515 lines
23 KiB
Plaintext
Executable File
515 lines
23 KiB
Plaintext
Executable File
Readme for Content Packs
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August 13th, 2004
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(C) 2004 Timothy Aste
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http://www.gremlinstudios.com
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Distributed by Garage Games
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http://www.garagegames.com
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Please read the licensing agreement and special notes before using this content, thanks.
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Always back up your work!
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-------------------------------------
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Table of Contents
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X.1 - Version History
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X.2 - Quick Setup Guide
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1 - Introduction
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2 - About the packs
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3 - Special Notes**
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4 - Help! It doesn't work!
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5 - Credits & Special Thanks
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-------------------------------------
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x.1
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-Added collision meshes to rock objects in Environment Pack
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-Added collision meshes to deadtree objects in Environment Pack
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-Updated Documenation
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-Included .MAX 5.0 files for all DTS shapes
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-Fixed a typo in Rpgville1.mis
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x.2
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-Quick Setup Guide
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Just want to pop this stuff in Torque and play? Well this is what you have to do:
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I am using Starter.FPS as the demo I'm working with, from Torque 1.3
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1- When you open the Content pack, you will see a subdirectory called "textures"
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2- Copy the entire contents of "textures" into "../yourtorque/starter.fps/data/interiors/"
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Keep in mind it's important that they stay in the high level directory "interiors"
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3- Create a new subdirectory inside "interiors" for the content packs contents named after
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the content pack, for example "buildings" or "castles" or "misc." depending on what your
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copying and what your preferences for labeling things are.
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4- Go back to the content pack directory and locate the subdirectory labeled "compiled" or
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"precompiled".
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5- Copy the entire contents of the "compiled"/"precompiled" directory over to the new
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subdirectory you just made in "interiors". For example, if I were using the building pack,
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I would copy all the files from "Building_Pack/Compiled/" to
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"../yourtorque/Starter.FPS/interiors/buildings", and /buildings being the name of the
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direcotry you just made in step 3.
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6- Go back to step 1 & repeat this process for each content pack you have. When coping new
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textures, you may be asked to over-write some textures, this is ok because there is a little
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overlap in some textures between packs.
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7- If your newer to Torque, **PLEASE** read the Special Notes & Help it Doesn't work sections
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of this readme file. This will explain the following: Common problems & fixes, how to make
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the windmill blades animate, how to set up environment effects, how to piece together
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multiple piece buildings and where to locate prearranged multiple piece buildings that you
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can just copy & paste into your mission file, and other misc. stuff. PLEASE read this.
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1 ------ Introduction: A note from the designer
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-----------------------------------------------------
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This content pack was designed as part of a whole interchanging system of packs that work extremely
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well with each other for the best results. To read more about the other packs available in this
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series, please check out http://www.garagegames.com
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The content packs started as a personal challenge (and practice of course) in late June of 2004. I
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wanted to see if I could design a whole town, so I just sat down and began chipping away at it
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learning the ins and out's of Torque. After posting some of my playing around up on
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Garagegames.com I received an overwhelming response and demand for high quality assets similar to
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what I had been "playing" around with and I was quickly contacted by Josh Williams of GarageGames
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and we laid down a roadmap for a content pack plan which over the course of a month became content
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"packs". This is my first attempt at a professional product so please give me a slack, and feel free
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to email me criticisms or problems and I will try to respond as best and fast as I can. I would of given
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these away for free, but I think GG would of murdered me! :)
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The assets in the content pack are made to be used in a variety of game genres from RPG, to FPS, to
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even RTS. Much, much time went into detailing each and every asset to work across as many mediums as
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possible while providing as much variety as possible without losing their connection to each other.
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I hope you enjoy these packs as much as I've enjoyed the journey of making them from their random
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beginning to their fantastic end. Please feel free to drop me a line at tim@gremlinstudios.com and
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show off how you are using them!
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2 ------ About the Packs
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-----------------------------------------------------
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Buildings Pack
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--------------
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This content pack includes 27 high quality buildings of all shapes and sizes.
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Every building comes portaled and with 3-6 levels of detail to optimize frame rates on all systems.
