Triumphant Artists Complete Collection 2018

Over the six years from 2012-2018, I  was steadily building a vast personal collection of unique stock textures and video elements. The result, as once seen on one of my websites (TriumphantArtists.com) is an impressive assortment of materials useful to indie vfx and game artists, including:

- over a thousand total texture files, including normal, bump, specular and opacity maps, which could prove very useful for 3d artists and game developers.

These were - as of March 2020 - improved a bit more, with about 150 additional photographic texture maps in development between this and the Autumn bonus pack, and some assorted adjustments to the existing maps.

-A batch of decals   to make surfaces look more messy, grungy, and realistically detailed, plus a few overlays like dust, lens flares, water, etc, that can be layered over images or video with an 'add' or 'screen' filter. This decal material is, incidentally, also my first submission to the Unity Asset Store (just very recently, as in a couple of days ago, not yet approved / available there)

-Well over a hundred video clips, some lower-end SD, many in HD, often shot at 60 or 120fps high-speed and most of them easy for VFX artists to composite due to black or blue backing. The types of video elements include debris bursts, water effects, smoke, fire, and a bunch of explosions. Nearly all of this is actual physical effects work, shot for real. Only a few of the video elements included are 3d simulation, and they're separated in different subfolders than the real-world photographed effects. A few additional 3d simulated elements may be added at some point soon too, here and in the Autumn bonus pack.

[Other notes - the files are all in folders, that have been zipped together into one massive .ZIP file in an attempt to make downloading simpler.]

There is a ton of material here you may find useful. But also a lot of it is aging badly and some is dated, there's SD material in this mix from as far back as 2009-2013, which is why this announcement as of April 2023 is important:

I've seen a lot of positive feedback about these collections over time but some VFX elements [especially in early packages like this one] have increasingly been criticized in recent years.

And those critiques are pretty valid. SD quality video is not great for modern HD video editors. Even some of my HD stuff has issues because while it was shot in HD, the actual effect is not filling the HD video frame due to the camera being a somewhat safe distance back and telephoto lenses not fully making up for it. The result of that is a weird sort of quasi-HD footage, that is slightly cropped down to the relevant part of frame, then upscaled back to 1080p or similar, which means it looks clearer than SD, generally, but a bit blurry compared to what everyone expects from HD. The same is true of much of my 4k material, it's shot 4k, yes, and output in 4k, yes, but the trimming and upscaling means it's really mostly about 3k material in practice.   

So what to do about reviews emerging on Etsy like a 4-star on the massive pile of textures, a review that likely took off a star because some of the oldest non-diffuse-map textures in the first (TACC2018) collection don't tile completely seamlessly, or do but not in a way that consistently fully matches the diffuse? This is true - my very oldest textures were made seamless by hand in PS, one map at a time, which initially did not use customized one-off actions to precisely match everything on related non-diffuse textures. 

Or the scathing one-star review of my VFX by YANANNI Studios that complained my VFX video files were often too blurry or low in resolution to be useful? 

WHAT DO I DO ABOUT PACKS THAT ARE SIMPLY *AGING* - TOO OLD TO BE SUPER USEFUL FOR ANYTHING IN HIGH-RES MODERN VIDEO?

As I noted to YANANNI - True. Just because I spent many, many hours and hundreds of $ working on the stuff does not mean it is actually good... or good enough for today's video standards anyway. 

So I've discontinued the VFX pack on Etsy for the time being, and have begun dumping the earlier SD video content onto this page for free. You can download that older live VFX stuff in SD, at no cost whatsoever now. 

What does that mean for those who already bought this pack when that happens this summer? Well, I've explained that much of this is being 'phased out' and this is where 'phasing in' takes effect:

As the oldest material is being made free, new material will be added to add value to the paid collection in its place.

Right now, I've made the old SD footage free, as 'demo content' and will update the texture packs with many subtle but significant improvements, and I also intend to develop new updates with 4k (digital but photoreal) VFX elements, to replace the old VFX footage across this collection and in a few other places as well. 

The thing for the new 4k is I've got a ton of tools for modern physics sims that I'm now in the process of acquiring and getting used to using on a NEW desktop PC I've put together that cost $1100 roughly (and at that price it was an UNUSUALLY GOOD BARGAIN), one with a bunch of very fast CPU cores and four GPUS, and 128GB RAM. This thing is a bulky beast of a computer setup... and it's averaging 25x faster than the previous system I had, plus it can run 5-6x larger scale physics sims than the one I had before. The scope of simulations was the main reason I needed a TON of RAM.

