[opportunity]Potential great set of open-source art assets

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Julius
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[opportunity]Potential great set of open-source art assets

Post by Julius »

http://forum.freegamedev.net/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=5324

Anyone interested in trying to start a cool new open-source FPS based on FTE or DP with a nearly complete set of high quality art assets?
The guy might be interested in doing a crowd-funding release and I suggested teaming up with someone so that this can be a start of a new FOSS game.
Julius
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Re: [opportunity]Potential great set of open-source art asse

Post by Julius »

This is all in .blend format btw, so working with it through iqm or another DP compatible format should not be an issue.

Really no-one interested?
Nahuel
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Re: [opportunity]Potential great set of open-source art asse

Post by Nahuel »

Hello Julius!! this is a great new!! I am very busy with my two (still alive) projects : death morning and blackdays , but aniway this is a great new !! thanks for the links
hi, I am nahuel, I love quake and qc.
Julius
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Re: [opportunity]Potential great set of open-source art asse

Post by Julius »

Not great news yet as the author is undecided what do do exactly. If a open-source game developer would step up and propose to do a game with those assets it would certainly help him come to a decision and jointly attempt a nice crowd-funding drive.
goldenboy
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Re: [opportunity]Potential great set of open-source art asse

Post by goldenboy »

Most game developers planning to do a game would probably want to use their own art assets, or have the assets made for the game.

Making a game to accomodate existing assets is a bit strange really.
Julius
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Re: [opportunity]Potential great set of open-source art asse

Post by Julius »

Hmm... first of all as a indi-developer you really can't be that picky and secondly I think those assets are flexible enough to allow for a wide range of games.

But I find that sentiment strange in general. There is way too much reinventing the wheel in game development, especially in open-source and independant. I think this is due to a history of technical quick advancement, but these days this isn't the case anymore (only multi-million dollar projects can afford the artist man power to stay cutting edge). But this constant reinvnting the wheel is IMHO the main reason why 95% of all game projects never reach anywhere near the state of playability.

P.S.: This is one of the strenghtes of this community, at least you do not reinvent the wheel with the engine each time ;)
frag.machine
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Re: [opportunity]Potential great set of open-source art asse

Post by frag.machine »

My $0.02:

I haven't seen the assets so I'll take your word regarding the quality. But from what I read from the linked thread it seems the author isn't exactly interested in just contribute to the indie game scene; while I find perfectly acceptable that the artist seeks financial reward for his job, I suppose this disqualifies his assets to be part of an "awesome FOSS FPS game" (where "F" means free as in free beer).
I know FrikaC made a cgi-bin version of the quakec interpreter once and wrote part of his website in QuakeC :) (LordHavoc)
Julius
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Re: [opportunity]Potential great set of open-source art asse

Post by Julius »

frag.machine wrote:My $0.02:

I haven't seen the assets so I'll take your word regarding the quality. But from what I read from the linked thread it seems the author isn't exactly interested in just contribute to the indie game scene; while I find perfectly acceptable that the artist seeks financial reward for his job, I suppose this disqualifies his assets to be part of an "awesome FOSS FPS game" (where "F" means free as in free beer).
Here is a video of the Blender Game Engine version: http://youtu.be/O34Kzz0Ye6E (but it doesn't show all of the assets, check the moddb screens)

The author is willing to release the assets as public-domain/CC0 but would like to have some donations for it. I consider that free as in beer, but the "F" in "FOSS" does not stand for "free as in beer" but "Free as in Libre", in fact is was specifically added to OSS to emphasise the "libre part". I guess I shoud start using "FLOSS" to even further emphasise it :p
leileilol
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Re: [opportunity]Potential great set of open-source art asse

Post by leileilol »

I have been silent about this whole manipulative clique issue for far too long, and it's this little paragraph that triggered my emotions...
Julius wrote:But I find that sentiment strange in general. There is way too much reinventing the wheel in game development, especially in open-source and independant. I think this is due to a history of technical quick advancement, but these days this isn't the case anymore (only multi-million dollar projects can afford the artist man power to stay cutting edge). But this constant reinvnting the wheel is IMHO the main reason why 95% of all game projects never reach anywhere near the state of playability.
...

