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Really Good Things come to the Garage!
Really Good Things come to the Garage!
| Name: | Alan James | |
|---|---|---|
| Date Posted: | Apr 10, 2008 | |
| Rating: |  4.0 out of 5 | |
| Public: | YES | |
| Comments: | YES | |
| RSS Feed: |  or Subscribe with  . | |
| Profile Page: | View profile page for Alan James |
Blog post
Hi Everyone! Most of you folks around here know Kyle and I from Really Really Good Things Studio, "Code Name: Monster Island", "Swords of Avalon", etc. and various other posting of our work here on GarageGames.
Again as many of you might know we entered realm of content art back in late summer, early fall of 2007. I guess I would be the first to admit that it was a shaky start. It was a daunting task and since that time we've released three updates to the original packs that we introduced back then.
We've learned a lot.
What works for you doesn't necessarily mean it's going to work for someone else. What you might be looking for in a particular model or asset again may be quite different that another developer. And biggest was that sometimes you just couldn't let it look as spectacular as you'd like because it still has to run in the engine. That was the big one, and has led to the many updates and revisions. We want our stuff to work and work well.
Let's fast forward to late fall 2007. I receive and email from Derek Bronson asking if anyone had ever approached us about selling our content on GarageGames.com. Well, no...no one had. So it began. I had already had in the works the "final" update (which as I have come to discover with some cool things I can do with a convoluted art pipeline and polysoup might *not* be the final update) and so we continued on.
I burned up a lot of time on this latest update. Across the board about 90% of all the models are LOD'd, texture resized or adjusted, directory structures reorganized...basically I did the whole thing over again. The three content packs, The Warehouse District, The Downtown District and the Alley Ambiance Pack easily represent a collective time expenditure on my part of more than 500 hours. I know that sounds like a lot. It was. That was just the latest revision since late November of 2007.
I'm happy with them now. I could walk away and sleep at night and be very proud of what I've accomplished. I probably won't -- since there are a few things still mulling around in my head that I'd like to improve even more, but at some point I'll put it all to bed. That probably not tonight.
And now the day has come. All the packs are live on GarageGames content section of the Store here now. It's a really cool thing. So I thought I'd show off a few things that might not have ended up in the store or in a dev shot coming up. So here we go...
The Warehouse District was actually the first content pack that we completed originally, and was the last one to be updated this time. I'm not even sure if I have sent out any emails informing anyone of it being available in their accounts on our site, or if in fact I've had Kyle add it to the accounts. If it's not there right now, it will be later tonight.
It represents the first stages of what I wanted to create. A set of content packs that would pretty much stand alone, or could combine together with a piece here and a piece there to quickly put together a nice, uniform and full looking area or level:
From cargo containers to tin storage buildings I wanted a strong set of good looking models that following this latest update would perform as best as possible:
The next pack we originally release was the Downtown District:
These contained the bulk of the standard style buildings and are nearly all primarily .DIF format (as I noted...this *may* change...have to wait and see if I can throw any more time at it). I really loved the look of these models, but originally without any LOD, and some pretty hefty texture sizes they wanted to bunch up even burly GPUs. The latest update addressed both of those areas.
I included with the latest update the successive .MAP files and the instructions to set your own LOD "PoP" point. I was very unaggressive on setting the LOD points, but that's the beauty of having the art assets and directions...set it where you need to to get the performance you need.
Finally we released the Alley Ambiance pack a short time after the Downtown District:
It represented primarily filler for either of the two other packs, or it could be used as stand alone content for any genre needing 20th century junk to fill a level. Crates, palettes, 2x4s, cinder blocks, street signs, fire hydrants (Kyles modeling there), and just a lot of various other things to work with:
This latest update included the introduction of normal, specular and ambient occlusion maps along with the original textures. Hopefully someone can put them to good use in TGEA 1.7 now that it's has gone gold an really seems solid:
Like the theme song of "Enterprise" goes, it's been a long road getting from there to here.
But I'm proud of what we've done.
