No offense to the original author, but I did feel like it was trying a bit too hard to be really amusing. It lacked the effortless multiplicity of ironies that makes something like this work well in my mind.
While it's not too hard to do a recolor in another program, there are a few reasons it would be better to do it all in one place. First, it's easier for devs who aren't very graphics proficient and who generally aren't familiar with the relevant programs, and just generally more streamlined for that purpose. Second, it allows you to color each piece separately, rather than having, say, all the gold platemail pieces being forced to share a palette. If you wanted them to be different colors the output atm would be really hard to work with.
It is looking really good! I feel like I ought to go through my previous entries and get them properly chopped up so they can be easily integrated as well. There are a few suggestions I can think of:
1) it would be neat (though perhaps quite difficult?) to have dynamic recoloring of elements. Bartk started making a similar thing a long while back, and while it was never finished he had a neat thing implemented that allowed you to make a custom gradient (with as many 'nodes' or whatever you'd call them as you wanted) to do recoloring of elements.
2) another thing (which is probably easier) was allowing the stacking of multiple elements of a kind (eg: if you held control while clicking, you could layer two hairstyles on top of one another).
edit: hah, Makrohn appears to be thinking along similar lines. Neat.
then it really isn't much use to serious game devs of any stripe.
from your post. I just took 'of any stripe' to the max level."
Gotcha. I actually just meant to cover open source and commercial (ie: small indies).
"The base sprites cannot be used by the end user. No permission, from me or the original image holder, is given to use the base images. Only the compiled sprites are allowed to be used freely. If someone planned to use the base images they would require a license of their own. I was told by Enterbrain that the base paid RTS images cannot be provided if I choose to release the source and that I must exclude them. I can only release the base images in the compiled program."
This, alas, is the crux of the problem. This sort of mixed licensing isn't really a "free" license in many senses of the word, and it's really hard for a dev or artist to navigate exactly what it means. EG: you can use the output, but not the base sprites. So does that mean you can distribute the base, but with say a bit of hair, as part of a freely licensed game? And what if an artist went back and then edited the hair back out? Things like that make devs and artists alike really nervous, and make it hard to use assets licensed this way at all.
Generally it's best to stick with things that are explicitly licensed under a widely used and recognized open-source license, especially one designed for art. While a number of these (like CC-By-SA) have headaches of their own, at the very least they are consistent from one asset to the next and generally a known quantity.
We actually do have a couple of RPG bases with accessories which are freely licensed, including the LPC base (http://opengameart.org/forumtopic/universal-lpc-sprite-sheet) and a 16x18, 8-bit styled base (scattered about in here http://opengameart.org/content/oga-16x16-jrpg-sprites-tiles). While I can understand not wanting to go through and rework the program to use different graphics, what you have is neat enough (simple, effective interface) that if you did it would probably be a hit. There are a few other features that would help (eg: dynamic recoloring of assets in program), but it would still be neat even without that.
Apologies for the misunderstanding, but I don't think your post was as clear as you think it is. For instance, while you do list some sources of graphics, you don't say what license they are made available under. Similarly, the sentence 'I cannot add images that require a license unless I can get that license free' really isn't perfectly clear; I kind of assume that you mean 'I can't add images unless they're CC0 or otherwise freely licensed' but there are other ways of interpreting it as well. And sentences like "NOTE: For entertainment and my personal use." muddy the waters a bit, though based on your last post I assume it's more of a statement of purpose.
Anyway, I'm glad you've gone out of your way to get permission. Are the base sprites just CC0, or are they under some other license?
"Also? chibi sprites in a serious corparate game? Time to switch companies. This for for people who are new to programming. These are temporary and anyone who uses them in a full finished game would be severly limiting their graphic abilities."
I'm also not sure what you're getting at here. Nobody brought up 'serious corporate game,' (though there are plenty of serious professional games which have used chibi sprites). The quality of the sprites you pictured is quite decent, and would be adequate for some games.
It's interesting, but the licensing of the assets is very important to us here. If they aren't freely licensed/are edited from proprietary sprites, then it really isn't much use to serious game devs of any stripe. If you wanted to adapt it to use only open source assets, there's a fair amount currently available and I imagine you could get quite a few further contributions as well.
If you look closer, I think you'll find that the CC licenses are a bit more problematic than you give them credit for, especially issues of interpretation of what CC-By really requires. I think they're the best option available for now, but they won't always be.
Cool! It's an interesting effect; while I generally prefer each with its individual palette, the globalization does have some benefits. Your set inspired me to have a go at it myself (with a bit of help from IRfanview, and a bit of hand tweaking).
No offense to the original author, but I did feel like it was trying a bit too hard to be really amusing. It lacked the effortless multiplicity of ironies that makes something like this work well in my mind.