On the other hand I think discriminating projects because they don't fit your recycling agenda as "pointless" and "reinventing wheel" are far more harmful to development than not saying anything at all. Maybe that's why there was no news about Godot going MIT on FreeGamer, because it is "pointless" as Torque and Darkplaces (BECAUSE USED IN XONOTIC AND I GOTTA PLUG TEH XONOTICS) already exist. You don't go up to fishermen and tell them what they're doing is pointless when they could buy fish from the market, do you? I certainly got that impression over at the two sites you administrate - which I left, incase you have never noticed. I was also very hesistant about joining both in the first place, fearing exactly this attitude.

As a proud "pointless wheel reinventor" I feel better for OA3 to use original assets that are tuned for the engine rather than shoehorning every Free model out there that doesn't conform to a style or a technical direction (like having proper LOD meshes, which i've also seen you detest for another project somewhere before. DO NOT EVER UNDERESTIMATE THE BENEFIT OF LOD MESHES). OA is already cursed for reusing the same low-res Evillair textures so many other projects (ab)use, and this 'entitled scavenger culture' is something I'd rather avoid in the 'pointless' reboot.

Also Engoo would have lead to an original game using it, and since there was no interest in that in the FOSS community to even get it working on other platforms (like a SDL port I asked for help on), I've canned all of my future plans for that one, because software rendering = retro low poly model style = can't use existing models = POINTLESS!1!1!!1! Nice job breaking it, hero. Over 2 years' spare time, I developed software colored lighting, software fog, an enhanced software particle system, things that are rarely seen in any software renderer, let alone a Free one... all for some site admin to figuratively tell me to fuck off and use Darkplaces. That doesn't exactly spur any motivation to continue development, now does it? May 2013 was one of the worst months of my life, it didn't help my depression any, and you have this empowered feeling for influencing that. It did have a chance to take a turn for the unspeakably worse, which in the end,to just your selfish self, two less 'pointless' games to not play because it doesn't look representative or unrealistcally next gen to appease LINUX GAMING ON THE DESKTOP(tm)

And finally, since the Ryzom assets were freed and open sourced ages ago, I still haven't seen any projects reusing them. There was a huge draw for donations on that one with the motivation as being a resource trove rather than a free MMO. Was it worth it?

tl;dr: The bottleneck of FOSS game development are overzealous admins who are eager to bury projects that aren't done their way. Reminds me of GSI, because one popular news portal controls what the community percieves on the basis due to politics over web hosts. This is more true after the closing of Linux Game Tome, which simply aggregated release updates and announcements without any bias nor righteousness.


DISCLAIMER: Darkplaces is a fine engine, but telling indie developers to switch their engines for reasons regarding graphics pretty much translates as 'fuck you, you and your game are too ugly for me' to them. Since when has an engine switch been healthy for projects? Especially coming from someone who states how there's so many projects that never get done. Even big commercial projects can barely even afford the labor of switching, as you can clearly see from DNF... I know OA had many suggestions to switch to X-ReaL (when that was promoted), id Tech 4 (after Doom3's GPLing), and Darkplaces (after Xonotic), completely missing the point of the whole compatibility thing, the framerate target, the target systems, and the huge human resources requirement for fully normal/gloss mapped artwork. Telling the burdened to get even more burdened is just illogical. If they listened to you, that silly estimated figure of 95% would be more like 99.9% so don't act like you haven't had a hand in this.
i should not be here
Julius
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Re: [opportunity]Potential great set of open-source art asse

