Flying Skull Modelling

[Danimal]

I dont think it needs any change, and before Svends says anything, the blade in the tip has a good size, remember fantasy games tend to have oversized weapons, DK being one of them (and they look cool).

The original model is from the hi poli skeleton on OGA, modifications done by me.
Vertices: 4720 , we have agreed to use hi poli models, which i think its a good decision, since actual computers can move them without problem and when OD finally reaches its final phase i doubt there will be a pc which cant move them. It would also give the first person part a better appearance.

[oln]

Looks good!

[StefanP.MUC]

Fantastic!

[charlie]

I'm torn.

On one hand I like that you've been motivated to do this, and motivation is always a big thing with open source projects. It looks good although many hours away from being game ready (no texture, high poly ec).

On the other hand, I'm really disappointed. You've reached out to OGA to solve a big problem for the project; lack of art / contributors. When somebody does contribute something, do you A) give feedback to help them refine it or B) go NIH nutty and remake your own instead.

There are 2 big killers of projects - one is motivation (hence I'm torn) but the other is perfectionism. Here somebody has contributed an imperfect model that is textured and lowpoly. Given time and direction, I'm sure he could have improved it for you, I'm sure he is learning and his skills are just developing. These are the types of guys that can be ongoing contributors to a project, as they get more and more involved in the community and concept, and their skills get better and their contributions become of a high standard.

No, instead you basically kicked him in the proverbial nuts and may as well have told him to f^£$ off, because that's what this kind of reaction implies. "You're not good enough mate."

I mean, not one comment, not one attempt to interact with him?

I ask you; why should they bother contributing any more models? Game ready models get rejected without any interaction at all. It's tragic.

I guess I'm not torn much at all.

[charlie]

How are you going to solve the biggest issue in making a project successful - getting more contributors - if you reject them at the starting blocks?

You can say 'no' without saying 'not good enough' - if the atmosphere is not an encouraging one, people won't hang around.

[svenskmand]

Heh, I lol'ed Charlie and Danimal

Charlie is right , but you can of course give the guy hints at what could be improved and praise him (allot) for the parts you like That is a good start and you will get closer to your idea of how it should look

Also Danimal be careful you do not make the blades too large

Danimal why not improve his model? That way you show appreciation and still improves the model?

[oln]

I mean, not one comment, not one attempt to interact with him?

I hadn't checked the OGA thread before you said this, so I wasn't aware of the model, but I agree. We should treasure people who want to help out.

The original model looks okay, maybe except the spine, even though it's quite low-poly. (Though I don't think we mentioned polygon/vertex count in our post, so that could be excused.)

Since we have two alternative models now though, we have to make a decision on what to do with them. Maybe the low-poly version could be used for something else? Like, a spell, or some sort of weapon. Then we can make use of both.

I think the main reason why the project has (temporarily) stagnated is due to not having anyone that has been able to do much work on the code-side lately. (And even if some people are it's easy to get demotivated if no one else is able to do work.) And this is not something we can do a great lot about right now unless we get lucky. We do have a bunch of media lined up now that is not in the game due to this. (Like the new forge and walls for instance.) Everything that is in the game right now besides creatures has hard-coded model names in the code. Creatures can be specified in the level file, but the way it's done might be a bit complicated. Additionally the normal map texture names are currently also in the code. Ideally, it should be easy for artists to actually test models and other media in the game without messing with the code. We started work on this with creatures, but it's not finished yet.

I think an important thing to get contributions is showing people that things are happening, such as posting stuff on the website. If the project looks dead, then most people won't bother digging further (pun intended). We are working on the concept, and media even though code isn't being produced. Maybe we could make like a biweekly, or monthly update post or something.

[svenskmand]

Oln: +1

and good idea with the monthly/weekly update, that would be perfect for the blog

[Danimal]

i see your points Charlie, you have a lot of reason there, the main reason i barely model is because of lack of time. I get you are torn because im the main person pushing to get new people here, didnt think about any of that, kind of contradicting myself, rigth? Im going to answer that person and invite him here after i clean anything "flaming"(which i seen to have a gift for ). We gotta admit the OGA contest as been awful, but if at least one person has been recruited is still a success, rigth?.

