Thanks for your input Bart. So, to clarify then, yes, I give permission to use my base asset contributions (that is, the male and female bases, and the original set of poses made by me including walking, slashing, falling, spell-casting) under CC-By. This will be nice and formalized on the site later, but go ahead.
Furthermore, you (cjc83486) may ignore the anti-DRM clause. Not because I like or support DRM as a thing (who would? it's awful.) but because I appreciate the current practical problems with distribution of your work. Also definitely not because I like or support Apple (and I'll admit, there is a vindictive component to that in my case).
I would like to clarify that I don't have any problem with copyleft as a concept; my only problem is -by-SA in particular because of the questions involved. It is my hope that wider use of FOSS assets will lead to wider involvement with and expansion of FOSS assets independent of license requirements. And, possibly, that there will be a better copyleft art license (or licenses, hopefully), available at some point.
@caeles: "(Using the recommended shadow colour suffices to be a derived work.)"
No, it definitely doesn't. Colors are not subject to copyright.
@C.Nilsson: as an artist, I'm mostly interested in allowing my art to be useful to people. The more useful it is, in my view, the more likely people are to want to use and contribute to it. CC-By-SA is kinda a mess for game development; just look at the billion IRC discussions/arguments we've had about what it really means in terms of source release (or various interpretations in this thread). I'd really prefer for people not to be in the position of not being sure of what they can and can't do. CC-By has some issues, but they seem to have much easier workarounds.
Anyway, I am ready to release my contributions (the character base and original animations, plus my other entries wherever possible) under CC-By, if I can be sure it won't bother the organizers of the contest (the people who commissioned it in the first place). It may take a while, though I don't think it will be a problem; I just want to be sure first. It should help, though the really awesome stuff (add-ons, extra animations, etc) were all entrant-made and dual-licensing of that stuff is of course entirely up to them.
For the record, it really isn't common courtesy to request permission or discuss usage of open source assets with the original author. After all, the point of open source assets is that you do not need to contact the author to use it, and certainly don't need permission or instruction. It's certainly courteous to let someone know when you're using their things, but even that is not required. The condition of CC-By for credit in the manner specified by the author just refers to the information provided on the sheet here, not extra requirements provided later or requests for permission. You're totally free to request this sort of involvement, but it can't be required by any means.
Thanks for all the awesome recolors. Sorry for being slow to respond here; it's been a busy week.
@Zabin: I like the range of hues. some of them might be a bit too saturated, and maybe "flat" (that is, mostly one hue value) but overall I think they look quite good.
@Mumu: hehe, those are great! I love the cannon-head especially.
I will get these added to the sheets on the first page when I get a chance. Unfortunately the computer with the original files is currently out of commission, though it should be fixable.
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.
I like your summary of the situation. Good article, Bart! (good Barticle?)
Thanks for your input Bart. So, to clarify then, yes, I give permission to use my base asset contributions (that is, the male and female bases, and the original set of poses made by me including walking, slashing, falling, spell-casting) under CC-By. This will be nice and formalized on the site later, but go ahead.
Furthermore, you (cjc83486) may ignore the anti-DRM clause. Not because I like or support DRM as a thing (who would? it's awful.) but because I appreciate the current practical problems with distribution of your work. Also definitely not because I like or support Apple (and I'll admit, there is a vindictive component to that in my case).
I would like to clarify that I don't have any problem with copyleft as a concept; my only problem is -by-SA in particular because of the questions involved. It is my hope that wider use of FOSS assets will lead to wider involvement with and expansion of FOSS assets independent of license requirements. And, possibly, that there will be a better copyleft art license (or licenses, hopefully), available at some point.
@caeles: "(Using the recommended shadow colour suffices to be a derived work.)"
No, it definitely doesn't. Colors are not subject to copyright.
@C.Nilsson: as an artist, I'm mostly interested in allowing my art to be useful to people. The more useful it is, in my view, the more likely people are to want to use and contribute to it. CC-By-SA is kinda a mess for game development; just look at the billion IRC discussions/arguments we've had about what it really means in terms of source release (or various interpretations in this thread). I'd really prefer for people not to be in the position of not being sure of what they can and can't do. CC-By has some issues, but they seem to have much easier workarounds.
Anyway, I am ready to release my contributions (the character base and original animations, plus my other entries wherever possible) under CC-By, if I can be sure it won't bother the organizers of the contest (the people who commissioned it in the first place). It may take a while, though I don't think it will be a problem; I just want to be sure first. It should help, though the really awesome stuff (add-ons, extra animations, etc) were all entrant-made and dual-licensing of that stuff is of course entirely up to them.
For the record, it really isn't common courtesy to request permission or discuss usage of open source assets with the original author. After all, the point of open source assets is that you do not need to contact the author to use it, and certainly don't need permission or instruction. It's certainly courteous to let someone know when you're using their things, but even that is not required. The condition of CC-By for credit in the manner specified by the author just refers to the information provided on the sheet here, not extra requirements provided later or requests for permission. You're totally free to request this sort of involvement, but it can't be required by any means.
Hey guys,
Thanks for all the awesome recolors. Sorry for being slow to respond here; it's been a busy week.
@Zabin: I like the range of hues. some of them might be a bit too saturated, and maybe "flat" (that is, mostly one hue value) but overall I think they look quite good.
@Mumu: hehe, those are great! I love the cannon-head especially.
I will get these added to the sheets on the first page when I get a chance. Unfortunately the computer with the original files is currently out of commission, though it should be fixable.
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.
Pages