Blog for Alan James at GarageGames.com

What I Did On My Summer Vacation Part 2

Alan James — 2008-07-29T23:27:43+00:00

Hi Everyone! Welcome to part 2 of What I Did On My Summer Vacation.

So if you noted from Part 1, I actually don't get a Summer Vacation, but do try and take off a little more time than usual. But I haven't been completely idle. I figured I'd post a few personal "DEV Shots" of different projects I'm working on. These are all at various stages of completeness...but nothing is pending release right at the moment, since I'm trying to be a little more inclusive of TGEA and other file formats that a few folks have expressed interest in.

First is a military content pack with a focus on WW II with the current code name Bunkers and Barricades Military Content Pack. As you would probably guess it includes bunkers, barricades, along with trench sections, guard towers, sandbags, new crates, barbwire fence sections, etc.[/b]:

Second is a damaged building pack that I've had in the works for quite a while but it keeps morphing here and there. It is tentatively titled Damage & Desolation Building Pack. I've have the bulk of about a dozen damaged buildings along with bridges, road pieces, and some scattered debris:

The Third thing I have in the works is a Sci-Fi Content Pack entitled Platforms & Corridors Sci-Fi Content Pack. Again it's fairly obvious that it includes platforms and corridors along with futuristic barrels, crates and containers, conduits, hoists, catwalks/footbridges, possibly some animated fans, air locks and several styles of endrooms:

The Four is another Sci-Fi Pack that is a little different for my style, so it's probably the furthest one out in terms of completion. It will be vehicle style pack called Shuttles & Transports Sci-Fi Pack 2. I have the basic models done of the vehicles, now it's a matter of UV mapping/Texturing and rigging for TGEA/TGEA. I've messed around with the wheeled vehicle in game and it seems to work well.

These are the main working Packs, but I do have various levels of work done on at least another half a dozen packs including Ancient Civilization Pack (Temples, Pyramids, etc.), 50's theme (drive-in, gas station, theater, etc.), 1930's Floating City (think Flash Gordon style), Caves & Caverns, Middle-East Buildings, Big City Pack (Sky Scrapers, Grid Road System, etc.) and some Sprite work by my wife & daughter including stuff for TGB like Fruit & Veggie Powerups, Bugs & Insect Sprites, Trees & Plants and possibly some side scroller Building stuff that originates from previous 3D models ( think Warehouse District 2D).

Anyway, that's what's up so far this summer. Also The Sticks & Twigs Environment Pack should be seeing it's way to the GarageGames Content Store soon. The latest REV (3A) includes updates to the PNG billboard textures from some more digital camera work that Kyle and I have done. If you've already picked it up from www.monsterpacks.com the latest version REV3A should be the primary download on you account.

Well, that's all for now, but hopefully I can get my second wind for the Summer and get another couple of Packs out for you folks to get going on all of your various projects.

-Alan

What I Did On My Summer Vacation Part 1

Alan James — 2008-07-22T06:12:24+00:00

Hi Everyone!

Ok, so I don't really get a summer vacation, but I have taken a little more time off than usual this year. We are having some continued sales at both GG and on our site www.monsterpacks.com of the Warehouse Pack, the Downtown District Pack, the Alley Ambiance Pack and the RRGTS Sticks & Twigs Environment Pack. But I've not been especially productive as of late. We've got several projects in the works but I haven't devoted a substantial amount of my time to them for several reasons.

First off I've taken some time to do a few of the things that I've wanted to do with the kids...caves and hikes and waterfalls and such (by the way, the large image files are LARGE! don't click on them unless you'd really like to see the high resolution images):

Shasta Caverns - 15 minutes from our house (boat trip across Shasta Lake, bus ride and tour)

Large: www.monsterpacks.com/contentpacks/summer/Bb_0250A.jpg

King's Creek Falls - About an hour and a half from our house (trail head, 2.4 round trip hike)

Large: www.monsterpacks.com/contentpacks/summer/BB_0255.JPG

Kyle on trail to King's Creek Falls

Large: www.monsterpacks.com/contentpacks/summer/BB_0275.JPG

Castle Craigs - About 45 minutes from our house (trail head, 5.2 mile round trip hike)

