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Tuesday, January 12, 2021 - 03:47

After re-reading there are just a few things I forgot to mention.

@MedecineStorm:
"This of course hyperbole, but the point is, not caring enough or not understanding the license doesn't make it ok."
Again, I don't really agree with that. Or more precisely with the nature of the hyperbole, it just shows that we truly don't see it the same way. If I had to follow the same line of reasoning, it'd be like having tags on all articles in the supermarket but not the prices, then tell users they have to go look for the prices themselves by using the tag on some big database machine, and then finally bring both to the cashier so that he just needs to validate you did it right.

"It doesn't matter that most people will never bother to open the credits.csv"
Maybe I formulated it the wrong way. When I said that people would likely not bother to open the credits file I never argued that it was the "good" thing to do, I just said that it was likely that way because of how many hoops they have to jump just to use a single sprite for anything.

Anyway, like I said in my last post I see where you're coming from since you've been entrusted, like the word describes the situation perfectly, with everything. So technically there is nothing that can be done about it. I just wanted to make that post because, like I also said earlier, I really got the same vibes from posts that basically just say "users are ungrateful if they don't do ____". It's not that black or white.

@Baŝto brought interesting points too, but I would like to add something about colors.
Usually for games you'd just use a base sprite and change the colors in the game rather than creating a new image file. Since recolor also is a derivative, how do you even solve this? You can't really ask them to create a new file for each recolor because if it uses saturation rather than swapping even for 16bits that's a whipping 281*n trillion images you'll have to make.

Unrelated, does LPC even have an official color palette now that I think about it?

EDIT: Can't figure how to format text tags in this forum.

Saturday, January 2, 2021 - 22:55

"As Bluecarrot said, the attribution requirement is non-negotiable. We have been entrusted with the stewardship of these free assets by all their respective artists. We do not have the right or authority to "reduce the price" on the goods we're showcasing on behalf of the owners of those goods."
Ah, right. I wasn't thinking of this in terms of contract, that makes sense.

... but, that stills raises a few questions to me. Like we talked above with the reddit example, if people needs to go over a long list of columns/files/whatever we might use at the time, just to use a few sprites I still think it might discourage a good amount of them. But if they just put the whole file, they'll end up with a lot of names that aren't even used in their project, so it will be noise in the file for the ones reading who might really be interested in who did what.

Hmm.... Right.. Now I guess I really understand the problem at hand.

Saturday, January 2, 2021 - 22:00

@MedecineStorm:
Right, got a bit sidetracked my bad. Let's just keep it LPC-related, I don't really think we need to go on too much or make another discussion, for now, because like I said it's purely subjective.

"if providing that credit is too much work, developers can always decide not to use that assets."
That's not exactly how I view it. It's not about not providing credits, more like of individual credit that might discourage people. While I do agree that the one file might be a good alternative, I'm not sure it's going to have that much impact. Like, how you'd have a big read_me file that nobody actually bothers to read.
In the immediate this is a good solution, at least for organization purpose for later, but I think that instead of that big file if we could present or make people link something like the original page https://lpc.opengameart.org/, it would be more beneficial. I usually adhere to the concept that visuals talk more than text. Not only it looks good, it also give some history and sneakily explains some licenses so that you can educate people on the fly.

For CSV I was talking from memory, had another look to refresh it. I did remember that at a time it was heavily associated with Microsoft Excel for the "majority" of users, so I'm thinking, maybe wrongly, that it's what most people will end up using, and made by association that it might pose problems for the open-source mindset later. Likely just overthinking but that was my train of thought. But I do think that forcing open-source might have a few cons when we take into consideration the "common user".

For the interest maybe I should reformulate. I was thinking of the interest compared to the alternatives, when it comes to game development. For example, most people will usually look for game assets in places like itch.io, specialized engine-market (RPGMaker, Construct, Unity...). Again, I was thinking in terms of appeal and ease of use. I understand the need to credits work when it's due, but I do think that how it is right now might be detrimental.
To give you a concrete example, I was revisiting the oga-jams submissions. Compared to any other usual itch.io submission, we ended up with pages where we need to scroll down a good amount before even reaching the download link. So other devs who just had a look at that and the rules might think that it's too much of a hassle to do in a jam for what they get. I am not saying they are right or wrong, I am just saying that it will likely happen.
EDIT: Forgot to mention what I had in mind, but the players are likely not going to care about all of this. Yes it's our job as developers/producers to put that info in there, but if we put it in the wrong place it's not going to have any impact. Like how credits rolling in the intro of a game is completely ignored most of the time, unless there's the name of a celebrity.

