Medieval Starter Kit

There are settings in the FPS prefab to alter the depth of step the controller can climb. If you take a look at my realtime demo of the medieval village pack, you can climb the steps with ease.
If you email me i can get the settings for you i used

Steve

 

I had similar problems at first. Just keep tweaking the settings while you're running the game. I used 90 degree step limit, 0.5 step offset, and 0.05 skin width

 

WEEKEND STARTS IN A FEW HOURS...
Almost time for the character packs to populate the village! Hell, Steve, I don't recall when last I was this excited...! Oh, no, no, wait, I lie... last time I felt this excited was when you said the Shanty Town 2 had just been released

So you are finally ready to release this kit of yours and me... well I got myself an uncapped account at the beginning of the month... and I currently get 0.2k download speeds so I called my ISP who told me I have an uncapped account with a 5G limit... Since I have already downloaded 5G for this month I now have to wait until the 24th before I can download again!!!!! ARGH!!!!!

The cruel, cruel world!

 

Bought this pack yesterday evening. I must say that Steve is very quick to answer any questions and the service is highly professional. The models in this pack are of exceptional quality and I will most likely buy a membership option in the future. It is rare to find models of this quality that are priced so low, yet Arteria 3d delivers quality. Thanks again, will not hesitate to recommend this site to others.

~Unforgiven Hero

 

http://www.dropmocks.com/mVeUz

As I told, using photographs is OK, but usage like this can be called only "WTF??!!". Anyway I like Arteria3d, it delivers assets with really good quality/price ratio. Because of this, lots of quality issues can be tolerated.
Only real issue is your realiability, how many times did you promise term of launching something and not fulfil it? 20x in last few months? I think it was very unprofessional to sell membership to your animation site with promise that it will be open soon and now we have 3 months later and still nothing, only other empty promises. You also promised tweak of older packages. Again, nothing. It is ok, that you want to publish finished stuff, but then rather not promise any terms or sell anything until you really have it.

 

I have bought some modern stuff from Arteria and please don't change anything with how you texture. Your texturing is great, Steve and it looks good in-game. End result is what really matters. Keep up the good work.

 

This is absolute nonsense. Are you developing games or what? Why should I use 512*512 texture, if content fits to 256*256. Example I showed is pointing on insane wasting of texture space, not on texture itself. This only showed, that somebody was lazy to do any optimization.
Btw, if we are speaking about optimizations, I can make beautiful model with 60 textures and 60 materials, but try to instance it 20x.....Have you ever heard about texture atlasing and keeping number materials as low as possible? Have you ever heard about not wasting texture space? Why do you think, that there are technologies like Flatiron?
Doing models for games has two aspects. Art and technical. And technical side is something, what most people forget, because they know nothing about 3d engines and how such models should be made. You can make multimillion polygon scene without any problem, if you know how to do your models correct way. With smart approach you can save lots of memory and draw calls with exactly same look. And this is sad, art part is something you really need to be born with, technical side is only matter of reading few articles and not be lazy.

Difference between 5fps and 100fps is most of time not in engine, but how the content is technically made.

I ve seen lots of models from hundreds of authors and reality is, that art side is most of time good, but technical suck. I ve seen even such piggy things like simple shelf made from 20 sumbeshes with 20 different materials (not Steve).

 

If it's that big of a deal to you, then just shrink the texture 50% in photoshop. Going quite overboard if you ask me. Unless you're willing to pay more for the optimization. I know I'm not!

Anyways, when is the character site going to be up? It's already Thursday, 4 days past the end of that weekend

Not that I'm in a rush, but I'm reallllllllly excited and want to see!!!

 

hmmm which weekend was that.. the one from the thread on 24th Jan saying shortly, the thread from 15th March saying by the end of the week, or the one from emails saying no excuses absolutely definately by Monday 23rd May 2011 or one of the other responses saying by Monday next week between those days?

Graham

 

Interesting... Shrinking the texture doesn't always work properly depending on how the model was produced and the UV's were mapped, and reducing the size of the texture doesn't in any way reduce the % of wasted white space, it just drops the resolution of the final object, so really thats not a good suggestion.

Personally, I thought Demostenes post was a good guideline for Steve as I know he is always looking to improve.