Large: www.monsterpacks.com/contentpacks/summer/BB_0281.JPG

Motion Fire - About 4 miles from our house

Large: www.monsterpacks.com/contentpacks/summer/BB_0282.JPG

On top of the Cinder Cone at Butte Lake - Son in Law, Son in Law to be and one of Kyles friends

Large: www.monsterpacks.com/contentpacks/summer/BB_0284.JPG

Whiskey Creek (below the Falls) - About 45 minutes from our house (trail head 2.4 mile round trip)

Large: www.monsterpacks.com/contentpacks/summer/BB_0291.JPG

Whiskeytown Falls

Large: www.monsterpacks.com/contentpacks/summer/BB_0293.JPG

Skull Ice Cave - Lava Beds National Park - About 2 1/2 hours from our house

Large: www.monsterpacks.com/contentpacks/summer/IMG_2095.JPG

I've also been enjoying my oldest daughter, son in law and granddaughter. Last year they returned from the east coast where he had been stationed in the Army:

Emily - my granddaughter - About 4 months

Large: www.monsterpacks.com/contentpacks/summer/BB_0301.JPG

And finally we've been having to get some things in order since Kyle (my oldest son...if you didn't know who he was) has decided to join the Navy. He is scheduled to enter in the spring, but we've had to get a few things together and he's had to be gone a bit here and there for testing and medical exams.

What does this have to do with game development, our content packs and Really Really Good Things Studio?

Well, for starters it's put a bit of a delay on some of the packs that we had intended to release at this point.

It's also going to require Josh, Kyle's younger brother, to step up to the plate and help me out with the web site side of the Studio when the time comes in the spring. I really look forward to seeing Joshua grow in the same way I've seen his older siblings grow into young adults. They all make me very proud.

On the development side, we should have some good news regarding the "RRGTS Sticks & Twigs Environment PacK" in a few days. And in my "What I Did On My Summer Vacation Part 2" I should have quite a few screens to show off of the things that I have actually been working on, including some new Sci-Fi Spaceship stuff I've just started, some additional work on "Rubble & Ruins" Damaged Building Pack and a WW2 style content pack including some trench work, guard towers, sandbag barricades and such.

Lastly with all of these outings and such, Kyle and I have built up a couple thousand textures that we are in the process of making tileable and tweaking for game development. Kyle has already written a substantial portion of a new web site that includes a kind of "cart" for selecting and downloading textures that creates a zip file on the fly. I'm not sure when that will eventually go live, but his java/ajax/php skills are getting pretty good (way beyond what I can begin to understand!).

So I'll be posting "Part 2" in several days, and if you've made it this far, keep at it and really, really take time to enjoy life...no matter how old you may be...

Alan

Sticks & Twigs Environment Pack - Stick a Fork in it...

Alan James — 2008-05-22T03:54:35+00:00

...Because it's done! Whew! This was a load of work, and I'm already planning in the back of my head some cool updates for it...why won't my mind leave me alone! If you're not familar with this pack, I posted quite a few other in game images in my last plan www.garagegames.com/blogs/45734/14697.

So this it, it's now available on www.monsterpacks.com, RRGTS "Sticks & Twigs" Environment Pack. It has a "monsterous" amount of content:

60+ Trees

50+ Plants, Bushes, Ferns, etc.

24+ Types of Rocks

150+ Billboarded PNG plants (grass, dead bushes, etc.)

25+ Terragen generated 1024x1024 Skyboxes

150+ Terrain and Detail textures

24 Sample missions

13 Ambient Audio Tracks (2+ minutes each)

What I wanted to do with this particular pack was create an all inclusive solution that you could either pick and choose specific models or take a look at a mission with a section fully developed.

I've put together twenty four mission files that have example environments for super fast prototyping and level development. Extract the data directory into a clean build of TGE or TGEA and start Torque, the missions are ready to try out, get inspiration from and use for game development, etc.

