3DForge Exteriors

Cobus is among those who set the standards for customer service on the asset store and from my interactions with him seems like a top bloke. I totally agree he deserves a good wage for a good product. He could charge more. In spite of this I think that because he listed a roadmap that he should stick to it as much as possible because there will be many who purchased based on the roadmap. Particularly if it included something essential for their project. Otherwise he is in danger of tarnishing an excellent name, even if we may not all agree it's deserved. Sometimes a business will have to go the extra mile to keep it's reputation which is everything. Also he probably knows better than anyone if his business model is generating more sales that offset the extra work.

I do think he should put a definite final cap in place though clearly showing what will be in all of his packs and no more. Then he can release separate packs as suits him. I also think that for future packs he should come to the community like with the exteriors pack and get feedback on what people want. Then draw up a clear final list and build that. This would make sure people cannot argue if they don't get more just because of whatever.

I like Cobus's work and support devs like him as much as I can.

 

Yay!

Just don't make your free packs so huge that you burn yourself out! I will buy every new pack. You received a lot of support here, for whatever you want to do. I think very few people would be put out if you do decide to cap the Interior and Exterior pack in the future.

Do not add anything more to the road map and don't add anything else to the packs that is NOT in the roadmap. If you stick to that, and instead add the extras to new packs, you should be fine.

 

You mentioned Michael O. Am i right that he is ManufackurerK4? If so someone posted on his facebook page RIP manufacturerK4. I don't know if they were being sarcastic or if he has passed on. Either way there was no comment to it last time I looked.

I bought some of his packs among the first things purchased from the asset store and my main project graphics are built around them. But apart from one response 2 year ago he has been impossible to get hold of since. I last contacted him not requesting freebies but about some real faults in his work. No response to any of the emails. I tried to repair them myself but the textures are locked somehow and I am not about to get in debt for photoshop in the hope it is fixable. I am to entrenched to back out using his packs. If he has had real problems or if he has passed away then obviously no more needs to be said. In those cases I genuinely hope the best for him or his family.

But if he is still around it means nothing to me whether he leaves(left?) or not. I can't see myself purchasing anything from him again.

 

I know some Unity friends were talking about him recently and he was alive and well. So I hope nothing happened since then.

It is not fun when developers leave, which was my point. If they can't make money here to sustain their business, some of them will leave. I bought a few things from him and they were not my favorite. I doubt I would buy anything either. I do like his rocks though.

 

The comment I referred to was on his facebook page linked via the asset store. It seems to have been posted on the 5th march by someone called Jirka under visitor posts. I am not on facebook so I wouldn't know how to contact that poster to ask for clarification.

Let's hope for the best.

 

There have been some comments since their initial post, and Jirka was just talking about "RIP" in the sense that he seems to have disappeared and has not released anything new nor updated Facebook, not necessarily that he actually passed.

 

I am friends with him and was in contact with him last beginning of March on his own personal Facebook page, not K4 one.
I have sent him a message again trying to make contact.
If I do hear from him I will let people here know

 

Thanks. I think the RIP was for the "brand", not the person. I would hope they would use is name in that case. So you are the friend I heard talking about him then. I couldn't remember. lol

 

I suspect you both right. Needs clarification though.

Thanks again to Cobus to contacting him (and doing it on his own thread, there doesn't appear to be any Mk4 threads)

 

Village exteriors just updated! Don't know what awaits but too late here for me to check out. Looking forward to having a look.

 

Well, 2:21 am here as well
but had to wait for it
It's ALIVE !!!