There are many ways to optimise a project. Personally I use a lot of LOD scripts (which would be nice to have models in LOD verions, (like Dexsoft do) and also optimisation of textures.

An example is always worth a thousand words.. I have a scene in my game.. small scene, small Island area, 5 buildings lots of vegetation. My comparison is the use of Dexsoft models for the 5 buildings with full LOD versions, and Steve's buildings.. Pretty much same polygons on both sets of buildings.

By using Dexsoft buildings with LOD scripts, I have 85FPS in my main player screens with various characters running around and NPC's (that includes full use of normal and heightmaps on the textures.).. The server with only lowest detail models and less foliage runs at 145FPS and unlike the player screens has an overview of the whole zone including ALL players, NPC's and buildings. (running on a headless machine in the cloud, it can achieve 200FPS and then hit's it's limiter ).
By replacing those buildings with Steves, with no LOD possible and only diffuse textures with no bump or height mapping and the difference in texture usage, my main player screen runs at 23 FPS and my server runs at 65 FPS. If I remove all the textures on the server I get it back upto 100FPS. Running the server headless gets me back to 200 FPS and the limiter, but then a headless server is not doing any graphics display

Now, yes, I can do a lot to work with this and yes, I can possibly do a lot of texture optimisation, and no this is not meant as a critisism or who's models are better, but it is a vital component of how well these things work in the environment that is AS important as the actual modelling and texturing quality when we are trying to make things that are also useable on various levels of kit.

I have done a lot of work with the various bits because for this particular scenario and case, I prefer the models from Steve and I have managed to get the players framerate back upto 50FPS. If I also had models with LOD's, I really feel I could match the 85 FPS or get very close to it.

Steve is never going to improve from people who say everythings fine, don't change anything, the user should do x y or z, but should be able to take the info and facts to produce better and better quality models for the benefit of all, including additional sales.

Don't get me wrong.. cost - quality is good and is worth the extra time to make better, however, comments like end result is what matters, don't change anything are ludicrous. There is ALWAYS something that can be changed for improvement if you have any regard to doing the best you can, also here I would disagree with Demostenes , I think the end result is what matters.. I just think theres a possibility for a better end result but I agree with him that the rest of the comment that quote was taken from was kinda irrational

Everyone, builders AND Users should always aspire to a higher level of product.

Regards

Graham

 

I lost the email and my mail is really slow to load to ask privately, but will we be seeing anything soon??

 

I think if Steve had any finished model for animation site, he would publish it. More then half year ago he had big eyes, probably want to buy new computer, or whatever, so he sold something he hadnt. And now we have half of year of empty promises like "it will be this week". I am curious how many people already paid for this site? It is quite sad, because if this will continue like this, it can end even on court as fraud.
I hope I am wrong, but I really hate, if I receive promise and then nothing. And then other promise and again nothing.

 

very good price, models are top quality. Im not into buying others models but very nice work.

 

Arteria is not just a business to me, its a collection of artworks that i put my heart and soul into. If it was a business, and i was running primarily for financial gain, then i would not hesitate to release less than finished work. and the new website would have been up 2 months ago.

The preorder for use of a better word for the new website was done at a hugely discounted cost to my existing members, as i forscene 'some delays' and the customers expected this too.

The new site has been a tremendous task - as i make all the content myself. I was in error and judgment sugesting launch times, and then not keeping due to either characters not finished, problems rigging etc, etc.

Wouldnt it be better to encourage me and my work, than suggesting comments like you have about fraud, of which upsets me greatly.
The monumental task i caused myself, was to not release anything until i had a whole batch, due to the way i rig, animate and export, and thats been the delay.

I value others on this forum for supporting my work and also the praiseful emails i have recieved since this thread turned a little sour.

If i was not sure, of what i will next say, rest assured i would not say it, due to what has happened here but i can say the site will launch, first with all the animated animals i have done this weekend. This would not have been mentioned if i wasnt 100% sure.

If you want an update demo, then please email me

Best wishes

Steve

 

And why do you think it may have turned a little sour?

From your first post in this thread dated three weeks ago

From this thread 2 weeks ago (having missed the set in stone date)...

Or this one from 2 weeks ago on this thread..