@bluecarrot16
"This is a little unfair. Those comments were from before castelonia and I did all the work to add credits to the generator. Now the generator makes an attribution statement for you and there is a clear statement about the license with a list of all authors---both for the entire project, and broken down per-file---linked in the README."
Ah, no, you took it the wrong way. It's not much of how it was or is, but how the end-user is likely to view the whole thing on the surface. Yes the single file concept would solve part of it because you'd just have to say "just don't forget to put this file in your project", but that being said is it going to "spread the word" to paraphrase what we usually it, I'm not sure.
I think you both are underestimating how lazy people are. It's a common hot topic when it comes to art and credits, but from my point of view I really think people misunderstand when others don't or forget to credit. There's no ill intent behind it, it's just that they don't know or understand the benefits it might have for the artist. But then again, that's another topic.

Anyway yeah, you are right MedecineStorm when you say that there probably is a LOT to talk about. But for a tl;dr; of my line of reasoning, I'm just more concerned about making it easier for people to find and use OGAart rather than being so strict on the attributions. But like I said I'm mostly a programmer and user rather than a contributor so even if I'm aware of the importance of it, maybe I'm still unconsciously unaware of how really important it is. I'm just playing a bit devil's advocate I admit.
I feel like that if we force too much people to do this if you use, do that, share this, respect this etc... it might be more detrimental that useful. Usually, when someone uses something and you just make a post reminding them that "hey, you forgot to mention X", they will just say oops sorry and do it.

EDIT: Emm... Excuse the awful English, did some fixing where I spot it.

Saturday, January 2, 2021 - 18:47

I'd like to bring my 2cents too.

Now, before I begin I might want to state that I am purely a programmer, so I will likely have a biased opinion towards that fact. But I also think, from my experience, that artists are very pessimistic when it comes to people giving credits. Respectful and grateful users will, others won't regardless of what you tell them, I think it's as simple as that. Anyway there's a lot I want to cover.

First, LPC IS a BIG monster. It's undeniable at this point. Which means, going through all the needed attributions is actually more of a major pain than anything for anyone that wants to use anything from it. I think the amount of work that you both are doing, and still need to do, is proof enough of that. The reddit link you posted bluecarrot16 is, in my opinion, exactly what happens when people consider using things from the LPC, or anything from oga, but eventually give up. To quote the relevant things :
- "How would I know the names of the artists? Is it just better to credit all the artists who contributed instead? It's a hassle to look for which artist did which asset."
-"What is considered derivative? If I tint the asset programmatically in the app/game, is that a derivative that I need to share?"
I think people might interpret this very differently, but from my programmer point of view it's not about "disrespecting the work that has been put by artists" or anything, it's more like of "Do I have to do all of this individually?" and "Does it means that I have to share back whatever I do with it, regardless of medium?". And in the end, they just probably think something like "Man, too much work for a few sprites. I'll just use a full set from the UE4 market or something."

Also, even the solution you are working on currently still raised some questions to me. Should you really use CSV? And not an open-source alternative, or easy to open with another open-source editor since this seems to be advocated most of the time for anything coming out of here? Are most people even going to bother with it, especially when the list has reached such a big state?
In my opinion a third-party using anything from oga would rather have a single link so that they can point "I use things from this place from various artists, if you're interested just go have a look by yourself."
In the 2 times I tried to participate in an OGA jam, I ended up spending more time reworking, or more like reorganizing and making sure colors matches than anything else. In the end I made a single very small file that I shared back but it still made me put 5+1 different links. I can only imagine how many links you'd need if you start to work on a complete game.

As much as I like OGA, despite all the "good" things you can find here you have to admit that there isn't a lot of interest. Why is that? Even more when game engine like Godot for example are gaining more and more popularity. A place with free sprites that you can use? You'd think that people and your common "chinese-bootleg" like people in the gaming industry like to call them, would have a blast using everything they can find. Yet that's not really the case.
What I'm going to say is purely subjective but :

1*) Looking for anything in opengameart is a bit tedious, when the website actually seems to work properly. For example, for the past maybe 2 months and even while writing this, whenever I click on something I have to wait anywhere between 10 to 60 sec, when it doesn't simply timeout. But again that's not something you can just fix with a snap of a finger, anyone understands that hosting, updating and maintaining such a place is obviously a lot of work.

