The Music Lounge Beta5: eye candy: cyclic changes: DJ Dance Groove
09/13/2006 (7:36 pm) by Clint S. Brewer
I'm intending this to be a quick post. I've sort of avoided posting for a while, way too long. Thing have changed a lot for me in the past 6 or 7 months.
I'd like your help and feedback on our new beta we released at Doppelganger, eye candy and links below
here's the quick story of the past months:
- UnEarthed Games going strong, but looking at how it's taken so long motivation started declining
- Initial self set deadline of two years before reevaluating whether I can continue full time was impending
- Savings getting low, so I started doing some contract work
- worked with some fellow garagegamers doing first contracts and really appreciate the work, learned alot about organizing contracts making it clear what is to be done etc
- met the Doppelganger people through Orion Elenzil, and we all got along great, you might remember this snapshot Orion posted back in june
- did some extended dedicated contracting with them adding toon rendering to tge and helping artists with various pipeline things
- moved to Santa Barbara, closer to wife's family
- did another couple months dedicated contract work with Doppelganger
- realized exactly how much I loved working with people again. I have been working for all intents and purposes solo for the past two years
- the time was ripe, the people were ripe(I mean this in the best way possible :) ), the feeling was ripe and I joined them full time a few months ago
Where now UnEearthed Games?
UEG is pseudo on hold. Letting this go unfinished is not an option for me. I plan to continue working on it in a strictly part time manner for the forsee-able future, and most likely bring in some other people to help finish. Most of the game is there, it just all has to be finished, and finishing is going to be a lot of work. More about this later.
Right now the thing I'm really excited about is The Music Lounge and what's going on at Doppelganger.
short cut to the chase: You can go and register/try out the demo here
Please try it out, I'd love to see what happens when streams of garagegamers log onto our server :)
We've done some stress testing pushing it pretty high but nothing beats real people trying it.
This is a screenshot from a live event we had with Kimberly from the Pussycat Dolls talking to fans. Notice the shiny water, this is an adaptation of Manoel's wonderful water contribution (I can't thank you enough for that which you gave freely) I adapted it for use with cgfx, and changed the way it's set up a bit, added some fallbacks that use static cubemaps etc, but the core is the same.
This next one is a sort of birds eye view of the front of the club, and some hottubs on top
This is a disco party on top of the world
looking through multilayerd alpha quads....triiiiipy
when we were developing things, I spent way to much time trying to jump around and get to places the artists didn't really intend me to get to, a sort of slow moving digital parkour, at least thats the way I thought of it :) When we went public, players quickly figured out how to get to even more places using teamwork, it was awesome..
Hmm I could keep talking about this for a long time, I might edit and add more here.
Please check out the new Beta 5 and let me know what you think. We've done a lot with TGE but as you know there is so much more we can do.
Here is the beta link again.
think hard....there is no quick post
I'd like your help and feedback on our new beta we released at Doppelganger, eye candy and links below
here's the quick story of the past months:
- UnEarthed Games going strong, but looking at how it's taken so long motivation started declining
- Initial self set deadline of two years before reevaluating whether I can continue full time was impending
- Savings getting low, so I started doing some contract work
- worked with some fellow garagegamers doing first contracts and really appreciate the work, learned alot about organizing contracts making it clear what is to be done etc
- met the Doppelganger people through Orion Elenzil, and we all got along great, you might remember this snapshot Orion posted back in june
- did some extended dedicated contracting with them adding toon rendering to tge and helping artists with various pipeline things
- moved to Santa Barbara, closer to wife's family
- did another couple months dedicated contract work with Doppelganger
- realized exactly how much I loved working with people again. I have been working for all intents and purposes solo for the past two years
- the time was ripe, the people were ripe(I mean this in the best way possible :) ), the feeling was ripe and I joined them full time a few months ago
Where now UnEearthed Games?
UEG is pseudo on hold. Letting this go unfinished is not an option for me. I plan to continue working on it in a strictly part time manner for the forsee-able future, and most likely bring in some other people to help finish. Most of the game is there, it just all has to be finished, and finishing is going to be a lot of work. More about this later.
Right now the thing I'm really excited about is The Music Lounge and what's going on at Doppelganger.
short cut to the chase: You can go and register/try out the demo here
Please try it out, I'd love to see what happens when streams of garagegamers log onto our server :)
We've done some stress testing pushing it pretty high but nothing beats real people trying it.
