Fantasy Bridges Pack (I)

Today I modeled and textured a couple of stone bridges. In a couple of more days I hope to put up online my new website, dedicated mainly to content packs and this blog will be moved there as well. The models were created in Softimage ModTool, just for the sake of it. More info and free download of this great piece of software here. The pack will feature all models in dts format, the modtool project with all the scenes, LOD and secondary UV sets with Ambient Occlusion maps for COLLADA friendly engines, such as Blade3D.

Constructor Lightmaps (II)

Interesting. Though the loading times of a mission is affected (first time: can it become persistent so that only modified objects need rebuild the lightmaps? no idea) the results are quite nice. Clean, day light with proper shadows and all. Click on the image for more resolution.

Unity3d on a stick

The Unity3D engine goes with Wii. Announced a while ago, the support for the tiny white console arrived. Read more on the Unity3D website here.

Noesis Interactive™ Mod Your World™ Products Now Available through IGN Entertainment

Noesis Interactive Mod Your World Product Line Now Available through IGN Entertainment’s Direct2Drive

Products enable video gamers to create Characters, Props, and Levels for Source Powered Games

Noesis Interactive today announced the immediate availability of eight products in the Mod Your World product family as downloads on IGN’s Direct2Drive (http://www.direct2drive.com).

“We’ve been working with Modcenter to promote our free tutorials on Fileplanet, so making our entire product line available on Direct2Drive is a logical next step,” said Dave Larson, CEO of Noesis Interactive. “We’re very excited about the opportunity to work with the IGN team to provide further support for modders around the world.”

Noesis Interactive is developing the Mod Your World DVD series to put all gamers on the fast track to designing, building, and integrating 3D characters, props and maps into their favorite games – beginning with Half Life 2. Working with industry leaders Valve, Softimage, and Autodesk, Noesis is delivering DVDs designed by video gamers that dissects and streamlines the entire process into easy-to-understand lessons.

The current Mod Your World lineup includes: Advanced Source Level Design, 3D Content Creation with XSI, Character Design & Integration with Half-Life2 (XSI, Max, or Maya), Custom Props & Animation for Source Powered Games (XSI or Maya), and Advanced Character Animation With XSI.

Pricing and Availability:
3D Content Creation with XSI and Character Design & Integration with Half-Life 2 are available at a price of $39.95 each.
Custom Props & Animation for Source Powered Games, Advanced Character Design,and Advanced Level Design are available at a price of $49.95 each. All products can be downloaded directly from http://www.direct2drive.com.

About Noesis Interactive:
Noesis Interactive is a Left Coast Digital venture whose goal is expanding the knowledge and creativity of video gamers around the world, beginning with the Mod Your World product family. For more information visit www.noesisinteractive.com.

About IGN Entertainment:
IGN Entertainment, a unit of Fox Interactive Media, Inc., is a leading Internet media and services provider focused on the videogame and entertainment enthusiast markets. Collectively, IGN’s properties reached more than 30 million unique users worldwide in the month of November 2007, according to Internet audience measurement firm comScore Media Metrix. IGN’s network of videogame-related properties (IGN.com, GameSpy, FilePlanet, TeamXbox, Direct2Drive and others), is the Web’s number one videogame information destination and attracts one of the largest concentrated audiences of young males on the Internet. IGN also owns and operates the popular movie-related website, Rotten Tomatoes and one of the leading male lifestyle Websites, AskMen.com. In addition, IGN provides technology for online game play in videogames. IGN is headquartered in the San Francisco Bay Area, with offices throughout the U.S. and in Montreal.

New Blender movie: Big Buck Bunny

The second movie created entirely in Blender, the open source maverick. Last time I checked they had all sorts of interesting features, subdivision modeling and everything. I still can’t stand that interface, regardless the $0 tag.

Check this page for all formats available. Or enjoy the youtube version here.

Wreck Havok!

This should change something I guess, as so many top titles used this software so far with so nice results. Now everyone can get it for free. Details from their site:

The Binary-only PC download includes all of the standard features and functionality of both the Havok™ Physics and Havok™ Animation products. This no-charge download for the PC includes SDK libraries, samples, and technical documentation for software developers; as well as Havok’s Content Tools for preparation and export of physical assets and characters directly from the most recent versions of Autodesk Maya, 3ds Max, and Avid XSI 3D modeling and animation tools. Please refer to product-specific information on the Havok web site for more information on features and capabilities within these two powerful products.

So what can it be used for?

Non-Commercial Games & Applications
Professional Game Development
Game Middleware
Game Art & Design
Commercial Applications (non-game)
Academic & Educational
Personal Use

Try it.

