Blog for Adam deGrandis at GarageGames.com

What's new with Games Extract

Adam deGrandis — 2006-12-05T18:38:43+00:00

What's new with Games Extract?

The first obvious bit of news is that FX Pack 1 is now for sale exclusively here on GarageGames.com. Making this pack was intensely fun, and I think it shows. Big thanks to the Air Ace guys for being the impetus for production and GG for their help along the way. And of course, the biggest thanks to those who've purchased the pack - your support has allowed me and my associates to give ourselves early Christmas presents this year; bionic enhancements. The benefit to YOU is illustrated in the following cartoon.

Clearly, the real winners are the owners of the establishment that meeting is taking place in. Moving on, the name "FX pack 1" suggests that there are going to be more fx packs. This is, in fact, true. FX pack 2 is actually already in production. Zero points to whoever can guess what kind of effects FX pack 2 includes based on this screenshot:

There are far stretching plans for the Games Extract FX series. Chances are good that sooner or later I'll be making special effects you'd find useful. Effects are fun, they're relatively quick, and they're being well recieved. As long as I have at least two of those, they will keep being produced. If you have any requests, I'd love to hear them.

Venture Arctic

Venture Arctic is nearing completion. This is exciting for a few reasons. First and foremost, the Pocketwatch Games guys are awesome to work with, and bringing a game to market with them is incredibly rewarding. Second, the aesthetic we developed turned out to be pretty sharp. Here are a few screens.

I'll let The Frisbee Demi God (tm) give more deep information, but look for the game around this upcoming March. I think.

Last but not least

And just to round it out, there are a few screens of some work-in-progress characters from a little top-down hobby project I'm doing in my spare time with a few of my closest.

As always, if you need artwork, we'd love to hear from you! The email address can be found in my profile. We're always interested in new opportunities, and as such, the initial consultation is free. Thats it, thanks for reading!

Games Extract FX Pack

Adam deGrandis — 2006-11-01T13:44:04+00:00

Just a quick bit of pimpage today. I've recieved quite a few inquiries about the explosion video in my last plan. To answer all those who are wondering if a pack is in development, I have good news; the Games Extract FX Pack is all but finished and entering the final stages of the process (packaging, marketing, etc). No exact ETA yet, but my sense is sooner rather than later. Anyway, here is a new video, showing off 7 of the effects in their final form. For size reference, the first effect shown is roughly the size of Kork the orc.

example: Games Extract FX Pack - 11.5 MB AVI

The effects in order are GenericSmall, GenericMedium, GenericLarge, TargetMinor, TargetMajor, GroundMinor, and GroundMajor. Besides those effects, included in the pack will be 5 high caliber bullet impact effects, weapon specific explosions (molotov, flak, etc), and a few more bigger explosions.

Thanks to all who expressed interest! Like I said, sooner rather than later.

A wicked awesome face animation / morph target tutorial

Adam deGrandis — 2006-08-14T14:51:49+00:00

Since I feel like a bad business owner if I don't pimp the unstoppable art house power of Games Extract every plan I write, here is a quick bit of news. As I mentioned before, the car pack is done and the people pack is scrapped for the tutorial that follows this paragraph. Being that that's the case, I was trying to think of feasible pack options for the future and was stuck. I wasn't even sure if I even wanted to do another one. While doing some client work, I stumbled upon the joys of making explosions.

4.25 megs of explosive entertainment in WMV format

The effects in order are artillary shell, molotov, frag grenade, flak, and what im calling a "plasma molotov".

New content pack? So we'll see what happens. Ok, let's get on to the tutorial.

The Games Extract morph animtion solution
how to unleash the power of Torques animtion system and let your inner animator run wild

I've read quite a few forum posts asking how successfully export morph animation. These threads are, of course, referring to the actual Torque animation type called "morph animtion". This is an old animtion type that, if I'm recalling stories from the old Dynamix guys correctly, was used as a hacky fix for one or two issues, but never considered a viable option for anything else. The lesson learned here is that if the people who designed the tech didn't think morph animation was useful, you shouldn't either.

"Thats blows 98%", you may be saying. "I'm making a post modern / post apocolyptic hybrid MMORPGRTS. How is anyone going to take it seriously if Duchamp's face isn't realistically animated when he's throwing saucy french insults at the nuclear zombie Warhol?"