Post by Julius »

leileilol wrote:I have been silent about this whole manipulative clique issue for far too long, and it's this little paragraph that triggered my emotions...
On the other hand I think discriminating projects because they don't fit your recycling agenda as "pointless" and "reinventing wheel" are far more harmful to development than not saying anything at all. Maybe that's why there was no news about Godot going MIT on FreeGamer, because it is "pointless" as Torque and Darkplaces (BECAUSE USED IN XONOTIC AND I GOTTA PLUG TEH XONOTICS) already exist. You don't go up to fishermen and tell them what they're doing is pointless when they could buy fish from the market, do you? I certainly got that impression over at the two sites you administrate - which I left, incase you have never noticed. I was also very hesistant about joining both in the first place, fearing exactly this attitude.
(...)
Also Engoo would have lead to an original game using it, and since there was no interest in that in the FOSS community to even get it working on other platforms (like a SDL port I asked for help on), I've canned all of my future plans for that one, because software rendering = retro low poly model style = can't use existing models = POINTLESS!1!1!!1! Nice job breaking it, hero. Over 2 years' spare time, I developed software colored lighting, software fog, an enhanced software particle system, things that are rarely seen in any software renderer, let alone a Free one... all for some site admin to figuratively tell me to fuck off and use Darkplaces. That doesn't exactly spur any motivation to continue development, now does it? May 2013 was one of the worst months of my life, it didn't help my depression any, and you have this empowered feeling for influencing that. It did have a chance to take a turn for the unspeakably worse, which in the end,to just your selfish self, two less 'pointless' games to not play because it doesn't look representative or unrealistcally next gen to appease LINUX GAMING ON THE DESKTOP(tm)
Please do not drag this issue from last time over to this topic... I don't even know why you consider me to be this influential to your development work (or well being). I am just some guy (where is the "clique" you talk off?) on the internet that that happens to blog about Free Software games from time to time (lately less due to time constraints, that is also why I didn't mention Godot yet... a pretty cool new engine btw. which is why I wanted to dedicate to it a bit more than a half-assed paragraph just to mention it).
I know there are plenty of people here and also on freegamedev.net that more or less disagree with me and were interested to hear more about engoo and your other projects, heck even I (who isn't really that much into retro games) found it at least an interesting experiment and would have probably chosen my words more carefully had I known how touchy you can be on the topic (this is sort of an apology ;) ).
leileilol wrote: And finally, since the Ryzom assets were freed and open sourced ages ago, I still haven't seen any projects reusing them. There was a huge draw for donations on that one with the motivation as being a resource trove rather than a free MMO. Was it worth it?
This is a very good point, and something I have thought about too. For Ryzom the specific reason was probably that the format it is in is not accessible with open-source tools and only recently someone painstakingly converted much of it into .iqm. But also in general these large art-dumps of defunct projects do seem to see little take-up, one of the reasons why I am suggesting to this guy to find someone to actually turn it in a game instead of just releasing it and see if there are any takers.
leileilol wrote: tl;dr: The bottleneck of FOSS game development are overzealous admins who are eager to bury projects that aren't done their way. Reminds me of GSI, because one popular news portal controls what the community percieves on the basis due to politics over web hosts. This is more true after the closing of Linux Game Tome, which simply aggregated release updates and announcements without any bias nor righteousness.
Please don't spread such BS. No one other than yourself "buried" any project. There was a lively discussion going on, and one (single) rather immature community member picked up on a relatively neutral comment by me and said your project was pointless. I am sorry this happened, but we have a free speech policy at our boards and you can't expect the internet to be an emotional safe-heaven for you.

P.S.: What is wrong about lgdb.org compared to the old LGT? The FreeGamer blog is well a blog, you can't really expect that to be unbiased. And actually we are quite open to guest posts and additional contributors, so feel free to send in an article about something you find relevant regarding FOSS gaming.
goldenboy
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Re: [opportunity]Potential great set of open-source art asse

Post by goldenboy »

Julius wrote:Hmm... first of all as a indi-developer you really can't be that picky and secondly I think those assets are flexible enough to allow for a wide range of games.

But I find that sentiment strange in general. There is way too much reinventing the wheel in game development, especially in open-source and independant. I think this is due to a history of technical quick advancement, but these days this isn't the case anymore (only multi-million dollar projects can afford the artist man power to stay cutting edge). But this constant reinvnting the wheel is IMHO the main reason why 95% of all game projects never reach anywhere near the state of playability.

