Blog for Thomas Oliver at GarageGames.com

Gearo the Hero - Update

Thomas Oliver — 2008-01-19T19:57:53+00:00

So i haven't posted any TVTs in the last week. This is in part due to the contracts that I have been working on but in most part due to putting alot of work into Gearo the Hero.

There is still along ways to go before Gearo is ready to play but so far everything has been going great and coming togeather to bring this work of art to life. David has an amazing ability to create stellar artwork that has a life of its own.

What is Gearo the Hero? Gearo is a Linear Platformer game thats designed to just be fun to play. Theres no complex skill systems or having to remember many different buttons to play. You just grab your Xbox 360 controller or your mouse and keyboard and let the fun begin.

The controls are this simple: Left mouse button is your swing attack, right mouse button is block. 1,2,3 keys are to use your items (health, scrolls and bananas) You move your mouse to move the camera about. All of these map right over to the 360 controller for an extremly natural feel to it.

Gearo is being designed in such a way that if we ever need to we can build upon it with new episodes (content) and keep the story building and branching.

While I can't get into alot of the details on the game (sorry cant just yet) I can say for everyone that has been waiting and for those that join the waiting list. You wont be disappointed.

Here's a little work in progress screenshot.

(I have some TVTs to release next week so stay tuned!)

TVTs and the future?

Thomas Oliver — 2008-01-12T19:53:33+00:00

So I managed to get in touch with someone from way back in 2004. I was brought on to work for a small but simply amazing project called "Gearo the Hero". Shortly after working on the project I was called away on military duty to put in 2 years out in the persian gulf. But a long story short. Gearo is back! And I think he is a little upset for being put on the self for these last few years.

What does this mean for the Torque Video Tutorials you might be asking?
I have been given permission to document and video record my trials and tribulations of rebuilding this project with David. So over the next few weeks and months you will get to see some hands on videos of proto-typing the game and then seeing the game brought to full life.

But what about the other TVTs Tom you might also be asking..
They are still being worked on and I will continue to release them. TVT #3 has fallen a little behind schedule as I found a issue with the sound encodeing after I had already recorded it and started to upload it. So I need to re-record the tutorial and then reencode it. Its just going to take a little time before its done but it is coming.

I have also recieved alot of emails asking for different tutorials covering normal mapping in TSE to a video walk through of setting up a platformer in TGB. Even some asking for some TorqueX videos. I am starting to put togeather a list of videos and will tag one up soon on whats to come. But for now if you have questions on something or would like to see a TVT made on something then feel free to email me at thraay@gmail.com and I will see what I can do about adding it to the list.

There have been several. Ok many many people that have volunteered to donate there help and even money. I will work on setting up a Paypal donation link for those that wish to help in that area. If you do make a donation and sometime in the future TVTs move to a subscription setup you will recieve a lifetime account in exchange for your early donation to the project. (In no way am I saying or granteeing that TVTs will be pay to see in the future. Just that it still stands as a possible option)

Anyways back to Gearo the Hero. For you viewing pleasure from way back in 2004!

He's back and he's a little upset on not seeing the light of day. ;)

Torque Video Tutorial #2 - Precipitation

Thomas Oliver — 2008-01-11T01:15:50+00:00

TVT #2 has been released and can be found at the following link.
www.stage6.com/user/Tom316/video/2054661/Torque-Video-Tutorial-#2---Precipitatio...
Alternative URL:
www.siteapps.net/tom/index2.html

TVT #2 deals with the creation of a precipitation datablock and additing it to your mission via the world editor. This TVT was created in response to one of the comments posted in first TVT blog.

Have an idea for a future TVT? Let me know in the comments section.

TVT#3 will be released sometime tomarrow and it deals with particle creation and addition along with adding in the Particle Editor Resource.

**Edit / Update**
There is a point in the video where I mentioned the splash size. The values are as follows. A 1.0 Size is the full image size. Where a .10 size would be a 90% reduction and a .50 would be a 50% reduction is image size. Thank you for the correction Pesto126.

Torque Video Tutorials

Thomas Oliver — 2008-01-05T07:27:37+00:00

So its been awhile since my last blog. So I figured to kick off my new blog postings with the first concept Torque Video Tutorial (TVT).

