Horse and Cart Pack

#1 Originally this horse was intended for a Medieval Game I started work on in 2007, but have recently gone down a different direction for this Medieval game (more on this soon). Shame to keep this horse on the back burner, so you might find a use for it in your 3D game(s). I'll update this blog when the pack is ready to go!

#2 Looks great.
Do you have the scricpts and animations, too?

#3 Sweet man. Did those links I posted in my last blog help you figure out how to rig/weight paint? If so I've recently found some decent sites with interesting topics on topology/edge loop flow that you may find of interest as well.

Either way glad to see you're getting the chance to finish up your horse. Looking foward to seeing the cart and armor ;).

Sid.

#4 Nice, looking forward to it.

#5 @Rui - yes, a ready to go pack it will be. Just plug and play :) We'll support you if you have any problems.

@Scott - they did indeed, thanks you were a big help on my buildings blog. In light of that I'm releasing a buildings/office pack with multiple building types, some with textured windows (outside to simulate glass, and inside with office blinds) a few buildings with breakable glass and portals - just perfecting my texturing skills. Also, feel free to post those links on the Constructor love blog to keep the info all in one place. Cheers.

@Gareth - thanks!

#6 Looks great! Will you be providing animations as well?

#7 @Matt - yes, there will be quite a few included, and we'll do some custom ones to your requirements if you need them for about $30-40 per anim.

#8 hmm i could use cant wait for it. i been waiting for you to put up your site for months now. i seen your site maybe a year ago and i always had it on my save list. i just found about torque a month ago and seen somthing2play every now and again so i see your still doing something. :P

do you also do custom textures or maybe you should put in the pack more textures as i would think people want a black,white,brown and maybe mixtures of colors.

also is it just a texture on the horse or you also using normal maps and stuff on it. it just looks like texture and how many polys is it.

#9 @Brandon - good to hear that the something2play name is getting out there. I'm just a one man independent company, hiring the odd contractor or team to do some work here and there when funds permit. I try and do quite a bit of the work myself and vary my skills from producing to c++ programming, php / mysql / flash development and now trying to specialise in one area for the time being - 3D artwork and animation (being a mixed bag I really need to start specialising in an area that is in demand) - so my website has been a bit behind on the pecking order, but it will be up in a week.

After the website is up I'm going to be completing some content packs to keep things ticking over while I finish the few games I have in the pipeline to help fund the studio further and maybe hire a few full time people if sales are good - while I'm waiting for the first 2 games to be published - I have one game on TGEA and a few other games on TGB nearing completion and looking to launch soon (a blog with screenshots soon!).

It's tough, being an indie out there when you don't have any games ready and selling at the moment especially when your wife is about to have a baby and is a contractor herself, applying for jobs in the UK as a games producer / project manager is non existent - not many senior roles out there during the recession. So I may try and go back to the IT sector for a bit if I don't get any work on the 3D gaming art once I've built up a portfolio, or at least until the games start selling and the economy gets better - but even so, when the games are ready there's that factor of releasing the game in the current climate - will sales be lower outside of a recession for an Indie developer when people at home are buying from the big brand names? I know people are saying that the games industry on the retail side is not having an impact as people are staying at home rather than going out, but 3-6 months down the line there may be a decline in the people buying games? I know studios in the UK that are not heavily armoured with funding are cutting back on taking new people onboard. Mainly the big studios.

Coming back to the horse. It will have all of the normal maps, specular added etc, and it'll be TGE/A ready. There will be several coloured textures to the horse. I'll provide all of the details at the time of the pack being finished.

#10 ya good to here that your still around i will be looking forward to buying this pack as its something i could really use. there not many things i could use for my game that people have already made. its not a game with new tec stuff its a old style game so i am limited on what i can use and cant. i could just make the 3d things my self though as that's what i do best. i also don't mind saving time on something that already out there also its to help indies that don't have allot of money. i have money so i don't mind helping others with money.

i am just getting into building my game so i have a long road. i been preparing to build a game for 3 years and now i am taking the step on making it happen. i will be doing everything my self at first mostly because i want to learn code and to know what problems you could run into. its so when i have a team of people i know what they are going though and help them if needed to get things going faster. i will be waiting for your site to open and to see what packs you make. i seen what games you have when the site was up and what you was working on. i have always had the site saved as it looked like good work you was working on.

#11 Comment removed.

#12 @Brandon - good stuff. Looking forward to what you produce. Torque is a great games engine. If you need any help with it and I have some free time, let me know.

@Novack - yes, I am aware of other horse packs out there, and in fact bought several from various sites myself a while back now, but never used them as they did not fit the genre of my game at the time, so one of our contracted artists created a base model of the horse, rigged/animated it myself and added extra features to the pack - it would be a shame not to release it as a pack considering it has been sitting on my hard drive since march 2007! and I'd certainly like to recoup the development costs, and add it to my portfolio if nothing else.