Don't worry. No one will play your crappy game because, just like that last joke, no one understands it. But I won't stop you from trying. There is, in fact, a way to get things like animated faces (or anything else that traditionally uses morph targets) into Torque. The best part (for me as a teacher and Torque knowledge knower) is that it illustrates that the Torque art pipeline isn't this confusing, rigid "do this, then this, then this" system. It's this incredibly fluid, artist-designed-for-artists system, that allows an someone to make art however they want to and be able to get their result in-game, provided they have a few required elements such as a bounding box, detail markers, etc.

So let's get started.

To begin with, you need to know that anything can be used as a bone as far as the exporter is concerned. This goes back to the "torque is an artists system"; It's a wide open playing field with very few hard rules of play. You can use max bones, you can use biped, you can use meshes, you can use dummy objects, etc, etc. It's all about what you prefer to use. Good ol' buddy of mine and GG creative director Joe Maruschak likes using meshes, because he makes his skeletons super low poly version of the character. I prefer to use bones because Im too lazy to do what Joe does. Just joking, I like the speed that comes with quickly clicking out bone chains. The original Tribes characters (and thus, Kork the ork) are done with biped.

The reason all of these options are possible is because the exporter is only looking at the transforms, rotations, and scale of the pivots, not the actual objects themselves. That means if you have a mesh with no detail number on it (like a bone), its pivot information is exported while its actual shape is not. Conversely, if you put detail numbers on, for example, biped parts, you'll export out the biped geometry.

So, if all you need is something with a pivot, a dummy object or a simple spline or max shape will make a fine candidate for a bone. And as long as they're under the two node base hierarchy (usually named base01>start01), their pivot info will be exported.

Knowing that bit of light theory, you're now well prepared to take on a practical task. If you make a collection of dummy objects, add them as bones under the skin modifier, and weight the mesh to them, you'll have a bunch of morph targets that can be used to do anything you want.

For an example, take a look at this head. It has a face rig that was constructed in the exact way Im talking about up above.

The rectangle shapes are added to the bone list in the skin modifier, and the face vertices were weighted appropriately. I made several animation sequences that were set to blend animation, which makes the following results possible.

Whats more, because they are blend animation, they can be mixed together to produce different results. Here is happy and angry mixed together to get a pretty crazy looking smile.

And here is sad and angry combined to make "utter disbelief".

So that's just a face, but the applications of "dummy objects as bones" are numerous. Animated muzzle flares. Waterfall made out of geometry. The Blob. The thing to keep in mind, though, is that this isn't a "special approach" or -gasp- a "hack". This is doing exactly what the creators of the exporter intended. You have an mesh. You need to make it move. You make something to make it move.

Thats all from me for now. Im more than happy to answer any questions either in this plan or in email regarding this stuff. As always, thanks for reading.

Games Extract open for business!

Adam deGrandis — 2006-08-07T19:36:48+00:00

A few different things in this .plan, but first and foremost:

Games Extract LLC, an art house offering design and production services at prices indies can afford, is now open for business.

Actually, we've been open for business for awhile, but its only been recently that Ive had the time to write this up. Unfortunatly, our site is still in development. Since the site is home to our portfolio as well as information about pricing structure, this is key for us, so expect it up soon. If you need artwork right now feel free to drop us a line at info at gamesextract.com with details about what assets you're looking for, timeframe, and any other relevant details, and we'll get back to you as soon as possible with a quote.

Car Pack

The car pack is done. It will be on sale very soon. This is great news for the 10 of you that will buy it. Here is a shot.

People Pack

The normal people pack is no longer in development. There are several reasons. First, the character pack market is getting a little crowded. There are only 5 character packs sold through GG, so "crowded" may sound a little dramatic to some of you. To clarify what I mean by that, I personally feel content packs should be used as learning tools or prototype art. To use a content pack for final art is to willingly use something generic in your game. To me, that seems self defeating. If you are going to undertake making a game - arguably one of the harder creative challenges that someone can undertake - why would you fill it with art that isn't as unique as you as a developer? The characters currently being sold offer ample opportunities to learn from and to prototype with. Another pack on the market will just take away from everybody's profits, which I don't want to do.