I'm proud of my Son, the work that he has put into writing from scratch our website in PHP and maintaining it all these months, helping me out in so many ways. I could not have dreamed of better children than the ones that I have. Maybe someday this is what we will be able to do as my primary type of work. But until that day comes, I'll still be up 'til all hours of the night and posting here and there in the forums...
If you'd like to check them out, they are here:
The Downtown District Pack It sells for $29.95
The Alley Ambiance Pack It sells for $19.95
The Warehouse District Pack It sells for $29.95
Thanks again to Derek B. and GarageGames, and everyone else around here who have been so kind as we've learned the ropes and tried to do our part, "Indie made content for Indie made Games."
- Alan
Really Really Good Things Studio
.
Again as many of you might know we entered realm of content art back in late summer, early fall of 2007. I guess I would be the first to admit that it was a shaky start. It was a daunting task and since that time we've released three updates to the original packs that we introduced back then.
We've learned a lot.
What works for you doesn't necessarily mean it's going to work for someone else. What you might be looking for in a particular model or asset again may be quite different that another developer. And biggest was that sometimes you just couldn't let it look as spectacular as you'd like because it still has to run in the engine. That was the big one, and has led to the many updates and revisions. We want our stuff to work and work well.
Let's fast forward to late fall 2007. I receive and email from Derek Bronson asking if anyone had ever approached us about selling our content on GarageGames.com. Well, no...no one had. So it began. I had already had in the works the "final" update (which as I have come to discover with some cool things I can do with a convoluted art pipeline and polysoup might *not* be the final update) and so we continued on.
I burned up a lot of time on this latest update. Across the board about 90% of all the models are LOD'd, texture resized or adjusted, directory structures reorganized...basically I did the whole thing over again. The three content packs, The Warehouse District, The Downtown District and the Alley Ambiance Pack easily represent a collective time expenditure on my part of more than 500 hours. I know that sounds like a lot. It was. That was just the latest revision since late November of 2007.
I'm happy with them now. I could walk away and sleep at night and be very proud of what I've accomplished. I probably won't -- since there are a few things still mulling around in my head that I'd like to improve even more, but at some point I'll put it all to bed. That probably not tonight.
And now the day has come. All the packs are live on GarageGames content section of the Store here now. It's a really cool thing. So I thought I'd show off a few things that might not have ended up in the store or in a dev shot coming up. So here we go...
The Warehouse District was actually the first content pack that we completed originally, and was the last one to be updated this time. I'm not even sure if I have sent out any emails informing anyone of it being available in their accounts on our site, or if in fact I've had Kyle add it to the accounts. If it's not there right now, it will be later tonight.
It represents the first stages of what I wanted to create. A set of content packs that would pretty much stand alone, or could combine together with a piece here and a piece there to quickly put together a nice, uniform and full looking area or level:
From cargo containers to tin storage buildings I wanted a strong set of good looking models that following this latest update would perform as best as possible:
The next pack we originally release was the Downtown District:
These contained the bulk of the standard style buildings and are nearly all primarily .DIF format (as I noted...this *may* change...have to wait and see if I can throw any more time at it). I really loved the look of these models, but originally without any LOD, and some pretty hefty texture sizes they wanted to bunch up even burly GPUs. The latest update addressed both of those areas.
I included with the latest update the successive .MAP files and the instructions to set your own LOD "PoP" point. I was very unaggressive on setting the LOD points, but that's the beauty of having the art assets and directions...set it where you need to to get the performance you need.
Finally we released the Alley Ambiance pack a short time after the Downtown District:
It represented primarily filler for either of the two other packs, or it could be used as stand alone content for any genre needing 20th century junk to fill a level. Crates, palettes, 2x4s, cinder blocks, street signs, fire hydrants (Kyles modeling there), and just a lot of various other things to work with:
This latest update included the introduction of normal, specular and ambient occlusion maps along with the original textures. Hopefully someone can put them to good use in TGEA 1.7 now that it's has gone gold an really seems solid:
Like the theme song of "Enterprise" goes, it's been a long road getting from there to here.
But I'm proud of what we've done.