This firs video was designed more as a proof of concept then an actual working video. But i figured there was some good information included in it for people that have just purchased TGE and have no idea where to start.

Link for the time being to the first TVT.
http://www.siteapps.net/tom/index.html

The TVT is encoded in DivX and is setup in such a way that it will stream via the DivX Webplayer. The video run time is around 36 mins and is roughly 151mb in size. I'm still playing with the video quality to size ratio as I could easly get it down to around 100mb without loseing anymore video quality. Thats not so bad for a half hour video.

I am open for feedback, ideas, comments and what you think and what you would like to see in the next TVT. The plan is to roll out a TVT once every other day (3 a week).

The TVTs will not be limited to just TGE. Theres plans for TGB, TGEA, Torque X videos also as time permits there creation.

For the time being the TVTs will be offered up for free watching and download at the upcoming TVT website as soon as time permits me to finish it. However there will come a time when the bandwidth becomes such that donations will be accepted. At that time those that donate to keep the website running will gain access to TVTs a week or two prior to them being moved to open public. Donationers will also have high influce over upcoming TVTs.

** Edit: Just to make sure there is a part in this first TVT where it talks about torque script and the ./ used in path names. The ./ is relative to the files location that the ./ path appears in. Not just the projects directory.

Website Operation and Lessions Learned from MMO Kit Launch..

Thomas Oliver — 2006-05-19T05:33:42+00:00

Well I cant say the rough launch of the MMO Kit was unforseen. We where hired on about the same time the launch happened and the then (custom built 1/4th completed) website was spose to be posted up for the launch. Well as things had it the then webmaster never got the site posted and the needed/required features completed on the custom built website.

That is about where Me and Tom come into the picture. It was a being at the right place at the right time sort of deal. We where hired on to create a working website by the end of the day (The Launch had already slipped past its time and there was no website). So we had about 12-8 hours to come up with a feature complete working website. We took a little time to toss around the idea of a custom built solution from the ground up. But the time just wasnt there to complete such a project with only two people (and both of us have virtualy no computer art skills). More then anything we needed a good solid week of work to have everything in place and built from the ground up + tested. It just wasnt there. So we opted for a prebuilt solution that we could branch off of and customize as we needed. So Joomla was brought into the picture since it was feature complete and for the most part stable and secure. With the setup and install complete we rushed to secure the place up and get the required modules / plugins installed and operational. (Store, Boards, Accounting System, Tracking System, Ect.) By the time everything was setup and running ( atleast operational at the time) there was very little time to test and get everything posted up.

So the launch was hampered with downtime, bugs, and problems of just getting the kit out to the customers. Thankfully the core rush had a great idea of what we where offering and stuck through the trials and tribulations of launching a product without a website and no prep time.

So here we are today. About 4-5 days into the launch. Still far from where we want to be but everything is now stable, easy to use, and operational. The purchasers have the kits in there hands and our support team is hammering away helping people get setup and working. Things are falling into place and new improved software and such is being purchased, tested, and installed to replace the free alternatives that have held through a crazy mad rush.

Everything is holding togeather now and we are patching all of the backend togeather and createing a solid solution to fix any issues so if parts of the site do happen to go down for some reasion the debug info is saved and the areas are brought back online with easy. Over the next few weeks things will only get better as the graphics start to overlay the website and navigation between all the features is streamlined and hammered out.

It was crazy, mind boogling at times, and sometimes just down right insane. Its passed and its fun to watch a work of art come to life as your finding new ways to improve problem areas. While we are not faceing crazy amounts of traffic 1.5k to 2k unique visits a day is a nice start and things will only improve as the other products in the pipeline are starting to come togeather and new blood is hired on to help out and bring new features, products, ect. to the table.

Keep your eyes peeled to mydreamrpg.com as the MMO Kit is only the start of alot of neat features and such being brought to light.

Project Raven "The Nuts and Bolts"

Thomas Oliver — 2005-12-27T00:46:55+00:00

Its been a very (very, very?) long time since my last Blog Post.

I account this mainly because I have been doing alot of freelance contract work for different
projects out there. I have since tucked my little Online 18th RPG on the back burner until a later date.