Most (but not all) models include multiple LODs (from 2-5). Some of the simpler models are single LOD, but overall the performance is pretty outstanding considering the amount of sheer foliage in the missions:

Large: www.reallyreallygoodthings.com/contentpacks/sticks&twigs/Image74.jpg

Large: www.reallyreallygoodthings.com/contentpacks/sticks&twigs/Image84.jpg

Large: www.reallyreallygoodthings.com/contentpacks/sticks&twigs/Image113.jpg

Large: www.reallyreallygoodthings.com/contentpacks/sticks&twigs/Image213.jpg

Here is a PARTIAL thumbnail index of some of the included content:

Models:

So check it out at www.monsterpacks.com, RRGTS "Sticks & Twigs" Environment Pack, there is a WHOLE lot of content here! When you get a look at what's all included, you better have your shoes off, because your socks are gonna roll right off your feet!

- Alan
Really Really Good Things Studio

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Sticks & Twigs - Not just for Breakfast Anymore

Alan James — 2008-05-05T04:41:31+00:00

Ok, so that doesn't make a lot of sense, but neither does an environment pack called "Sticks & Twigs", it was a nickname that Kyle and I gave it and it stuck.

So what is this Plan about anyway? Well some folks have expressed interest in what Kyle and I have in store next, and so I thought I'd show a bunch of screens from our next pack that we will be releasing: the Sticks & Twigs: RRGTS Environment Pack.

What I wanted to do with this particular pack was create a all inclusive solution that includes currently over 60 unique trees, 200(!) billboard foliage pngs (grass, dead plants, etc.), over 24 ferns, more that 18 bushes and shrubs, at least 24 types of rocks, well over 100 terrain and ground detail textures, water lilies, mushrooms, 2 dozen Terragen rendered skyboxes, and twelve ambient audio tracks.

Not only with this massive (dare I say "monster"?) amount of content, I've put together 24 mission files that have sample content and environments for super fast prototyping and level development.

There are two other packs we are working hard at getting together also, but that's for another day. So here are a couple dozen sample screens of various missions that will be included in the pack, these are all captured in stock TGE 1.5.2. Keep an eye out on www.monsterpacks.com for this upcoming pack. It is nearly finished, and if all goes well it should be completed this week. I'm sure I'll let you all know...

Large: www.reallyreallygoodthings.com/contentpacks/sticks&twigs/Image74.jpg

Large: www.reallyreallygoodthings.com/contentpacks/sticks&twigs/Image76.jpg

Large: www.reallyreallygoodthings.com/contentpacks/sticks&twigs/Image78.jpg

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Large: www.reallyreallygoodthings.com/contentpacks/sticks&twigs/Image105.jpg

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Large: www.reallyreallygoodthings.com/contentpacks/sticks&twigs/Image256.jpg

And if that's not enough for you(!), you can always check out the "Sticks & Twigs RRGTS Environment Pack" coppermine gallery here:

www.reallyreallygoodthings.com/cpg1410/thumbnails.php?album=27

It has over 180 screenshots of this pack alone.

- Alan

Really Good Things come to the Garage!

Alan James — 2008-04-10T01:39:01+00:00

Hi Everyone! Most of you folks around here know Kyle and I from Really Really Good Things Studio, "Code Name: Monster Island", "Swords of Avalon", etc. and various other posting of our work here on GarageGames.

Again as many of you might know we entered realm of content art back in late summer, early fall of 2007. I guess I would be the first to admit that it was a shaky start. It was a daunting task and since that time we've released three updates to the original packs that we introduced back then.

We've learned a lot.

What works for you doesn't necessarily mean it's going to work for someone else. What you might be looking for in a particular model or asset again may be quite different that another developer. And biggest was that sometimes you just couldn't let it look as spectacular as you'd like because it still has to run in the engine. That was the big one, and has led to the many updates and revisions. We want our stuff to work and work well.

Let's fast forward to late fall 2007. I receive and email from Derek Bronson asking if anyone had ever approached us about selling our content on GarageGames.com. Well, no...no one had. So it began. I had already had in the works the "final" update (which as I have come to discover with some cool things I can do with a convoluted art pipeline and polysoup might *not* be the final update) and so we continued on.

I burned up a lot of time on this latest update. Across the board about 90% of all the models are LOD'd, texture resized or adjusted, directory structures reorganized...basically I did the whole thing over again. The three content packs, The Warehouse District, The Downtown District and the Alley Ambiance Pack easily represent a collective time expenditure on my part of more than 500 hours. I know that sounds like a lot. It was. That was just the latest revision since late November of 2007.

