, slightly, as the collision meshes ar only on the trunks; could be fixed with a png shadow texture I guess, good ol' level design tricks you now :)

Jermaine Morgan (Jun 26, 2008 at 16:20 GMT) Resource Rating: 5

very very very nice!!

Jason Guzzardo (Jun 26, 2008 at 16:23 GMT)

Looks really good. When do you think the TGEA patches will be ready?

Apparatus (Jun 26, 2008 at 16:24 GMT) Resource Rating: 5

Jason, TGEA patches are a priority but since they will be released for free (for licensees) they gotta wait the contract work :)
That doesn't mean you can't use the pack for tgea. All you need is the materials.cs I think, and appropriate maps (normal+spec). With color maps available, that is easy to hack if one's in a hurry.
Edited on Jun 26, 2008 16:25 GMT

Mark Dynna (Jun 26, 2008 at 17:59 GMT)

I'm still willing to help on the TGEA stuff Apparatus. Just drop me an email with how you would like to proceed.

Apparatus (Jun 26, 2008 at 18:04 GMT) Resource Rating: 5

@Mark thanks a lot, I just upgraded to TGEA.

Ross Pawley (Jun 26, 2008 at 18:16 GMT)

@Apparatus, have you checked out the GroundCover stuff in TGEA?

Michael (silentMike) Hall (Jun 26, 2008 at 19:43 GMT)

Good looking pack that is! You'll be hearing from me come payday! Does the big rocks mean the cliff faces objects you've mentioned before?

The groundcover code in TGEA is pretty cool, but for TGE I bet that Ben Garney's forest pack code would go a long way towards creating some insanely huge and detailed forests.

about the river: There was a procedural road object code that someone was working on a couple of months ago . Something like that may be useful to make a river.

Hans (Jun 26, 2008 at 20:03 GMT)

any chance this pack will work in Unity3d ?
thks

Hans

Jason Guzzardo (Jun 26, 2008 at 20:07 GMT)

Awesome! thanks Apparatus...looking forward to using this!

Alienforce (Jun 26, 2008 at 22:05 GMT)

Just a friendly advise, if you are using quickmenu on a commercial site .. you should consider to buy it.

Leslie Young (Jun 26, 2008 at 22:37 GMT) Resource Rating: 5

Awesome gonna grab this right now.

Will be nice when you get around to the TGEA "upgrade" for these packs ;)
For now I just run the textures through nvidia's normalmapfilter, but I'm sure your artistic touch can provide much better normal maps.

Andy Hawkins (Jun 26, 2008 at 23:29 GMT)

Hi - looks good, though I don't know if you'd want to go any higher in price, but anyway... are all the sources in OBJ format? Can you do that? I know like myself, a lot of indie's don't have the money for Maya or especially 3dMax licenses.

Kevin McLaughlin (Jun 27, 2008 at 00:17 GMT) Resource Rating: 5

Looks great! I'll second Andy's comment though - a "generic" format might be nice, if it's possible, for easier editing/tweaking in an indie software package. Maya and 3DS formats are notoriously hard to get imported into anything costing under $1000 or so.

Andy, meantime remember that you can always use Shaper to edit the DTS models themselves. ;)

Oh, definitely a 5 for this one - please keep the packs coming!
Edited on Jun 27, 2008 00:17 GMT

Zach Gipson (Jun 27, 2008 at 05:36 GMT)

The video looks really great. When/If I get some extra cash I'll be looking to buy this.

Apparatus (Jun 27, 2008 at 06:03 GMT) Resource Rating: 5

SilentMike - I just got my TGEA license, will dig into it; looks really great;
Hans- Unity needs a mac around (w I don't have) so you will have to use the Maya sources (stripped of LOD and nodes) to port the assets into Unity; Unity uses a hidden FBX converter to claim it imports maya scenes.
Alienforce - that was a temporary solution till I got my flash top working; visit the site and see if you like it now; thanks for advice though, nothing to worry.
Leslie - make no mistake will port everything to TGEA : )
Andy/Kevin - i wrote a longer answer but lost the post :P / anyway, even if I were to make 4 packs a month it is still not worth working on other sources (especially obj); that's for turbosquid users. My aim here is to make stuff available to torque users in specific format (DIF, DTS); in any case, anybody who really needs another source format can email me for help/assistance, no trouble at all.
Zach - the audio on the video I made is a dirty hack - overlay over the video after recording, because I couldn't record video with sounds at all; i guess i'll have to install OpenALl to do so, can;t remember why this occurs. In the mission though it sounds a lot better (stereo, 3d and all that)

@all - thanks

Andy Hawkins (Jun 27, 2008 at 11:48 GMT)

Isn't maya's default file type OBJ? No problems though. If I need source I will ask you. Awesome job. I really need those bridges for my game. I'll grab a copy soon.

Apparatus (Jun 27, 2008 at 11:58 GMT) Resource Rating: 5

OBJ (from the Waverfront days) is indeed a common format exported from Maya, but also a limited one; no support for multiple UV's, no support for animation. Exporting a tree model setup with lod and collision and bounding box and detail nodes in OBJ format makes no sense. However, if one needs the source model to change it according to his needs, we can find the direct link between whatever I use and the other party (Milkshape, Houdini, whatever).

Mark (Jun 27, 2008 at 18:03 GMT)

Looks great!

Leslie Young (Jul 06, 2008 at 14:52 GMT) Resource Rating: 5

Can someone explain to me why this code won't play the waterfall animation?
I am using TGEA1.7

datablock StaticShapeData(WaterfallAnimation)
{
	category = "Effects";
	className = "WaterfallEffects";
	shapeFile = "~/data/shapes/particles/waterfall/waterfall.dts";
};

function WaterfallEffects::onAdd(%this, %obj)
{
	error("I R CALLED"); // yes it gets in here
	%obj.playThread(0, "Sequence01");
}

Edited on Jul 06, 2008 14:53 GMT

Apparatus (Jul 07, 2008 at 12:29 GMT) Resource Rating: 5

Leslie - I started a few days ago porting the packs to TGEA but I am still learning my way trough 1.7.1; I tried a simple port (copied script and assets) but it doesn't work; I think there are a few changes we have to look up so we can make the waterfall work; in fact, I would go further and look up the 'ambient' animation sequence w won't require any exec script;

Leslie Young (Jul 09, 2008 at 00:19 GMT) Resource Rating: 5

Can you mail the CS files for the waterfall and other particle effects if possible? You only provided the DSOs.

Apparatus (Jul 09, 2008 at 16:28 GMT) Resource Rating: 5

Leslie, all the scripts are available in the Readme.doc along with instructions.

Leslie Young (Jul 09, 2008 at 16:38 GMT) Resource Rating: 5

oh, ok, its in DOCX format so I could not open it. My version of OpenOffice dont want to but I will just go grab a converter.

Apparatus (Jul 09, 2008 at 21:22 GMT) Resource Rating: 5

Oh wait, I sent you out the doc version long ago; you should have it in email somewhere.

Leslie Young (Jul 09, 2008 at 22:55 GMT) Resource Rating: 5

Urgh.. prolly ended up in spam, but don't worry I found a way to convert the files.

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