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No expense was spared in decorating the interiors or exteriors. There are enough buildings here to
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put together a whole small town, enjoy!
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- 2 Bars
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- 2 Large Houses
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- 5 Medium Houses
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- 5 Small Houses
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- 3 Medium Shops
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- 3 Small Shops
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- 3 Taverns
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- 1 Church
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---1 Altar
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---1 Pew
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- 1 Windmill
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---1 Animated Windmill Fan
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Castle Pack
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-----------
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This content pack includes 69 high quality modular infrastructure units of all shapes and sizes to
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build larger complex systems. Every object comes with 3-6 levels of detail to optimize frame rates on
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all systems. Every prop here was design to be used as a modular unit to piece together to create
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large complex structures of any shape and size to fit what you need!
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- 1 Four-Piece Castle Set
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- 3 Road pieces
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- 2 Stone Walls
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- 2 Metal Walls
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- 4 Palisade Walls
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- 2 Two story Corners
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- 2 Two Story City Walls
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- 1 One Story Corner
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- 3 One Story City Walls
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- 2 Gates
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- 7 Piece Aqua duct System
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- 4 Foot Bridges
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- 1 Rope Bridge
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- 1 Stone Bridge
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- 2 Large Signs
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- 4 Medium Signs
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- 3 Small Signs
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- 3 Piece Skywalk System
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- 9 Staircases
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- 3 Watch Towers
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- 3 Wells
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- 4 Columns
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Outside Accessories Pack
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------------------------
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This content pack includes 57 high quality props of all shapes and sizes. Every object comes with
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3-6 levels of detail to optimize frame rates on all systems. Use the props in-game to decorate your
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town with flair or take the source .maps and hardcode them as prefabs into any project to give it
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that special touch!
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- 4 Banners
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- 1 Large Town bell
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- 3 Carts
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- 2 Clotheslines
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- 2 Market Stands
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- 1 Construction Site Kit
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---3 Bases
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---2 Planks
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---2 Scaffolding Pieces
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---3 Poles
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- 6 Fences
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- 1 Firepit
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- 1 Gallows
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- 1 Hitching Post
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- 3 Outdoor Lanterns
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- 1 Outdoor Stove
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- 3 Shacks
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- 1 Smithy Kit
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---1 Anvil
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---1 Forge
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- 1 Tent
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- 11 Piece Tombstone Kit
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- 1 Trough
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- 1 Waterbased Kit
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---1 Rowboat
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---1 Oar
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---1 Coiled Rope
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---1 Large Dock
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Furniture Pack ETA: November 2004
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-------------
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This content pack includes 36 high quality props of all shapes and sizes. Every object comes with
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3-6 levels of detail to optimize frame rates on all systems. Use the props to decorate lavish
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interiors in-game or take the source art and import them into your map files to hard code them in as
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prefabs! This list is not final and is likely to grow and change!
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- 5 Benches
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- 1 Bucket
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- 3 Bottles
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- 1 Wine Rack
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- 3 Cupboards
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- 2 Bookcases
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- 1 Keg
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- 3 Ladders
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- 5 Painting
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- 1 Tapestry
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- 1 Plant Pot
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- 7 Tables
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- 1 Tailor Kit
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---1 Loom
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---1 Spinning Wheel
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1 - Training Bag
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Environment Pack
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----------------
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This pack contains three distinct new environmental settings that provide just the kick-start you
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need to a great looking demo or game. Optimized for Torque, this contains great new environmental
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settings, terrains, skies, and environmental objects.
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- 3 New Precipitation Environments (Sandstorm, Snowstorm & Improved Heavy Rain)
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- 3 Terrain Settings (Snow land, Wasteland & Grassland)
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- 2 New Skyboxes (Apocalypse & Stormy Sky)
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- 3 New Grass Files
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- 5 Bonus Detail Textures
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- 3 Storm Ambiences
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- 3 Dead Trees
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- 5 Rocks
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- 4 Trees
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Free Stuff
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----------
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Tons of content was created for the use of the content packs, but not all of it got used! We had to
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cut some things and had some excess textures but instead of wasting them we are providing them free
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of charge back to the community royalty-free to be put to good use in a good home. Be sure to get
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this free download from http://www.garagegames.com
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- 61 Bonus Textures
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- 1 Tavern Ambience
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- 3 Dynamic Music Cut Songs
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3 ------ Special notes
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-----------------------------------------------------
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Please make backups before overwriting or changing any files.