Regarding the skull, i think mine is better. Polis can be lowered a lot since most of them are from each vertebrae, textures are done (bone ones from oga and some blender materials). Animating will be harder to me because of my poor exparience on that.

Im still thinking how to tell that guy this... (you beat me in experience managing open source projects by a lot, help needed here) so he can be encouraged to do something else.

[oln]

He already read this thread danimal, so you don't have to tell him He seemed okay with it, though as I said, we could still use his model for something else in the game.

[Danimal]

OOOps, blunder. I feel bad now, im dying to have more people around here to figth over pointless things. I hope he comes back, hope its not too late yet.

[Myckel]

I hope he comes back, hope its not too late yet.

Neh, not to late, but now you made me to register here to reply. The model on OGA was more of a learning experience for me to learn about rigging and skinning. And it caused you to create a better model. Seeing OD slumbering so much in development (lots of games that I follow seem to have this lately) I wanted to see how this would be picked up. If it didn't cause much difference I wouldn't have wasted that much time, taking into consideration that I also learned something from it. Yet, it caused someone to start modeling again.

I'm willing to help the project out from time to time with creating models and I think rigging/skinning/animating might also be possible now, but having more guidance on implementation in the game would be nice (how the coders want the models to be supplied in terms of polies and rigging/skinning/animation). Also some reference concept art would be nice (this one was one the few with some reference art on the wiki).

Personally I think low-poly models would be sufficient as placeholders, improving them over time to higher models and better animation. I don't see it as something static. It also opens the field to less experienced modellers, lowering their threshold. I think Glest and Summoning Wars are two examples where it worked out nice.

[StefanP.MUC]

and good idea with the monthly/weekly update, that would be perfect for the blog

I was planning to do this anyways. But we also need something to write about. Maybe I'll write something about the mots important blockers: The bug and the not-inlcuded models.

[Danimal]

Im happy you didnt take it too badly, yes, i kind of said and did two different things. Sorry about that, as you can see lots of jobs are just lying around here waiting to be taken. But the thing that made me slow to a halt is that lately it seems none of the new content is making it to the game, great walls, new models, but none into the game (kind of makes me wonder if its just a waste of time). I know, that as i do, the others have their own lives and jobs, but sincerely i havent seen any advancement in a few months. And so i tried to impulse the OGA events. Since the code part is the one holding us now, wouldnt it be possible to recruit a programmer from any of the other open source games of this forum? Charlie could give us hints on this since he moderates all of them. Or at least streamline all part of the code related to modelling and art so its easier to implement anything new.

[charlie]

Personally I think low-poly models would be sufficient as placeholders, improving them over time to higher models and better animation. I don't see it as something static. It also opens the field to less experienced modellers, lowering their threshold. I think Glest and Summoning Wars are two examples where it worked out nice.

This.

The one truism of open source; nothing is final. So approach the project as such. Something OK is better than nothing amazing. If you have suitable models, even if they are not to the standards you dream of, use them. They can be improved - either iteratively or with fresh replacements.

Glest, Summoning Wars, Wesnoth (the art for that was initially garbage, now look at it), Freeciv, etc etc. Only projects created by dedicated teams (0AD) have a chance of maintaining a very high standard from the beginning.

I'm not saying you have to accept everything, but at make suggestions on improvements rather than just rejecting outright, give people a starting point.

Re: getting programmers. Post a showcase thread everywhere and update it, with the contents of the latest blog post for example. Go to gamedev.net, slashdot, wherever. Spend 30mins to 1hour just posting asking for help. People generally won't find OpenDungeons on their own, you have to reach out to more mainstream areas that people are more likely to visit. That's how I made Free Gamer popular; I relentlessly posted in all the main Linux forums (ubuntu, gentoo forums etc) and on popular site like digg, fsdaily (not reddit, it wasn't popular yet) and people ended up reading about it. Go to the popular gamedev sites, find out where programmers hang out etc.

[Myckel]

Also, post new releases on Freecode. That will at least put it in the spotlight and show people it is active.

[charlie]

Also, post new releases on Freecode. That will at least put it in the spotlight and show people it is active.

Freecode, freshmeat, and digg, fsdaily, reddit, slashdot. Anywhere it might get noticed.

Plus the more places/pages link to the project, the higher OD will score in google rankings.

[Danimal]

Done, you can grab it from OGA:

http://opengameart.org/content/flying-skull