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		<title>Blog for Russell Fincher at GarageGames.com</title>
		<description>Blog feeds for Gamers and Developers in the GarageGames community.</description>
		<link>http://www.garagegames.com/</link>
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		<dc:date>2008-07-04T20:20:59+00:00</dc:date>
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		<dc:date>2008-01-28T16:17:42+00:00</dc:date>
		<dc:creator>Russell Fincher</dc:creator>
		<title>CrazyBump = Better, Faster Art</title>
		<link>http://www.garagegames.com/blogs/44904/14212</link>
		<description>This has been mentioned a couple of times in the forums, but I just wanted to put my two cents in.  I'm totally in love with this program called &lt;a href='http://www.crazybump.com/' target=_blank&gt;CrazyBump&lt;/a&gt;.  It's a &lt;b&gt;free&lt;/b&gt; &lt;i&gt;(edit: for now)&lt;/i&gt; utility that not only replaces the horrible old Nvidia Photoshop filter for turning color maps into normal maps, but also creates specular, &amp;quot;fake&amp;quot; ambient occlusion, and parallax maps from either a diffuse map or a normal map.  Yep, you can start with either diffuse &lt;i&gt;or&lt;/i&gt; normal maps.  For instance, I created a dinosaur model in Zbrush and exported the normal map.  I loaded the normal map into CrazyBump, and also loaded my model into CrazyBump to view my work, and exported a specular map, and ambient occlusion map to bake into the diffuse texture, which really helped accentuate the scales on this guy:&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;img src='http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2123/2225369776_a2a1cdee80_o.jpg'  alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;img src='http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2360/2225369816_c91d043d7b_o.jpg'  alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;img src='http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2205/2224666397_aa100f3081_o.jpg'  alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;I will never open the Nvidia plugin again.  Ever.  I'm going to uninstall the Nvidia plugin today, burn in to a CD, and drive over it with my car.  No art tool should ever have a preview so terrible.  And CrazyBump has sliders to allow you to adjust your maps that actually have words that make sense.  I love it.  This is a middleware tool that fills an old art pipeline void very, very well.  Sure Max and Maya can render shadow and specular maps to texture, but not with the ease of use of this thing.  The preview is indispensable.</description>
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	<item rdf:about="http://www.garagegames.com/blogs/44904/13660">
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		<dc:date>2007-10-03T18:31:37+00:00</dc:date>
		<dc:creator>Russell Fincher</dc:creator>
		<title>Sickhead Games is hiring!</title>
		<link>http://www.garagegames.com/blogs/44904/13660</link>
		<description>&lt;a href='http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1392/1478671786_59ae60fccc_o.jpg' target=_blank&gt;&lt;img src='http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1392/1478671786_59ae60fccc_o.jpg'  align=left alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br clear=all&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href='http://farm1.static.flickr.com/99/303687792_78c595815e_m.jpg' target=_blank&gt;&lt;img src='http://farm1.static.flickr.com/99/303687792_78c595815e_m.jpg'  align=right hspace=30 vspace=10 alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;b&gt;Sickhead Games is looking for an artist! Meetup at IGC...&lt;/b&gt; &lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;Yep, we need a talented individual looking to get in on the ground floor of an up-and-coming indie game studio.  Interested?  Meet up with us at &lt;a href='http://www.indiegamescon.com/' target=_blank&gt;IndieGamesCon&lt;/a&gt; in Eugene next week...&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;Sickhead Games, maker of &lt;i&gt;&lt;a href='http://www.garagegames.com/products/90/'&gt;TGB Adventure Kit&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/i&gt; and &lt;i&gt;&lt;a href='http://www.garagegames.com/products/106/'&gt;Torsion IDE&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/i&gt;, is a small, fulltime, indie game studio 5 years running, currently concentrating on development tools, simulations, various contract work, and prototyping games for the Torque game engines.  There are no CEOs or marketing guys... everyone at Sickhead works directly on the games and has an equal voice and creative influence in all our projects.  Currently, our workload dictates that we bring on a second 3D artist to help keep up with some exciting short- and long-term projects. &lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;b&gt;Who we're looking for...&lt;/b&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;We are currently seeking a jack-of-all-trades game artist with strong animation skills to be employee number five.  Indies wear a lot of hats, and ideally we need a talented individual with good modeling, texturing, rigging, and animation skills, who's familiar with mesh-to-normal map pipelines, and who preferably has experience creating art for TGE or TGEA.  Must be comfortable working in 3DS Max, familiarity with Zbrush is a big plus.  This is a fulltime, permanent position that requires the employee to work on-site in our Dallas, Texas offices.  Some financial assistance available for relocation. &lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href='http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1434/709235307_9c27b0c2cd_m.jpg' target=_blank&gt;&lt;img src='http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1434/709235307_9c27b0c2cd_m.jpg'  align=left hspace=30 vspace=10 alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;The position will become available at the end of October, but with IGC coming soon, we thought it would be a great opportunity to meet with interested individuals on a less formal basis.  So if you're even &lt;i&gt;slightly&lt;/i&gt; interested, please drop us a line at &lt;a href='mailto:biz@sickheadgames.com'&gt;biz@sickheadgames.com&lt;/a&gt; so we can meet up for a drink (or coffee) and get acquainted.  And if you're interested, but not attending IGC, drop us a line anyway.  We've got a position to fill and we want to hear from you!&lt;br clear=all&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;Russell Fincher&lt;br&gt;Lead Artist | Co-owner&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href='http://www.sickheadgames.com' target=_blank&gt;Sickhead Games&lt;/a&gt;</description>
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		<dc:date>2007-03-15T19:25:48+00:00</dc:date>
		<dc:creator>Russell Fincher</dc:creator>
		<title>Blended Terrain in TGEA from Terragen</title>
		<link>http://www.garagegames.com/blogs/44904/12553</link>
