[CF-Devel] FW: rogue like games gfx (3rd)

[Michael Toennies]

Well, i think we need some "diplomacy" here.

I look into the the projects the artist work for and most look very
same - rogue like games like nethack with full or iso gfx.

Most are really unfinished. One or two going in dev stronger, for that the
artist works mainly.
The set we got are "common sets", wrote for one of this games and then used
by others.

In fact, i think they got many requests for doing this and doing that, but
then the
project will never be great as expected.

No one from the artist will yet go directly to CF and start drawing.
I think i post some mail why not - and as you can see it goes like i
wrote.

But they do the first step: giving out was the have and give the stuff  (CF)
"a look".

So, we must do the next step:
Simply put many as possible gfx from then in a new png sets!

Why?
Because nothing is more exciting for an artist as to see his own work. ;)
When it looks good, he will draw more because it looks good.
If it looks bad, we will draw it new, so it will look good.

We should not care at this point to a consistent set. Peter has wrote about
it in IRC too.

Because we must change alot and the png set is somewhat "assembled" from
many sources,
we should put in all what looks good. Ok, not the really crazy things, it
should playable
and showable, but we should not care yet about consistance or iso angel.

This will come automatically with time.

Our priority must be to involve so many artists as possible to work for CF.
When they can do here valuable, useful (and used!) gfx, they will draw more
and more.

They will then remove itself the bad gfx. They are artists. It makes them
depressive to
see a bad png tile next to there favorite dragon.

Ok, when we can assign one or two artists to the whole set and we know they
will draw all in the same
style, then style rules are a must - but we are not in this position.
Remember, we talk about
~3000 tiles. If a artist produce 30 tiles every week he need about 2 years
to finish the set!

So, we need about 5-6 artist who draw a lot, to really make a resonable set
in a time about 6-12 month.
For this, we must give them a "playground".

We can't avoid it. Ok, CF will look some time not as we think it should be,
but we can all times say:
"we growing up, it is in development".

This is also a good thing!! It will give the people the feeling work is
needed.
If the set looks to "good", people will think its complete and will not
think about doing
now ones.


** We should think about some main style rules and we all should assign a
few hours to the
new gfx and the png set what we want have new and what we should put in  -
perhaps next days
on IRC **

Michael





>
     
     
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       As a note, I've montaged the images and put them up at:
     
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      http://tavern.santa-clara.ca.us/cf/
      
      
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       Some of them look like they could be fairly direct replacement
     
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      for objects
     
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      currently in crossfire (after conversion to from bmp to png, and
     
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      creation of a
     
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      transperancy if necessary).
     
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       My one main concern is that of consistency.  Its great the MichT
     
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      has talked to
     
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      many artists and they are contributing images, but I think in
     
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      some cases that
     
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      stylistically, the artists (and thus their images) differe.
     
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      While its pretty
     
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      easy to say 'this battle axe looks the best out of all the
     
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      choices', if the hand
     
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      axe chosen is by someone different, and the sword by someone
     
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      different still, I
     
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      wonder how that will really look.  Certainly, this is more
     
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      important for objects
     
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      within the same class (for example, mixing images of this guys
     
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      potions (on the
     
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      pxxx3.png image) with ours would probably reduce the overall image
     
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      effect/quality.
     
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       I also notice that this fellow images have shadowing, which
     
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      would probably need
     
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      to be removed/cleaned up.
     
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       In summary - I think its great we are getting bunches of high
     
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      quality images,
     
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      but we need to make sure the image set (or at least images within
     
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      a type) are
     
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      consistent.
     
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       Also, I really don't want to be the one responsible for image
     
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      checkin/cleanup,
     
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      but I do think we need an image czar to make sure the image set
     
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      does remain
     
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      consistent.  This is a great thing for people who want to help
     
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      out in a non
     
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      programming manner.  Any volunteers?
     
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