Or this one from nearly 2 weeks ago

Then absolute silence with no responses to anyone, even those asking questions for nearly 2 weeks

which really brings us to this post today

Really???? This is just one thread.

Prove me wrong in what I currently think, and I think you'll find that the threads get a tad more positive.. Threads turning sour is generally attributable to one cause and I don't think you need to look to far in this to realise it's self inflicted pain.

And with regards to this..

Even though not directed at me, I feel I have to respond to this:-

No it freakin. wouldn't because you know what.. taking my money for something that doesn't exist that I worked and saved for upsets me a great deal more, and until something appears, then it doesn't exist no matter if it's the "greatest 3D object known to man".

One last thing...

Customers expected this too?.. My first email from you.. carefully stored from three moths ago also said the new site will be up next week.. Again, self inflicted.

Please deliver this weekend.

Graham

 

Yes, its self inflicated in terms of delayed release dates, but i owe my customers quality not quanity and flawed products.

RElease of the animal batch will be this weekend like i have mentioned, and characters in the other styles daily uploads there after

Thanks for everyones support

BEst wishes

Steve

 

For me, the discounted rate was a great value even just for what I've seen so far. I used just 1 of the 3 medieval town packs and built a really cool looking city and it's all thanks to your great models. I haven't even got to the other towns and the other packs like the cave, the sewer, the monastery, etc. So even without the characters I would feel like the price I paid was worth it so when the characters are released that is just a bonus in my opinion.

I think what we might be seeing here is that Steve is just one guy and he's trying to do marketing, customer service and do the actual work all by himself. And I'm sure in future releases he will learn from this experience and in communicating releases. Judging by the sheer amount of content he has so far, I don't think he's going anywhere. I think he deserves to be cut a little slack.

 

I don't know what these people are complaining about.

They got a $1500 product for SIGNIFICANTLY LESS and are complaining of delays because you want to assure quality?

Talk about ungrateful. When I get a product for over $1000 off, I don't complain, even if it takes months to get that product. That's a HUGE discount!!!

That's part of the deal, as well. People don't give out massive 1000+ discounts for absolutely no reason.

 

I contacted Steve via email last night to ask him about the models he has created this far... All I can say is "Send him an email... you are gonna love what he has to say / show".

 

Thanks so much for the support stand here today. I wanted to air also about the reduction i gave, and hoping it would be returned in patience, ok.. more than patience!.. thanks. An an artist its no good people adding further pressure to the equation, when all that artist(me) wants to do is stun customers and provide something they can use, and not get bored of after a few tests with the model, because it doesnt work to their expectations. The 3d marketplace is now flooded with models of all types and the quality bare rises all the time.. it was this time, i wanted to jump twice as high as the usual bar i set!


As Mr Dude mentioned.. ive got some nice models for you all!

Steve

 

@arteria, why don't you release some pictures of your work onto this forum? Then a lot of people would be much happier, it seems.
Anyway, I'll probably be sending you a large cheque when the website comes up - the quality of your work is brilliant!

 

Pics wise, ive sent quite a few to customers by email. Come Sunday, everyone will see whats on offer. Cheers also for the support of purchasing when the site goes live

Best

Steve

 

Yea, I sent him an email awhile ago and I was absolutely shocked by the quality I saw, and the amount, and it was only like 5 images, lol.

Really, I am extremely excited! Funny that I'm going to end up making the models 2D, lol, but still awesome none-the-less! And if I ever make a 3D game, I will be more than ready!

 

Steve is one of the best artist we have, so we have to support him. Just my 2 cents.

 

Thankyou, much apreciated. As promised ill be getting the first batch of animated animals up tomorrow.
Daily uploads thereafter of the medieval characters, and other content through the week.

Best wishes.. and thanks for the heartwarming support

Steve

 

Today is day after "tommorow" and still nothing. I am not surprised, it is starting to be really silly.

 

As mentioned previously the sheer ammount of work im putting into this has caused delays that not only frustrate you, but frustrate me very much. The error ive made is not launching singlular product as and when it was finished, but my goal was to launch a full batch of characters and in particular the animated animals as a whole library. Imagine animating 30 animals, each with a different rig, bone structure, and animations, and then get each working correctly, making sure feet are not going through the floor etc. A lot of work!