		<description>&lt;b&gt;My Experience Building Blended Terrains in TGEA Using Terragen&lt;/b&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;i&gt;Edit: this plan has now been reformatted as a &lt;a href='http://tdn.garagegames.com/wiki/WorldBuilding/Terrain/Realistic_Blended_Terrain_Using_Terragen' target=_blank&gt;TDN tutorial&lt;/a&gt; for TGEA users.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;center&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href='http://www.sickheadgames.com/stuff/garagegamesimages/plan_blendedterrain/hero_01.jpg' target=_blank&gt;&lt;img src='http://www.sickheadgames.com/stuff/garagegamesimages/plan_blendedterrain/hero_01_thumb.jpg'   alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;/center&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;center&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href='http://www.sickheadgames.com/stuff/garagegamesimages/plan_blendedterrain/hero_02.jpg' target=_blank&gt;&lt;img src='http://www.sickheadgames.com/stuff/garagegamesimages/plan_blendedterrain/hero_02_thumb.jpg'  hspace=5 alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;a href='http://www.sickheadgames.com/stuff/garagegamesimages/plan_blendedterrain/hero_03.jpg' target=_blank&gt;&lt;img src='http://www.sickheadgames.com/stuff/garagegamesimages/plan_blendedterrain/hero_03_thumb.jpg'  hspace=5 alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;a href='http://www.sickheadgames.com/stuff/garagegamesimages/plan_blendedterrain/hero_04.jpg' target=_blank&gt;&lt;img src='http://www.sickheadgames.com/stuff/garagegamesimages/plan_blendedterrain/hero_04_thumb.jpg'  hspace=5 alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;/center&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;center&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href='http://www.sickheadgames.com/stuff/garagegamesimages/plan_blendedterrain/hero_05.jpg' target=_blank&gt;&lt;img src='http://www.sickheadgames.com/stuff/garagegamesimages/plan_blendedterrain/hero_05_thumb.jpg'  hspace=5 alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;a href='http://www.sickheadgames.com/stuff/garagegamesimages/plan_blendedterrain/hero_06.jpg' target=_blank&gt;&lt;img src='http://www.sickheadgames.com/stuff/garagegamesimages/plan_blendedterrain/hero_06_thumb.jpg'  hspace=5 alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;a href='http://www.sickheadgames.com/stuff/garagegamesimages/plan_blendedterrain/hero_07.jpg' target=_blank&gt;&lt;img src='http://www.sickheadgames.com/stuff/garagegamesimages/plan_blendedterrain/hero_07_thumb.jpg'  hspace=5 alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;/center&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;center&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;i&gt;In-game shots from the GDC demo, sans foliage.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/center&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;We're just back from GDC '07, where we had a great time.  We saw some old friends, made some new ones, learned a lot, and slept little.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;Some of you who strolled by the Garage Games booth may have noticed the Forest Technology preview that Tom has been working on over here.  I was tasked with building the terrain for that demo and learned a ton in the process, so I figured I'd put some of it down in a plan so others could learn from my experience.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;The demo consisted of a 6.5 km island built from a 4k x 4k heightmap, using blended terrain (as opposed to unique terrain) in Atlas.  Obviously this is &lt;i&gt;way&lt;/i&gt; bigger than most people will ever need for terrain, so keep that in mind. First, a quick overview of my process:&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;1) Initial terrain generation in Terragen&lt;br&gt;&lt;li&gt;2) Tweaking terrain in Leveller, exporting heightmap&lt;br&gt;&lt;li&gt;3) Back in Terragen, exporting opacity maps and lightmap&lt;br&gt;&lt;li&gt;4) Prepping of maps in Photoshop&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;br&gt;And a list of the files that were created through that process:&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;b&gt;Ground textures&lt;/b&gt; - .jpgs of rock, grass, sand, and snow, most created in Genetica  256x256 - 512x512&lt;br&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;b&gt;Detail texture&lt;/b&gt; - noise texture originally created in Genetica.  512x512&lt;br&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;b&gt;Heightmap&lt;/b&gt; - 16 bit .raw file, 4097x4097.  This is the file containing height information.&lt;br&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;b&gt;Opacity maps&lt;/b&gt; - Large grayscale maps that mask or reveal a texture on the terrain. 2048x2048, all placed as channels in one RGBA file.&lt;br&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;b&gt;Lightmap&lt;/b&gt; - Large texture that adds ground shadows to the Atlas terrain.  2048x2048&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;center&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;img src='http://www.sickheadgames.com/stuff/garagegamesimages/plan_blendedterrain/maps.jpg'  alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;/center&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br clear=all&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;b&gt;Step 1 - Creating the Terrain&lt;/b&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href='http://www.sickheadgames.com/stuff/garagegamesimages/plan_blendedterrain/terrageshot.jpg' target=_blank&gt;&lt;img src='http://www.sickheadgames.com/stuff/garagegamesimages/plan_blendedterrain/terragenthumb.jpg'  align=right hspace=30 vspace=10 alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;Over the course of a couple of weeks I tried every tool I could find.  We started with Freeworld but realized that, though it is a simple, inexpensive, and somewhat full-featured solution for creating terrain lightmaps, heightmaps, and diffuse maps, the level of quality of the resulting terrain and maps were just not that great.  Also, in our case we needed a 4K height map, which Freeworld simply doesn't support.&lt;br&gt;.   So I decided to do the opacity map creation, initial heightmap creation, and lightmap creation all in &lt;a href='http://www.planetside.co.uk/terragen/' target=_blank&gt;Terragen&lt;/a&gt;.  This was a good move, since we all know how unbelievably good Terragen is at &lt;a href='http://www.planetside.co.uk/gallery/f/tg09' target=_blank&gt;creating stunning, realistic terrain&lt;/a&gt; and terrain mapping.  I just had to figure out a pipeline for exporting opacity maps and lightmaps from Terragen and use them with blended terrain in Atlas. More on that later on.&lt;br&gt;.   