Site is active again, info concerning photogrammetry
by Ron Kapaun · 11/03/2014 (6:03 pm) · 48 comments
Howdy!
Long time, no blogs!
Well, many of you noted (and emailed) that my site was down. Simple fact, the site used WAY more bandwidth than what I paid for... Sorry about the downtime. However, the site is back up, and it's all the 'same stuff for free'. However, I will be making adjustments to the downloads. These adjustments will include removing the demo levels and 'shrinking' the overall size of the zip files. I will include .pdf files that will include common 'errors' and such and help new users install the content properly. This is a good opportunity to 'revamp' the packs to make them more user friendly and with luck, help new folks produce good quality visuals in their games and test levels.
WHAT THE H*LL HAVE YOU BEEN DOING!
Well, as many of you know, I have been dealing with T3D more as a hobby again. HOWEVER, I have been 'innovating' and coming up with a number of interesting NEW art techniques and processes based on.... well, I am not going to into it right now but, if any of you played or looked at The Vanishing of Ethan Carter, you will have at least an idea of what I have been working on.
So your site was 'Crashed' WTF???
Well, I am currently not making ANYTHING from these free models etc. So, this means I have to 'work' at a real job. I have been luck enough to actually pick up a programming job (full time) using Visual Basic, and a freaking HOST of MS products (Access, Excel, Word, Sharepoint, etc.) I am basically creating a number of automation systems using VBA and MS to basically do with one person, what a year ago took 2 or 3 people. (This is how bad the 'military' budget has gotten.) Anyway, I spend 45+ hours a week, sleeping in my car and working on these projects so, I do not get a whole heck of a lot of time to work my web stuff or my T3D dev. I hope this improves shortly and I am sorry for the MAJOR delays. Anyway, I will post more when I have some good stuff to show off (I have some of course, I just have not made a video or anything yet :-).
At last, I wanna say FAREWELL to a number of peeps that have 'left' the Garage Games Community. Will Zetter et all thanks for your work and time. I wish you all well. (there are more than a few and they will all be missed!)
With that, I will leave you all for now..... HOWEVER!
MORE TO FOLLOW
Ron
Long time, no blogs!
Well, many of you noted (and emailed) that my site was down. Simple fact, the site used WAY more bandwidth than what I paid for... Sorry about the downtime. However, the site is back up, and it's all the 'same stuff for free'. However, I will be making adjustments to the downloads. These adjustments will include removing the demo levels and 'shrinking' the overall size of the zip files. I will include .pdf files that will include common 'errors' and such and help new users install the content properly. This is a good opportunity to 'revamp' the packs to make them more user friendly and with luck, help new folks produce good quality visuals in their games and test levels.
WHAT THE H*LL HAVE YOU BEEN DOING!
Well, as many of you know, I have been dealing with T3D more as a hobby again. HOWEVER, I have been 'innovating' and coming up with a number of interesting NEW art techniques and processes based on.... well, I am not going to into it right now but, if any of you played or looked at The Vanishing of Ethan Carter, you will have at least an idea of what I have been working on.
So your site was 'Crashed' WTF???
Well, I am currently not making ANYTHING from these free models etc. So, this means I have to 'work' at a real job. I have been luck enough to actually pick up a programming job (full time) using Visual Basic, and a freaking HOST of MS products (Access, Excel, Word, Sharepoint, etc.) I am basically creating a number of automation systems using VBA and MS to basically do with one person, what a year ago took 2 or 3 people. (This is how bad the 'military' budget has gotten.) Anyway, I spend 45+ hours a week, sleeping in my car and working on these projects so, I do not get a whole heck of a lot of time to work my web stuff or my T3D dev. I hope this improves shortly and I am sorry for the MAJOR delays. Anyway, I will post more when I have some good stuff to show off (I have some of course, I just have not made a video or anything yet :-).
At last, I wanna say FAREWELL to a number of peeps that have 'left' the Garage Games Community. Will Zetter et all thanks for your work and time. I wish you all well. (there are more than a few and they will all be missed!)
