Plan for Adam DeGrandis

It seems fate is not without a sense of humor. Last month I make an announcement about my flora packs. A month later, not one, but TWO packs offering more or less exactly what I was planning to make are released. Its really kinda funny. :) No real harm done, though. A couple weeks before I was planning on really hitting production I lost my camera, so said production was put on hiatus. The end result is that I used my time for other things. Still, here are a couple of tall evergreens that I made that I think EVERYONE should download.


Trees for free!

The other things I had time for where tutorials. I have a tutorial sitting in dreamweaver RIGHT NOW that needs just a couple more images and then its getting posted. It covers how to create fake volumetric clouds using nothing but the good ol' cloud layers.

Another tutorial is one I mentioned in my last plan; animated vehicle suspension. This one is slower going because it's a pretty technical, "a-b-c" process. It did give me an idea, though. Video tutorials. I basically learned how to model from video tutorials. Watching someone else who knows what they are doing run through a process is such an eye opener. In typical fashion, I started brainstorming on how unrealistically far I could actually take something like that.

Imagine this: video tutorials covering the torque art pipeline that follow the example of shows like Beakmans World and Bill Nye the Science Guy. Bright colors and fast cutaways and jokes, all while walking through examples of how to make art for everyones favorite engine.

WOULDNT THAT RULE! ?

I would LOVE to do something like that. I thought the cost was too high, but thanks to Pablo Alonso's thread, Im thinking it may be something Im able to do... financially anyway. I could make something quick that does the job or something entertaining that does the job. The quick way would be boring and bare bones. The entertaining way is the way that I would want to go. The problem of distribution is also still present... but who knows. I think it's a great idea but I don't think Id have time for it unless I was getting paid to make them or I was guarenteed a return on my investment. Any speculation on things like that is certainly welcome.

Something to add to my to do list, I guess.

Regardless, I've definitely been bitten by the teaching bug. Im not in any huge rush to become a full time teacher, but its something I really would love to do for the rest of my life in my own little way. I have my site. I can keep writing tutorials. It's pretty likely that for part of my life Ill earn a living as a teacher (just not quite yet).

Speaking of such things, in school Im a teachers assistant for a class called Advanced Interactivity. Due to converstations I had with my department head, it's being taught with Torque. :) My professor knows just a little bit about the engine, so Im going to be teaching HUGE sections of the class. This is my last semester, so it looks like I caught the opportunity just in the nick of time. Im pretty pumped.

So here is my final bit. More free stuff. Everyone likes that. After deciding to not go forward with my flora pack, I thought for a bit of what I could do instead. You all already know I love the tutorial thing, but there is still something nice about releasing concrete products. I came up with some barrier packs. And learning from the past, Im releasing them in small little sections so no one can beat me to it this time. :)

First pack is the barb wire pack. I constructed it in parts. First, there are single sections that I call blocks. They are little self-contained barriers.


Then are the sections. Notice these dont have posts on each end. This is so you can make long fences. There is a seperate ending cap that you can place at the end to finish off a long fence.


And nothing would be complete without some parts that show wear and tear. Broken pieces.


I know the images are kind of dark, so here are the textures as well.


You can get these all here. Right now its just the dts files and the textures. Ill release the source but I have to clean them up a little. I was building these in a frenzy, so they arent spotless.

Here are the ones coming down the line. The first is a barb wire fence pack. Here is a shot.


Another is a solid barrier pack. Here is a shot of a concrete block.


Also in plans are a razor wire pack (think slightly futuristic barb wire pack) and a sandbag pack. I have the basic sandbag geometry but no texture yet.

Hooray for progress!

So thats that. Thanks to anyone who read the whole thing. :) And as always, visit my site, Games Extract. Do it.

Final thought, if you have any thoughts about video tutorials, rather than post here, go the the thread that Pablo just started. Id love to hear any ideas/solutions/etc.