P.S.: This is one of the strenghtes of this community, at least you do not reinvent the wheel with the engine each time ;)

Not getting into any FOSS community arguments. But I agree with leilei and a number of other game developers that this ^ post is a little funny.

No offense Julius, but you don't seem to understand why or even how games are made. What you call "reinventing the wheel" is a necessary creative process; it is what defines a game's visual language.

An incoherent art style and lack of creative vision is something that mars many open source games, and prodding them to include as many already-existing assets as possible is not gonna improve that situation. The reason why many (especially FOSS) game projects never go very far is probably more that it's simply hard to make games and there is usually not a lot of money in it. It is easier to get your shit together if there is a paycheck at the end of the tunnel, and harder if there's not. Another reason for the lack of great open source games is design by commitee, which is again usually responsible for lack of creative vision and an ineffective development process.
Julius
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Re: [opportunity]Potential great set of open-source art asse

Post by Julius »

Well, maybe we disagree, maybe I think gameplay is more important than a coherent style, or maybe I am just more pragmatic ;)

I only see those existing assets as a base to work with and improve on, call them place-holders or less then perfect solutions until a more polished and unique one is made. However quite honestly, the latter is wishful thinking as most likely they will stay in a loooong time; still better than having an unplayable prototype for years though.

Obviously this doesn't apply to all projects, and going the "retro" way to vastly speed up development of art assets is also a viable strategy, but if you want to aim for somewhat modern graphics, I see no way around reusing existing assets at least for some time.

The lack of playablility is IMHO the main reason why projects fail... a single developer will only stay for that long dedicated to a project, thus if he or she hasn't managed to attract a community by then to continue the project, it is a dead fish in the water (as so many FOSS game projects). Thus try to make it fun and playable as soon as possible!
goldenboy
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Re: [opportunity]Potential great set of open-source art asse

Post by goldenboy »

Julius wrote:Well, maybe we disagree, maybe I think gameplay is more important than a coherent style, or maybe I am just more pragmatic ;)
Sorry, can't let that slip. :wink:

It isn't pragmatic to use "some assets off the internet" in your incumbent game because that short-circuits the creative process required to make something memorable. It's clear that you don't understand what I wrote above. It's better to make placeholders out of boxes than to use finished artwork from some other project.
if you want to aim for somewhat modern graphics, I see no way around reusing existing assets at least for some time.
One has nothing to do with the other. Especially if you aim for good looking visuals, you need to create your own assets from the get go.

As for placeholders, if you can't whip up a machinegun made of simple boxes in any modeling program in 10 minutes, and if you can't use GIMP well enough to create your own set of chess pieces, you should think twice about making games with modern graphics.

Learning GIMP and Blender > using free assets. It really is that simple.
Julius
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Re: [opportunity]Potential great set of open-source art asse

Post by Julius »

Ok we totally disagree then, but no hard feelings as I do get where you are coming from; but boxy placeholder art will not help you build a community around a playable game.

Oh and I am really looking forward to your game, please proof me wrong (this isn't a snarky comment)!
Dr. Shadowborg
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Re: [opportunity]Potential great set of open-source art asse

Post by Dr. Shadowborg »

Okay.

Julius, no offense, but your kinda coming across as "Hey! Lazy GameDevs! Drop what u r doing right now and maek ME L4D 4 Free! I wanna ply it NOW!!!111!"

Furthermore, I don't think you've actually considered just how intellectually offensive what your proposing actually is.

It would be one thing if you were just pushing for a crowdsourced defunct commercial project resource pack release, but what you're doing here is just plain yuck.

Also, your comments appear to me as being COMPLETLY IGNORANT of the process of what is actually involved in game development. Art resources VERY MUCH (if not completely) dictate the development direction of a game.

If you want this to go forward so bad, why don't you just make the game yourself? You shouldn't expect to just waltz in here, demand that somebody work on a project you want (for free, on their own time and effort so that somebody else gets paid) and see people come running to work on said project.

Just my two cents on this.
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