Models by Az

Hi. Some of you may remember Az from DarkCreations -he had been working on a very promising project called Josef's Tear. He had given me permission to host a collection of mdl's a few years ago. Some time after I gave up my old site he lost his files and so they haven't been available. I started going through my backups today and found most of the collection.

The models were divided into categories with different licensing restrictions for each. I am only posting models listed as free to use in personal and commercial games. I may eventually post the other categories but have to do research first.

Here is the first batch. I dug out all the plants and one set of books. He did these at various times over a few years so some are better than others. I can't program in PHP so haven't been able to modify the site CMS enough to save the file descriptions and images in the database so you'll have to open them to decide if you like them.

http://stormvisions.com/pages/art_design/3d_game_studio.php

If you do use them then please recognize Az from these forums (I don't even know his real name). No credit to me is needed, this was all Az's work.

As for help I mentioned ... if any of the more competent modelers/skinners improve, or add new skins (or even add to the collection) I'll be glad to host them as I'd like to see the collection updated. I also have at least one pack of potted plants where Az made models but used commercial textures when he was learning. I can't post these with those textures but if someone with proven modeling experience wants to look at them, tweak them and add original skins so we can add them to the downloads just PM me.

I am going to keep on trying to contact Az so I can post these free use ones to Acknex to make sure they remain available. I expect there may be anywhere from 25-35 additional free use models after I go through all the folders and I'll be adding them over the next few days as I have a chance to verify the licensing based on his original instructions.

I've only checked some of these models and I think they are awesome!
A very handy contribution indeed.

Thank you bupaje (thank you Az )
I'll be looking often at your site in hope for... more!

Good deal. Burt, you by any chance no what happened with Az? A few months back (or maybe more, I don't remember) one of his partners posted saying he had run into some issues, and most of JT was lost - but he mentioned something about him coming back maybe. Oh well... Thanks for putting these up, and thanks Az!

@Nadester - That was the same last news I had but haven't heard back from him since. Going to fire off some mail again this week.

Josef's Tear was probably the best looking game put together with 3dgamestudio. I have some old shots of some of the building models it would be great to see what resources others might have of Az's even just to look at it is inspiring. I'm sure these models will be well appreciated.

Good luck with your project bupaje.


Guardian

Bupaje,

Do you know how to make those alpha channel textures in Az models? I was trying to change the colours but I couldn't do it.

Thanks.

@Guardian - I agree. I was working with him for a little while and so he sent me screenshots of the city -and untextured top view- and it was massive and well detailed. He also had been experimenting with rolling clouds and fog banks and other weather effects, had some 'closed' house with open windows that you could see people engaged in various daily activities rather than many rpg people are just standing waiting for you to talk to them. Lots of awesome scenes and effects ...

@nunofontoura - I'm not the guy to ask on that. I had poor results with alpha transparency (maybe cause PSP has 24bit tga?) but you might ask Loopix as I see his plant sprites look perfect.

Thanks, bupaje. I'll do it.

Az was hit by the Tsunami afaik, but everything was fine.

The bad thing was, that someone boke into his house and took away all the electronical stuff...

You should tell Az that you have found a backup of all the models. He probably doesn't even know that they are NOT lost after all. That might make him very happy.

I had told Az before we lost touch that I had backed up his models. Going to take my old Zip disks to Kinkos and burn them onto CD's as I think there were some on those. I think RichD may have his textures backed up and at least a few buildings that he worked on. Remains for Az to decide what he is going to do.

Bert,

Can you please add the vintage car models that Azz had? Also, the weapon packs that Azz converted please.

Thanks.
V

If I rember right, I have a big ressource of AZ models in my old 3DGS folders, like a weaponpack, the goblin, graves a dragon etc.

I'll have a look at it today afternoon.

Triple-X

ooo triple-x if you can find the goblin and dragon i would love to be able to download them ^_^

Hi,

Great contribuition

the vegetation looks very pretty

best regards,

Marcio

http://www.hawkgames.de/AZ-Models.rar

I think I have much more Models by AZ and many models in this pack are probably not by AZ.. I have no idea

Triple-X

@ TripleX The link doesn´t work...

Regards Efrint

yep sorry.. corrected..

of course htttp won't work

now, it works.....

Only thing I hope is that the license is included -which is why I didn't post them. Some of the models -like maybe the goblin?- were actually models created by someone else that Az simply convereted with animations for non-commercial or study. Would be ok to play with on your personal PC but if you inadvertantly used one of these models from a commercial game in your project you'd likely have problems. Az had taken care to divide them into various categories based on licensing and insisted that I have a script that required people to accept the license agreement for each model before downloading. I had hacked together an asp one but this current cms is php and too hard for me to modify. I have found a download manager called Olate which allows license agreements but I am awaiting the release of version 3 over the next month or so to fix some bugs.

Anyway I recommend reviewing the license agreement. If not sure, don't use it. I wouldn't anyone -including Az- to have a headache.

@Triple-X : Thank you for adding those models... do you happen to have those old cars Az made? If I could give you five stars for that post, I would

@bupaje : We know that most are commercial models only for demos and prototypes, so you can actually include those models for download, just put a disclaimer saying that they are commerical and it's up to us to be careful.

I'll come up with something this weekend. Thanks.

hi,

here is the true "goblin md2" and a mailadress to his daddy.
Maybe he can help for license questions.

goblin at polycount



gri,

I'm fairly certain I have the entirety of his model packs in one of my archives. I just don't know if I have the licenses that he included with each pack. I'll check when I get home.

I remember downloading the star wars models and was REALLY floored at the way those models looked in 3DGS, so I went on a DL spree.

The whole collection that was up on the website he linked to contained the aforementioned Star Wars models (spacecraft), a slew of vehicles (tanks, cars, etc), the plant packs that bupaje is hosting, some graveyard stuff, cathedral stuff, egyptian-themed things, some stationary skeletons and some other things.


Like bupaje said, the majority of the stuff is copyrighted work and can't be used in commercial products, but the work Az did in reworking them for 3DGS was simply awesome.

It was a shame what happened to Az, and we are all diminished by his absence. Josef's Tear was looking to be a truly spectacular project, and was an inspiration to me that no matter what the nay-sayers had to say about it, if you had the time, creativity and ability, 3DGS was an awesome tool for game development. Anyone that still keeps in touch with him, please pass this on!

Maybe I'll get off my ass tonight and throw together an oldschool website to at least allow these awesome packs to continue on if I have the license stuff with them.

@gri - thanks.

@Tachys - hoping he shows up again. I was looking at images of his work and even the stuff that is several years old looks good. Love to see what he could do with shaders and all the other stuff that's been added since then.

Here's two images I had online - have a few more at home.

http://www.silicondragons.com/~bupaje/castle07.jpg
http://www.silicondragons.com/~bupaje/castle09.jpg

*sigh* this is really impressive

And look at the date! 2002!... many projects using shaders don't look that good.

Quote:

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The whole collection that was up on the website he linked to contained the aforementioned Star Wars models (spacecraft), a slew of vehicles (tanks, cars, etc), the plant packs that bupaje is hosting, some graveyard stuff, cathedral stuff, egyptian-themed things, some stationary skeletons and some other things.

Maybe I'll get off my ass tonight and throw together an oldschool website to at least allow these awesome packs to continue on if I have the license stuff with them.

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That would be so awesome if you did that.