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1. Windmill Fan Blades
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========================
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In the building pack, the Windmill's Fan blades are animated to spin and are a .DTS object (with a
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.3DS source for non Torque users). If you are going to be using these fan blades in Torque, you will
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need to incorporate the script filed used to animate the object. The script file is located with the
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fan source and is called "fan.cs". Copy this file into your "./torque/demo/server/scripts/..."
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directory. Next, you will need to call this file from "game.cs" located in the same directory. Open
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up "game.cs" and add the line: " exec("./fan.cs"); " to the existing exec commands found at the
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start of the file. Save and now your fan should spin when added to the world! If you run into
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problems, please be sure to check your syntax is right (no extra characters anywhere) and that your
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paths are pointing in the right direction first.
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2. Multiple Piece Buildings
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========================
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For Torque users, due to the outdated limitations on the current map2dif build, some objects that
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are highly detailed or particularly large had to be built and split up into separate pieces in order
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for them to work crash free or compile. These objects are labeled as such and must be easily
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rearranged within Torque's Mission Editor in order to be a complete unit. Some objects were also
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split up to allow flexibility in arrange the design. To see how a multiple piece object is put
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together, please open up the respective demo mission included with each pack. In the castle pack,
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many infrastructure objects are units that are made to be put together to create complex systems.
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For example, the city wall set has multiple walls and jointing corners so you can create a city wall
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to conform to any shape you need all right within Torque itself with little performance hit! Again,
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please check the demo missions to see how these systems are used.
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3. Zones inside Zones kill your framerate! ** Important
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========================
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In the Torque Engine, having interiors inside interiors can cause problems when done in mass amounts
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because of zoning problems and anomalies that can occur. The engine sometimes tries to create a
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unique zone for each DIF objects and this means that by placing the DIF based example furniture
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inside a building within Torque itself could lead to being a real big performance killer. The
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optimal way to utilize the furniture props is to take them source files and copy the source art
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directly into whatever building you wish to have it within and compile it that way with furniture
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included. If that's confusing, what that basically means is using DIF Furniture objects inside DIF
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buildings in large amounts is very bad for performance. The DIF examples were included solely for
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the demo and are not meant to be placed within DIF buildings!
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4. Environment Pack Scripting
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========================
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If your using Torque and wish to take advantage of the Environment pack, you will need to incorporate
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the new enviroment.cs file which includes the settings for the precipitation effects. You will need
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to be using a build of Torque that included the New Precipitation code implemented in June, 2004. Be
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sure to backup any and all files before changing or overwriting the current files. To add these
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settings, copy enviroment.cs into "./torque/server/scripts/...". For advanced users, you can simply
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append the current enviroment.cs with the data located in the Environment Packs enviroment.cs. Also,
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be sure that game.cs is making a call to enviroment.cs (see Special Note #1 for info on how to do
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this).
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5. Locating pre-built DIF & DTS files in your new pack
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========================
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Pre-built versions of every asset that requires some sort of compiling or exporting are located for
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your convenience in the "./precompiled/" directory located within every content pack.
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6. MAP files
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========================
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After much deliberation, arguing, cursing, and sleepless nights the decision was made to restrict
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distribution of the brushed based Geometry to the universal .MAP format due to it's simple internal
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format and compatibility with the most platforms. The idea to distribute Quark & Hammer based
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formats were on the table because of their advanced ability, but it increased the distribution size
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and there were some issues concerning legalities and licensing. All 1000+ map files have been tested
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to be able to import into Hammer 3.5, Quark 6.4 Alpha, Q3Radiant, and Conitec Game Studio A6 WED.
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There is currently an issue with Game Studio WED being able to import the .map files because of a
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.map formatting inconsistency, but this can be easily worked around but opening the .map file within
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Hammer, Quark, or Radiant and re-exporting/saving the .map.