So altogether we're talking thousands in software, hardware overhaul. It serves multiple purposes, sure, but it's a lot of money to spend and a lot of work after that, setting up and fine tuning hundreds of physics sims, the focus of which is sheer REALISM, not necessarily just the most massive possible scale. I'm 3d scanning bits of debris, fragments of various materials across numerous scales. Bits of burnt, shredded wood, chunks of stone, brick, and a lot more. I'm planning on recording sparks - just little effects sparks and embers, real world, recorded at 120fps, tracked as they drift and stabilized so they don't move in frame, mapping those clips at random as glowing particles to match to the particles in 3d particle sims, mix it in with high-res volumetric fire/smoke sim, rigid body debris breaking and flying around, that actually interacts with the motion of the 3d smoke/fire. And even granular sim (I'll be using a system used on Game of Thrones and many other high-profile projects) mixed in - dirt and sand and snow breaking apart and tumbling around in clods of realistically detailed mess. So there's all that plus fluid simulation elements on massive scale, splashes and such, complete with physics accurate foam and bubbles, something even the best VFX studios had no way to do right until about 3-4 years ago when the math for efficient but accurate foam generation was first cracked in academic physics papers. I may also shoot a bit more real-world stuff but with camera gear of higher quality. I'll be able to push 5k at 120fps from multiple angles. The cams alone, another $1200 or so plus other materials, lighting gear, backing, etc.

NONE OF THIS is justifiable based on my stock media sales on Etsy or Itch - the stock media content I've posted here has already involved hundreds of dollars, hundreds (maybe close to a thousand) hours worked and it's clearly still at a loss - I'll avoid specific numbers here but the total's well under $1k in sales across all storefronts.     

But I still have some sort of deluded hope for the next year and will gamble on things I HOPE will work out. I want to dramatically expand my stock-media ambitions across all categories AND complete a pile of gamedev projects, ON TOP OF what's actually working. The reason any of this is within reach is printing services on Etsy that have taken off like crazy. I'm making thousands/year doing that, just by accepting pay rates a little bit below the $7.25 federal minimum wage. That alone allows me to work a few hours turning around print orders at 40-50% the price that other Etsy vendors will, as in $3-5 per poster plus shipping. At the low end, copy paper quality, at the high end, glossy cardstock. That's what's been working out for me. It's what is keeping everything else afloat right now, that and my parents* who allow my basic costs of living to be lower than typical - I live in their home, move around with them, and thus don't worry about rent or groceries. What I do to justify this to them, is often simple stuff - odds and ends around the house, helping with their creative ideas once in a while, watching the nieces/nephews [my sister's kids] and keeping them entertained when they're here, etc. My cost of living is thus low, and I don't need to earn a ton to keep my life going. But I'd like to see the work I do succeed. partly to do it better and better, make better and better creative work for all of you, and partly because I'd like to give a lot to people who really need help in this world. There may have been some hype over holiday donations here but those are a small part of this. 

I already am donating more than that, and hope to give FAR more still by 2024 while also dramatically expanding the speed, quality and ambition of my creative work across the board. I may be naive about it but I believe that with enoguh work and effort what I'm doing here CAN change the world, or at least the lives of hundreds of people. I also believe that if this works out... it's going to be working out at the time when that help will be most needed. We are facing a looming polycrisis in the world that is developing right now. Climate change and environmental deterioration is the big driver, fueling risks of war, civil unrest, poverty, mass migrations, natural disasters, large-scale starvation. Since 2019, the number of people in the world on the edge of starvation has doubled after decades of steady progress. Public support for charitable causes across every category continues to dry up - medical causes, education, and so on... This polycrisis comes at a time when 'donor fatigue' is setting in and people are giving less and less due to fear of near-future economic hardship and imminent recession. I know that things are going to get worse. I'm not unaware of that. But I also realize that I have a choice - I choose not to become a survivalist and stockpile gear for what's coming. I choose not only not to be a survivalist but not to survive. I understand exactly where things are going and why, and I've accepted that I won't likely live past age 50. I'm okay with that. I'm fine not living in a post-apocalyptic wasteland. I'm fine with being one of those who dies in the mass dieoff. I just want those around me on this world to survive a bit longer through it even if I do not. It's more important that I try to be a good person, to the extent I'm able to, given deep personal flaws and weaknesses, than that I live a long time. Would rather die with integrity than survive while compromising everything that I believe matters.

I want to do things right, even if that ultimately means my existence ends early. 