I have just finalised my animal batch a few minutes ago, and these are ready for upload when i return to the studio tomorrow. I will then start to sort out the webpages. Its mad to think how many months ive been sat here now doing all this hard work, 14+ hours a day!

Demo why cant you email me for updates? I still dont know as a customer you are, as many times a persons forum name is different to an email address.

Steve

 

One would expect, that uploading "finished" characters can be done in one day, especially when you working 14+ hours a day. Obviously not, same "tommorow" like last time. So other empty promise. Why are you doing this? Dont tell me, that is so hard to come with realistic term and keep it, anybody, who knows what he is doing, is able to make good guess. I would rather hear truth and get some realistic term, which will be kept, then bunch of empty promises/lies. Reliability is the most important thing for any long-term relationship, especially bussiness one.

 

Arteria has always had top quality. I bought some models from him a while back. I don't regret it.
I think complaining because a upcoming product is delayed, is kinda immature. (I guessing that's the main issue here.)

I prefer quality over quantity..

Buts that's just my personal opinion.

 

Guys, the site is 3dcharacterworld.com, and Steve has already been putting up the animals. At least one anyway.

 

The main issue here is, that lots of people already PAID for this. If you paid for something more then 1/2 year ago with promise, that it will be in one month and since then you are only listening to excuses and empty promises, you wouldnt complain? I can imagine situation, when you count on given term given by supplyer and your project fails only because of his significant delay. This can easily ruin any bussiness.

I understand some small delays, it happens. But 1/2 year? With regular "it will be this week for sure" each 14 days?

I dont care if there is any fancy site with shop, I already paid. I just want to receive email with url, login and password for download, nothing else. I dont really see problem in uploading finished files and sending email to members. Maybe the problem is, that there is nothing finished.

 

If I were to guess I think none of you actually mailed Steve to talk about this personally. All these posts stating "I paid, Steve lied, I'm not happy at all" aren't really helping anything. I agree it would have probably been better if Steve hadn't promised any exact dates, but that doesn't change the fact that I'm certain Steve just wants to deliver some great models to everyone. He isn't scamming anyone, he isn't trying to "take my moneys!" I'm sure of that. Steve has been delivering some great affordable content to indies for quite some time now. And if you do a little research you will find that sadly there aren't many indie friendly modeling websites out there. We should be glad we have some "Steve's" in the world who are willing to create all this content in such an affordable price range.

I think the problem lies in the fact that he's trying to do several things by himself. Creating models, texturing, animating, answering emails, designing websites, setting up webshops etc. I think at the moment he's working on getting the site online and I for one know this is always something which takes more time then expected. I stopped reading his dates as "set in stone" some time ago and started reading them as "I'm really trying to get it ready by then". I think it's as frustrating for him not to reach his deadlines as it is for us. Yeah, I know, he shouldn't have given them in the first place...but well, what's done is done. I'm sure he will learn from this and will start using Blizzard's Soon™ (http://www.wowwiki.com/Soon) in the future.

Bottom line, I think you should just send Steve an email and express your concerns to him that way. Experience tells me you will soon get a reply and be assured he's is not trying to do this on purpose. And knowing Steve get a little peek behind the curtain too.

 

And what do you think we were doing last 1/2 year? It was always reply like "it will be this week". Communicating this public is second step, because our patience is over.

Maybe I am little bit oldschool, but i dont sell what I DONT HAVE.

 

Oeh, sounds like an angry mob kind of thing, with pitchforks and fire.



Well, I can only speak for myself, and I think my communication with Steve was reassuring enough for me not to be waving any pitchforks around here. But you know, do what you think you have to do. I just don't think this is helping anything and is certainly not going to speed up the process. If I were in Steve's shoes I would be more driven to get models out as soon a possible if people were cheering for me to release it instead of the pitchforks...

So, I will cheer. Go Team Steve go!

 

2cubez: You are perfect customer of nowdays companies. They will shi** on your head and you will thank them with tears in your eyes. I am curious, when you start understand, that as customer you have rights and that any company is here for you, not you for the company.

Q: "Sorry for disturbing your majesty, but when you will deliver as goods, we already paid half year ago?" A: You have to wait more. "Again sorry for disturbing, thanks for answering me, I will hide under rock and wait more. Tell me how long, I would wait even century, just dont hurry, you could hurt yourself"

Yes, perfect customer, we call them "sheeps". Dream of all companies.