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7. Texture Size ** Important
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========================
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In the packs, I have all the default texture sizes at 512x512 at their MAXIMUM texture size. Depending
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on your system you will more than likely have to scale textures down that are being used depending on
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how much video ram you have available and what your target system is, please consider this! Without
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resizing these textures, you may have horribly slow frame-rates when you really start to get many many
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textures on the screen. I included all textures at their maximum recommended size so you as the
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end-user have this option on how you want to resize what textures and where so you can get the best
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results possible custom to your product or project.
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8. Inside the buildings!
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========================
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Every building as a equally detailed interior, albeit a bit empty to allow for maximum furniture
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arrangement of your choice. Also, most interiors were lit on a custom lighting setup in a very specific
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(and dark) way, you will more than likely have to adjust the omni_lights inside the .map files to your
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custom setup depending on what mood you are trying to set, otherwise you may get very dark results!
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9. Environment Pack Mission Files
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================================
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It's recommended you look and use the precipitation objects in the example mission files directory
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located in the environment pack base directory. Many of the weather effects shown in the demos and
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screenshots were created using these exact overlaying precipitation effects!
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10. Castle Pack Mission File
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================================
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It's recommended you also look at the mission file included with the castle pack to see how the 4
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piece castle is set up according to it's design.
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4 ------ Help! It doesn't work!
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-----------------------------------------------------
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Q: I was able to load the Interiors into Torque, but they are all black? WTF is up with that?
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A: You will have to relight the scene before you see textures on the exteriors of DIF files. To do
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this in stock Torque, open up the Mission Editor (Default F11) and press ALT+L. You can also save and
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then reload the mission if this feature is unavailable to you.\
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===========
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Q: Everything seems so dark/light, how can I fix this?
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A: For the exteriors of buildings you will have to edit the Suns Values. You can do this by opening
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up the Sun in the Torque mission editor and goin from there. Color is the suns brightness value while
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ambient is the sun shadows and other ambient features. It's a good idea to keep a nice contracts
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between these too with your Sun Value at a medium level and the Shadows at a dark level. Note that
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putting these two values exactly the same will wash out the textures very badly.
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As far as upping the interior lighting inside the interiors, you will have to unfortunately recompile
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the DIF itself using map2dif & your favorite torque mapping tool. Open the map itself (this will
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always be mapname_0.map, the _0 is the highest level of detail and the only level with an inside),
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then look for entitity's called omni_lights and adjust their values as you see fit.
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Please keep in mind this content pack was designed on the Synapse Gaming Lighting Pack* and the way
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the lights look and work on various platforms and versions of Torque is liable to be very different.
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Thanks for understanding and please email me** if you want any advice or help on adjusting and
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recompiling maps.
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*http://www.synapsegaming.com
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**tima@garagegames.com
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===========
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Q: Help, when I try to load an interior or mission with an interior in it, torque quits to the main
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menu with a "resource not found" type error.
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A: This error is more than likely from not being able to find the textures when trying to add the DIF
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files to the mision. Be sure to put your textures in a place where Torque can find them, the best
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place would be:
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.../YourTorqueGame/data/interiors/
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And be sure to have your DIF files *IN* that same directory, or within a sub-directory branching out
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of that directory such as:
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../YourTorqueGame/data/interiors/walls/
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===========
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Q: When I add foliage, I get white blocks?
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A: This is a similiar error as from the last question, be sure that all your paths are pointing to
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the correct files, as this error is caused from not finding a texture that is required.
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===========
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Q: The precipitation effects do not look like those in the movies, what am I doing wrong?
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A: The precipitation effects done in the screenshots, demos, and movies were done by using a
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combination of both predefined effects in environment.cs USED IN CONJUNCTION WITH the Sky/Wind
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Settings & Mission Precipitation Datablock Settings. To copy these effects, open up the example
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mission files included with the environment pack and copy the datablocks specified with the
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precipitation effects & skybox over to your own mission file. Also be sure to link the environment.cs
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file in your TOrqueGame/Server/Scripts/ directory if you haven't already, more info on how to do this
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is located above in the readme.