I'm proud of my Son, the work that he has put into writing from scratch our website in PHP and maintaining it all these months, helping me out in so many ways. I could not have dreamed of better children than the ones that I have. Maybe someday this is what we will be able to do as my primary type of work. But until that day comes, I'll still be up 'til all hours of the night and posting here and there in the forums...
If you'd like to check them out, they are here:
The Downtown District Pack It sells for $29.95
The Alley Ambiance Pack It sells for $19.95
The Warehouse District Pack It sells for $29.95
Thanks again to Derek B. and GarageGames, and everyone else around here who have been so kind as we've learned the ropes and tried to do our part, "Indie made content for Indie made Games."
- Alan
Really Really Good Things Studio
.
Recent Blog Posts
| List: | 05/22/08 - Sticks & Twigs Environment Pack - Stick a Fork in it... 05/05/08 - Sticks & Twigs - Not just for Breakfast Anymore 04/10/08 - Really Good Things come to the Garage! 03/01/08 - Really Really Good Things Studio - Current WIP 01/02/08 - 2008 Day One - Free Stuff & A Fun Three Years 10/31/07 - Happy Halloween! The best mortgage rate you'll ever see... 10/28/07 - House for Sale...Cheap! 10/12/07 - IGC - What Have You Learned, Dorothy? |
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Submit your own resources!| Kenneth Holst (Apr 10, 2008 at 02:07 GMT) |
| DALO (Apr 10, 2008 at 02:20 GMT) |
| Alan James (Apr 10, 2008 at 02:30 GMT) |
You are correct, primarily DIF, although quite a few of the buildings in the Warehouse District are also DTS and a lot of the smaller content is both also. I stumbled upon this crazy, convoluted series of steps to move the DIFs to DTS so that you end up with models that look identical.
Regarding the art pipeline, you've pretty much described mine. I've been having trouble letting go of 3DWS 5.43, mainly because it has a wonderful one step export. But I've been jumping between it and 5.52 and then handle the LOD the same, Constructor. I'm an old school HL hammer user, so 3DWS seems like an old friend.
| Todd Pickens (Apr 10, 2008 at 05:43 GMT) |
Congrats and great progrss.
| Matt Huston (Apr 10, 2008 at 08:33 GMT) Resource Rating: 5 |
Is there any chance that our purchase history directly from RRGTS will be able to transfer over to GarageGames.com?
| Henri Aalto (Apr 10, 2008 at 11:46 GMT) |
| Alan James (Apr 10, 2008 at 12:19 GMT) |
Unfortunately I don't think that would be possible, but whatever updates, changes, etc. that end up here will be reflected on the www.monsterpacks.com site. I know it would be more convenient to have all of your Torque related stuff accessible in one location. If I hear anything different I'll let you know. And thanks again!
@Henri
I forgot to log off and check if it was accessible from someone other than me and GG! I noticed that the price and buy now button had been set and made the mistake of assuming it was live. It should be shortly, hopefully sometime today. Sorry! I just got too excited. =P
| Patrick Adesso (RollerJesus) (Apr 10, 2008 at 14:03 GMT) |
Thanks,
Patrick
Edited on Apr 10, 2008 14:04 GMT
| Mark Dynna (Apr 10, 2008 at 14:49 GMT) |
| Matt Huston (Apr 10, 2008 at 15:52 GMT) Resource Rating: 5 |
I assumed as much and its no biggie :)
| Andy Hawkins (Apr 10, 2008 at 15:57 GMT) |
| Stephan (viKKing) Bondier (Apr 10, 2008 at 16:09 GMT) |
| Derek Bronson (Apr 10, 2008 at 18:41 GMT) |
| Henri Aalto (Apr 10, 2008 at 19:29 GMT) |
| John E. Nelson (Apr 10, 2008 at 19:45 GMT) |
| Alan James (Apr 10, 2008 at 22:13 GMT) |
@Mark D., yes. I've done a bit of custom contract work, right now I'm playing catch up with a couple folks who have been monumentally kind in there patience while I finished the last updates on these packs.