You can never have too many packs of the same, and I agree there are duplicate packs or obsolute packs on the GG site now, but having variety and choice is a good thing, especially for Indies. Our horse pack is more aimed at the workers horse, pulling bulky items or for Medieval Knights and will also be aimed at commercial grade developers now that TGEA is firmly in the spotlight, but also cater for Indies. I think you will start to see quite a few duplicate products, but with different qualities appearing on the GG site over time now - lots more people creating packs these days, stepping up to the mark and preparing for T3D. I'll be releasing this pack for other game engines, it so happends that Torque was my first choice. Wait until you see the full list of features of this pack, as I've not listed them all here. I'll save that for when it's launched. All of the horse packs that I have seen do have differen't qualities and assets like any other pack here and I am sure that they will compliment each other by having a variety of horses within a game and cater for different studio needs.

#13 Julian, very kind explaination. I think you are right, thats why I removed the post. Good work, btw.

#14 Thanks Novack.

I'm also interested in finding out what other packs people would like to see for their games, even if I/we don't create them.

#15 well i could list some i going to list basic things that allot of people could always use.

1: male and female model i not talking like some low quality one i talking high quality and don't have no cloths on it can come with basic cloths on the side though animated textures with everything to make a high quality one. put it in formats so we can edit the model to make old people you can even make kids and babes in the pack or make those in a different pack.

i like the model that is at the bottom of this blog www.garagegames.com/community/blogs/view/15956 only thing is it has underwear on. like i have said my game is going to be a old stile game they don't have underwear like that i could edit the model though to fit what they had back then.

2: plants i seen some good plants already the only thing i cant find out of all those plants though is desert looking plants. :P maybe even under water plants as well.

3: weapons like swords,bows,axes,pikes,crossbows, many others not talking modern weapons. i found 1 pack but it used to be sold on gg i asked the guy if he is going to sell it on his own site he said his friend made it and he can not do that so he asked me to tell gg if they will bring it back. i can find modern weapons easy but non modern seem little hard to find.

4: clouds i not talking about making sky boxes more like a particle effect cloud that we can place this is not really a need for pack though but it might be good to have clouds we can place and move across the map. look at cry engine 2 there clouds are super cool and they are there own objects they are not in the sky box they also move across the map.

5: non modern kitchen supply's, what i mean by that no modern pots and pans mostly. pottery pots, these are like outdoor you make many many sizes and shapes and colors. floor hay just like horse hay but its thin and you can make some thick for roofs and stuff as well make them like 10x10x10x10 and maybe some that are 5x10x5x10 that's just a example of sizes you can make them as large as you want.

6: this is to go with the male and female models if you make them. another pack with non modern armor you could even make another pack with modern as well and we can just add them easy to the models you made if you make any. also you can make many cloths packs to to go with the models.

will see about listing more but this is what i come up with so far.

#16 man i there's allot of stuff in my head that i can list i can keep you buzzy for years. i only listing things most people can use and every one i will have to make my self if i cant find any already made. so this is list #2 now i not going to list everything i need. you will see me posting non modern allot as like i have said my game is based on non modern stuff and its allot harder to find modern stuff.

i not going to list areas that are just for my game as it will give out what stage of non modern i am talking about. :P if you want me to make a list of things i will have to make for my game i will only list those in email. this is my non main email astrologer1787@yahoo.com i will email you from my main email with my name in the subject so you know its me. i don't want spam in my main email so i don't list it ever to the public.

7: more animals,many dogs,many cats,many birds,chickens,hens,cows,bulls,pigs, and many more. small baby animals out of all i list even ones i did not list.

8: many walls, many kinds of walls with many textures. i am talking about out side tall walls. you can make wrecked walls as well. fences there's many to list out of modern and non modern ones make small garden ones all the way to fences around a house to military fenced in areas.

9: also for the models jewelry non modern and modern there's just to many to list you could also add in this crowns as part of jewelry item i just gave you little something no one thinks of here. this might not be most people though but some might have npc's that are just in a house or own a shop i think they should have jewelry on them. :P reason why i think its not for most people they just want to make a fps game or a game where you build things. i don't see many building games where you can shop at lest not from what i seen so far. i bet its one thing most indie makers miss with there models if they make shop/story line npc's.

10: ok i like to add don't put hair on the basic models you can add some in the packs though. so #10 is hair for the models many colors many styles even have ones with items in the hair maybe sticks and stuff but just hair is fine with me. don't make them all cool and perfect make some messy hair's like when someone just gets up out of bed. :P

11: to add on your horse model your working with is a pack with horse carriage's even very old stile ones used in the movie gladiator. even farm type of stuff modern and non modern farm ones.

12: i hear many having problems with roads there's many ways you can make roads best is to make them models it think. placing roads on the terrain is harder to do though mostly when you want it in exact spots. ok modern roads there's many there, dirt roads, sandy, grassy, train tracks, might want to make bridges as well for train tracks. there could be allot on this and you might want to add terrain textures to this one as if you got a dirt road your going to want to have the terrain the same. :P

#17 @Brandon. I can certainly help you with some of what you have listed. I have several packs already done, just need the TGEA touch. Sounds like you need a whole farm :)

One thing I need is sci-fi weapons.. so I guess I'll have to make them myself (when I have time) or get someone else to do them for me. I've seen a few on TurboSquid but they just don't cut it. Textures are not right. The link you posted.. Maxim and Co's work is good, had the pleasure of working with Maxim.