This is a screenshot from a live event we had with Kimberly from the Pussycat Dolls talking to fans. Notice the shiny water, this is an adaptation of Manoel's wonderful water contribution (I can't thank you enough for that which you gave freely) I adapted it for use with cgfx, and changed the way it's set up a bit, added some fallbacks that use static cubemaps etc, but the core is the same.
This next one is a sort of birds eye view of the front of the club, and some hottubs on top
This is a disco party on top of the world
looking through multilayerd alpha quads....triiiiipy
when we were developing things, I spent way to much time trying to jump around and get to places the artists didn't really intend me to get to, a sort of slow moving digital parkour, at least thats the way I thought of it :) When we went public, players quickly figured out how to get to even more places using teamwork, it was awesome..
Hmm I could keep talking about this for a long time, I might edit and add more here.
Please check out the new Beta 5 and let me know what you think. We've done a lot with TGE but as you know there is so much more we can do.
Here is the beta link again.
think hard....there is no quick post
About the author
[gge_user=Clint The Brewer] My first job in this industry was in technical support at [url=http://www.borland.com/]Borland[/url]. I supported TASM, BC5, the first CBuilder, the first JBuilder, and various other products. I then had the luck of working for the good master [url=http://www.garagegames.com/my/home/view.profile.php?qid=40475]Orion Elenzil[/url] at [url=http://www.haptek.com/]Haptek[/url] for about 5 years, making virtual friend 2, 3, 4, PeoplePutty, Kate, Stan Lee Media\'s Mongorr (a 3d desktop version of the comic character) and many other things. I worked with small teams of 0 - 5 other programmers for each project. Sudenly, a magic tornado picked me up and dropped me at [url=http://developer.nvidia.com/page/home.html]NVIDIA[/url] in the Developer Technology group helping people make their games work as smoothly as I could. My work earned some game credits from the kind people at [url=http://www.peoplecanfly.com/]People Can Fly[/url] and EA Blackbox. I got to work with a lot of other great games like Prince of Persia, Splinter Cell, Myst, etc. All and all it was a magical experience. I\'m currently working part-time on my new game company [url=http://www.unearthedgames.com/]UnEarthed Games[/url].[/b] Well it\'s more of a game proprietorship...no... it is a lone craftsmans workshop deep in the forest...a wild bearded man in a cave... It\'s just me seeing what one man with a little creativity and infinite time can accomplish on the RPG front. I\'m always on the look out for any short term Game Related Contract Work. If you think my skills could be of service lets talk: [email]services@unearthedgames.com[/email] In May 2006 I finished up about 6 months of contract work with [url=http://www.garagegames.com/my/home/view.profile.php?qid=40475]Orion Elenzil[/url] and all the Evil Twins over at [url=http://doppelganger.net/]Doppelganger[/url] working on graphics, scripting, tools, code, and getting artists up to speed on torque pipeline and what you can do with torque for the [url=http://www.pcdmusiclounge.com/]PCDMusic Lounge[/url] view profile »
#2
09/13/2006 (7:54 pm)
I'm not sure how the music works in this, but if you guys made a VST plugin, it'd be sweet to let digital DJs who use Ableton or what not to be able to play-out live in the lounge, and the VST would compress, buffer, and route the music to your servers.
#3
tech wise right now I think they are just streams from a server we are playing with FMOD.
09/13/2006 (8:00 pm)
I haven't been working closely with the music side of things, so I'm not sure what it'd take to get it going, but I know we want to have live DJs going (I sure as hell do). Right now we have various DJs put together new sets ever so often and cycle those throughout. We have about 5 or six different zones that have different styles of music, popish / chill / urban / various electronica / mashups / random crazy stuff mixed in. tech wise right now I think they are just streams from a server we are playing with FMOD.
#4
09/13/2006 (8:04 pm)
I wanted to say that I've been constantly amazed at what Doppleganger (nee EvilTwin) have been doing with TGE over the last 2 years. They've pushed the engine in directions it was never really meant to go, combined with directions that it was designed to go but had never been taken, and have put out an awesome product!