While it's not too hard to do a recolor in another program, there are a few reasons it would be better to do it all in one place. First, it's easier for devs who aren't very graphics proficient and who generally aren't familiar with the relevant programs, and just generally more streamlined for that purpose. Second, it allows you to color each piece separately, rather than having, say, all the gold platemail pieces being forced to share a palette. If you wanted them to be different colors the output atm would be really hard to work with.
It is looking really good! I feel like I ought to go through my previous entries and get them properly chopped up so they can be easily integrated as well. There are a few suggestions I can think of:
1) it would be neat (though perhaps quite difficult?) to have dynamic recoloring of elements. Bartk started making a similar thing a long while back, and while it was never finished he had a neat thing implemented that allowed you to make a custom gradient (with as many 'nodes' or whatever you'd call them as you wanted) to do recoloring of elements.
2) another thing (which is probably easier) was allowing the stacking of multiple elements of a kind (eg: if you held control while clicking, you could layer two hairstyles on top of one another).
edit: hah, Makrohn appears to be thinking along similar lines. Neat.
"
I was refering to this
then it really isn't much use to serious game devs of any stripe.
from your post. I just took 'of any stripe' to the max level."
Gotcha. I actually just meant to cover open source and commercial (ie: small indies).
"The base sprites cannot be used by the end user. No permission, from me or the original image holder, is given to use the base images. Only the compiled sprites are allowed to be used freely. If someone planned to use the base images they would require a license of their own. I was told by Enterbrain that the base paid RTS images cannot be provided if I choose to release the source and that I must exclude them. I can only release the base images in the compiled program."
This, alas, is the crux of the problem. This sort of mixed licensing isn't really a "free" license in many senses of the word, and it's really hard for a dev or artist to navigate exactly what it means. EG: you can use the output, but not the base sprites. So does that mean you can distribute the base, but with say a bit of hair, as part of a freely licensed game? And what if an artist went back and then edited the hair back out? Things like that make devs and artists alike really nervous, and make it hard to use assets licensed this way at all.
Generally it's best to stick with things that are explicitly licensed under a widely used and recognized open-source license, especially one designed for art. While a number of these (like CC-By-SA) have headaches of their own, at the very least they are consistent from one asset to the next and generally a known quantity.
We actually do have a couple of RPG bases with accessories which are freely licensed, including the LPC base (http://opengameart.org/forumtopic/universal-lpc-sprite-sheet) and a 16x18, 8-bit styled base (scattered about in here http://opengameart.org/content/oga-16x16-jrpg-sprites-tiles). While I can understand not wanting to go through and rework the program to use different graphics, what you have is neat enough (simple, effective interface) that if you did it would probably be a hit. There are a few other features that would help (eg: dynamic recoloring of assets in program), but it would still be neat even without that.
Apologies for the misunderstanding, but I don't think your post was as clear as you think it is. For instance, while you do list some sources of graphics, you don't say what license they are made available under. Similarly, the sentence 'I cannot add images that require a license unless I can get that license free' really isn't perfectly clear; I kind of assume that you mean 'I can't add images unless they're CC0 or otherwise freely licensed' but there are other ways of interpreting it as well. And sentences like "NOTE: For entertainment and my personal use." muddy the waters a bit, though based on your last post I assume it's more of a statement of purpose.
Anyway, I'm glad you've gone out of your way to get permission. Are the base sprites just CC0, or are they under some other license?
"Also? chibi sprites in a serious corparate game? Time to switch companies. This for for people who are new to programming. These are temporary and anyone who uses them in a full finished game would be severly limiting their graphic abilities."
I'm also not sure what you're getting at here. Nobody brought up 'serious corporate game,' (though there are plenty of serious professional games which have used chibi sprites). The quality of the sprites you pictured is quite decent, and would be adequate for some games.
It's interesting, but the licensing of the assets is very important to us here. If they aren't freely licensed/are edited from proprietary sprites, then it really isn't much use to serious game devs of any stripe. If you wanted to adapt it to use only open source assets, there's a fair amount currently available and I imagine you could get quite a few further contributions as well.
If you look closer, I think you'll find that the CC licenses are a bit more problematic than you give them credit for, especially issues of interpretation of what CC-By really requires. I think they're the best option available for now, but they won't always be.
Cool! It's an interesting effect; while I generally prefer each with its individual palette, the globalization does have some benefits. Your set inspired me to have a go at it myself (with a bit of help from IRfanview, and a bit of hand tweaking).
http://i.imgur.com/mjj6k9p.png
http://www.distantmelody.net/dragonwars/play.html it's here, though you need two or more to play, and I don't think there's a guide out yet either.
You need to go back and talk with the scribe again.
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