3rd Party Product Update - August 2008
by Derek Bronson · 08/11/2008 (5:11 pm) · 7 comments
For those of you who haven't had the pleasure of meeting me, I manage all the 3rd party products you see on the Content Packs and Developer Tools section of the website. Since taking this job I have had the pleasure of meeting awesome people from all over the world (such as Chris Robertson, Phillip O'Shea and Jeff Faust just to name a few) and helping them deliver their content to other game developers in the community. I'm going to try to get one of these .plans out regularly to update everyone on the cool stuff I'm working on and the new products that have hit our stores.
AFX update to TGEA - Earlier this month Jeff Faust released AFX for TGEA 1.7.1! Jeff has been working hard on squishing bugs from the beta and now has a super solid release available for free to all AFX for TGEA users. For those of you who haven't played around with AFX, it features awesome spell effects, dynamic lights mounted on weapons, dynamic target selections and complex explosions. The end result are beautiful spellcasting and special effects like those seen in Everquest II and World of Warcraft.
Houdini - Not too long ago we unveiled Houdini for Indies. Houdini is a powerful 3D art tool, with an easy-to-use pathway into Torque, all available at an Indie friendly price of $99. Houdini recently unveiled Mac support that includes the exporter to Torque. Now all you crazy Apple users have a straightforward pipeline to get your art into your game.
Male Advanced Character Kit - BrokeAss Games, the creators of RUIN Online, have decided to release some of their MMO tech for use by other Indies. The Male Advanced Character Kit (M.A.C.K. for short) features a fully animated character that includes mesh hiding and texture swapping all within the editor. This allows people to create characters with hundreds of different options for clothing, armor, weapon, and skin. This is a must have for any MMO developers out there.
Angel Pack - Last month I talked about how these awesome artists have made their catalog of models available on the GG store. Just recently they released their latest model - an angel that comes with general animations as well as flying and sword drawing animations. The 3DGDA guys have also created a normal map and specular map to give it that next gen look in TGEA, all for less than $60.
Sticks and Twigs Environment Pack - Alan James and his son Kyle have released yet another awesome pack to the GG store. The Sticks and Twigs Environment Pack features 60+ trees, 50+ plants, 24+ types of rocks, 25+ skyboxes, 13 ambient audio tracks and 24 sample missions to show them off and help you get started. This is a crazy amount of art for your game and is available for only $30.
Video Markup Lite Examples
Vimeo - To add a Vimeo video to your blog simply add the following tag [vimeo=##### width=# height=#]. The Vimeo number is the last thing displayed in the URL of a vimeo video. The width and height can be any ratio you like, but it must be entered as width first and height second. None of the video tags have a closing tag.
Viddler - Viddler is the most difficult of the three because they reroute the video and it is not displayed in the URL. The format is the same is Vimeo [viddler=##### width=# height=#] where width must come before height and there is no closing tag. To get the viddler number simply click the "Embed This" link, then toward the end of the code string you will find something like "name="viddler_c7ea3336", copy the portion after the underscore and use it for the Viddler number. Example: [viddler=c7ea3336 width=# height=#].
WeGame - WeGame is just like Vimeo [wegame=### width=# height=#]. The WeGame number can be found at the end of the URL for the video you want to post.
YouTube - YouTube is just like Vimeo and WeGame [youtube=### width=# height=#]. The YouTube number is a the end of the URL for the video you want to post.
edit: Removed bit about YouTube's quality, please see comments below
Awesome New Products
AFX update to TGEA - Earlier this month Jeff Faust released AFX for TGEA 1.7.1! Jeff has been working hard on squishing bugs from the beta and now has a super solid release available for free to all AFX for TGEA users. For those of you who haven't played around with AFX, it features awesome spell effects, dynamic lights mounted on weapons, dynamic target selections and complex explosions. The end result are beautiful spellcasting and special effects like those seen in Everquest II and World of Warcraft.
Houdini - Not too long ago we unveiled Houdini for Indies. Houdini is a powerful 3D art tool, with an easy-to-use pathway into Torque, all available at an Indie friendly price of $99. Houdini recently unveiled Mac support that includes the exporter to Torque. Now all you crazy Apple users have a straightforward pipeline to get your art into your game.