Oh yeah... and it was about this time that we decided to use blended terrain instead of unique terrain. This was kind of a logical choice since our world needed to be 6+ km, and using one single diffuse map for a world that big would look pretty terrible, even with a detail texture, so after tooling around in Terragen and realizing I could use its awesome terrain mapping for opacity maps in Atlas, that was the way to go.&lt;br&gt;  By exporting hi-res opacity maps and lightmaps from Terragen, you can imply a lot of detail that really isn't in the in-game terrain.  I started by creating a base terrain in Terragen using it's random terrain generator... just something close enough to what I needed.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href='http://www.sickheadgames.com/stuff/garagegamesimages/plan_blendedterrain/levellershot.jpg' target=_blank&gt;&lt;img src='http://www.sickheadgames.com/stuff/garagegamesimages/plan_blendedterrain/levellerthumb.jpg'  align=left hspace=30 vspace=10 alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;I needed to do some custom editing of the terrain, and since Terragen's editing tools are a little slim, I knew I'd need an external editor to tweak a few things.  Now there are a &lt;a href='http://www.planetside.co.uk/terragen/resources.shtml' target=_blank&gt;ton of apps&lt;/a&gt; out there for modifying heightmaps, and most of them are simply awful (&lt;i&gt;edit: see Phil's recommendation of EarthSculptor in the comments below...&lt;/i&gt;).  However, I found a rather excellent tool for modifying Terragen terrains called  &lt;a href='http://www.daylongraphics.com/products/leveller/' target=_blank&gt;Leveller&lt;/a&gt;.  I love this app.  It's solid, versatile, can handle huge files, and has a fantastic toolset (which, btw, is very Photoshop-esque... as an artist, I appreciate that).  I know most indies will frown at the price point ($150 USD), but imo Leveller is worth every penny. It imports Terragen .ter terrains, but unfortunately doesn't export them in a file that Terragen can directly use (or at least I never figured it out).  Currently the only way is to export a heightmap and import it back into Terragen.  But that's a simple enough process.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br clear=all&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;b&gt;Step 2 - Exporting Maps for Atlas&lt;/b&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;Terragen was used to create the opacity maps, lightmap, and original heightmap for the demo.  I'll break these down individually.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;Heightmap - Exporting a 16-bit .raw file as your game-ready heightmap is just a simple export from the surfaces pane in Terragen or, if more terrain tweaking is done in Leveller, then the heightmap can be exported from there.&lt;br&gt;&lt;li&gt;Opacity maps - I had 4 different surfaces in my scene: 1) A base rock texture, 2) A spotty grass texture on flat areas, 3) A beach area next to water, and 4) Some snow caps on the mountains.  This is where Terragen shines, in my opinion in comparison to Freeworld.  The controls you have over the distribution of surfaces (or even default surface settings) are fantastic.  So after setting these up to my liking, I would export them by setting all surfaces to white except for the one I'm exporting, which would be set to black.  Turning off some lighting parameters and setting up the camera properly would allow me to export a top-down view of the scene that I could use as an opacity map for that specific terrain map in Atlas.  I did this for all three non-base maps. (The base map was the dark rock, everything else was distributed on top of that)&lt;br&gt;&lt;li&gt;Lightmap - I exported a lightmap using a technique similar to the opacity maps, except I set all surfaces to white, and let the terrain cast shadows, so I'm left with only shadow information. Later, in Photoshop I decided to warm up the light areas by adding yellow and cool down the shadows by adding blue.  It gives the shadows in the snow that realistic purple-ish tint.&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;center&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href='http://www.sickheadgames.com/stuff/garagegamesimages/plan_blendedterrain/opacity_export_big.jpg' target=_blank&gt;&lt;img src='http://www.sickheadgames.com/stuff/garagegamesimages/plan_blendedterrain/opacity_export_small.jpg'   alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;/center&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;*Now if anyone more versed at Terragen than myself knows of a simpler way to export opacity maps or lightmaps than this, please post a comment below.  Or if you know how to create a Terragen script that would do this automatically, then you'll forever be my hero.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href='http://www.sickheadgames.com/stuff/garagegamesimages/plan_blendedterrain/texture_detail_big.jpg' target=_blank&gt;&lt;img src='http://www.sickheadgames.com/stuff/garagegamesimages/plan_blendedterrain/texture_detail_small.jpg'  align=right alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;Using blended terrain with opacity maps allows you to get a fairly detailed texture in the ground (see example at right), so we decided to use the detail texture as a broad noise to break up any repetition from the ground textures from a distance.  This worked great. Quite the opposite of what it is intended for... to create a tight pattern that adds &lt;i&gt;detail&lt;/i&gt;.    Below you can see the grass from a distance with and without the broad detail texture:&lt;br&gt;&lt;br clear=all&gt;&lt;br clear=all&gt;&lt;br clear=all&gt;&lt;br clear=all&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;center&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;img src='http://www.sickheadgames.com/stuff/garagegamesimages/plan_blendedterrain/detail_image_wmap.jpg'  alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;/center&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br clear=all&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;b&gt;Step 3 - Preparing Files for Atlas&lt;/b&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href='http://www.sickheadgames.com/stuff/garagegamesimages/plan_blendedterrain/opacity_chans_large.jpg' target=_blank&gt;&lt;img src='http://www.sickheadgames.com/stuff/garagegamesimages/plan_blendedterrain/opacity_chans_small.jpg'  align=right alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;The 16-bit .raw heightmap was pretty much game-ready.  It may have needed to be flipped/rotated in Photoshop.  The lightmap was opened in Photoshop, color-adjusted as stated above, and saved out as a .jpg.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;For blended terrain, the opacity maps for each surface all need to be pasted into separate channels of an RGBA (standard RGB file with one alpha channel) .png file.  I also had to invert the colors.  The channels act as masks for the repeating terrain textures which exist as separate .jpgs.  This is standard blended terrain stuff.