Really Good Things come to the Garage!
by Alan James · 04/09/2008 (6:39 pm) · 25 comments
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 $29.95
Thanks again to Derek B. and GarageGames, and everyone else around here who have been so kind as we've learned the ropes and tried to do our part, "Indie made content for Indie made Games."
- Alan
Really Really Good Things Studio
.
About the author
#22
Here is an example of the LOD levels in the building models. The final LOD level doesn't quite go down to a basic cube, but a quick load and export into Constructor and you could knock off those last few bits of geometry:
There is a basic city block DIF template that I've included with this update, it is not LOD'd, but I have a small update to it that should be done by Monday that will have 3 LODs:
I've been following your efforts to produce London in B.R.A.V.E., I'm not sure if the city block template would help, but on Monday I'll fire off a link to you for that specific model by then I might have a more solid idea on any bundles and pricing.
.
04/11/2008 (4:27 pm)
@Andy H.,Here is an example of the LOD levels in the building models. The final LOD level doesn't quite go down to a basic cube, but a quick load and export into Constructor and you could knock off those last few bits of geometry:
There is a basic city block DIF template that I've included with this update, it is not LOD'd, but I have a small update to it that should be done by Monday that will have 3 LODs:
I've been following your efforts to produce London in B.R.A.V.E., I'm not sure if the city block template would help, but on Monday I'll fire off a link to you for that specific model by then I might have a more solid idea on any bundles and pricing.
.
#23
04/11/2008 (5:19 pm)
Well I'm convinced. I'm gonna buy this pack now!!! Of course the city blocks in London aren't square but I can make my own templates. Thanks for the extra info - you put in a lot of effort.
#24
If you have an account with us on www.monsterpacks.com, and have been having trouble logging in, it's because our *#*$*&#**$*!!!!@*# website host keeps erroneously marking our site as exceeding alloted space.
We have 35gb storage and less than 5gb used. This happened two other times in the last several months and Kyle is on with their tech support right now and it should be resolved soon. I *really* don't want to have to change hosts...Sorry!
EDIT: Should be working now.
.
04/11/2008 (8:21 pm)
@Everyone,If you have an account with us on www.monsterpacks.com, and have been having trouble logging in, it's because our *#*$*&#**$*!!!!@*# 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.
.
#25
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
04/23/2008 (6:20 pm)
@Matt H., John N., and any others who have picked up these packs through the www.monsterpacks.com site, please email me at alanjamesATcharterDOTnet. 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
Associate Andy Hawkins
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