With that, I will leave you all for now..... HOWEVER!
MORE TO FOLLOW
Ron
About the author
Guy that has been with Torque Game Engines since... well, since here was a Torque Game Engine. (V12 and beyond).
#2
Actually your job sounds pretty similar to what I've been doing the last couple of months.
Anyways, I'll look forward to read about your the stuff you are working on. Good luck mate.
11/04/2014 (1:16 am)
Great to hear from you again Ron! Why are you sleeping in your car tho?Actually your job sounds pretty similar to what I've been doing the last couple of months.
Anyways, I'll look forward to read about your the stuff you are working on. Good luck mate.
#3
11/04/2014 (4:12 am)
Nice to hear from you Ron! Hope you are well. Good luck. 
#4
You're not the only person who's had their website go down recently, I put out a new update for Airship Dragoon and it seems the whole of Red China downloaded it, using up all my monthly bandwidth (which should be more than enough for one bloke with a very niche game and no publicity) in a single day. Alas sales from China are ... zero ...
Set interest levels to curious! ;)
11/04/2014 (7:26 am)
Nice to see you again, Ron.You're not the only person who's had their website go down recently, I put out a new update for Airship Dragoon and it seems the whole of Red China downloaded it, using up all my monthly bandwidth (which should be more than enough for one bloke with a very niche game and no publicity) in a single day. Alas sales from China are ... zero ...
Quote:I have been 'innovating' and coming up with a number of interesting NEW art techniques and processes based on....
Set interest levels to curious! ;)
#6
11/04/2014 (9:46 am)
Welcome back, Ron. 
#7
i found most of your packs while the site was down at winterleafentertainment.com but i have noticed your site has a few extra for me to play with :)
11/04/2014 (1:38 pm)
great to see the site back up ! !i found most of your packs while the site was down at winterleafentertainment.com but i have noticed your site has a few extra for me to play with :)
#8
Just a quick update. I REDID all the packs. Unfortunately, I removed the demo levels. The grand total for all the packs was around 2 gigs to download them all. I have all them down to around 700megs total now. Additionally, I went through each of the them and hand fixed a lot of those annoying 'fixed materials' path problems (I should submit a bug report about that... it sucks. I am not saying I got all of them worked out but, they should perform better 'out of the box' now. That's about it for now. Oh yeah.... I am also working on a TON of video tutorials concerning Blender and Torque... heck Blender and games really. That latest release 2.72a and b... Well, I REMOVED 3DS Max and Sculptris and a bunch of other stuff and I am now all open source for my pipeline. Anyway, more to follow on all of that.
Ron
11/04/2014 (2:35 pm)
Thanks all, Just a quick update. I REDID all the packs. Unfortunately, I removed the demo levels. The grand total for all the packs was around 2 gigs to download them all. I have all them down to around 700megs total now. Additionally, I went through each of the them and hand fixed a lot of those annoying 'fixed materials' path problems (I should submit a bug report about that... it sucks. I am not saying I got all of them worked out but, they should perform better 'out of the box' now. That's about it for now. Oh yeah.... I am also working on a TON of video tutorials concerning Blender and Torque... heck Blender and games really. That latest release 2.72a and b... Well, I REMOVED 3DS Max and Sculptris and a bunch of other stuff and I am now all open source for my pipeline. Anyway, more to follow on all of that.
Ron
#9
EDIT: I also just added a page where people can list asset packs like these. Have at ye!
11/05/2014 (2:55 am)
Ron, great to hear from you! Those Blender tutorials sound fantastic :). Do be sure to stick them on the wiki as you do them!EDIT: I also just added a page where people can list asset packs like these. Have at ye!
#10
i cant wait for these !
11/05/2014 (4:06 am)
Quote:...TON of video tutorials concerning Blender and Torque...
i cant wait for these !