 

Sheeps are cute, especially the wooly fuzzy ones.

Yes, I sympathize with the small mostly one-man operations, being one myself and I guess of lot of the people are in here. I think there is a huge difference between the big "evil" companies and small businesses. I can tolerate a lot more from the small ones, when they are honest with me.

I don't feel like anyone is ehmm, how did you put it, mistaking my head for a lavatory. I don't know what kind of goods you paid for half a year ago, so I can't/won't comment on that. I know I have a lifetime subscription and access to everything Steve created the last couple of years, so I already got my moneys worth. The characters, although awesome to have access to, are icing on the cake. Well, maybe a cake on a cake. But I'm quite sure the cake is not a lie.

 

@cubez:

Im sure you know.

How many business's would approach this is really very simple You hire someone, Hire an Admin to setup the Autoresponders, Mass emailers, Transaction notices, Store Front, Pretty normal support in this day and age.

That would alleviate most if not all, Then you can concentrate on what he does best level design and models.
It would seem inexcusable not to take action at the first sign of trouble if you want to fulfill commitments.

Arteria been around at least the last 5 years.

obliviously some people have no issue's with this they see a good deal and are happy campers

 

What does frustrate me, is that the people complaining here, have not once emailed me, but kept airing comments on this thread. If anything is going to do my business harm, its comments like have been aired. Yes, things should never be kept under raps if a customer is unhappy, but surely its better to contact me directly. Yes, delays are my fault, unprofessional, etc - i admit this.

Jami observed indeed there was a character uploaded, and this would have continued yesterday, except for yet another problem i run into. My fault full stop for providing dates that i havent kept too. I should have said the site would have been available summer 2011, so all in all, im to blame.

Sorry people

Steve

 

This is not whole truth. Steve was selling (and sold) other lifetime membership to his non existing animation site, because arteria3d lifetime membership does not count for animations site. So lots of people already paid money and got nothing except empty promises. If animations were part of arteria membership, It would be completly different story.

 

Demostenes you keep talking as if this site doesnt exist - you can cleary see the 3dcharacterworld site is active, and another character has been added just now,. Can we start getting a little more positive about what i do as the day goes on perhaps?

Steve

 

In last six months I wrote you many times, I only received bunch of empty promises. It will be this week. Nothing. It will be tommorow. Nothig. Still the same feary tale.

Fist, you shouldnt sell something, you dont have, and dont claim, that it will be in one month. I dont have problem with opening of your site, I have problem with your confident selling of something, you have to know that you cant deliver in such date.

 

The fact that you see the site and content will be added surely eliminates your concern of the site never appearing..

Steve

 

Well, I paid for membership and I still dont have access information on my email. So for me the site does not exist

 

Demo.. please after asking quite a few times on here can you email me. I dont know as a customer who you are.

THankyou

Steve

 

I think, that as owner of business you should know, who paid you membership and sent them access automatically. Without asking.

Btw, I checked your site. That two models are nice, but animations are quite bad. Does models contain skeleton? Becuase this will need serious reworking.

 

Animations are bad - i think thats a little harsh for sure. I stand by the animations.

Steve

 

Arteria character website

I think most if not all arteria's models are correctly animated and would not question the quality
that i would give my word On that.

I previewed them all in the unity plugin no sloppy vertices, the little fawn had a jerky back leg
and so did the larger one in the run aniimation. but they are nearly perfect and the price
is rock botttom price .. easily worth a whole lot more despite some issue that may be had
to fix now that they are finished products, Most likely the prices have not been set and would
expect prices to rise to reflect a much more realistic price.

I paid $300.00 elsewhere for ship and $200 for a humming bird, the humming bird has a nasty vertices that pokes out in fly animation, Maybe the software is to blame and not the artist?

 

Runner can you explain a bit further please

Steve

 

Well, these animals look like they have epilepsy. I am not harsh, I just see that hours of finetuning. This cant be published in game, players would lough, majority of these movents is totally unnatural. Sigh. You were always quite good artist, but animating...well, I hope it will improve.

 

OK, thanks for your comments, will take on board

Best wishes

Steve