Adobe Photoshop Express

Developed with Adobe Flex, looking neat and simple (like Adobe Media Player), Photoshop express its a quick way to store and edit photos or images.

At Photoshop Express you can quickly and easily accentuate your photos with easy-to-use options for resizing, cropping, sharpening, and more. Make your photos pop with fun, eye-catching effects and enhancements. Then share your photos in My Gallery, where you can create customized photo displays, or upload them to your Facebook page, Flickr, or anywhere else online.

Photoshop CS4 with GPU support

The next version of Photoshop (CS 4) will be juicing up performance by taking advantage of hardware it hasn’t tapped before: graphics cards and physics processors. How much faster is the new 64-bit, GPU-injected Photoshop? At a demo at Nvidia’s HQ, TG Daily watched “the presenter playing with a 2 GB, 442 megapixel image like it was a 5 megapixel image on an 8-core Skulltrail system. Changes made through image zoom and through a new rotate canvas tool were applied almost instantly.”
John Nack from Adobe is calling bogus on some of TGDaily’s info, namely the Oct. release date and says the demoed tech is not “promised to go into any particular version of Photoshop.” So take it for what you will. 3D effects are spiffier too, with direct 3D model manipulation and rendering, as well as a snappier 3D accelerated panorama. Overall, it sounds like it could be the most important Photoshop update in years when it drops in October.

CryExporter v 3.2 Released

You’ll need:
- XSI (commercial version or the free XSI Mod Tool). We only tested with XSI 6.02+
- The original Crysis disc, and the Crysis game must be installed
- The latest version of SOFTIMAGE|Crosswalk. Download it here.

About the XSI Mod Tool
This is a free version of XSI for non commercial game creation. It is basically XSI Essentials 6.02 with some limitations such as a 64k triangle export limit (per mesh, not scene), and 512×512 rendermap limit. It’s free!!

Download the Mod Tool here

Setting up the XSI CryExporter

1. Install the Sandbox Editor.
On the Crysis game disc, go to the directory named “Sandbox2″
Install it by double clicking on the “CryEngine(R)2 Sandbox(TM)2.msi” file

Once you install it, you can now run it from your Crysis\Bin32 directory. By default, this is here:
C:\Program Files\Electronic Arts\Crytek\Crysis\Bin32\Editor.exe

You can get more information and tutorials on Sandbox and Crysis modding here:
http://www.crymod.com

2. Download the XSI CryExporter v3.2 here:
http://webrel2.softimage.com/open/pr…k_XSI_v3.2.zip

When you unzip the file, you’ll see the following directories:
- Crysis – Bin32 directory contains the resource compiler. Game contains the mod export folders where we’ll write our files to
- Crytek_XSI_Database
- XSI_Addon

3. Copy files

/Crysis/ -> Copy to your Crysis install path. Default:
C:\Program Files\Electronic Arts\Crytek\

Overwrite all. (if you don’t get an “overwrite?” dialog box, you’re copying to the wrong folder.

This will copy the directories Bin32 and Game into the Crysis folder

4. Install the XSI Addon
- Open SOFTIMAGE|XSI or Mod Tool.
- In a Windows Explorer window, navigate to the /XSI_Addon directory that you just unzipped.
- Drag and drop “Crytek Addon.xsiaddon” into XSI

Restart XSI. When you restart, you may see a “Crytek” menu bar at the top of XSI. If you don’t (some Windows Vista users are saying that they don’t and we are investigating this), you can still access the toolbar by clicking on View -> Toolbars -> Crytek Toolbar.

5. Set up the CryExporter paths
Click on the “Crytek” menu item -> Properties (or in the Crytek Toolbar, click on “Properties” in the Others section)

You have to set the Bin32 path and Export path to the directories you copied over just now.

Bin32 default path: C:\Program Files\Electronic Arts\Crytek\Crysis\Bin32

Export default path: C:\Program Files\Electronic Arts\Crytek\Crysis\Game\Objects\XSI_Assets

City generator plugin ~ XSI

I personally don’t like the idea of procedurally creation for anything other than textures and basic or generic stuff; it takes away the artist touch and sometimes fixing and tweaking the results is a lot more work intensive. However, I always enjoy a new piece of software because it shows how flexible we are and how creative.

Paolo Emilio Selva created an interesting plugin for Softimage XSI – City Generator is called and current available version is CityGenerator v0.80601 for XSI 6.02 (32bit)

Download it and take it for a spin. It’s quite impressive but don’t mess around with high values (too many buildings / buildings parts) if you don’t have a tough machine or a good magazine and lots of coffee.