#11
As they are free packs, ever thought of just throwing them up on a google drive or something ? I had issues with godaddy recently on some work related stuff where they got pissy about 13 gig of bandwidth being used in a month on my apparently unlimited bandwidth hosting package...
11/05/2014 (10:49 am)
Ron,As they are free packs, ever thought of just throwing them up on a google drive or something ? I had issues with godaddy recently on some work related stuff where they got pissy about 13 gig of bandwidth being used in a month on my apparently unlimited bandwidth hosting package...
#12
11/05/2014 (2:48 pm)
you could always try OpenGameArt.org im sure they would love to have your work uploaded !
#13
@Andy Yeah, I am not very pleased with GoDaddy. It's not like I get a HUGE amount of traffic, average is 15 to 25 hits a day, it spikes when I send out a new videos and stuff but, it's never been a constant HUGE load on their servers and I too have the 'unlimited' package. I should check but I think I have some of them on my Dropbox as well.
@Daniel, Thanks for the spot, I have a few days off this weekend so I will put some stuff up there and get people started.
@Hreikin Yeah, the newest version of Blender is a dream to work with. (I tried it several times in the past and I could just NOT get around the interface, for some reason this new version (with pie menus enabled) works great for me. There will be a number of videos for that. I have started working with 3D Laser Scanning of things like rocks and branches, heck I even did a few small gravestones, stuff like that. I am getting some amazing results, so I will do up a video of that process as well. The system I have cost about 450$ but it's pretty good and it even takes texture photos while scanning so, some of the stuff looks like I just dropped the real thing in the engine. It's starting to feel like a fun hobby again :-)
Of course, more to follow.
OH YEAH... Sleeping in my car....LOL. I have about 150 - 160 mile round trip commute to work, so for 2 or 3 nights out of the week I work 12 or 13 hours and just crash in my car. The Guard unit where I work has showers and all that stuff so, its cost effective and I get a couple more hours of sleep between 'shifts' :-)
Ron
11/05/2014 (4:28 pm)
I have thought of putting them up on other sites but, honestly the videos and all the 'stuff' out there points to 3tdstudios.com so, I just 'reworked them' and put them back up. Also, they are literally Public Domain so if you guys want to send them up someplace or host them or whatever, feel free. The good guys over at Winterleaf sent me an email because they got questions and I just said, they are public domain, go ahead and host them or post them. No worries.@Andy Yeah, I am not very pleased with GoDaddy. It's not like I get a HUGE amount of traffic, average is 15 to 25 hits a day, it spikes when I send out a new videos and stuff but, it's never been a constant HUGE load on their servers and I too have the 'unlimited' package. I should check but I think I have some of them on my Dropbox as well.
@Daniel, Thanks for the spot, I have a few days off this weekend so I will put some stuff up there and get people started.
@Hreikin Yeah, the newest version of Blender is a dream to work with. (I tried it several times in the past and I could just NOT get around the interface, for some reason this new version (with pie menus enabled) works great for me. There will be a number of videos for that. I have started working with 3D Laser Scanning of things like rocks and branches, heck I even did a few small gravestones, stuff like that. I am getting some amazing results, so I will do up a video of that process as well. The system I have cost about 450$ but it's pretty good and it even takes texture photos while scanning so, some of the stuff looks like I just dropped the real thing in the engine. It's starting to feel like a fun hobby again :-)
Of course, more to follow.
OH YEAH... Sleeping in my car....LOL. I have about 150 - 160 mile round trip commute to work, so for 2 or 3 nights out of the week I work 12 or 13 hours and just crash in my car. The Guard unit where I work has showers and all that stuff so, its cost effective and I get a couple more hours of sleep between 'shifts' :-)
Ron
#14
sweet, i think ill submit them to opengameart, there is a section to credit the author and list the license type, ill add a link when done, i look forward to your tutorial videos !