#5
09/13/2006 (9:41 pm)
thanks for the kind words Stephen, I remember when Orion was telling me about the amazing stuff they were doing before release, then got to be personally amazed seeing the architecture, characters, music and ambience they were putting together. Definitely different than anything I had seen in tge before. I'm continuously amazed with what everyone pushes out here, and dying to get the next stuff out :)
#6
09/13/2006 (9:41 pm)
Well said, Stephen. :)
#7
09/13/2006 (10:58 pm)
That's funny, today I was thinking how you were doing with Unearthed Games since I haven't heard anything for while. So when do you guys plan on releasing The Lounge? 
#8
09/13/2006 (11:09 pm)
Have always been impressed with The Lounge... way too fun ! :)
#9
The Lounge Beta is public and linked from a few places, I'm not sure when the official non beta launch is going to happen right now and would hate to say something that's supposed to be secret wink wink
as far as UnEarthed Gods and UnEarthed Games, I should have been posting more info on progress, I sort of felt like I didn't want to show anything until more final art got in there. And I didn't want to post without showing any pictures :)
I came to the realization recently that I need to do a pass over the story to make sure things flow well. I've done a rough gameplay pass through the key plots making sure the logic works and progresses like I planned. I've had a hell of a time with the very beginning though, gone through a few different iterations on what exactly happens there. You know I want those opening hours or so of play to have the right feeling, set the right tone. I think this difficulty stems from a lack of fully fleshing out the story, there is a core to everything that if I focus on that will bring it through and set the right tone. That's my hope at least.
I've also been fleshing out my level design process. I my hugest yet dungeon area roughed out right now, and the plan is to leave it roughed out until the game is complete, then fill it in. When I say roughed out I mean really roughed out. Spaces are enclosed, the width and height of areas are blocked out so you get the feel of the space, but it's all using simple white grid texture. Used white so I can see what the basic light values will be with rough area lights. I found that just the rough space, and rough lighting gives about 80% of the feel that I'm looking for in certain areas. Keeping it rough means it's easy to tweak and make big changes to areas as gameplay needs arise... But of course this means I have a lot of rough stuff I don't want to really show!
I did post a few more blogs on my site since the last one I posted here on garagegames (previous to this one that is) so there might be more info on what I've been up to there.
I've been working with Jeff Faust as an early tester of Arcane FX, really loving it. I've made a few largish overhauls of my AI system, now it's focused on Goals, which for me are sort of like meta AI's that can be swapped out. Started using faction system so ai can generically determine who is friend and foe, had some hardcoded crap in there before.
Overhauled the Skill system integrating it more closely with the Spell system, goes through the same save and load mechanism.
reworked and improved tons of things, made broader use of stats in melee, skills, spells, dialog checks.
also worked on a lot of music and gameplay stuff lately. Made a song a day for 30 days.. Made some new tracks for certain areas, and have some hopefully great ideas on how to set up the music for the game, need to get on that.
Did a lot of gameplay/puzzle brainstorming, doing one full one a day for 30 days. Some good ones came out I think, will see when they are in the game proper. Been reading a lot of Dungeon magazine lately for inspiration. I used to read these back in the day but haven't really been into it much since WoTC took over things. it's really amazing the quality of stuff now, so much is so great.
Perhaps the coolest thing is how new ideas fit into the huge puzzle piece so perfectly. You know there might have been some hole in the story or world history etc, then out of left field this concept/creature/gameplayevent comes and fits so perfectly it all makes sense. Really satisfying when that happens. And lucky for me it happens a lot :)
09/14/2006 (7:05 am)
Hi Nick, good to hear from you, The Lounge Beta is public and linked from a few places, I'm not sure when the official non beta launch is going to happen right now and would hate to say something that's supposed to be secret wink wink
as far as UnEarthed Gods and UnEarthed Games, I should have been posting more info on progress, I sort of felt like I didn't want to show anything until more final art got in there. And I didn't want to post without showing any pictures :)
I came to the realization recently that I need to do a pass over the story to make sure things flow well. I've done a rough gameplay pass through the key plots making sure the logic works and progresses like I planned. I've had a hell of a time with the very beginning though, gone through a few different iterations on what exactly happens there. You know I want those opening hours or so of play to have the right feeling, set the right tone. I think this difficulty stems from a lack of fully fleshing out the story, there is a core to everything that if I focus on that will bring it through and set the right tone. That's my hope at least.