I recently applied for (and got) a position working on Project Raven. I must say I wasnt prepared
for what I had jumped into but it has been an amazing ride so far. Apparently there last programmer
(For reasions I do not know or even want to understand) took a leave from the project and decided
that the work he did was to go with him. I must say it was interesting to see what work he had done
on the project and the more I looked at the demos I noticed that he really did not due much work at all.
Apparently it took him months to get the game to the stage it showed in the demo I seen of the project
so when I turned around and showed Brice (The Project Leader) what I had achived in just afew days
he was very impressed. Useing nothing more then afew resources on the great GarageGames website
and resources I have developed from working on many different projects (all used with permission from
the different projects I have worked on) I managed to get Project Raven back upto speed and surpass
the point they where at.

My latest task is to create a working Quest Log System. Nothing major or even remotely hard to do
considering I just finished up my second pass on the AI System. My goal with the Quest Log System
is just to keep it simple and expandable for future revisions down the road *PR 2 maybe?*?

In my next plan I will touch upon our AI System and my future plans to release it as a free resource here on GG.

Sunday Jun 26 21:37

Thomas Oliver — 2005-06-26T21:37:15+00:00

Afew months back I took a look at the torque community as a whole and looked far and wide to see what the community needed and could use the most. Then it came to me. One of my favorite resources to visit is 3dbuzz.com. And that is exactly what the GarageGames Community needs the most. A video learning archive of sorts focused on everything Torque.

Over the course of the last two years I have had the oppertunity to work with alot of different people on a wide number of projects. Many projects of my own sit on the back burner never to see the light of day ageain. But such is the way of game development and life in general.

Afew months back I took a look at the torque community as a whole and looked far and wide to see what the community needed and could use the most. Then it came to me. One of my favorite resources to visit is 3dbuzz.com. And that is exactly what the GarageGames Community needs the most. A video learning archive of sorts focused on everything Torque.

So I sit out on a project I knew I could complete with the help of my friends and family. And after months of work the Torque Archive is to be born. Within the next month or two expect to see the launch of our website and 20+ video tutorials to watch along with it. All of our videos are uncut and unedited (minus the addition of splash screen and infomation as needed). But you basicly get the entire 30+ mins from launching MSVC to the code compileing on screen. We explain the entire process and our panel of torque newbies ask questions when they have them and we answer them all on video. When we encounter errors you get to see the errors and how we go about fixing the errors. I believe entirely in that if you are really wanting to get into game development then you need to *see* all parts of it. Even the slow boreing, long drawn out parts.

I will be posting more .plans as we get even closer to our launch day.

Saturday Apr 24 8:51

Thomas Oliver — 2004-04-24T08:51:19+00:00

Well my last plan I was working on my own game. That has been put on the back burner for the time being as I now have a job working for Luminous Studios. I am the Lead/Assistant Programmer on the "Gearo The Hero" project.

http://www.luminous-studios.com/

My first week with the company has been a great week. My todo list is growing at a nice rate and I am mangageing to keep on top of it. This week alone I have converted the project from 1.1 codebase (from back in 2002) to the new Head Release of Torque. I have managed to re-apply all the resources that was being used in the old base into the new base. Was not a small task since there was some big changes from the old base to the head base but I managed to tackle all of them.

Currently the project is doing great. More then 80% of the models have been modeled and animation are in place for most of them.

It seems the current show stoper and the biggest star on my list of todo is a melee combat system. I really liked the RW Melee system but it relies to much on the animation and nodes being setup a certain way.

My plan is to take about 6 to 8 hours to day and hammer out a nice rough draft of a melee system and get it into the code base and working.

I am really stoked about this project as it is so simple yet very fun to play. Even at its current early stages. I can only describe it as Zelda for the PC. Something that has not been done much for the PC. It seems all the current games are focuseing on the bleeding edge of graphics and realism that the roots of it all and the fun graphics days are starting to disappear. Well Gearo is a game that will bring the fun and the good Zelda style graphics back to the PC.

Dev Snapshot
http://www.garagegames.com/mg/snapshot/view.php?qid=761
http://www.garagegames.com/images/ul/1218.devshot02.jpg