Art Director Needed

[andrewbuck]

Although the code is coming along pretty nicely, the game still mostly looks pretty bad. This is despite the fact that the project has (or has access to) some really nice textures and 3d models. The reason for this disparity is because I don't have time to keep the game's art package up to date (also I don't want to clutter the git repository with hundreds of megabytes of models, etc). Because of this I would like someone to take on the role of art director for the project. I can help anyone who is interested learn how to export things from Blender into the OGRE format used in the game, as well as show you how to edit the level files, etc to get the content loaded into the game.

We also need to figure out how to distribute the art content to the users of the game. My suggestion is that we put up four zip files on the sourceforge page.

* The game itself (just the executable) will be in a zip file by itself. This will keep it small and make it easier to update more frequently.
* The DLL files needed to run the game will be in the second zip file (these should only need to be downloaded once).
* The artwork (3d meshes, textures, maps, sounds, etc) will be in a third zip file in the format and directory structure needed for the game.
* The fourth (optional) zip file will contain the raw materials needed to make the artwork (full sized hi-res textures, .blend files for the models, uncut sound samples, etc).

Every once in a while we can publish a "dummies download zip" with the whole game in it to make it simpler for people to get the game installed, but the individual content zips described above can be uploaded much more frequently and then just unzipped into the game directory to "patch" the game to the latest version. We could maybe even build functionality into the game engine to do this automatically.

-Buck

[Skorpio]

What exactly would be the job of the art director? I'm not really interested in more work, but if no one else wants to sacrifice himself, I'd do it.

Your suggestion for four zip archives sounds good.

[andrewbuck]

The art director would manage the third and fourth zip files above (i.e. the ones pertaining to game content rather than code) as well as be in charge of the overall design process. This would include things like making sure the art has a consistent "look and feel" (for example as cool as it would be we don't want nazi's with machine guns fighting dragons and knights with swords). The art director would also be the final arbiter (as much as that can exist in FOSS anyway) over what the game content looks/sounds like.

I think you would be the perfect person for this Skorpio since you are already the one contributing models, etc. I can help somewhat by making scripts for you which zip up the content into a package and properly name it with the date, etc, but I don't have time to aggregate all the content together and ensure that stuff is consistent (plus I have no design sense).

Note: On the scripts, they would likely have to be scripts for a linux system because windows doesn't really provide much of a scripting environment.

-Buck

[Skorpio]

OK then I'll take the job. I don't use Linux, so I guess you would have to tell me how I should name the models, etc.

[andrewbuck]

Cool, that will help out a lot. I am on skype (username andrewbuck40) if you would like to use chat/voice on there and I am also on the #freegamer and #opendungeons IRC channels on irc.freenode.net.

EDIT: of course we can continue the discussion on here too if you would like.

-Buck

[Bodsda]

Note: On the scripts, they would likely have to be scripts for a linux system because windows doesn't really provide much of a scripting environment.
-Buck

Oh dear oh dear... If you want to tell me exactly how the script should work I think I could hack up a script that is compatible on both systems. The most difficult bit on windows will be the archiving of the files, but there must be a way.

Bodsda

[andrewbuck]

Bodsda,

I assume you mean something interpreted by perl or python, these would be cross platform as you say, however on windows you don't have programs like tar, zip, etc in your path automatically in the scripting environment so it is a bit of a problem. I don't think it will be too big of an issue though. Skorpio and I were discussing various things on IRC and I think it can be set up on his end in such a way that it will be easy for him to just zip up one folder anyway, making the script unneccesary. The only reason I thought a script might be needed is that the files might have been scattered in several different locations but it looks like that won't be a problem.

-Buck