EDIT: some of the download links on 3tdstudios.com bring back a 404 error for me :( heres a list:
office furniture pack
harbour assets pack
conifer forest pack
tropical rain forest pack 2.0
africa savanna pack
fantasy ruins asset pack
3td starter pack #1
i downloaded some of these the other day so not sure why they arent working :S was just wanting to get the updated versions to upload to OGA as i had some of the ones from winterleaf entertainment with demos included
EDIT 2: all the links are working now so forget the above edit !
i have finished uploading them to Open Game Art, here is the collection. If you check them it should credit you and if you automatically generate the credits file for the collection it works and correctly credits you/3TD Studios which is kinda useful !
11/05/2014 (5:01 pm)
Quote:Also, they are literally Public Domain so if you guys want to send them up someplace or host them or whatever, feel free.
sweet, i think ill submit them to opengameart, there is a section to credit the author and list the license type, ill add a link when done, i look forward to your tutorial videos !
EDIT: some of the download links on 3tdstudios.com bring back a 404 error for me :( heres a list:
office furniture pack
harbour assets pack
conifer forest pack
tropical rain forest pack 2.0
africa savanna pack
fantasy ruins asset pack
3td starter pack #1
i downloaded some of these the other day so not sure why they arent working :S was just wanting to get the updated versions to upload to OGA as i had some of the ones from winterleaf entertainment with demos included
EDIT 2: all the links are working now so forget the above edit !
i have finished uploading them to Open Game Art, here is the collection. If you check them it should credit you and if you automatically generate the credits file for the collection it works and correctly credits you/3TD Studios which is kinda useful !
#15
Promising stuff!
I've been doing forays into photogrammetry the past week or so myself. That's yielding some pretty good results on that front. I was planning on getting an actual pipeline of sorts put together in the coming weeks, rather than random experimentation, so it's cool to see someone also pioneering something similar :D
Are you doing a studio-style setup, or can you get scans "in the field", as it were?
11/05/2014 (6:28 pm)
@RonPromising stuff!
I've been doing forays into photogrammetry the past week or so myself. That's yielding some pretty good results on that front. I was planning on getting an actual pipeline of sorts put together in the coming weeks, rather than random experimentation, so it's cool to see someone also pioneering something similar :D
Are you doing a studio-style setup, or can you get scans "in the field", as it were?
#16
SharePoint.... OMG that really sounds like a "real" job ;-) ;-) :-S
11/07/2014 (1:00 am)
Hurray, he's alive ! :-D
Quote:(Access, Excel, Word, Sharepoint, etc.)
SharePoint.... OMG that really sounds like a "real" job ;-) ;-) :-S
#17
11/07/2014 (4:34 am)
Welcome back. Nice to see you again.
#18
@Jeff, for now I have a studio set up. I 'can' do on-site work but I have not figured out the lighting issues or how to compensate (I am using green line lasers which are bright but, sunlight really messes up the calibration.) I am also experimenting with SLS (Structured Light Scanning). Think, a digital projector that projects a 'grid' and the computer generates the point cloud from that.) The issue with that is my crappy projector. I need one with more than a few more lumens. (I am cheap and I have not purchased a new one yet. Between the two, (Green laser and a proper SLS projector) I think I can pretty much do what I want. SO.... what system are you experimenting with? I am curious since The Vanishing of Ethan Carter used photometry to produce a large number of their assets and Honestly, it's the best looking game I have played EVER. I want to know :-)
Ron
11/07/2014 (4:14 pm)
Thanks again all. Glad I was missed :-).@Jeff, for now I have a studio set up. I 'can' do on-site work but I have not figured out the lighting issues or how to compensate (I am using green line lasers which are bright but, sunlight really messes up the calibration.) I am also experimenting with SLS (Structured Light Scanning). Think, a digital projector that projects a 'grid' and the computer generates the point cloud from that.) The issue with that is my crappy projector. I need one with more than a few more lumens. (I am cheap and I have not purchased a new one yet. Between the two, (Green laser and a proper SLS projector) I think I can pretty much do what I want. SO.... what system are you experimenting with? I am curious since The Vanishing of Ethan Carter used photometry to produce a large number of their assets and Honestly, it's the best looking game I have played EVER. I want to know :-)
Ron
#19
I ran into some personally issue that have delayed my project alot, but I'm hoping to get back on it soon!
