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Plan for Weston Tracy

Name:	Weston
Date Posted:	Dec 08, 2004
Rating:	5.0 out of 5
Public:	YES
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Blog post

GG Urban Pack

Amazing that I've been a GG member for three and a half years and never wrote a .plan!

So the last year has been a big one. First off I've given up trying to diversify my work load and have committed all of my energy to strictly doing what I love to do...in-game art, and hopefully sticking strictly to Indy content. I've worked for most of the big publishers, and even though the pay is generally much better in that arena, you can't put a price on the atmosphere of the Indy community. I've been lucky enough to team up with Joe Maruschak on most of the community character models here at GG and it's been a blast. Walking into the office with a finished piece of work and getting to chat with all the guys at GG and BraveTree is a highlight of my professional life. So I'd like to be doing community art full time. I hope content packs are the ticket.

Last spring Joe and I were finishing up the Space Orc for the TSE early adopter launch. I was having so much fun playing with the materials in TSE that I decided I'd like to tackle my own character from start to finish. Creating a chance to push the TSE magic as far as possible. That was the beginning of the Mech Pack that will finally be presentable shortly, I hope. It's been slow going, but things are starting to crystallize.

In the mean time I wanted to get something finished and published. So I started work on an Urban Pack. It's a collection of modern urban incidental objects that can be a pain to build, but are vital to creating a realistic urban environment. The beauty of this stuff is that it's very generic and you could see it in ten different games and not catch the similarity. By providing a super affordable filler package like this, I hope to save many artists out there the hassle of building these little objects themselves.

This first pack will contain 10 items, each with a secondary texture treatment for more diversity. All will contain LODs and be completely TGE compatible of course. Here's an in-engine screen shot of most of them.

Missing from the shot is a 20 ft. cargo container. The pack is already pre-approved for release on GG and should be available soon.

Please feel free to throw in any feedback. If you have any comments or questions that you'd like to address to me personally please send them here weston@ffdigital.com

Alright, back to it!

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dakz0rz (Dec 08, 2004 at 23:10 GMT)

Does it have roads?

Josh Williams (Dec 08, 2004 at 23:42 GMT)

No, it doesn't have roads. But what it does have is kickass, amazing-looking urban props that'll be useful to a very wide variety of games. :)

Weston, your art is great. It's cool seeing so many artists in the garage. Thanks for posting this .plan, it's about time. ;)

Just so people get more familiar with Weston, he's a professional game developer and he'll hopefully be doing a number of cool content packs in the future.
Edited on Dec 08, 2004 23:43 GMT

Jackie Hayes (Dec 09, 2004 at 00:19 GMT)

Hey Weston.
I don't feel so bad now. I have been a GG member for almost 2 years now and have not written a plan yet. Just waiting until I get things the way I want them. Your pack looks very interesting. I definitely have a use for these static

Mark Berry (Dec 09, 2004 at 00:41 GMT)

I seem to have joined up at the right time, more stuff to play with.

Timothy Aste (Dec 09, 2004 at 01:38 GMT)

This stuff is really awesome, it's always awesome to see what Weston does next. :)

Matt Fairfax (Dec 09, 2004 at 02:30 GMT)

Pretty...me want to touch...

Weston (Dec 09, 2004 at 03:10 GMT)

Thanks for all the kind words everyone.

@Josh, you make a great 3rd party ambassador!

@Thomas, Sorry there aren't any roads. I was actually considering adding them, but I wanted to keep this first batch small. If people find this pack useful I'll definitely be adding more.

@Tim...thanks for the comments! If you have time, I'd still like your help with the Mech Pack presentation. Could be a ways away though.

@Mathew...so how long to port this group to Milk Shape :)

Joe Maruschak (Dec 09, 2004 at 04:02 GMT)

Wow.. this is looking sweet. Really nice work Weston.. impressive as always.

James Laker (BurNinG) (Dec 09, 2004 at 04:35 GMT)

Very nice!... The more packs the bettta...

Jay Moore (Dec 09, 2004 at 04:48 GMT)

Weston - Welcome to the world of .plans - can't wait to see your pack in the garage (makes me wish we could take preorders). Its true your work has been a too well kept secret here at GG.

Rumor has it that the Mech Pack exceeds all reasonable quality expectations - except maybe one persons. I can't wait to see your art in lots of games I know it will raise the quality bar for all 'modern urban incidental objects'.

Mark McCoy (Dec 09, 2004 at 06:09 GMT)

I know it's already been said, but..... Nice. Very nice.

Danny Ngan (Dec 09, 2004 at 06:13 GMT)

Wow! As always, incredible work, Weston.

Stefan Lundmark (Dec 09, 2004 at 08:38 GMT) Resource Rating: 5

Great stuff as always Weston, keep up the good work.

Ron Yacketta (Dec 09, 2004 at 10:52 GMT)

is that truely an in-game shot? looks like a picture taken in some downtown ally in anytown USA.

That simply ROCKS!!

FruitBatInShades (Dec 09, 2004 at 12:37 GMT)

They look very high tri? Whats the count on them?

Sam Contapay (Dec 09, 2004 at 14:53 GMT)

Awesome. I'll definetly get them for my next hobby project.

Weston (Dec 09, 2004 at 17:17 GMT)

Thanks again for all the kind words everyone!

@FruitBat

The dumpster is the highest at just under 300 polys. Much of that gets dumped in the second level of detail.

David \"Fulcrum\" Wyand (Dec 09, 2004 at 18:25 GMT)

Greetings!

I've had the privilege of seeing this pack before it being released and the detail is amazing! Here's a screenshot of a few objects from the pack in (the soon to be renamed) Looking Glass:

The jpeg compression artifacts don't let all of the detail show through, unfortunately. In other words, the attention to detail is even better than what is shown here. And BTW, the above image has the Synapse Gaming Lighting Pack enabled to give an even better sense of depth than in the standard TGE lighting.

- LightWave Dave

Phil Carlisle (Dec 09, 2004 at 18:50 GMT)

So Weston, does that mean your up for some indie paid project artwork too? what style do you specialise in?

I like the look of the incidentals. Its probably simpler to sell those kind of things as generic objects.

So what else are you cooking up Weston?

Dan MacDonald (Dec 09, 2004 at 19:12 GMT)

Very nice work weston, this is a much needed content pack I think. I see a lot of dev snapshots of cities made with torque. They genreally look like side walks butted up against textured cubes for buildings. It's nice but it really dosen't feel like a city. You need this kind of "human clutter" (for lack of a better term) to make it feel like a lived in city.

Weston (Dec 09, 2004 at 20:03 GMT)

@Dave

Actually the shot in my .plan is a cropped screen grab from looking glass, using the Synapse pack...
In the final release I will do plenty of gushing over how amazing the features in your tool are. I think it's love at first sight :)

@Phil

I'm always open to contract work. I've got a couple of commitments right now that take priority, but there's often extra time for side projects.

I'd say that I'm most comfortable with realism, be it sci-fi realism, fantasy realism or modern realism. I have little or no experience with stylized or cartoony looks.

The Mech Pack is next in the cue, possibly preempted by another pack...not sure yet. I'm also working with Brian Ramage (Of TSE fame) on a full game project.

@Dan

hmm..."The Human Clutter Pack"....I like it!

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