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opentextures.com?

PostPosted: 16 Apr 2012, 13:48
by ctdabomb
It would be cool to have a website like cgtexutres.com or OGA except for just FOSS licensed textures......
I would be willing to help make/moderate/whatever is needed if this would happen.
I know that OGA already has some textures, but it would be cool to have a website dedicated to FOSS textures.

Anyone like this idea or have any suggestions? :think:

Re: opentextures.com?

PostPosted: 16 Apr 2012, 15:03
by qubodup
We have http://burningwell.com/
and http://opengameart.org/

Both have texture sections.

Does serve the cause or is just having a spot not enough in your eyes and you think that there should be a website dedicated *only* to textures?

See also http://freegamedev.net/wiki/Free_resources

Re: opentextures.com?

PostPosted: 16 Apr 2012, 15:17
by ctdabomb
http://freegamedev.net/wiki/Free_resources - is really helpful.

My idea probably won't work :( though I think it would be cool

Re: opentextures.com?

PostPosted: 16 Apr 2012, 17:28
by qubodup
You have not described your idea enough for me to understand what it is. ;)

Re: opentextures.com?

PostPosted: 16 Apr 2012, 17:32
by ctdabomb
my idea is have a website like those mentioned above that is just for textures that are of course FOSS licensed.

Re: opentextures.com?

PostPosted: 18 Apr 2012, 03:36
by Tranberry
I would love a deeper clarification of this idea, I don't follow the need, yet.

Re: opentextures.com?

PostPosted: 18 Apr 2012, 13:41
by ctdabomb
I felt like that there wasn't one really good super place to get open source textures, i knew that there were places with some(or a lot), but I felt that there should be a website entirely dedicated open source textures, so I threw the idea out there to see what people thought.

Re: opentextures.com?

PostPosted: 18 Apr 2012, 13:58
by Knitter
I think that trying to improve the available textures at OGA is a better option. The infrastructure is already in place, a community exists and most of the initial effort has been made. Why not just join OGA and dedicate yourself to the texture section/category?

In other words, what would yet another website/hosting bring that OGA doesn't offer already? Why would I choose your texture website and not an already established and proven place like OGA?

I understand that you may want to have better textures, increase the number of existing textures and provide a more texture focused place but wouldn't it be better to do all those things in OGA instead of creating yet another project?

Re: opentextures.com?

PostPosted: 19 Apr 2012, 12:39
by qubodup
One problem that OGA has is that the "textures" section is just a "search" form with specific parameters. However there is no <h1> or <h2> which says "Textures" or "Open Source Textures" or "Free, legal textures". The <head><title> only says "Search Art | OpenGameArt.org". This way, people using a search engine to find "open source textures" will not see OGA as one of the first results, even though it might fit their needs very well.

I believe it would be a similar effort to make OGA have appropriate tags that give it multiple faces, which would make it better-indexed for search engines or to create a new website for textures only. But creating a new website would mean double the maintenance effort. Improving OGA definitely would be much more valuable to the community.

OGA is drupal-based. If you can work with that platform and want to help, get started by getting to know the community via forums and/or IRC. :)

Instead of sleeping tonight I created qubodup.github.com/ost, which is obviously heavily inspired from cgtextures (ironically, they will soon be updating their web design in the near future). All image links lead to searches on either http://opengameart.org or http://Burningwell.org . Who knows, perhaps it will direct search engine queries saying "open source textures" into the right direction one day :)

Re: opentextures.com?

PostPosted: 19 Apr 2012, 13:51
by ctdabomb
cool! :D

Re: opentextures.com?

PostPosted: 19 Apr 2012, 15:00
by Tranberry
Q, you are a hero. :D

Re: opentextures.com?

PostPosted: 28 Apr 2012, 23:40
by BartK
In response to this thread, we're working on some major changes to texture browsing at OGA. Also, manually categorizing almost four thousand individual textures is a royal pain in the butt, so a big thanks to the community members who are helping with that! :)

Here's the link:

http://opengameart.org/textures/all

From the main page. you can get to it by going to Browse -> Textures.