I'm happy with them now. I could walk away and sleep at night and be very proud of what I've accomplished. I probably won't -- since there are a few things still mulling around in my head that I'd like to improve even more, but at some point I'll put it all to bed. That probably not tonight.

And now the day has come. All the packs are live on GarageGames content section of the Store here now. It's a really cool thing. So I thought I'd show off a few things that might not have ended up in the store or in a dev shot coming up. So here we go...

The Warehouse District was actually the first content pack that we completed originally, and was the last one to be updated this time. I'm not even sure if I have sent out any emails informing anyone of it being available in their accounts on our site, or if in fact I've had Kyle add it to the accounts. If it's not there right now, it will be later tonight.

It represents the first stages of what I wanted to create. A set of content packs that would pretty much stand alone, or could combine together with a piece here and a piece there to quickly put together a nice, uniform and full looking area or level:

From cargo containers to tin storage buildings I wanted a strong set of good looking models that following this latest update would perform as best as possible:

The next pack we originally release was the Downtown District:

These contained the bulk of the standard style buildings and are nearly all primarily .DIF format (as I noted...this *may* change...have to wait and see if I can throw any more time at it). I really loved the look of these models, but originally without any LOD, and some pretty hefty texture sizes they wanted to bunch up even burly GPUs. The latest update addressed both of those areas.

I included with the latest update the successive .MAP files and the instructions to set your own LOD "PoP" point. I was very unaggressive on setting the LOD points, but that's the beauty of having the art assets and directions...set it where you need to to get the performance you need.

Finally we released the Alley Ambiance pack a short time after the Downtown District:

It represented primarily filler for either of the two other packs, or it could be used as stand alone content for any genre needing 20th century junk to fill a level. Crates, palettes, 2x4s, cinder blocks, street signs, fire hydrants (Kyles modeling there), and just a lot of various other things to work with:

This latest update included the introduction of normal, specular and ambient occlusion maps along with the original textures. Hopefully someone can put them to good use in TGEA 1.7 now that it's has gone gold an really seems solid:

Like the theme song of "Enterprise" goes, it's been a long road getting from there to here.

But I'm proud of what we've done.

I'm proud of my Son, the work that he has put into writing from scratch our website in PHP and maintaining it all these months, helping me out in so many ways. I could not have dreamed of better children than the ones that I have. Maybe someday this is what we will be able to do as my primary type of work. But until that day comes, I'll still be up 'til all hours of the night and posting here and there in the forums...

If you'd like to check them out, they are here:

The Downtown District Pack It sells for $29.95

The Alley Ambiance Pack It sells for $19.95

The Warehouse District Pack It sells for $29.95

Thanks again to Derek B. and GarageGames, and everyone else around here who have been so kind as we've learned the ropes and tried to do our part, "Indie made content for Indie made Games."

- Alan

Really Really Good Things Studio

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Really Really Good Things Studio - Current WIP

Alan James — 2008-03-01T03:41:01+00:00

Hi Everyone!

I've been pretty busy with a lot of different things, including the birth of my first grandaughter, Emily Catherine Marie McGinnis on the 18th of Feb. ( I know, you all thought I was a spring chicken, but I'm actually 43 yrs old...really getting up there, huh? ). Baby is doing fine and so is mom...the jury is still out on how dad is doing. =)

Kyle has been updating www.monsterpacks.com as of late, the bulk of the code is complete now there is just a few cosmetic things I'd like to change and it will be pretty much where I want it. We haven't added anything new lately, I've been working on updates for previous packs, particularly the Warehouse District Pack and the Alley Ambiance Pack. I'd finished the last "big" update on the the Downtown District Pack back in December and hopefully everyone who had picked it up got the email with the download link. If you didn't, let me know an I'll make sure that happens. Also the final thing Kyle's adding to the www.monsterpacks.com site is an updater system to add updated content to your download directories. Hopefully he will have that all up and running soon.