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;At this point everything was ready to go!&lt;br clear=all&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;b&gt;Step 4 - Skybox Exporting&lt;/b&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;Just a little note that there is a very easy-to-run Terragen script out there that exports Torque-ready skyboxes without the hassle of manually pointing cameras in the right direction and dealing with lighting and rendering preferences.  It batch-exports all 6 sides of your skybox cube all by itself.  After attempting to export them manually once or twice, I was elated to find this simple script.  Go grab it &lt;a href='http://www.terathon.com/wiki/index.php?title=Making_a_Skybox_Using_Terragen' target=_blank&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br clear=all&gt;&lt;br clear=all&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;b&gt;OK then...&lt;/b&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;I didn't intend that to be so long, but if I can give someone else a better starting point than I had, then it was all worth it.  Believe it or not, I skipped over a bunch of little details there.  Please post a comment or email if you'd like  clarification on anything.   A few side notes...&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;Sickhead Games is still &lt;a href='http://www.garagegames.com/index.php?sec=mg&amp;amp;mod=resource&amp;amp;page=view&amp;amp;qid=12467'&gt; looking for a programmer&lt;/a&gt; familiar with Torque with a knack for physics for a full-time gig.  Wanna get in on the indie developer lifestyle, have a say in the products created, and bake in the perilous heat of Dallas summers?  Give us a shout.  We're considering the intern thing as well.  If you even &lt;i&gt;think&lt;/i&gt; you might be interested, please &lt;a href='http://www.sickheadgames.com/contact.php' target=_blank&gt;send us an email&lt;/a&gt; and let's chat.&lt;br&gt;&lt;li&gt;I just put up some &lt;a href='http://www.garagegames.com/mg/forums/result.thread.php?qt=59180'&gt;free 2D art&lt;/a&gt; good for casual games on the TGB forums this week.  Hope someone finds it useful.  (&lt;i&gt;edit: sorry, access to that forum is TGB-owners only... here's a&lt;a href='http://www.sickheadgames.com/stuff/garagegamesimages/nicecans_02.jpg' target=_blank&gt; preview&lt;/a&gt; for anyone else interested&lt;/i&gt;)&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;Take care.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;Russell Fincher&lt;br&gt;Lead Artist | Co-owner&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href='http://www.sickheadgames.com' target=_blank&gt;Sickhead Games&lt;/a&gt;</description>
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	<item rdf:about="http://www.garagegames.com/blogs/44904/11443">
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		<dc:date>2006-10-21T04:16:35+00:00</dc:date>
		<dc:creator>Russell Fincher</dc:creator>
		<title>Adventure Kit update 1.1</title>
		<link>http://www.garagegames.com/blogs/44904/11443</link>
		<description>&lt;b&gt;Adventure Kit update 1.1&lt;/b&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;Hey all, alot of this will be repeated in a development snapshot soon, but just a quick post announcing that the &lt;a href='http://www.garagegames.com/products/90'&gt;Adventure Kit&lt;/a&gt; update 1.1 is available, free upgrade to owners of 1.0.  Changes in the new version:&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;Works without TGB source code, so &lt;b&gt;non-Pro&lt;/b&gt; users (and even trial users) can now purchase and work with the Adventure Kit!&lt;br&gt;&lt;li&gt;Reworked collision for performance gain&lt;br&gt;&lt;li&gt;No need for C++ code changes with TGB 1.1.1 or higher.&lt;br&gt;&lt;li&gt;A couple of art fixes, and addition of a handful of new art items...&lt;br&gt;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;center&gt;&lt;img src='http://www.sickheadgames.com/stuff/garagegamesimages/11plan_01.jpg'  alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;/center&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;New art includes:&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;Animated flags (4 colors) and flagpole&lt;br&gt;&lt;li&gt;Toadstools of various sizes&lt;br&gt;&lt;li&gt;Tiling pier, horizontal and vertical&lt;br&gt;&lt;li&gt;Potato sack&lt;br&gt;&lt;li&gt;Individual and stacked sandbags&lt;br&gt;&lt;li&gt;Treasure chest with animated lid&lt;br&gt;&lt;li&gt;Fruit basket&lt;br&gt;&lt;li&gt;Torches&lt;br&gt;&lt;li&gt;Alternate dark and light dirt transitions (not shown)&lt;br&gt;&lt;li&gt;Fixed sand transitions (not shown)&lt;br&gt;&lt;li&gt;Added cracked mud tile (not shown)&lt;br&gt;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;One note from Tim on existing users:&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;font size=1&gt;Quote:&lt;br&gt;&lt;hr height=1 noshade&gt;older TGB Adv. Kit owners may note the name of the product in their download history might change (appended with Inactive) however the download works just fine, and they'll still be able to download the newest version just fine (all comes from one download on the site). &lt;hr height=1 noshade&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;b&gt;The Sickheadquarters&lt;/b&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;And on a side note, late October marks four years for Sickhead Games as full-time independent developers.  This week we move into our first official office space!  It's nothing fancy, but it's home:&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;center&gt;&lt;img src='http://www.sickheadgames.com/stuff/garagegamesimages/11plan_02.jpg'  alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;/center&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;So if any Garage Gamers find themselves coming through the fair city of Dallas, Texas, give us a shout and stop by. &lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;Russell&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href='http://www.sickheadgames.com' target=_blank&gt;www.sickheadgames.com&lt;/a&gt;</description>
	</item>
	<item rdf:about="http://www.garagegames.com/blogs/44904/11228">
		<dc:format>text/html</dc:format>
		<dc:date>2006-09-08T04:33:14+00:00</dc:date>
		<dc:creator>Russell Fincher</dc:creator>
		<title>Adventure Kit post mortem</title>
		<link>http://www.garagegames.com/blogs/44904/11228</link>