@Andy, I'll get together with Derek and see what we can do in the area of bundles...I'm definitely not adverse to the idea here! =)
@Henri, I'll put together a list of what is included in what pack. But as a rule of thumb, the Downtown District is pretty much DIF models. The Warehouse District is .DIF, and .DTS ( with the included source art files, i.e. .MS3D, .OBJ, .MAP, and any texture content in .JPG or .PNG) with the possible exception of buildings that are enterable, ( I think there are five I can think of off the top of my head) which are .DIF only. The Alley Ambiance Pack in nearly completely both formats (.DIF and .DTS), again with all source art.
The models range from low LOD of 20-50 polys up to high LOD at 2500 give or take. Most High poly LODs are around the 1200-1500 range. Again since you have all the source art at your disposal, you have the resources to do quite a bit with detail levels and such. You could probably even strip out the higher LOD models and re-export the low LODs for an RTS pretty easily.
@John N. I'm not really sure how that would work out since really that would be putting a lot on GG considering they would really be offering a degree of support and bandwidth for something they saw no revenue for.
@John N. & RollerJesus (Patrick),
I'm just curious, did the new updates not propagate into your account on www.monsterpacks.com? We actually uploaded the latest builds of all these packs onto our site first and supposedly into your accounts, I just never publicly announced it (although I did send off a email newsletter).
The other advantage is that through your account at www.monsterpacks.com you should have access to the original 1.0 release -- not great for performance, but had the highest resolution textures. Let me know if you have had any difficulties with the updates being in your account, I want to resolve any issues like that and get the site as stable and user friendly as we canm considering we quite a bit more things planned for the future!
@Everyone, thanks for the kind words, the encouragement, the constructive criticism and all the help. Again, if you originally purchased the packs through the www.monsterpacks.com and you haven't either received an email notification of the updates or they never propagated into your account, please let me know! We will resolve it right away. You can contact me at alanjamesATcharterDOTnet.
Thanks again!
-Alan
.
Edited on Apr 24, 2008 01:21 GMT
| Andy Hawkins (Apr 10, 2008 at 22:56 GMT) |
| Matt Huston (Apr 11, 2008 at 09:33 GMT) Resource Rating: 5 |
Non Londoners wouldn't know the difference :D
| Andy Hawkins (Apr 11, 2008 at 11:59 GMT) |
| Matt Huston (Apr 11, 2008 at 13:39 GMT) Resource Rating: 5 |
I would think you'd need to make the far away LOD very simple... just a cube with a texture on it.
| Andy Hawkins (Apr 11, 2008 at 15:13 GMT) |
| Alan James (Apr 11, 2008 at 23:27 GMT) |
Here is an example of the LOD levels in the building models. The final LOD level doesn't quite go down to a basic cube, but a quick load and export into Constructor and you could knock off those last few bits of geometry:
There is a basic city block DIF template that I've included with this update, it is not LOD'd, but I have a small update to it that should be done by Monday that will have 3 LODs:
I've been following your efforts to produce London in B.R.A.V.E., I'm not sure if the city block template would help, but on Monday I'll fire off a link to you for that specific model by then I might have a more solid idea on any bundles and pricing.
.
Edited on Apr 11, 2008 23:28 GMT
| Andy Hawkins (Apr 12, 2008 at 00:19 GMT) |
| Alan James (Apr 12, 2008 at 03:21 GMT) |
If you have an account with us on www.monsterpacks.com, and have been having trouble logging in, it's because our *#*$*&#**$*!!!!@*# website host keeps erroneously marking our site as exceeding alloted space.
We have 35gb storage and less than 5gb used. This happened two other times in the last several months and Kyle is on with their tech support right now and it should be resolved soon. I *really* don't want to have to change hosts...Sorry!
EDIT: Should be working now.
.
Edited on Apr 12, 2008 03:41 GMT
| Alan James (Apr 24, 2008 at 01:20 GMT) |
Derek B. & Garage Games has generously offered to update your Garage Games downloads to include these packs (or the specific ones that you have purchased directly from Really Really Good Things Studio). That's a really great thing. I will also try to contact those of you who have expressed interest in this directly. (But obviously if you are reading this...you already know!)
- Alan
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