Another reason for ceasing development is that I made choices in the beginning of making this pack that if I were to do it again, I wouldn't choose to make it the way I did. I don't feel I should sell something I can't get behind 100% as its creator.

There are other reasons, too, but you get the idea.

So that said, the people pack did something that none of the other packs did. It had a face rig for character expressions and speech animation sequences. I don't want that to go to waste, so Im documenting what I did so you can take that knowledge and apply it. This will be a useful read for quite a few of you as the technique I used offers a great alternative for morph target type stuff, plus, the ease of setting up the rig will no doubt open your mind to all sorts of possibilities for animation. This will be fodder for another plan, which I'll post in a couple days. I don't want to spam the "recent blog" list too bad. To whet your appitite, here is a shot.

So thats all from me. If you need art, drop us a line. And keep your eyes open for the new site announcement as well as the face rig blog. And of course, thanks for reading.

Games Extract sells out!

Adam deGrandis — 2006-06-03T17:35:52+00:00

Greetings all. Exciting news time.

For a while I've run a site called Games Extract. If you aren'f familiar with it, its a Torque-flavored resource site, offering free textures, skyboxes, tutorials, etc. Right now, it's currently found at GamesExtract.com, but not for long. In about a months time, it'll be found at its new home, AdamdeGrandis.com. In addition to all the old goodies will be a blog that Im going to try and update semi-regularly about game art, art technique, how to land an art job in the industry, and similar topics. Besides the blog, I'll also be adding an informal work-in-progress/sketchbook portfolio, as I think its really useful to people starting out with game art to be able to view and dissect other people's processes.

So why the reason for the move? What was wrong with the Games Extract web address? Well, in short, nothing was wrong with Games Extract at all. In fact, it was too good a name. It's for precisely this reason that I'm naming a new business with it.

Games Extract is now Games Extract LLC, an art house offering design and production services at prices that indies can afford.

Needless to say, this is a tremendously exciting time for me. There is something truly awesome about making a hard, conscious effort to be a master of your own destiny. I'm sure there are plenty in this community who share that sentiment.

There are a handful of items I need to take care of before I can take new clients, but I wanted to get the announcement out there. In about a months time, those things will be done and I'll be ready to help you all make your games. It will also be at this time that I'll unveil the new look of gamesextract.com as well as adamdegrandis.com.

In the mean time, if you are interested in my services, feel free to get in touch with me at info@gamesextract.com. I don't charge for the initial consultation, so getting a quote for art you need is entirely free.

Upcoming Content Packs

In the evening hours, I'm finding time to work on content packs. The first is the car pack that I started many months ago but shelved because official GG work was taking up all my time. Here is a shot of it as it exists now. Keep in mind, this is work in progress, and does not represent final work.

There are going to be a bunch of textures with this one, ranging from street racers to rally cars, as well as a selection of different wheels. That said, I probably wont be showing this off again until it's good and finished.

The car is cool, but there is another pack that I'm really excited about; the "average people" pack. There is going to be a male pack and female pack, each with several textures and covering multiple races. My plan is to get through a single model/texture/animation set and then expand to the other various models using the one completed one as a foundation. Again, this is work in progress, so be gentle.

There are a slew of other packs I want to do (as well as a few secret ones Im working on), but we'll see how it all goes. My impression is that the content pack arena is going to get pretty cramped as time goes on. Besides that, I like working directly with game developers more than the removed "I'll make art and put it on a shelf for you to buy" nature of content packs. But if things dont get too crowded and packs turn out to be a decent source of income, I may proceed with more.

So that's that. Exciting times ahead. Never before have I felt so enabled to contribute to an artistic medium I love with every fiber of my being. My next plan will (most likely) be the official "doors are open and Im taking clients" announcement, so if you're interested in having artwork produced, keep your eyes open. And as always, thanks for reading. :)

Why my life is filled with more change than yours

Adam deGrandis — 2006-04-28T22:19:32+00:00

Quick things first: The humvee pack is finally being sold. Only it's not being sold as the humvee pack, its being sold as the recon vehicle pack. This is because "humvee" as it turns out, is registered. Holy crap. Tim "Nasty" Aste caught that one. Props to him. After a few quick changes to the product page/etc, this is what we looked like:

Except in our case, the bullets are a legal metaphor instead of projectiles shot by a computer sentry out to destroy us. You know, just to explain the joke.