I've not been working on anything in particular ( outside of several small contract jobs ) and the updates, but I figured it was time to show off some stuff that I've been up to lately. So without further ado here are a bunch of screens of current content that we have in the works -

Here are a couple early shots of an "Ancient Ruins Pack" that I have just started:

Here are a few from a "Damaged Buildings Pack" with a tileable basic city "Grid":

And here are a couple from a "Sci Fi Interiors Pack" that I've been working on a bit:

And last, but not least, some screens from "Swords of Avalon: Mech Deathmatch" Josh and I have actually PLAYED it several times...yeah, yeah, I know it's hard to believe that I've actually gotten around to playing something I've worked on, but wow...you'd be amazed at how helpful that is...the mechs are from www.3drt.com and so is the one weapon, but pretty much everything else in the game screeshots is our stuff:

Also, if you've gotten ahold of me and I haven't written back, fire off another email. I receive a reasonable amount of mail on a pretty regular basis, and if I haven't written back it's not that I'm ignoring you, it's just that I'm trying to cover a lot of bases and sometimes I forget what I have going on and with whom.
Ian and Marc come to mind right off the bat, but I'm sure there are others...I don't mind getting a reminder that I need to correspond better, it keeps my mind active when you get as old as I am...and get those darn kids off the lawn! =P

-Alan
Really Really Good Things Studio

2008 Day One - Free Stuff & A Fun Three Years

Alan James — 2008-01-02T05:36:25+00:00

Hi Everyone,

Welcome to 2008! So here's the scoop...we've now owned our TGE license for three years and one week.

Yeah!

Looking back on the past several years, looking at the body of work we've completed and the work that lies ahead I'm pretty happy.

No, we haven't released Code Name: Monster Island, or Dwarf Quest or Swords of Avalon (more about this later), or any of the smaller projects we've been working on, but we've learned so much that I can't imagine how we could have handled releasing a title and missing out on all the false starts and fumbling and the volume of knowledge gained.

We've started our own studio during that time, Really Really Good Things Studio to be exact, and our own content site www.monsterpacks.com both of which have generally been well received. ( BTW, if you got your "Downtown District Update" and good, bad or indifferent, I'd like to know what your thoughts).

I've done some contract work and I've donated to a few projects, and as much a I can stretch myself I'll keep at it. There are a few other big things in the works (big for us, that is) but we'll cross that announcement bridge when we come to it. Let's just say this is an incredible community to be involved with. Along with this all, I hope to be able to help out Ian Roach as much as possible with the areas I'm most familiar with, terrains and buildings and I hope to see him get Illumina out the door this year.

Some sample corridors that will end up in Ian's hands:

Currently Code Name: Monster Island is on the far back burner, but it is not forgotten. I'm trying to learn as much as I can from putting together a smaller project that might not ever see the light of an open release, mainly being made to play "in-house", i.e. with my kids. If there ends up being some interest we'll consider releasing it. Have to wait and see.

So you're saying, what about the free stuff? Ok, I've been knocking out some decals and bb plants for this other project, and I figured that everyone can use bullet, broken glass decals and bb'd plants so I zipped up the lot of them and uploaded them for everyone to have. Everyone has been generous with their knowledge and time and we really do appreciate it. The only stipulation is that they can't be sold as unique work. The decals were created utilizing a great deal of the brush work of Stephanie Shimerdla at www.brushes.obsidiandawn.com.

BB' Plants sample images

www.reallyreallygoodthings.com/contentpacks/bbplants.zip

Decal sample images

www.reallyreallygoodthings.com/contentpacks/decals.zip

Oh, and the other little project. It's a little FPS mech game using the mechs from www.3drt.com. Had some Christmas money coming, so I picked them up and have been porting up some of the things from my 1.4.2 build of CN:MI into TGE 1.5.2. It's called "Swords of Avalon", the Mechs themselves named after the swords of the Arthurian Mythology.

Here is a link to some screens. Let me know what you think. And if you'd like to see it released some day, either free or very affordable, let us know.

Swords of Avalon

And here are a couple videos (same thing different sizes and formats) - (Should be completed uploading by 1AM Pacific Time, so if you get a dead link, try a little later, I've got to go to bed, I have to be at work in 5 hours...):

Crappy capture #1 - approx. 20mb
www.swordsofavalon.com/video/SOAVIDEO1A.wmv

Slightly less crappy capture #1 - but bigger DL - approx. 150mb
www.swordsofavalon.com/video/SOAVIDEO1A.mpg

- Alan & Kyle
Really Really Good Things Studio

Happy Halloween! The best mortgage rate you'll ever see...

