Well, it's very easy for me to convert it to a high-res mesh and export that in obj format, although at the moment I'm out of town and I won't have access to it until Monday. :)
> My guess is that people who are afraid of "scary text editors" (because scripting is for superhuman geniuses?) are likely to give up long before they turn out a good quality level.
I'm going to have to object to this on the grounds that I'm an excellent coder, and spend most of my day inside a text editor and don't mind it at all. That being said, if I can edit most aspects of a game level without having to mess around with scripting, I'll enjoy it more. To put it another way, if I want to dabble in level editing (which is what gets a lot of people started), I'm going to be a lot more likely to do it if I can bring the level-editor up in-game and tweak things using a graphical tool than if I have to shut the game down, read a bunch of docs, fire up a text editor, write a bunch of code, figure out how and where to save that code, save it, shut down the text editor, and restart the game.
There's a common view in the FOSS world that I think hurts us sometimes, and that's that you aren't a worthwhile user if you don't dig through pages of documentation and use a command line or a text editor. There are a lot of people out there with talent for art and dialog and storytelling who aren't programmers, and if we're going to tap into those talents, we're going to need to provide these folks with tools that play to their talents instead of insisting that they learn to code.
And just to reiterate, I'm not saying that this is necessarily appropriate for *all* FOSS games, or even a majority of them. However, it would be good to see some FOSS games do this.
The big caveat with Freesound is that the default license is Sampling Plus, which isn't nearly as open as it sounds. However, most of the artists there are happy to release their work in a compatible license if you contact them.
Regarding the idea that a certain barrier to entry is good because it keeps down crappy submissions, I would tend to disagree, for two reasons:
* Things with a high barrier to entry are generally less fun and intuitive to use. The best interface is one where everything flows naturally enough that you can use it without thinking about it -- that way, you don't have to spend your time trying to find something that *should* be obvious. So by raising the barrier to entry, you're generally making things harder for your experienced users.
* No artist starts out making great work (or at least none that I've ever met). There's always going to be a learning curve, and if you can engage the people who have the desire to learn, they'll stick with your community and become excellent contributors. Furthermore, a rating system is a great way to avoid inundating your players with lower quality work. Have it show up in the "New" section for a day or two, and if it doesn't receive a good rating by then, put it somewhere more out of the way and make room up front for more popular content.
@Pompei
In general, I prefer in-game editors. Any time you can remove an unnecessary step (stopping the game, starting the editor, saving your map, stopping the editor, starting the game, loading your map), you're going to encourage people to make more content.
I also want to acknowledge that what I'm talking about here is hard. I'm not outright saying that every game ought to have an integrated content editor, particularly since if there's no game, there's nothing to create content for. As developers, our time is a limited resource, and we have to prioritize. Plus, you need some existing content to get people to even notice your game (as well as give your users some blocks to build with). But, if you're spending a lot of time on content creation, you might find that making an easy-to-use integrated content editor (complete with network support) actually *saves* you time in the long run.
I rearranged the rig a bit underneath the mesh, lengthened the legs, tweaked the position of her back (which was awkward and unnatural), and did a bunch of other random improvements, including hands, which I think turned out rather well for being built out of spheres :) . Take a look at the structure of the rig (blue, second image) and let me know if it looks at least somewhat correct. Obviously it's not going to be an exact skeleton, but it should be reasonably close.
I was actually thinking about having the list be popular in the last 30 days, to show recent stuff. That would move some of the old, self-reinforcing ones off of the list.
Very cool. I particularly like how you took a few basic shape elements and arranged them in a lot of interesting ways. The set is both varied and consistent, which isn't easy to pull off. :)
Well, it's very easy for me to convert it to a high-res mesh and export that in obj format, although at the moment I'm out of town and I won't have access to it until Monday. :)
> My guess is that people who are afraid of "scary text editors" (because scripting is for superhuman geniuses?) are likely to give up long before they turn out a good quality level.
I'm going to have to object to this on the grounds that I'm an excellent coder, and spend most of my day inside a text editor and don't mind it at all. That being said, if I can edit most aspects of a game level without having to mess around with scripting, I'll enjoy it more. To put it another way, if I want to dabble in level editing (which is what gets a lot of people started), I'm going to be a lot more likely to do it if I can bring the level-editor up in-game and tweak things using a graphical tool than if I have to shut the game down, read a bunch of docs, fire up a text editor, write a bunch of code, figure out how and where to save that code, save it, shut down the text editor, and restart the game.
There's a common view in the FOSS world that I think hurts us sometimes, and that's that you aren't a worthwhile user if you don't dig through pages of documentation and use a command line or a text editor. There are a lot of people out there with talent for art and dialog and storytelling who aren't programmers, and if we're going to tap into those talents, we're going to need to provide these folks with tools that play to their talents instead of insisting that they learn to code.
And just to reiterate, I'm not saying that this is necessarily appropriate for *all* FOSS games, or even a majority of them. However, it would be good to see some FOSS games do this.
The big caveat with Freesound is that the default license is Sampling Plus, which isn't nearly as open as it sounds. However, most of the artists there are happy to release their work in a compatible license if you contact them.
How's this?
http://i.imgur.com/RU50h.jpg
@Julius
Regarding the idea that a certain barrier to entry is good because it keeps down crappy submissions, I would tend to disagree, for two reasons:
* Things with a high barrier to entry are generally less fun and intuitive to use. The best interface is one where everything flows naturally enough that you can use it without thinking about it -- that way, you don't have to spend your time trying to find something that *should* be obvious. So by raising the barrier to entry, you're generally making things harder for your experienced users.
* No artist starts out making great work (or at least none that I've ever met). There's always going to be a learning curve, and if you can engage the people who have the desire to learn, they'll stick with your community and become excellent contributors. Furthermore, a rating system is a great way to avoid inundating your players with lower quality work. Have it show up in the "New" section for a day or two, and if it doesn't receive a good rating by then, put it somewhere more out of the way and make room up front for more popular content.
@Pompei
In general, I prefer in-game editors. Any time you can remove an unnecessary step (stopping the game, starting the editor, saving your map, stopping the editor, starting the game, loading your map), you're going to encourage people to make more content.
I also want to acknowledge that what I'm talking about here is hard. I'm not outright saying that every game ought to have an integrated content editor, particularly since if there's no game, there's nothing to create content for. As developers, our time is a limited resource, and we have to prioritize. Plus, you need some existing content to get people to even notice your game (as well as give your users some blocks to build with). But, if you're spending a lot of time on content creation, you might find that making an easy-to-use integrated content editor (complete with network support) actually *saves* you time in the long run.
Thanks. :)
I'll have to see what all I'm able to address in sketch mode. I may have to sculpt at least some of that stuff in.
I rearranged the rig a bit underneath the mesh, lengthened the legs, tweaked the position of her back (which was awkward and unnatural), and did a bunch of other random improvements, including hands, which I think turned out rather well for being built out of spheres :) . Take a look at the structure of the rig (blue, second image) and let me know if it looks at least somewhat correct. Obviously it's not going to be an exact skeleton, but it should be reasonably close.
http://i.imgur.com/jM5Y9.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/W64b3.jpg
Edit: Seems like there's a big difference if you compare the old image to the more recent one.
I was actually thinking about having the list be popular in the last 30 days, to show recent stuff. That would move some of the old, self-reinforcing ones off of the list.
And WeaponGuy continues to live up to his name. Nice work, as usual. :)
Very cool. I particularly like how you took a few basic shape elements and arranged them in a lot of interesting ways. The set is both varied and consistent, which isn't easy to pull off. :)
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