Meshes added: - 248
Prefabs added:
- Cages X 27
- Canopies
X 17 red
X 17 blue
X 17 green
X 17 black
- Barrels
X 36 large
X 24 medium
X 24 small
- Crates X 62
- Wooden Buckets X 7
- Pallets X 4


v1.2.2a will be the Castles & Cathedrals prefabs







Cheers
Cobus

 

Looks great!
Going back to the discussion on the value of the pack, I am a student and thus have a low budget to spend on assets. Yet, that is exactly the reason why I chose Cobus's packs over competing assets. With the immense value of Cobus's packs, I could make my entire fantasy world while staying under budget, something not possible if I chose other fantasy assets. I would not be surprised if there were many other people in a situation like mine who chose Cobus's packs because of budget constraints.

 

Hey there,

Nice to see you around again

Glad that I can place affordable assets into your and other users like yourselves hands and help you build your game development creams and projects.
Now with this update you have even more cool stuff

Cheers
Cobus

 

Cobus you are a BOSS! wonderful update!! The increase in prop quality goes a long way to make this pack's value go way up. Nicely done!! =)

 

Very usefull added parts !

 

Very, very nice! Looks awesome.

 

Thanks everyone,

One of the best rewards is to get feedback like this

When v1.2.2b get uploaded I will add examples like the harbor setup in the screenshots that I showed the canopies the first time.

If you look at the Demo Scene folder, there is one added scene that I used for the shopfront screenshots so everyone can have an example so long
From the Toolbox folder, you can grab upright prefabs if you want to add supporting uprights.

The harbor scene is all just plinth prefabs with the canopies added, really simple and then some jetties done with the decks folder.

Cheers
Cobus

 

Well, this is THE best asset i have bought, no doubt about it!

 

Had a bit of fun earlier this evening with some of the new stuff

 

Whats the best way to do house interior/exterior, put the interiors in a scene of there own, one per house or is it doable to have a few in one scene? I have not seen anything that looks like and door marker similar to what you'd see in say Skyrim that portals the player from the exterior door to just inside the interior door

 

I have seen some excellent game footage from seamless open buildings that you just walk straight into.

Separate scene is what I would imagine most do, But I did add the see-through solution for those that wanted to venture there.

But I think those that actually build games must answer as well

 

I own all of 3d forge's packs to. While I'll prolly never use the cave system one, I bought it solely to support 3d forge. I love all the work he does and think he undervalues these packs. However, the business model he picks is entirely up to him. I think there is a reason so many on here are so passionate about seeing Cobus succeed and continue to develop assets for us here.

 

Hey,

Thanks for the compliments and the continued support of 3DForge

***PS Please dont forget to STAR rate and maybe review any of your 3DForge purchases.
It is another cool way of saying thanks to a developer

Come post some pics of your project

Cheers
Cobus

 

I will prolly upload more of the village I'm working on once I completely finish it. However, I was particularly proud of how this windmill turned out.

 

@Kiwi-Hawk I'm currently working on having interiors in completely separate scenes to any exteriors. Whilst it would be nice to have seamless entry from outside to inside and back again, I don't think my current skill level is at that point yet (and possibly not my hardware either)

The last image in my previous post has an icon on the door to tell the player that this house is enterable and I pop up a simple "please wait" as I get unity to load the new scene

 

From our development personally we're going with instanced interiors as their own scenes due to the difficulty with culling/directional light issues and performance concerns. I'm sure its easy to do if you really know your stuff but I think the most safe route is having the player enter buildings in the traditional Skyrim or Oblivion format of pressing E to enter and instancing inside.

 

I'm going for the hard one - interiors that are part of the scene. I use culling volumes to cull the insides until up close, but all buildings are enterable.

 

It might also be a bit weird for your players if some of their party also 'popped out of existence' as they entered a house whilst they were still outside and you'd also need to cope with players from the same party being in two separate scenes at once.

I might have to take a look at culling volumes at some point to see if I can get them set up correctly.

 

Thank you ALL for the feedback, seems either ways works depending on skill level, I got a buck load to learn for sure.

@smada luap I'm guessing that hand is jus an image with a transparent background so it could just have an letter indicating the key press eg E and still work?

