Project Organization Thread

[B-lund]

Hi, my first post

I'm no good at coding and worse as an artist, but I am quite good at organizing things an doing easy but boring and timeconsuming tasks.

A place to list original sprites and upload new ones and also the .blend files would be great.

I have a few suggestions for such a place.

1. About listing of sprites.
The listing of sprites should be sorted in projects. For example i think 32bpp 64pix sprites for terrain and citybuildings in the temperate climate would be a good first project. To sort in this way gives a feel of progress. When one thing is finished and released as an easy to install pack, then work can start on another project. As the .blends stay the same only rendering changes it is easy to make a 128 or 256pix version later when this becomes availible in the trunk.

2. About copyright and licensing of images.
If you upload your work you should agree that it is released in packs on the site.
You should also agree that if updating of your work is required but you do not respond to the request, the work will be done by someone else.
Proper credits should always be given to artists.
Upload of .blend files should be requierd. This to ensure that all sprites can be updated if need be.

3. About uploaded material.
There should be 3 types of material to upload (Preview images, finished sprites, .blend files).
The finished sprites should be coded and tested prior to upload.
The .blend file shold be the version that corresponds to the current finished sprites.
All finished materilal should be subject to a timeconstricted vote to become finalized.
When finalized the sprites should be locked, meaning no additional changes can be done to the finished sprite or the . blend file.

4. About standards and guidelines
Standard materials and textures should be set.
Standard lighting and scaling to.
I also suggest that the first generaition of 32bpp sprites closely resemble the original ones. Only with fancier coloring

Thank you for reading.

[NukeBuster]

Hi, my first post

...
All finished materilal should be subject to a timeconstricted vote to become finalized.
...

Thank you for reading.

There should be some way to report if the posted graphic does not comply with the graphic standards.

[LordAzamath]

There should be some way to report if the posted graphic does not comply with the graphic standards.

hmm....like PM/emailing the author or discussing that in the thread of the model?
most of them are in blender thread, so it's probably wiser to PM authors

[NukeBuster]

There should be some way to report if the posted graphic does not comply with the graphic standards.

hmm....like PM/emailing the author or discussing that in the thread of the model?
most of them are in blender thread, so it's probably wiser to PM authors

That would be the most direct approach... but a moderator should be notified as well.. or at least if no changes in X days since the "graphic doesn't comply" report. (X is ofcourse a sensible number)

[NukeBuster]

Ohh and perhaps, the source of the website could be under the gpl license aswell...

And it would be possible to work on it with a group of people.

[LordAzamath]

hmm.... what website? the tt-forums?? the openttd.org?? what site do you have to have access? and why?

[NukeBuster]

...
Now, TrueBrain wants to make a site where all the currently available 8bpp sprites in the game are listed, together with user made 32bpp sprites.
That way there will be a central place on where to find the 32bpp sprites and users will be able to vote for their favorites, give comments and upload their own work.
Making that system isn't that hard, but we need guidelines to make it work, and that is where the hard part begins.

Please read the whole topic before posting....

[LordAzamath]

Please read the whole topic before posting....

Heh, I HAVE read the whole topic, i just did it so long time ago and don't remember everything ...I'm afraid that TrueBrain (WHO on earth is TrueBrain...Still not sure, that maybe that was a "typo" for TrueLight.., anyway) hasn't done much yet, or he would be showing his work to someone already..

Please, if anyone knows more about it, enlightnen me please..

Lord

[chromaphase]

Hi

me and a friend (who is programer) we will work on a web portail for organizing sprites...

if it doesnt existe ??

keep me inform.

chroma

[Jupix]

Now, this article needs serious proofreading and updating: http://wiki.openttd.org/index.php/32bit ... evelopment

I'm hesitant to touch it right now, as it would be pointless for me to start reorganizing old/obsolete information. So if anyone could verify the contents of the article and perhaps even add up-to-date information, that would be great.

My vision for that article (or perhaps a new article, containing only the standards) is to create a very compact package of the essentials (one screenful at the most), so that its a sort of a cheatsheet you can look at while modeling.

I did this now. Please please can someone with the knowledge check the facts and make corrections and additions if necessary.

[ikarus]

I think the most important thing would be to create a 32bit forum in 'OpenTTD Graphics' to replace 'New Graphics - Blender ".blend" thread'. 180 pages, I am patient but I just don't have the time to read it all to be completely up to date with older graphic devs.
Every section (climates, roads, vehicles etc.) should then receive a thread.

2. About copyright and licensing of images

I think Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike would suite us best. CC is better known amongst artists (then GPL).

Various things in the artists sticky need updating, but I am waiting for a few things to be resolved before doing so.

Ben, please delegate. How can I help (unless it is something personal)?

Please please can someone with the knowledge check the facts and make corrections and additions if necessary.

Yes, please, can somebody do this. If we want serious people to get involved, we need to be serious first!