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===========
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Q: Certain large buildings are in multiple pieces, how the heck do I get them to go together?
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A: Due to constraints on MAP2DIF (the interior exporting tool) some buildings had to be split up
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into multiple pieces to export right. A big example of this would be the Castle in the Castle pack.
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These pieces needs to be rearranged inside of the Torque mission editor in order to look right. For
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the castle pack, a demo mission was included under CastlePack/Mission/ which includes a "pre-arranged"
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castle for you, so all you have to do is open the mission file in a text editor & copy the Interior
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Instance data blocks over to your own mission file and then open the mission file and move all the
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pieces (as a whole) to where you want the castle. Hopefully this will save you some time.
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===========
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Q: I have the combo pack and I put everything in one lump directory but now I can't find some find
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certain files, were they not included?
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A: Chances are you happed to overwrite some files by accident. As is shown in the
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YourContentPack/Geometry/ directory the files themselves are split down into subdirectories and
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inside some of these subdirectories some files will be labeled as med1, med2 in shops and med1, med2
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in houses, etc. etc. The best way to avoid this is to simply keep the directory structure and not lump
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everything in the same directory. Please, always keep in mind that the textures being used have to be
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in the same directory or a directory higher, so it's always the safest bet to keep them in
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/data/interiors/ if your working out of that directory.
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===========
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Q: The grass looked fuller and thicker in the screenshots, why?
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A: The screenshots were taken on a very high end system and the foliage count was upped to 14,000 on
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grass1 in rpgville1.mis. Feel free to experiment to find something that works for you.
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===========
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Q: Can I get a copy of the demo mission used in the videos?
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A: Yes, it is now freely available at http://www.gremlinstudios.com/promo/demomission.zip
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Please keep in mind this will be useless without owning all four content packs as it uses all four
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in combination.
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===========
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Q: I have a lot of buildings in now and it runs very sluggish!
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A: There are two causes usually for this straight out of the box, 1) You need to resize your textures to
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be much smaller as they are eating up VRAM very fast, please read the section on Resizing textures above
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in the special note sections. 2) The LOD's intial pop is too high for what your trying to do, you will have
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to recompile the buildings your using to have a faster initial LOD pop than it's default. Having 4 levels of
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detail is great but it won't do you any good if you have 30 buildings onscreen and they don't skip down to
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the next level of detail at 1000 meters! :)
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Adjust LOD is an advanced Map Modelling Technique and in the interest of time I recommend browsing the Torque
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Website resources section & Forums for how to do this. I am also available for email support by using the
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content pack product page support feature or emailing me at tim@garagegames.com and I will try to help as best
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I can as fast as I can. Thanks.
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5 ------ Credits & Special Thanks
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About Tim Aste:
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Timothy Aste - (Artist, GarageGames.com, Inc.)
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Tim Aste is a former freelance Graphic Designer educated at the Ringling School of Art and Design.
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Tim attracted the attention of GarageGames, Inc. with his 3-D and Level Design work and since has
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moved out to Eugene to work on the Torque Shader Engine and beyond. He recently was a speaker at
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Indie Games Con '04 and presented an updated Torque Shader Engine Demo which he recently designed.
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Developed By:
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--------------------------
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Timothy Aste
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http://www.gremlinstudios.com
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GarageGames liaison:
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--------------------------
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Josh Williams
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Demo Technology Developed By:
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--------------------------
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Matt Fairfax
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Brave Tree Productions
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Windmill Animation By:
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--------------------------
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Craig Fortune
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http://www.craigfortune.com
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Special Thanks:
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--------------------------
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GarageGames
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http://www.garagegames.com
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--Ben Garney
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--Jay Moore
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--Josh Williams
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Brave Tree Productions:
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http://www.bravetree.com
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--Matt Fairfax
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--Joe Maruschak
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Burnt Wasp:
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http://www.burntwasp.com/
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--Tom Bampton
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--Craig Fortune
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--Nauris Krauze
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The Render Engine:
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--Brett Fattori
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http://www.renderengine.com
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Synapse Gaming
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--John Kabus
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http://www.synapsegaming.com
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