Last bit of "recon vehicle" info: many, MANY thanks to all who helped me get this out. I sincerely appreciate it. :)

So with the pack out of the way, there is a bit of rather huge news to announce. Im no longer an employee of GarageGames. I got fired for stealing from the server room and also for throwing paperclips at Matt Fairfax during company meetings.

Just joking about getting fired, but I really am no longer working at GG.

The reasons for this revolve around what I left when I came out to work. I was fortunate enough to be raised in a very close, supportive family in New Hampshire (north eastern america). My girlfriend of many, many years is in Maine (next state over). The people that make up the GG team are some of the most awesome people you could ever have the pleasure of knowing and working with, and there are a few that genuinely changed my life. At the end of the day, though, I was going home and I wasn't happy. I wasn't unhappy, but I wasn't happy. I fast realized that in order for me to be happy, I needed to be able to go home to the people I loved. When all is said and done, I can forgive myself for missing out on the professional opportunities GarageGames is offering, but I can't forgive myself for missing out on the people that matter most to me.

Its really interesting to me. When I was finishing up college, the only thing on my mind was getting a kick ass job and making kick ass stuff. I wanted to be the best (and Id often get frustrated with myself when I failed to reach the olympian goals id set for myself). After my experiences of the last 10 months, I know I won't ever be the best. But I also feel that what I have in my life and what I feel Im being called to do is more important than that.

That calling is teaching. Some of you in the community may be familiar with my website, Games Extract. Its a site with a bunch of free art assets and art tutorials. Ive said it in this space before: When someone learns about something they're interested in, they feel empowered, and Im all about that. I may never be able to make artwork that stops people in their tracks and melts their eyes, but I know I can teach. And whats more, Im passionate about it. The thought that I could be instrumental in helping someone achieve their goals is tremendously exciting to me, and it represents a direction I have to start walking in.

I don't know how long it will take for me to actually become a teacher. In a do-it-yourself way, I suppose I already am. Id like to eventually teach at a college level, but to get to that point is quite a few steps. To support myself in the mean time (and who knows, maybe during and after), Im doing something I can't wait to talk all about.... but that will be for a plan in the next few weeks.

So that's that. Thanks for reading. Keep your eyes peeled for the next big announcement. :)

Humvees, education, wrongful death, and time machines

Adam deGrandis — 2006-01-31T23:32:03+00:00

Hey all. Quite a lot has gone on since the last time I posted a plan (which was back in October). Rather than just go off on a long winded rant about everything, here's everything in a nice, easy to read, quasi bulleted list.

Marble Blast

So the biggest thing of late is Marble Blast has shipped and doing quite well, both in terms of sales and player happiness. This is great and somewhat unexpected. Towards the end of development, the normal frustration that comes from combining creative processes with deadlines was rearing its head. I got pretty burned out by the time we wrapped things up. But then I went back east for the holidays, had some time to collect myself, and returned only a couple weeks before we got the message that Marble Blast passed cert.

Having that time away was just what I needed. Im able to look at the game objectively now that the old dust has settled. It's still not a game Im ever really "in the mood for" - frankly I suck really hard at it - but its something that a lot of people are in the mood for. Being able to make things that make people happy is one of the main reasons I love working in this industry, so blam blam, everything wrapped up nicely for all intents and purposes.

Now for what I actually did on the project. I made the powerups, about a third of the marbles (the heart marble is my personal favorite of the ones I made), and a few of the multiplayer levels. Oh, and my name on Live is MisterGoid. Feel free to say hi if you ever catch me when I'm on.

Humvee

I believed I showed a screenshot of this in my last plan. Here it is much more finished. I still have some texture touch ups to do and I have to make the LOD still, but its looking mostly complete.

This is the TSE version (rendered in Max). There's also a TGE version which has all the bolt/door/whatever details burned into the diffuse texture instead of a using a normal map. It's also going to have a forest camo texture and a night ops / swat texture in addition to the desert one. All in all, I'm pretty pleased on how it turned out. No absolute date on when it will be released, but it's safe to say "soon".