		<description>&lt;b&gt;Sickhead Games: Adventure Kit post-mortem&lt;/b&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;center&gt;&lt;img src='http://www.sickheadgames.com/stuff/garagegamesimages/adkit_banner.jpg'  alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;/center&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;It's been a couple of weeks since our release of the &lt;a href='http://www.garagegames.com/products/90'&gt;Adventure Kit&lt;/a&gt;.  We've had a great response from the community, as well as some valued criticism.  In all honesty the scope and capabilities of the project had grown quite a bit from its beginning to its release, and we felt a number of growing pains along the way.  So let's begin a little post-mortem on the project!&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;First of all... to those unfamiliar with the Adventure Kit, basically it's a starter kit for Torque Game Builder which includes tiles, sprites, code, and sounds used to create a top-down action and RPG game, but also included was a demonstration &amp;quot;game&amp;quot; that's comprised of two diverse levels just to show what can be done with the kit.  By now we should have a new video on the &lt;a href='http://www.garagegames.com/products/90'&gt; product page&lt;/a&gt; to show some of that off. &lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;And while we're discussing the rights and wrongs of the development of TGB games, I must first point everyone to Andrew Douglas' helpful &lt;a href='http://www.garagegames.com/blogs/64009/10909'&gt;summary&lt;/a&gt; of his own experiences creating art for TGB.  Some valuable tips in there.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;b&gt;What went wrong.&lt;/b&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;i&gt;Prototype, prototype prototype.&lt;/i&gt; &lt;br&gt;That's the mantra we hear often and brush aside to get into the fun stuff, right?  Well, brushing it aside cost us at least 3 weeks of lost development time on a project that ended up being about 3.5 months.  A somewhat considerable chunk of time spent creating art that wasn't necessary or that had to be reformatted.  And here's why...&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;i&gt;Sprites or Tiles? Underestimating the abilities of sprites&lt;/i&gt;&lt;br&gt;In the beginning, we were really unsure what kind of performance we would get if we used a lot of sprites.  For this reason, we began by creating most of the environment art as tiles. Eventually we realized two things:  1) that we could put 800+ sprites into a map and still get 95+ fps, and 2) that tiles were much less flexible than sprites.  Check out the following example.  The image on the left illustrates the assets required to create a stone wall with tiles, and the image on the right illustrates the assets required to create a stone wall with sprites. &lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;center&gt;&lt;img src='http://www.sickheadgames.com/stuff/garagegamesimages/sillyrabbit.jpg'  alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;/center&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;Not to mention that sorting individual tiles is virtually impossible.  Underestimating what we could do with sprites cost us a lot of time.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;i&gt;Packing: get to know it.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;br&gt;Of course efficiently arranging your art into tile sheets and sprite sheets only helps keep down the size of your game on disk.  How well those images can then be &amp;quot;packed&amp;quot; into usable chunks for a game, resulting in less RAM usage for your game, is another matter.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;Now one problem we ran into was the packing of tiles.  We figured that 128x128 pixel tile made sense.  Good general size for us, power-of-2 dimensions, etc.  What we failed to take into consideration was how the additional 2 pixels per dimension added by the filter pad would affect packing.  This caused an inherent problem in the efficiency of the packing system where the tiles were always slightly larger than what would fit into a power-of-2 packed map.  So a 4x4 packed image would need 260x260 pixels of space, just a hair over 256x256, and as such had to be packed into 512x512 maps, with quite a bit of unused space.  If we had created the tiles at 126x126, they would fit perfectly in power-of-2 packed maps.  Absolutely no wasted space.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;We got around this a number of ways and still kept the packed maps fairly efficient.  But 126x126 or 252x252 would have been perfectly efficient.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;i&gt;Polish, documentation, marketing, and the last 10%&lt;/i&gt;&lt;br&gt;They say that the last 10% of the project is the most time-consuming. We spent at least 2 weeks on the verge of shipping.  Polish items, like tweaking the AI, adding little gameplay bits, final sounds, and Gigantork were not completed until the last week.  &lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;The amount of effort required to construct documentation and the product page were both severely underestimated.  While we pride ourselves as being renaissance men of sorts, writers we are not. While the TDN documentation stretched our skills as technical writers, the product page stretched our skills as marketing-type people.  Indies sure do wear a lot of hats! Even though the publishing tools on the GG site are excellent, the product page took a while longer to build than we had anticipated. GG offered to help in this area, but unfortunately we didn't take them up on it.  Lesson learned... take the help when it is offered. &lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;And don't underestimate that last 10%!&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;b&gt;What went right!&lt;/b&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;i&gt;Letting your tools do the work for you...&lt;/i&gt;&lt;br&gt;We decided early on to use the Torque Orc as the 2D character for this starter kit.  He's sort of the face for Torque, and the model and animations were already made, so we could concentrate on making it work in TGB.  Tom wrote a clever little app we called SpriteMachine that allowed me to set up the camera angles and number of frames for any given DSQ and batch export the 2D frames out to a folder.  Then I used automation in Photoshop (Actions and batch processing) to process all the frames.  This allowed me to resize, crop, adjust color, and sharpen over 235 individual frames in a matter of minutes.  What could have been a horribly long process was very easy.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;center&gt;&lt;img src='http://www.sickheadgames.com/stuff/garagegamesimages/orcrun.jpg'  alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;/center&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;Genetica Pro.  I love this &lt;a href='http://www.spiralgraphics.biz/genetica.htm' target=_blank&gt;program&lt;/a&gt;.  It's a node-based tilable texture creation program.  Node-based, meaning you create textures by setting up various programmatic nodes (kind of like a flowchart) based on noise, repeating patterns, and &amp;quot;filters&amp;quot; to create the textures you want, and you can modify nodes at any point in your chain to adjust your texture.  