Male Advanced Character Kit - BrokeAss Games, the creators of RUIN Online, have decided to release some of their MMO tech for use by other Indies. The Male Advanced Character Kit (M.A.C.K. for short) features a fully animated character that includes mesh hiding and texture swapping all within the editor. This allows people to create characters with hundreds of different options for clothing, armor, weapon, and skin. This is a must have for any MMO developers out there.
Angel Pack - Last month I talked about how these awesome artists have made their catalog of models available on the GG store. Just recently they released their latest model - an angel that comes with general animations as well as flying and sword drawing animations. The 3DGDA guys have also created a normal map and specular map to give it that next gen look in TGEA, all for less than $60.
Sticks and Twigs Environment Pack - Alan James and his son Kyle have released yet another awesome pack to the GG store. The Sticks and Twigs Environment Pack features 60+ trees, 50+ plants, 24+ types of rocks, 25+ skyboxes, 13 ambient audio tracks and 24 sample missions to show them off and help you get started. This is a crazy amount of art for your game and is available for only $30.
And Something for Everyone: Videos Support on GG.com!
Video Markup Lite Examples
Vimeo - To add a Vimeo video to your blog simply add the following tag [vimeo=##### width=# height=#]. The Vimeo number is the last thing displayed in the URL of a vimeo video. The width and height can be any ratio you like, but it must be entered as width first and height second. None of the video tags have a closing tag.
Viddler - Viddler is the most difficult of the three because they reroute the video and it is not displayed in the URL. The format is the same is Vimeo [viddler=##### width=# height=#] where width must come before height and there is no closing tag. To get the viddler number simply click the "Embed This" link, then toward the end of the code string you will find something like "name="viddler_c7ea3336", copy the portion after the underscore and use it for the Viddler number. Example: [viddler=c7ea3336 width=# height=#].
WeGame - WeGame is just like Vimeo [wegame=### width=# height=#]. The WeGame number can be found at the end of the URL for the video you want to post.
YouTube - YouTube is just like Vimeo and WeGame [youtube=### width=# height=#]. The YouTube number is a the end of the URL for the video you want to post.
edit: Removed bit about YouTube's quality, please see comments below
#2
08/11/2008 (8:00 pm)
I dunno about anyone else, but I pretty much only use youtube for video posts. Vimeo and the like may be higher quality but not everyone has the bandwidth for it (especially here in Australia where there are draconian usage caps). If you really need to you can get comparable quality videos with youtube if you add the appropriate format parameter to the url. eg. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5usvy669WBs&fmt=6 
#3
Worried folks are going to start Rick Rolling the forums? ;-)
08/12/2008 (1:15 pm)
Yeah, I would think that YouTube would be the FIRST supported, not the one that got left off. It seems such an obvious thing that I really have to wonder - what was the reason that it was decided to leave YouTube off? It can't be because it just got forgotten.Worried folks are going to start Rick Rolling the forums? ;-)
#4
08/12/2008 (3:39 pm)
Yep YouTube would be one that we use a good deal of too.
#5
@Daniel, Cliff & Andy - The reason I choose not to include YouTube in the first pass was due to a misconception on my part. When I first started doing videos a year or so ago YouTube was too limiting in file size to get any sort of good quality video out of it. Since then it appears they have bumped things up quite a bit to accommodate larger, higher quality video.
Enjoy!
08/13/2008 (5:31 pm)
Due to popular demand I was able to get the php god Jacob to add YouTube support. Check the blog for instructions.@Daniel, Cliff & Andy - The reason I choose not to include YouTube in the first pass was due to a misconception on my part. When I first started doing videos a year or so ago YouTube was too limiting in file size to get any sort of good quality video out of it. Since then it appears they have bumped things up quite a bit to accommodate larger, higher quality video.
Enjoy!
#7
08/14/2008 (11:25 am)
YouTube support? No Wai! 
Torque 3D Owner Dave Young
Dave Young Games