Boot Camp

At the end of February, I'll be helping the most talented Stephen Zepp put on a Torque Bootcamp. I'll, of course, be handling the art end of things. This is pretty cool because the boot camps haven't ever had an artist teaching. The volume of material I can cover will be somewhat dependent on the skill level of those in attendence, but I think its fairly safe to say things like the basic art pipeline and how to get a character into the game will be covered. I don't want to go into it too much more than that (I'd like things to be as flexible as possible), so I'll end with I look forward to meeting you if you're planning on being there. :)

Wildlife Tycoon: Venture Africa!

I said the important stuff about Venture Africa in my last plan, but I feel like mentioning it because Im not sure if it was officially released by then. It's officially released now. Go get it. Now.

Beligerent salesmanship aside, my favorite thing to do in the game is to build a thriving ecosystem to the point where Im about to win, and then let loose an entire pride of lions on an unsuspecting zebra herd. Sure, you lose the game, but you're also knee deep in the blood of innocent animals. Is that REALLY losing? I think you know very well it's not.

Outside of Work

Recently, Tim "Nasty" Aste and Justin "Nickname" DuJardin moved from our big house with Matt "Bases Loaded" Fairfax and Ben "DJ Pwny" Garney into a smaller house. Moving is always a hassle, but this went largely without incident. Dare I say, this is the best house ever. The size is right, we have an ideal "summer cookout" deck, the list goes on. I'm super pumped about the whole deal. Here's a shot of the outside.

Yeah, Tim drives the DeLorean from Back to the Future, so what? I also think it's pretty funny we have a basketball hoop. I keep talking about getting a basketball so we can all play horse or around the world or something. The chance of that actually happening is slim to none.

There is a ton more going on in and out of the office, but this is already too long. Besides, most of the REALLY cool stuff is under NDA. So thanks for reading!

Friday Oct 14 5:10

Adam deGrandis — 2005-10-14T05:10:54+00:00

A lesson in game development

I learned something I wasn't expecting to during IGC, which puts me in a surprised happy kind of mood.

My own personal goal is to create artwork that inspires. I can remember a year ago when I was in a mad "I must read every tutorial I possibly can" mode. When I was tired and frustrated and feeling hopeless, it was prime examples of 3d work that kept me going. Great artwork takes you out of whereever you are and puts you on its own time. I was no longer in my head, it was just me and the work I was looking at. Id manage to mutter "damn, that is HOT" and Id get a second wind and continue my education.

I no longer have the frustration of not knowing how game artists make what they make. I've gone from "I have no idea how a person made this" to "I could do this, it would just take me significantly longer that it did them. Probably".

This is going somewhere, so keep reading.

This IGC, I watched people play two games Ive had the pleasure of working on, Marble Blast Ultra and Wildlife Tycoon: Venture Africa. In both games, there are things that seemed to me like glaring flaws while I was working on them. Watching people play them, though, melted those things away. My attitude went from "If there were more hours in the day, I could make this look how its supposed to" to "hey, this is actually not bad at all... It fact, it kind of kicks ass."

So what does this all mean? It all boils down to experience. Different kinds of experience on different levels. Venture Africa and Marble Blast are going to be my first shipped games. In my experience, when you're developing a game its surprisingly easy to forget the most important step: releasing it into the world. The difference between myself and all those artists who have made stuff that have stopped me in my tracks is that lesson. They've done it time and time again. Each time they go through that, they learn something new, and apply it to the next challenge. Ive certainly learned mountains in both dev cycles that Im geniunely PUMPED to take to the next game, tech, whatever I work on. So I guess the bottom line for me personally is that Im on my way to being the artist I know I can/ want to be.

Which, you know, kicks galaxies of ass.

But really, as a community take this as a call to let your project go. Finish it up and get it out there. You'll learn something, and your next game will be worlds better because of it. Plus, it would make Jeff T really happy.

And cause I know how *painful* it is to read a plan from someone you don't really know if it doesn't have screenshots... Its the humvee from the humvee pack which Tim Aste and I are working on making its transition into a hi poly model for the purposes of normal mapping.

Thanks for reading, kids.

Thursday Sep 1 9:01

Adam deGrandis — 2005-09-01T09:01:57+00:00

I got hired. Go figure.

First things first, the biggest news as of late is that I'm now an employee of GarageGames. Rockin. Im pumped, excited, and more to be working with so many super talented people, not to mention be privy to all the top secret goings on. And let me tell you, there is TONS of awesome stuff going on behind the scenes.