It also exports normal maps and some height maps, so if you've been catching the latest on &lt;a href='http://www.garagegames.com/blogs/5318/11112'&gt;normal&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href='http://timothyaste.com/web/tech_demos/torquex/tx_relief.wmv' target=_blank&gt;parallax&lt;/a&gt; maps in TGB, there's just that much more for you to love about it.  I've really just cracked the surface.  I haven't found too many people using this. If you are, please let me know.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;center&gt;&lt;img src='http://www.sickheadgames.com/stuff/garagegamesimages/genetica.jpg'  alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;/center&gt; &lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;i&gt;Love LevelBuilder...&lt;/i&gt;&lt;br&gt;When we started the process LevelBuilder was still rather new and config datablocks were partially working.  Still from the beginning we saw the potential of the new tools and decided to deeply ingrain the workflow with them. LevelBuilder is  a breeze to use.  The simple power of drag and drop sprite placement and the new tile layer editor makes building levels fun and shockingly addictive.  With a few drags and some cut and pastes you've populated your level.  LevelBuilder even held up well when our levels got up to the 1000s of objects in the scene. &lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;i&gt;Good timing...&lt;/i&gt;&lt;br&gt;The release of the AdKit happened to fall within weeks of the big TGB 1.1 release and the Torque X announcement.  So a lot of heads were turned towards Torque Game Builder at that time, which happens to only have one expansion pack/kit.  Wish I could say that was all planned, but things really just happened that way.  There's a lot to be said for good timing.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;i&gt;Working with the Garage...&lt;/i&gt;&lt;br&gt;We decided early on to partner with GarageGames to develop and distribute this product.  We made a good decision there.  The publishing tools are great and they offered help and encouragement all along the way.  Tim was always available for any questions we had on the publishing and legal side of things, and even sounded like he knew what he was talking about!  That was comforting, even though somehow we still think the lunatics are running the asylum.  ;)&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;We have to point out the great effort that Justin and the rest of the TGB team put into the 1.1.1 TGB release.  If you haven't checked it out, you're missing out on some &lt;i&gt;phenomenal&lt;/i&gt; changes.  Also, they listened to our feedback and added features to TGB that made it possible for us to ship a far better product.  In addition, they offered great advice and criticism on early versions of art and functionality.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;i&gt;Conclusion&lt;/i&gt;&lt;br&gt;It's hard to tell how successful TGB Adventure Kit will be in the long run, but so far is doing really well.  We have plans for a 1.2 release with a little more content for current owners, a few more features, and support for non-Pro users (even trial users could buy it).  Keep an eye out for that!&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;And for those AdKit owners that made it this far into my exhilerating post mortem...  some Easter eggs!  In the console, try either &amp;quot;miniMe&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;supersizeMe&amp;quot;.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;Thanks for listening.&lt;br&gt;Russell&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;center&gt;&lt;img src='http://www.sickheadgames.com/stuff/garagegamesimages/splash.jpg'  alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;/center&gt; &lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt;&lt;center&gt;&lt;b&gt;Development Data:&lt;/b&gt;&lt;br&gt;Developer: Sickhead Games&lt;br&gt;Distributor: GarageGames&lt;br&gt;Platforms: Windows/OSX&lt;br&gt;Number of full time developers: 1 x 2.5 months, 2 x 1 month&lt;br&gt;Length of development: 3.5 months&lt;br&gt;Release date: August 18, 2006&lt;/center&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br clear=all&gt;&lt;br clear=all&gt;</description>
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	<item rdf:about="http://www.garagegames.com/blogs/44904/10753">
		<dc:format>text/html</dc:format>
		<dc:date>2006-06-21T02:12:27+00:00</dc:date>
		<dc:creator>Russell Fincher</dc:creator>
		<title>Update: Sickhead TGB Tile Pack</title>
		<link>http://www.garagegames.com/blogs/44904/10753</link>
		<description>&lt;b&gt;Update... Sickhead Games' Torque Game Builder Tile Pack #1&lt;/b&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href='http://www.sickheadgames.com/stuff/garagegamesimages/01_map.jpg' target=_blank&gt;&lt;img src='http://www.sickheadgames.com/stuff/garagegamesimages/01_map_thumb.jpg'  align=right alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;b&gt;The content pack and the video...&lt;/b&gt;&lt;br&gt;Work on our first content pack for Torque Game Builder has run a little longer than intended (though I'm glad to say we've got a lot going on around here these days), but we've got enough built to share what we've been up to.  Obviously this is looking more like a full-on top-down starter kit than just a tile pack, since the code will be included to get this stuff working right outta the box. &lt;i&gt;(box not included)&lt;/i&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;So this release will not only have the tiles and sprites listed in my &lt;a href='http://www.garagegames.com/index.php?sec=mg&amp;amp;mod=resource&amp;amp;page=view&amp;amp;qid=10283'&gt;previous plan&lt;/a&gt;, but also include all the sorting and 3D code that Tom's been working on, as well as a few royalty-free sounds.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;Check out the video below for a run-through of a little demonstration map.  Sorry for the poor quality.  There's a reason we're not called Sickhead Video Encoding Company.  &lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;center&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href='http://www.sickheadgames.com/stuff/TP1Teaser.mov' target=_blank&gt;&lt;img src='http://www.sickheadgames.com/stuff/garagegamesimages/02_movie_thumbnail.jpg'   alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;/center&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href='http://www.sickheadgames.com/stuff/garagegamesimages/03_sorting.jpg' target=_blank&gt;&lt;img src='http://www.sickheadgames.com/stuff/garagegamesimages/03_sorting_thumb.jpg'  align=left hspace=40 vspace=10 alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;b&gt; Sorting &lt;/b&gt;&lt;br&gt;We've enabled a sorting system that governs which sprites are in front, as well as a 3d-ish collision volume tweak that gives them depth.  Direct any technical comments here to Tom, since I don't get the technical stuff.  Good thing thing for me he's made adding the sorting information for the sprites dead simple.  