Alan James — 2007-10-31T21:41:55+00:00

Hey Everyone!

Well, we've decided to run a monster of a promo on Monster Pack #5:Haunted House. For a limited time, for five days following this .Plan ( or Dev Shot Post -- not sure if it still will go up or not...but if it does I'll extend the deal out five days from that date ), we're offering the Pack for 5 Bucks. Yeah, you heard it right...five dollars.

Why...you ask? Well there are a couple reasons.

First, we've seen a lot of support from the community. If it wasn't such a hassle to set up the Plimus processing of a new account download, we had even kicked around the idea of flat giving it away.

Second, its not perfect...not that any of them have been, but there is a small glitch in third person at the top of the steps that I haven't been able to iron out yet that causes a noticeable drop in frame rates at that particular location. I believe I know the solution and I'll be updating anyones download list with the update, but I wanted to get it out to folks who might want it and willing to deal with that little hiccup right at the moment.

Third, we wanted folks to take a look at the site, get a feel for our style, our work and possibly prompt some more traffic moving through it and maybe get a little forum activity going. What kind of things are you looking for, what is working and what are you having problems with, how did we do certain things, etc. We've made a lot of mistakes, which gives you a lot of insight into how not to do certain things and we generally like to help.

So there it is. The Pack itself includes the main house, dts windows (stained glass and regular), some brick fence pieces, about 13 simple tombstones, four trees, some grass billboards, several sky boxes, some detail and terrain textures, a simple ambient audio track, mirrors, paintings and a few bushes. The main zip also includes a self contained demo directory with a ready to run level for some ideas on what you could do with the content itself.

So if you'd like to check it out, drop by www.monsterpacks.com and take a look at Monster Pack #5: Haunted House and while you're there check out some of the other things we've been working on.

Alan & Kyle
Really Really Good Things Studio

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OH, and a big PS...our site hates Internet Explorer 7, so to get there you'll need an earlier version of IE or of course the browser of choice...Firefox...it's some weird php thing. We'll get it straightened out also, but hey, it's IE7...what do I have to say?

House for Sale...Cheap!

Alan James — 2007-10-28T07:21:40+00:00

Hi Everyone!

I'll get to the house sale in a moment, but I'd like to note that since my last post I've jumped back and forth between TGE and TGEA about a dozen times regarding CNMI. There are things about TGEA that I really like, but then I started to compile a list of resources/features that I've managed to stuff/wrench/hack into TGE and I'm not sure with my copy and paste coding skills I can do the same with TGEA.

It would require me to actually know why a reasonable portion of the code does what it does, and I'm not sure if I'm up to the task.

There are certain aspects that I have been able to come to a decision on. First I'm focusing on a three level demo similar to the old doom/quake shareware type demos. Three fully functional levels that will pre-date the events of Code Name: Monster Island by a year, entitled CNMI:Harbinger. I can't show much, since there might be a paradigm shift in main character designs, but here is a teaser screen:

About 75% of those textures are original or "highly" modified photo textures. I'm pretty please on how a lot of them are turning out.

I've also started to brush up on my textures from scratch skills for a possible set of generic game assets (health pick ups, ammo, etc.). Here is a test in TGEA:

Now onto this house thing. I've been working on a Haunted House Pack, and I had hoped to have had it done sooner, but I'm going to have it available on our site for a three day special starting Monday. It includes four types of trees, (2 LOD'd, 2 not), a couple types of grass, 13 gravestones, ambient audio, arched stone entrance, several paintings, some transparent stained glass and glass pieces and a few other odds and ends.

I don't like to pimp the price of things here on GG, but if I were someone looking at an idea of what this "special price" might be, just think of the seventh president of the United States and you'll get pretty close (and not his president number, but the bill he's on...I know how some of you think!).

Here are a few screens of the Haunted House Pack. It will be nearly all .DIF models, although if I have a relatively productive day off Sunday afternoon, some of it might turn up in the pack as DTS objects also (with the matching .OBJ and .3DS files). It will be on our site www.monsterpacks.com.