2*) The quality of what you can find is completely random. From doodles, attempts, partially completed to advertise for their own market, professional one-shot sprite... You can find anything, and it's both a blessing and a curse for obvious reasons.

3*) Goes in hand with 2, and this is my view as a programmer but I really, really feel like that opengameart is more of a place for artists to post things rather than users to find and use things. It reminds me of the days when deviantart was popular with spritework and mockups. The sprites? The tiles? Absolutely amazing. Could they be used to make a game? Probably not. I know why, but most people who expect to find everything ready don't. I try to explain to them that drawing something you want in the moment is not the same as making sprites for a game, which is why you should usually commission the artists.
For example, we can have a look at Kenney. Became extremely popular, even called the "asset Jesus". Please do not think that I am degrading his work or anything but compare what's happening. There are lots of sprites and 3D models that are technically better than his, but most users would rather go to Kenney. Why? I think it's simple, because he designed his work with game development in mind, rather than artistic work. If I pick any set from his website, I can technically make a full game of it, because it has everything needed and uniform artwork.

Anyway, just like I said at the beginning I don't want you to think that I am ungrateful or expect to get everything for free. Far from it. Liam, Buch, surt, GrafixKid, Kenney, chasergaming, George Bailey, Adam Atomic... All those names that I still remember without even looking are all artists that posted something here, names that I would probably casually throw and suggest while talking about arts with other people. So yeah, just because I think looking into a 100+ credits file might be annoying doesn't mean that I don't respect the work that the artists put into it MedecineStorm. I'm probably not the only one, you should consider this ;)

I also think that LPC, while being big, still isn't as useful as you people might think. But again, that's subjective, and I don't want you to think that I only want to speak ill of things in the discussion so I won't go into detail. Unless you are interested.

Tuesday, August 21, 2018 - 17:16

Well, I'm mainly giving suggestions if you really are bored.

If you can get a commission I'd suggest you to go for that instead though. (that's what I usually say to my artist friend too)

Tuesday, August 21, 2018 - 17:11

Hmm...

When people think of the snes they usually think of contra-ish characters, explosions, robots, that kind of settings. That is, when they don't think of the rpgs. It's kind of amusing how the mood for both themes is usually so different.

If you don't know what to do you can try making stuff that you think will go with your musics? Since you can do both.

Tuesday, August 21, 2018 - 17:03

@Spring

No idea. I like to say "you're the artist, just draw what you want".

Incidentally I also really like your snes musics :p (I did plan to use your "play the snes again" one with https://opengameart.org/content/hero-spritesheets-ars-notoria and make some kind of platformer but couldn't find good backgrounds/enemies to go with the snes-like/mecha/apo theme)

Tuesday, August 21, 2018 - 16:57

C*H*A*R*A*C*T*E*R

I don't have any ideas but OGA could use some more 2D (animated) characters. We have plenty of tiles but not a lot of characters to run along them. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Tuesday, August 21, 2018 - 16:06

@whitthelove

Yeah. It's mostly because I didn't submit anything to the jam so I didn't think it'd be worth it. But anyway nvm, I just submitted everything so there's that. Hopefully I didn't mess up the licensing since I have no idea how they work, please feel free to correct me on their pages if necessary.

As for the jam next year I think I'll just try to prepare it a good month ahead, since there is definitely a lot of artwork to do if you want to push forward a bit the game you want to do.

.. speaking of the jam, 1 year is... a lot. While I do think that some weekly jams like people do are overkill, how about some kind of mini-game challenge (just like the art challenge) once in a while, maybe one every 3 or 4 months?

Tuesday, August 21, 2018 - 13:39

@chasersgaming

Huh? I feel like you're both praising too much but sure I don't mind submitting them, I'll do it once I get back all the original licenses then.

"asked to share to their work optionally, perhaps it should be a requirement?"

You mean their original work? I'm not sure about this. Someone like me modifying existing stuff is not going to mind but I'm not sure someone making a game with original artwork is going to like that idea.

I still think that the assets for the jam should be exclusively limited to what exists in OGA.

 

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