Plans for world domination aside, I wanted to use this plan to talk about my path as an intern who became an employee, kind of to go along with Tim's.

Ill start at the beginning. I applied for my internship during the fall of last year. At that time I was still in school, I had just started Games Extract and I was working on my portfolio all the time. I expected a response back to the tune of "thanks for applying, but this application has only succeeded in embarrassing you", so imagine my surprise when I got back a reply that said "We're impressed and want you to come out to Eugene".

I graduated in May and headed out for Eugene in the beginning of June. After after a cross country trip I arrived and almost immediately was learning new things. That in and of itself isn't that remarkable; I had been learning new things since I started game art. The mind blowing thing is that GarageGames is a place where learning is not only encouraged, but it's made a chief priority. "Make a point to share what you know... It helps everyone make cooler stuff" is an attitude that's found in abundance. And since everyone follows this rule, I'm constantly learning cool little tricks. A better way to model a hand. A quick method to break down a complex image to its base composition. They're small things mentioned almost in passing, but they add up.

Contrary to popular belief, there are just about a million ways to break into the game industry. If you want some VERY good experience, apply for an internship. Your work will get much better very quickly, and besides that, it looks great on a resume.

So while Im here, I figure I should let you know what I'm up to, even if only briefly.

TDN is progressing nicely. No launch dates yet, but the formatting templates (what users will use, "Getting Started with TDN" articles, and site designs are all completed or very near completion. Basically, all the items on the "Things TDN needs to have are all checked off". I'm now working on some nice, tasty icing to cover the cake with, but Ill write about all of that in another plan.

I have a bunch of pretty art type stuff in the pipe but alas, no screenshots. Heres a little picture of Brian Greene, who wrote the book "The Elegant Universe".

Thats all. Thanks for reading. :)

Friday Jul 22 5:32

Adam deGrandis — 2005-07-22T05:32:22+00:00

Torque Developer Network as well as notes about Wildlife Tycoon: Venture Africa! and my car pack.

Hey kids! Its been quite a summer. Since I know you're a sure thing, Ill skip the sweet talk and cut right to the chase:

Torque Developer Network

Im the new TDN Wrangler.

If you're wondering what that is, it basically means that Im the manager, but with more snap.

So what have I been doing specifically? Creating a framework and skeleton and whatnot that all the content can go into. Its actually pretty cool. Im creating a series of templates that users will be able to drop into whatever article they're writing. If everyone plays by the rules, all articles have the potential to look just like the official ones. The end result of that standardized formatting is a shining example of what a wiki can be. I dont know about you, but Im PSYCHED about that prospect.

Really, I see this as two things. First, its about a community coming together to help each other out. But more than that (or actually, because of that), its a community coming together to make something greater than themselves. And that's *really* damn cool. :)

Besides the framework, Ive been rewriting the DTS exporter docs. Id like to think Im a modest guy, but even I can't help but be pumped by what Im doing. Im not going to promise anything. I will say that its looking like all of you who wanted a clear walkthrough of the dts art pipeline will be very happy people come the end of august. Here are some shots from you'll be making in the new DTS "Simple Shape" tutorial.

Yeah, thats right. Thats the replacement for the "make a box and export it" tutorial. Be excited for the future. :)

So... a call for action! The framework is still being developed, but it's stable. If you are an individual looking to break into the exciting world of contributing content to Torque wikis before they launch, drop me a line at adam AT gamesextract DOT com or simply make a comment in this plan. And please, only take me up on that if you are very serious about contributing. As you can imagine, Im SUPER busy these days; I can really only afford to coach people through TDN if they are going to follow submission policy and actually contribute. Thanks!

Wildlife Tycoon: Venture Africa!

As if things weren't awesome enough, what with TDN... Venture Africa is looking *AWESOME*. What can I say? It's look is so nice and bright and clean and it looks FUN. As usual, Ill let the big man himself, Andy Schatz, deliver the screenshots. There has been quite a lot going on developement-wise, so Im sure a plan from him is just around the corner. Patience!

Car Pack

The car pack has been making slow progress lately. I was feeling a little unsure about my progress, but that has since been erradicated thanks to the direction of one Mr. Joe Maruschak. Ill probably hit it hardcore in a couple of weeks after TDN and Venture Africa cool down a little (so basically the end of august).

So thats all from me for now. Thanks for reading!