Formats
I think all work should be submitted at full inward zoom (256px). If in the end it won't be implemented (although GeekToo seems to be working on that), we can always reduce them, while enlarging doesn't work.
Also, it would be nice to have source files (.blend, .3ds, .c4d etc.) as well. This way we won't have to redo every item once some major changes occur (i.e. better blender rendering engines). Also, this way a unified style can be garanteed.

Like a whise man once said: It's hammer time!

[DaleStan]

2. About copyright and licensing of images

I think Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike would suite us best. CC is better known amongst artists (then GPL).

It is also, as I have pointed out several times, not compatible with the GPL. Nor is it OSI approved.

But I see they've finally fixed the obvious "Anyone can stop distribution of their works, for any reason" bug.

They do still have problems with "You may Distribute or Publicly Perform the Work only under the terms of this License", since that does not allow for the possibility of having received the Work under multiple Licenses. I could, for example, imagine releasing things under both by/nc/sa and by/nd. That is, "You may use this for commercial purposes in this exact form, or you may modify and distribute freely, but you may not use modified versions commercially."

ObDisclaimer: IANAL.

[Ben_Robbins_]

Ikarus: I've altered a few things since you brought it up.

The things that needed resolving were things like the scaling of vehicles, which has basically been sorted. The original ideas linked to the 32bpp project are now considered separate, and anything such as the lengthening of vehicles would be a separate task, and it is unlikely that this will happen in the foreseeable future. Therefore the 12.5 metre scaling is a good guide for making the elements of graphics believable, but the overall scale needs to be closely matching the original sizes. A few things also made rather definite statements, where in fact there has been a lot of flexibility in how people have gone about things, so that's been changed also.

Dalestan: Stepping out of my depth here, but why would a full graphics pack have to be under the same licence? The 'work' wouldn't be received under multiple licenses, so long as graphics and code are separated. I am not against GPL, but quite a few artists have said they would prefer other. (dmc_mac recently suggested the free art license as a possibility for example).

[burty]

Hi

me and a friend (who is programer) we will work on a web portail for organizing sprites...

if it doesnt existe ??

keep me inform.

chroma

How are you getting on with this??
Is it even alive there anymore if not i can chuck a site together with a database and create a openttd@sfg-gaming.com ftp account for the graphic devs and then that deals with trying to upload large images.
The database would be done manually in this case, i guess that the simple way would be a page that looks like the one linked to below
OpenTTD Index
I quickly chucked that together so anyone with any ideas please message me.
Also the openttd@sfg-gaming.com ftp account would be linked into the files for the site and so if anyone wanted to work on the site with me they can contact me and i can give them the details or create another one and put the files in a different file and just change the accesses on the ftp accounts so that the site coders dont mess up the graphic coders stuff and vice versa.

Ok the front page is done please can i get feedback on it and wheather people would like to see this finished.
If people would like to see it finished i have plenty of ideas on what can be added including:

the authors and coders of the graphics can sign up for ease of tracking their uploads.
download counter
versions
the grass style throught
as you can see individual pages for each climate
latest 5
screenshots
patches as well as graphics
upload box so that the ftp is not required

but i will only move forward if it gets support and some help
If it does move forward i will create a new thread for the coders of the site.

[vvb]

Please, do something!
I've spend two days to find all 32bpp graphics and now I have 42 Mb in 80 files.
And there is no place that hold this stuff organized!

[jklamo]

Please, do something!
I've spend two days to find all 32bpp graphics and now I have 42 Mb in 80 files.
And there is no place that hold this stuff organized!

really?
http://wiki.openttd.org/index.php/32bpp ... oom_Levels
http://wiki.openttd.org/index.php/List_ ... 32bpp_tars

[burty]

Please, do something!
I've spend two days to find all 32bpp graphics and now I have 42 Mb in 80 files.
And there is no place that hold this stuff organized!

really?
http://wiki.openttd.org/index.php/32bpp ... oom_Levels
http://wiki.openttd.org/index.php/List_ ... 32bpp_tars

I didnt know about the extra zoom but i did know about the 18 Tars.
But with a proper site there is a way to track the most popular ones, the last time they were updated, each graphic and artist have its own Bio page.
The site could even be coded to have a vote system WHICH the current wiki can/does not do.

Basically the site would be better because it can and will go in more depth, it will be able to include any special installation instructions etc.

[CommanderZ]

I could make a simple PHP tracker, it would be hopefully matter of one evening.

[burty]

I could make a simple PHP tracker, it would be hopefully matter of one evening.

Im doing a whole site :/
What do you mean by PHP Tracker?

[CommanderZ]

I mean a script where people simply could put their creations categorized by climate and type (what the sprite is) along with preview image and possibly a description. Voting about the best one in case of conflict could be included too. It would be also obvious which sprites weren't done yet.

If you are doing it already then okay, I'm just saying I could do this if someone was interested.