I'm also glad to say we'll be including a lot of animated vegetation, just subtle stuff like the trees and the elephant ear plant seen in the video.  A small breeze goes a long way towards livening things up.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;b&gt; Finishing up &lt;/b&gt;&lt;br&gt;As far as the art goes, we're still pretty much on track for the content listed before.  We mostly wanted to show off the current state of the &amp;quot;gameplay&amp;quot;.  We'll wrapping this stuff up in the next couple of weeks and it should hopefully be available soon after that. Take care, gang...&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;center&gt;Russell Fincher&lt;br&gt;Lead Artist | Co-owner&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href='http://www.sickheadgames.com' target=_blank&gt;Sickhead Games&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/center&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;center&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href='http://www.sickheadgames.com/stuff/garagegamesimages/04_misc.jpg' target=_blank&gt;&lt;img src='http://www.sickheadgames.com/stuff/garagegamesimages/04_misc_thumb.jpg'  hspace=5 alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;a href='http://www.sickheadgames.com/stuff/garagegamesimages/05_misc.jpg' target=_blank&gt;&lt;img src='http://www.sickheadgames.com/stuff/garagegamesimages/05_misc_thumb.jpg'  hspace=5 alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;a href='http://www.sickheadgames.com/stuff/garagegamesimages/06_misc.jpg' target=_blank&gt;&lt;img src='http://www.sickheadgames.com/stuff/garagegamesimages/06_misc_thumb.jpg'  hspace=5 alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;a href='http://www.sickheadgames.com/stuff/garagegamesimages/07_misc.jpg' target=_blank&gt;&lt;img src='http://www.sickheadgames.com/stuff/garagegamesimages/07_misc_thumb.jpg'  hspace=5 alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;/center&gt;</description>
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	<item rdf:about="http://www.garagegames.com/blogs/44904/10283">
		<dc:format>text/html</dc:format>
		<dc:date>2006-04-18T06:34:49+00:00</dc:date>
		<dc:creator>Russell Fincher</dc:creator>
		<title>Sickhead TGB Tile Pack #1</title>
		<link>http://www.garagegames.com/blogs/44904/10283</link>
		<description>&lt;a href='http://www.sickheadgames.com' target=_blank&gt;&lt;img src='http://www.sickheadgames.com/tilepack_files/shg.jpg'  align=right hspace=10 vspace=15 alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;b&gt;Sickhead Games' Torque Game Builder Tile Pack #1&lt;/b&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;With a few weeks between projects here at Sickhead Games, I've decided to take on a Torque Game Builder content pack. The idea is to create a Level Builder-ready 2D sprite and tile pack covering a number of variations of terrain, props, and animated tiles, all presented in classic top-down viewpoint. It will ship with pre-defined image maps, animations, and brush sets which drop right into your current project, documentation on how to use them, and even a small, working demo. The general list of what will be included, and a first pass at the art:&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;i&gt;edit: see the subsequent blog post about the tile pack &lt;a href='http://www.garagegames.com/index.php?sec=mg&amp;amp;mod=resource&amp;amp;page=view&amp;amp;qid=10753'&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href='http://www.sickheadgames.com/tilepack_files/mockup_01.jpg' target=_blank&gt;&lt;img src='http://www.sickheadgames.com/tilepack_files/mockup_01_thumb.jpg'  align=right hspace=10 vspace=10 alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;b&gt;Terrain Tiles:&lt;/b&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;various types of grass&lt;br&gt;&lt;li&gt;rock and gravel&lt;br&gt;&lt;li&gt;dirt, sand, and mud&lt;br&gt;&lt;li&gt;transitions between most of the above. &lt;br&gt;&lt;li&gt;animated water tiles for lakes and rivers&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;b&gt;Barriers:&lt;/b&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;stone and wooden fences&lt;br&gt;&lt;li&gt;hedges&lt;br&gt;&lt;li&gt;crevasses and cliffs&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href='http://www.sickheadgames.com/tilepack_files/mockup_02.jpg' target=_blank&gt;&lt;img src='http://www.sickheadgames.com/tilepack_files/mockup_02_thumb.jpg'  align=left hspace=40 vspace=10 alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;b&gt;Structures:&lt;/b&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;tents&lt;br&gt;&lt;li&gt;shacks and barns&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;b&gt;Foliage and props:&lt;/b&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;animated trees&lt;br&gt;&lt;li&gt;small plants&lt;br&gt;&lt;li&gt;decorations to break up tiles (grass highlights, pebbles, puddles etc.)&lt;br&gt;&lt;li&gt;rocks, logs, stumps, barrels, etc.&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;center&gt;We have preliminary approval to include an animated Torque Orc sprite, presented from the same angle as the tiles...&lt;/center&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;center&gt;&lt;a href='http://www.sickheadgames.com/tilepack_files/mockup_03.jpg' target=_blank&gt;&lt;img src='http://www.sickheadgames.com/tilepack_files/mockup_03_thumb.jpg'  alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/center&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;So the main reason for creating this plan is to get opinions, suggestions, and criticisms from the TGB community about these screenshots, and about anything you'd like to see included in this pack. There will be a very short development cycle on these, just a few weeks, with further packs beyond that if time allows, so I'm trying to get any input as soon as possible. So check these out, and lemme have it!&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;center&gt;&lt;a href='http://www.sickheadgames.com/tilepack_files/tiles_128.jpg' target=_blank&gt;&lt;img src='http://www.sickheadgames.com/tilepack_files/tiles_128_thumb.jpg'  alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/center&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;A few technical points I'd like to hear about...&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;128x128 tiles... sufficient? (click on any image above to see tiles at full-size)&lt;br&gt;&lt;li&gt;any suggestions on maximizing the versatility of this pack... we want this to be appropriate for RTS, RPG, anything!&lt;br&gt;&lt;li&gt;criticisms about style, size?&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;center&gt;&lt;img src='http://www.sickheadgames.com/tilepack_files/water_anim.gif'  alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;/center&gt;</description>
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	<item rdf:about="http://www.garagegames.com/blogs/44904/7997">