I hope a few of you can latch on to some part of this - understand it, maybe agree with some of it. And if you don't think the world is unraveling and you are optimistic, that's great too. And I'd be happy if that turns out to be the case. If the world's falling apart, I'll try to help make it at least slightly better when hardship's at its worst. And if it's going to somehow be okay, there are still clearly places where it's not, like Africa or Ukraine, or Syria. And even if my depressive tendency toward doomerism's wrong, the desire to help where it's needed is, I think, still worthwhile. And if you don't even care about any of that, well, maybe you'll appreciate that I'm trying to make a ton of higher-end new stock media material the next year or two, and some indie games - and trying to make the pricing on them reasonable. Or the fact that as new, higher-end asset collections arrive, older lower-end ones will become freeware soon. Take your pick of reasons - but I can use the help to get this all moving. 

Doesn't even need to be financial. You DON'T need to tip, you don't need to buy. Just download, use, review/rate or comment on the free stuff here and maybe that in itself will help. Maybe mention my work on some forum or social channel you frequent. I've already gained a LOT of activity here from YouTube and social-network comments. Would love to offload some of that to all of you so that time expended doing free grassroots promotion can be focused on making more assets - will even be willing to hand out random keys to (paid) asset packs to those who make online posts about the contents of my Itch pages.

Any of that is enormously appreciated. Ratings, comments, shares on social media, and reviews would also be wonderful.    :)

Bottom line - if you are a visual effects artist, 3d artist, or video-game artist, you will find this collection extremely useful and an exceptional bargain at the current price, about $2 and less than that when on sale. Better still, by buying this you'll be helping to fund indie game productions that I'm currently struggling, really still trying to launch. [Check my username if you're interested in browsing my other projects - I'd appreciate that.]

The standard price for this collection used to be $1.50. But inflation and Paypal's August 2021 fee increases - most buyers still use them and not Stripe - are pushing me to raise pricing a bit across all product lines just to keep revenue about the same. Sorry about that. 

Notes on usage: You can add the textures to your models and use them in your own 3d renders, video VFX sequences, video game levels. You can make VFX shots and cutscenes using the video clips. All of that, royalty-free, too, with no need to credit me. If you like this, though, I'd appreciate a comment or review here on Itch.IO. 

Also, know that I will use almost any holiday as a time to enact a major sale, usually about 8-10 times per year (often including New Year's, Valentine's Day, St. Patricks' Day, Easter, Mother's Day, Father's Day, July 4th, Labor Day, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas)... so if you can show up during one of those sales, you can often find a massive bundle deal with all my paid items for, often, still around $2 which is a pretty amazing price for thousands of texture files, decals, and overlays, hundreds of video elements and hundreds of 3d assets!

Next major  sale dates: 

LABOR DAY 2023, HALLOWEEN 2023, THANKSGIVING, Christmas-New Year's

All 3000+ existing  asset files plus all  future updates to those, and indie  games when they release,  bundled for about $2.

PLEASE RATE OR REVIEW IF YOU LIKE THIS:

Also, as usual, if you buy this, or anything else I'm offering here, I and everybody else browsing these pages, would appreciate it if you would please post an honest review, criticisms, suggestions and all, after buying. Reviews and star ratings and other forms of feedback like comments, are super helpful. I've sold over 30 items on Itch.IO so far but have yet to see a single complete star rating or review, just a brief happy comment on one of my first asset packs. Look, I do get that many of you would only be likely to post a response to a product that either provoked a strong negative reaction, or seemed like an 'important' or major purchase. A tiny - even forgettable - impulse-buy price, combined with a good but not outright incredible set of contents, might not seem to be worth posting a review about. But I encourage you to post one nonetheless. Positive or not, honest reviews do help others assess the value, the strengths and shortcomings of a product. So for the customers' sake, and mine, I'd really like more response to what I have here. The more this material takes off, the more I can continue to improve on it. Any review or comment will be useful to me, so I know what I'm doing well and what still needs improvement. 

If you're logged into Itch.IO you can rate this asset pack or add it to a collection for later, i.e. wishlisting, on the top right edge of the browser window. Or you can comment, at the bottom of this page. 

COMMENTS & REQUESTS WELCOMED:

So, yes, I hope to hear some responses from all of you. Those responses have an impact! If, for example, I'm seeing a number of people all requesting a certain type of texture, 3d object, or video VFX element I may make that a priority in later updates. So I WILL respond to your feedback as much as I reasonably can. I welcome your replies. 

A BIG THANK YOU to the people who have already purchased, some of you even tipped! THANK YOU!