I also did a brief video, it's nothing to write home about, and I still haven't broken down and learned how to set up a cam path, but it gives you an idea of what's included.

www.reallyreallygoodthings.com/screens4/HHPHR.mpg

Anyway, it looks as if I'm breaking out Silo, Lightray, Fragmotion and Milkshape and breaking down and learning keyframing and model rigging. Once I make the final decision on which engine it will be, I'll have some more info to share. We also thought a change in diet might help our modeling skills:

Until the next post, thanks! And to those who are awaiting emails from me, I'll be firing off a bunch of correspondence tomorrow (that would be you, Ian, Kory, Josh, etc.)

- Alan

www.monsterpacks.com
www.reallyreallygoodthings.com

Edit: Oh, I forgot to mention that I did snag a couple textures from Fruit Bat in Shades Texture pack he put up a few days ago:
www.fruitbatinshades.com
www.garagegames.com/mg/snapshot/view.php?qid=1517

IGC - What Have You Learned, Dorothy?

Alan James — 2007-10-12T23:44:40+00:00

Hi Everyone!

Kyle, Joshua and I have just returned from the Indie Games Con in Eugene. It was a good time. Good food, good games and lots nice people.

Lots of bright people.

Lots of motivated people.

Lots of disgustingly motivated and organized people.

Lots of people that make you say to yourself, "What have you been doing for the last couple of years?". Spending the time there was a revelation to the extend of wear and tear I have been subjecting myself to over the last few months. What were my goals? What did I plan to accomplish? Where was all of this going?

Yeah, I've done some contract work for a few folks. Yeah, I have some content in either published or soon to be published titles. Yeah we have got our content site up and running (www.monsterpacks.com - semi shameless plug, since half the people we talked to there didn't even know that we were doing this - and we thought all along we were spamming the boards!).

But what was the outcome of all of this work?

The first night there I slept for ten hours. Ten hours! On the way to IGC that morning Kyle and I were laughing about how we could see clearer and our surroundings didn't look blurred. When you think about it that's probably not something we should have been laughing about. But it is kind of funny.

It was there that this revelation matured into an epiphany. As much as I didn't want to admit it, and as much as I do believe that I have the capability to bring a AA/AAA game project to completion, there was one huge barrier that stood in the way.

That barrier was time.

I finally was grasping the idea that No man is an island...although some are peninsulas...big peninsulas...

I would be long dead by the time I finished everything that would be required to do it all by myself (and Kyle, of course). It is just too much, no matter how many hours a day I threw at it. I realized there that even though I worked on Code Name: Monster Island for hours each day, I've not been moving forward. I hadn't played a game in over a year and I was the only one who knew how to start a server with our own game!

What had I learned? It was time to take a step out and embrace what I've been avoiding. I was realizing that it might be time to give my ego a rest and admit that even though I might be capable in theory, In reality it was time to open the doors just a little. To take a step out and set a specific goal and let a few folks in.

So that is what I'm proposing here. After grasping the eventual distribution capabilities of IA and and well designed, chunked game model I'm ready to take a leap of faith with the community and bring on a few folks who might be interested in putting together a proof of concept model over the next four to six months for IA, with a full blown game somewhere around a year out.

What I am looking for specifically are one or two model/animators that can produce and rig a several monsters better than the stuff that I've slopped together, along with a main character rig of a particular model I have and have animated into a seizure like gait.

Kyle and I have decided to port over to TGEA Code Name: Monster Island and strip it down to it's barest essentials. Quick loading, sharp looking levels that play fast and mimic the fun we used to have playing head to head over our own network at home with a half a dozen of his friends.

If you think you might be interested, either email me at alanjamesATmonsterpacks.com, or leave a note here and I'll get back with you. I know there are a few of you that have expressed interest in the past, don't hesitate to remind me of your interest and together we can move ahead with this thing.

If you think you might be, but are saying to yourself, "Who the heck are these guys, and haven't I seen a million blogs like this here before looking for a team?" Hop over to www.reallyreallygoodthings.com/cpg1410/index.php and take a look at the screenshots again.

We can do this, but I think I'll need a few of you to pull it off.

See how much I've grown, a .Plan without screens!

- Alan

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