Just need to get a programmer onboard to start porting over things from my latest build. Also still looking for a animator.
Anyways I found I was able to port the mission files, so you don't mind if I do that do you?
Glad you're still around!!
KJ
11/08/2014 (5:29 am)
Hey Ron :D Long time great to see you're alive and doing well...I ran into some personally issue that have delayed my project alot, but I'm hoping to get back on it soon!
Just need to get a programmer onboard to start porting over things from my latest build. Also still looking for a animator.
Anyways I found I was able to port the mission files, so you don't mind if I do that do you?
Glad you're still around!!
KJ
#20
Amusingly, I found out about Ethan Carter doing that just recently, but I concur the results are amazing.
My initial interest in it came from my finding out they used it quite a bit for the new Metal Gear Solid games, they touched on it for their GDC talk in 2013.
The basic breakdown for photogrammetry is basically as the VoEC devs describe in their blog:
Take a crap-ton of pictures(the higher res the better, I've been testing on a 16mp-ish camera) under non-direct/neutral lighting from all angles.
Run it through a program, like PhotoScan(for my initial tests, I'd been using Autodesk's 123d Catch, but I'm going to move up to photoscan going forward now that the proof of concept is good), and it builds the point cloud. From the point cloud, you let it crunch out a high-poly model. From there you'd build a game-ready low-poly model and bake to it.
I've actually set up a basic light cage for small-to-people sized objects, so you can suspend bags, rocks, etc or have a person stand in it, and it uses several tube lights, which diffuse better than regular ones, from various angles to try and get pretty averaged lighting.
Still in the relatively early testing phases, but it's promising thus far. As I get a better feel for it, I'll keep fleshing the rig out.
I'd looked into laser scanning a long while back but noted several of the problems you're seeing. One suggestion I'd make when trying to counteract the sun, if possible, is get like a thin bed sheet, and make a makeshift tent rig with PVC pipe or something.
That way if you wanted to scan a rock or whatever out in a forest, you'd place that up and put the sheet between the sun and your target. The thin sheet would let a little bit of light through, but would largely diffuse it, and you'd pretty much get even ambient light, which is better for scans.
11/09/2014 (1:42 am)
@RonAmusingly, I found out about Ethan Carter doing that just recently, but I concur the results are amazing.
My initial interest in it came from my finding out they used it quite a bit for the new Metal Gear Solid games, they touched on it for their GDC talk in 2013.
The basic breakdown for photogrammetry is basically as the VoEC devs describe in their blog:
Take a crap-ton of pictures(the higher res the better, I've been testing on a 16mp-ish camera) under non-direct/neutral lighting from all angles.
Run it through a program, like PhotoScan(for my initial tests, I'd been using Autodesk's 123d Catch, but I'm going to move up to photoscan going forward now that the proof of concept is good), and it builds the point cloud. From the point cloud, you let it crunch out a high-poly model. From there you'd build a game-ready low-poly model and bake to it.
I've actually set up a basic light cage for small-to-people sized objects, so you can suspend bags, rocks, etc or have a person stand in it, and it uses several tube lights, which diffuse better than regular ones, from various angles to try and get pretty averaged lighting.
Still in the relatively early testing phases, but it's promising thus far. As I get a better feel for it, I'll keep fleshing the rig out.
I'd looked into laser scanning a long while back but noted several of the problems you're seeing. One suggestion I'd make when trying to counteract the sun, if possible, is get like a thin bed sheet, and make a makeshift tent rig with PVC pipe or something.
That way if you wanted to scan a rock or whatever out in a forest, you'd place that up and put the sheet between the sun and your target. The thin sheet would let a little bit of light through, but would largely diffuse it, and you'd pretty much get even ambient light, which is better for scans.
Torque Owner Terry Barlow
Default Studio Name
Terry