		<dc:format>text/html</dc:format>
		<dc:date>2005-06-06T17:25:01+00:00</dc:date>
		<dc:creator>Russell Fincher</dc:creator>
		<title>Monday Jun 6 17:25</title>
		<link>http://www.garagegames.com/blogs/44904/7997</link>
		<description>This plan summarizes my work as game designer on the recent release of Batman Begins Mobile.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Just released, my first effort on the mobile platform, specifically &lt;a href='http://www.batmanbegins.com/' target=_blank&gt;Batman Begins&lt;/a&gt; for S40, S60, and BREW devices.  Adding to my responsibilities at &lt;a href='http://www.sickheadgames.com' target=_blank&gt;Sickhead Games&lt;/a&gt;, I stepped over to &lt;a href='http://www.klear.com' target=_blank&gt;Klear Games&lt;/a&gt; for a few months to bring this great re-invention of the Batman series to handheld devices all over the world.  We're getting decent reviews at &lt;a href='http://www.gamespot.com/mobile/action/batmanbegins/review.html' target=_blank&gt;Gamespot&lt;/a&gt;.  Check out screenshots and a movie at Klear's &lt;a href='http://www.klear.com/new/games/batmanbegins/' target=_blank&gt;Batman Begins page&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;img src='http://www.sickheadgames.com/stuff/garagegamesimages/batbeg.png'  alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;b&gt;Technology Ramp-Up/Limitations&lt;/b&gt;&lt;br&gt;Or ramp-down, as the case may be.  As game designer, the first and possibly most important thing to understand about cellphone game development is limitations.  We developed for 3 different platforms, and those platforms were ultimately ported to what must be dozens upon dozens of different devices.  The smallest screen we developed for was 96x65 px and the largest was 176x208 px, then the game was ported to variations of those.  Each platform was able to achieve a different maximum framerate.  And the footprint of the game was drastically different for various phones.  Some as small as 64k!.  Luckily the programmers at Klear are amazing (and quite patient), and we were able to fit a decent version of the game onto each device.  Which brings me to...&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;b&gt;The Team&lt;/b&gt;&lt;br&gt;We've probably all experienced the difference it makes to have a great team.  I've been fortunate enough to have been surrounded by incredibly competent people for years, Sickhead Games and the Batman Begins project included.  Klear's staff is as professional and talented as they come.  Please visit &lt;a href='http://www.klear.com/new/company/team.php' target=_blank&gt;Klear's site&lt;/a&gt; to familiarize yourself with these folks.  They've got big things in the works.  Also, Klear brought on a number of great contract artists, most notably Mike Penrod, who is responsable for most of the stunning environmental graphics, and Bobby Pavlok as level designer.  Bobby has worked on American McGee's Alice and Duke Nukem Forever, and currently teaches level design at the Guild Hall at SMU.  The music was provided by Rich Douglas, who did a great job creating original compositions to suit the Dark Knight.  All were a pleasure to work with and were as inspiring and they are talented.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;b&gt;Proprietary IP&lt;/b&gt;&lt;br&gt;Aside from a few restrictions on the NHRA license I worked with at Motorsims, this is the first published title I've worked on with heavy IP standards.  We dealt with both Warner Brothers Online and DC Comics, each who obviously have an investment in the characters and story and wanted to make sure the lore and style of Batman wasn't compromised.  Both were great to work with and finding solutions to narratives and gameplay was never a problem. And as it was also important not to reveal too much from the movie, we opted to follow a side-story from the movie's plot for this game.  &lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;b&gt;The Gameplay&lt;/b&gt;&lt;br&gt;We initially had lofty goals for this title.  We had envisioned a multi-genre game, but eventually realized that fitting such a game onto devices with such little space is currently an impossibility, so at Warner Brother's recommendation, we put all our efforts into bringing Batman to the cellphone world in the form of a classic side-scrolling platformer.  Building on what Klear had begun with the previous Catwoman game, they added scrolling movement in favor of paginated movement.  We decided on Batman's style of fighting, a list of his particular movements, attacks, defenses, enemies, and any special bat-devices.  All decisions which really had to be kept fluid to accommodate narrative changes, surprises in device limitations, etc.  This was my first experience in mapping character interaction, which is no small task even on a handheld device.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;b&gt;Wrap-up&lt;/b&gt;&lt;br&gt;Overall this was a very challenging project for me.  As 3D gaming is becoming more and more sophisticated, we are all racing to stay on top of the technology curve (which, frankly, I rather enjoy).  It's easy to forget that popular devices such as cellphones are still working under relatively great restrictions.  However, without the ability to rely on such stunning visual effects, I was really given a chance to focus on simple gameplay and strong narrative.   As a game creator I found this very liberating.  The daily process of trying to fit more into less space was an exercise in efficiency and strategy.  My experiences on Batman Begins Mobile have definitely enhanced my overall game development skills, and I recommend to anyone in game development that they spend time contemplating game creation with drastically different limitations.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;b&gt;Pimp&lt;/b&gt;&lt;br&gt; &lt;a href='http://www.batmanbegins.com/' target=_blank&gt;Batman Begins&lt;/a&gt; the movie comes out in the middle of June 2005 in the US and cellphone providers will begin carrying the game around that time.  Check your provider.  Also, keep an eye on &lt;a href='http://www.sickheadgames.com' target=_blank&gt;Sickhead Games&lt;/a&gt; as we are knee-deep in Torque development and will be spending the remainder of the year on some ass-kicking projects.  If you haven't checked it out, our &lt;a href='http://www.sickheadgames.com/torque_pipeline.php' target=_blank&gt;Pipeline&lt;/a&gt; exporter, coupled with &lt;a href='http://www.leadwerks.com/index.php?page=mapeditor.htm' target=_blank&gt;Cartography Shop&lt;/a&gt;, is a fantastic solution for level design/DIF creation.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;Thanks for listening...&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;Russell Fincher&lt;br&gt;Lead Artist | Co-owner&lt;br&gt;&lt;a href='http://www.sickheadgames.com' target=_blank&gt;Sickhead Games&lt;/a&gt;</description>
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