Best I go try find some tutorials and examples of each so I can figure which I can get my head round

@tango9jeff Am I right in thinking by instancing you mean having the interior in a scene of it's own or are that in a wee subspace outside the culling zone under the terrain or somit like that,.. sorry mate just making sure your English is the same as mine lol.

@drorelith I'm working on it,.. I did try making a tower of my own but did get to finish it,.. so I know how much goes into 3D https://www.flickr.com/photos/94082858@N07/8598543573/

@Corbus I hope it's ok as a one off, I not trying hijack or advertise in any way mate, with my skill level I wouldn't stand a snowballs chance in hell lol you way to good mate

 

NP, it is Cobus, not Corbus

 

Yeah. It's just a simple image with a transparent background. There's a collider in front of the door that I pop up a message telling the player what to do when they're in the right place.

 

That is the norm. Having those around you just blink out of existence as they enter/leave a building whilst the door stays closed is pretty standard. Could even have a door opening anim as you fade to black, to try to maintain immersion

 

Hehe - just goes to show how long it has been since I played an MMO (the original Guild Wars, before the expansion packs)

 

If i could make one request for this package, that would be to have a billboard model, i think it can be of use to many as its a classic way of getting quests/information : )

 

Hey there,

Has been on the roadmap since the start

8. Notice/Message board & signs

Cheers
Cobus

 

Cool - that'll be a great one XD

 

Oohh, i totally missed that : D

 

@Cobus

My bad
I'm very sorry mate, don't know where I got that R from,.. I should know better my hearing specialist has the same name . Also I SHOULD look over my post before hitting the post button my typing is getting worse as I get younger lol

 

hehe, no need for sorry, just wanted to rectify

 

Hey, Yea I mean creating a new scene with the interior set only in a separate space. So You'd have two versions of the same house. An exterior model optimized on your terrain and you'd set a trigger at the door to allow the player to instance to the interior scene. Hit a loading screen and end up in the new scene like Skyrim does it.

 

Hey, that isn't bad at all! I think it is wonderful that you are trying your hand at art. So many don't even try. I imagine you will get better and better the more you do it.

Cobus is a great guy and loves to help me get better at my art. I don't think he minds.

 

If I can find the FBX I maybe will try finish it, LOL I have'nt been near that Flickr account for an age, weird to see all that stuff I was trying to do for Skyrim modding

 

Often you'd have exteriors (hollow boxes) and map in one scene/zone, with a trigger collider on the doors and script to say which scene the door leads to, and the interior scene with all the sumptuous detail (as you're not being held back by the zone geometry), and without any exterior.

This allows you to reuse your hollow boxes again and again, yet have them going to separate interiors. If players are allowed to build/place things in the interior, you'd also want some sort of file/database entry with all the things that have been placed there - though on a server, not stored locally as that would be too easily hackable.

 

Hi Cobus, just noticed that none of your packs have round rooms/floors. Is that true or I'm just haven't found it?

 

That is true, you will not find them inside for there are none added at any time.

that is a HUGE amount of new meshes and prefabs
- for each of the wall textures
- each wall set again with the different window sizes
- each with doors
- new wooden frames
- all the parts to make round and square join in all the possible ways
- all the roof types having to accommodate for the round and round join with all possible square solutions

And when that is all done, I have to then provide that for the 11 wall sets as well as all the floor types that is included in the Village Interiors Kit.

You can imagine all the work on that simple request for round modular building.
I would strongly suspect that is the reason no one has done it yet

Cheers
Cobus

 

Well, at least I have round floors from Multistory Dungeon. Just need something for arena-like ground a la God Of War

 

Hi,

Send me some pics to info@3dforge.co.za for what you had in mind

Cheers
Cobus

 

Round and curved stuff. Lovely XD

 

I think that would end up in an exteriors kit 2

 

I honestly would prefer that focus is going elsewhere then a whole set of curvy buildings considering the time that would take, I agree that would be something for way later, to much great stuff on the current roadmap : D