I've also been fleshing out my level design process. I my hugest yet dungeon area roughed out right now, and the plan is to leave it roughed out until the game is complete, then fill it in. When I say roughed out I mean really roughed out. Spaces are enclosed, the width and height of areas are blocked out so you get the feel of the space, but it's all using simple white grid texture. Used white so I can see what the basic light values will be with rough area lights. I found that just the rough space, and rough lighting gives about 80% of the feel that I'm looking for in certain areas. Keeping it rough means it's easy to tweak and make big changes to areas as gameplay needs arise... But of course this means I have a lot of rough stuff I don't want to really show!
I did post a few more blogs on my site since the last one I posted here on garagegames (previous to this one that is) so there might be more info on what I've been up to there.
I've been working with Jeff Faust as an early tester of Arcane FX, really loving it. I've made a few largish overhauls of my AI system, now it's focused on Goals, which for me are sort of like meta AI's that can be swapped out. Started using faction system so ai can generically determine who is friend and foe, had some hardcoded crap in there before.
Overhauled the Skill system integrating it more closely with the Spell system, goes through the same save and load mechanism.
reworked and improved tons of things, made broader use of stats in melee, skills, spells, dialog checks.
also worked on a lot of music and gameplay stuff lately. Made a song a day for 30 days.. Made some new tracks for certain areas, and have some hopefully great ideas on how to set up the music for the game, need to get on that.
Did a lot of gameplay/puzzle brainstorming, doing one full one a day for 30 days. Some good ones came out I think, will see when they are in the game proper. Been reading a lot of Dungeon magazine lately for inspiration. I used to read these back in the day but haven't really been into it much since WoTC took over things. it's really amazing the quality of stuff now, so much is so great.
Perhaps the coolest thing is how new ideas fit into the huge puzzle piece so perfectly. You know there might have been some hole in the story or world history etc, then out of left field this concept/creature/gameplayevent comes and fits so perfectly it all makes sense. Really satisfying when that happens. And lucky for me it happens a lot :)
#10
Nick
09/14/2006 (8:03 am)
It's really amazing how you manage to create everything (code, art, music, etc.) all alone and do a great job too! Besides my partner who does the level design, I had to get help from a musician, story writer, animator, and modeler for my game and still need more people in level design and programming.Nick
#11
also if I had worked with more people at least as dedicated as you or me I probably could have a finished the game by now given the amount I've got done with just me. That would be a nice feeling. But I really did want to learn how to do everything. I think that there's something really wonderful about having a good breadth of knowledge, knowing what your artists go through trying to rig and skin models, Knowing the pain people go through getting the dif interiors together and looking good. It was also part of the reason I wanted to do this, I used to do a lot of art and have been a pretty strict programmer for so long, only making a song here or there. I really wanted to get back to doing some art, doing some writing etc. It just makes me feel good. I think everyone should give a shot at it, even if you don't think you are that good of an artists or writer, no body is good when they first start, well very few. It's a long road you just have to do lots of it. Throw lots of crap around and you'll be surprised how sticky it is :)
as far as Doppelganger, I'm just a small part of doppelganger, and give tons of credit to the artists for making it look as well as it does. It's all about the art....and the programming...and the music....it takes all sorts!
09/15/2006 (7:10 pm)
Quote:and do a great job too!heh, thanks, but that's yet to be seen, all you've seen have been a few screenshots. There's still the possibility I'm a complete wanker and making a crappy game, of course I don't think so, but that's me :)
also if I had worked with more people at least as dedicated as you or me I probably could have a finished the game by now given the amount I've got done with just me. That would be a nice feeling. But I really did want to learn how to do everything. I think that there's something really wonderful about having a good breadth of knowledge, knowing what your artists go through trying to rig and skin models, Knowing the pain people go through getting the dif interiors together and looking good. It was also part of the reason I wanted to do this, I used to do a lot of art and have been a pretty strict programmer for so long, only making a song here or there. I really wanted to get back to doing some art, doing some writing etc. It just makes me feel good. I think everyone should give a shot at it, even if you don't think you are that good of an artists or writer, no body is good when they first start, well very few. It's a long road you just have to do lots of it. Throw lots of crap around and you'll be surprised how sticky it is :)
as far as Doppelganger, I'm just a small part of doppelganger, and give tons of credit to the artists for making it look as well as it does. It's all about the art....and the programming...and the music....it takes all sorts!
Torque Owner Clint S. Brewer