Re: opentextures.com?

PostPosted: 29 Apr 2012, 00:13
by leilei
oh no, you have the infamous cgtextures derivatives I had to pull from OA years ago causing a controversial release revocation (oa 0.8.0), even worse they're in jpeg

Re: opentextures.com?

PostPosted: 29 Apr 2012, 01:24
by BartK
Wonderful. :p

A link to one of the textures in the offending pack would be immensely helpful. :)

Re: opentextures.com?

PostPosted: 29 Apr 2012, 10:20
by BartK
Come on, don't leave me hanging. You're killin' me, Smalls!

If we've got a bad pack of textures, I need to take them down. Can you do me a favor and point one out so I can get rid of them?

Re: opentextures.com?

PostPosted: 29 Apr 2012, 13:42
by Tranberry
Great move Bart, really like how you handle stuff. :)

leilei; it would be lovely to know what pack are infected/bad.

Re: opentextures.com?

PostPosted: 29 Apr 2012, 13:49
by qubodup
About the cgtexture derivatives which leilei pointed out: TRaK made textures based on cgtextures. He got permission from the owner of cgtextures to release those textures under ccbysa/gpl. I whined about it on the blog http://freegamer.blogspot.de/2008/09/op ... s-and.html I recommend you contact cgtextures' owner and ask.

http://opengameart.org/textures/all - cool!!!! What is missing is the <head><title> to contain "Free, Open Source Textures: Wood - Varnished - Dark | OpenGameArt.org" ( http://opengameart.org/textures/5559 example) or similar..

Re: opentextures.com?

PostPosted: 29 Apr 2012, 14:09
by ctdabomb
Wow! it's cool! thanks Bart! :)

Edit: one annoying thing though, when you click on a category, the "file tree" doesn't stay in its position with the open folders and resets itself.

Re: opentextures.com?

PostPosted: 29 Apr 2012, 14:23
by qubodup
Note: http://opengameart.org/textures/all shows different results, depending on whether or not I am logged in.

Re: opentextures.com?

PostPosted: 29 Apr 2012, 23:15
by BartK
@qubodup & leilei

If it's actually the case that he specifically got permission to release those textures as cc-by-sa from the owner of the originals, then that's all that's necessary for them to be legitimate. Leilei, can you confirm this?

@ctdabomb

That's a known issue. I'll get it fixed soon.

Re: opentextures.com?

PostPosted: 30 Apr 2012, 00:04
by leilei
This post on their defunct forums answered my question.

Re: opentextures.com?

PostPosted: 30 Apr 2012, 00:19
by BartK
Okay, so what's this about them explicitly allowing the textures to be CC-BY-SA?

Re: opentextures.com?

PostPosted: 30 Apr 2012, 02:12
by leilei
They weren't CC-BY-SA, they were GPL because it was also derived from GPL'ed evillair textures from Nexuiz, then mixed with the encumbering cgtextures works.
Since I operate on a strict better-safe-than-sorry approach for my project I had to let them go and be more paranoid about contributions from then on. I only audit what comes submitted to the SVN Commits thread for example, and i don't commit what's outside of that thread. There's also personal bias to consider, as I was insulted prior to the removal.

Sorry for dragging this slightly off-topic. CGTextures is a shortcut for many just like SoundIdeas is a shortcut for sound engineers, and some only understand "GPL" as a blanket freeware license and forget about the entitlement of source providing part of it too.

Open Source Textures

PostPosted: 30 Apr 2012, 17:54
by qubodup
I hope that OGA's texture section will be (one of) the first results(s) when people search?q=open+source+textures. My latest FG blog post seems to be #6 now, hopefully making the OGA page more visible and climb that ladder over time.

Re: opentextures.com?

PostPosted: 30 Apr 2012, 18:53
by Sauer2
Suggestion: I can't find the term "open source textures" on the page. According to Wikipedia, metatags are dead because of overuse, search engines parse the page text these days.
So: How about you put a small, descriptive subtitle into each category, such as: "This category contains <span class="bold_font">open source textures</span>, which can be used for modelling, mapping, etc." ?