A Battle For Good Open-Source Game Graphics?

[numasan]

@Dragonlord
And what type of game do you want with this ?ber engine? Will the engines features matter if it's YAFPS? Do you have an idea for a highly innovative game and the skills to make it? Can you encourage others to make it? (judging by your other replies, I'd say no...)

I think it is wonderful that so many FLOSS games exist, and that the engine/game developers have fun doing it. Creating a modern game is a huge task, so in that regard FLOSS games will always look/play like something a few years behind times, but as stated by others: Gameplay first.

I am not a developer/programmer, and have no idea how to make useful and beautiful GLSL shaders, but I am a graphic artist (currently only compositing with a grain of 3D). I want to contribute with graphics, but there are some points:
1) Creating content for a modern looking game, never mind a "next-gen" type game, is impossible to do with only a handful of artists working in their spare time (MOD artists reuse a lot of art assets from the main game). The content needs to be equal in quality, so it's better to have a game look bland overall, than having a few models of high quality among many others of poorer quality. This requires a whole lot of planning (artists sticking to a defined concept) and a lot of hard work (equal quality of all content). No use of a FLOSS AAA-level engine if this point is not in place.
2) If I'm going to dedicate a portion of my free time to a FLOSS game project, it MUST be a game that I enjoy immensely, that I want to see live up to it's potential, and that I can have FUN while creating content. Almost all FLOSS games could use better graphics, but not all captures me enough to help out. It also doesn't help that I don't game that much anymore as I used to...
3) The workflow must also be considered, getting content in the engine easily, create ingame effects without relying mostly on developers, maybe some sort of visual GLSL creation tool, etc.

I agree with many that the visual representation of a game is very important today, and I would love to see a modern FLOSS game rival, say, HL2. I'm just afraid it is too much to expect, and I don't think the majority of Windows gamers will even glance at open source games on Linux. It is much more important to get studios like Blizzard and Valve on board, than to convince people to play our free, open games, made with great engines and the best art we can possibly create. Instead of competing with commercial games, we should create fun, quirky games with a unique art style, manageable by 1 or 2 artists in average. I think that is already what is happening.

[L33F3R]

I agree with many that the visual representation of a game is very important today, and I would love to see a modern FLOSS game rival, say, HL2. I'm just afraid it is too much to expect, and I don't think the majority of Windows gamers will even glance at open source games on Linux. It is much more important to get studios like Blizzard and Valve on board, than to convince people to play our free, open games, made with great engines and the best art we can possibly create. Instead of competing with commercial games, we should create fun, quirky games with a unique art style, manageable by 1 or 2 artists in average. I think that is already what is happening.

Its very important to recognize the little guys who dedicate there time for making little things for us to enjoy. They deserve alot more credit then they get.

However when it comes to larger projects its important to remember that rome wasnt built in a day and it wasnt built by a man and his wife. When you beat 1 of these games look at the credits, they go on for a LOOOONG time. It took 50 people to port GTA 4 to windows and it was an awful port.

I think a major project COULD be done but would take a large collective of people and some strong leadership. However i might add that the linux community is good with both of these things and even has some talent to show it off.

[deanjo]

I think a major project COULD be done but would take a large collective of people and some strong leadership. However i might add that the linux community is good with both of these things and even has some talent to show it off.

I'd be willing to bet that most of the development on these games done by the linux community is pretty lopsided to linux port meanwhile assets are primarily done using closed sourced solutions on other OS's. Even projects such as Big Buck relied on many closed apps (especially when it comes to audio).

[L33F3R]

ahhhh yes thats key. The assets themselves created in closed source apps like 3ds max and even programming in visual studio.

[numasan]

I'd be willing to bet that most of the development on these games done by the linux community is pretty lopsided to linux port meanwhile assets are primarily done using closed sourced solutions on other OS's. Even projects such as Big Buck relied on many closed apps (especially when it comes to audio).

BBB relied mostly on open source apps. Only audio was done with closed source. There is no reason why art assets can't be done purely in OSS, except personal preference.

[deanjo]

BBB relied mostly on open source apps. Only audio was done with closed source. There is no reason why art assets can't be done purely in OSS, except personal preference.

I realize that BBB audio was done with closed source (thus why I mentioned it). Ironically if they wanted to deal with the pain it could have been done as well with OSS apps.

[numasan]

Sorry, but you wrote that BBB "relied on many closed apps", when really only the audio part was done with closed apps (because it was handled outside of the production). The point being that all graphics was made with open tools, as was the pipeline. People working on open source games are not dependant on a closed toolchain. Artists wanting to contribute are not limited to commercial tools on a specific platform. That some choose to use a cracked 3dsmax, well...

[kraftman]

So much for freedom when you have impassible barriers. It still has restrictions on what you can and cannot use with it. If GPL was more loose I have no doubt you would see great innovations like dtrace and zfs already in the kernel for example.

Sorry Deanjo, but it's total bullshit. GPL has less barriers then BSD, because you can take BSD code into Linux kernel, but you can't take Linux code into BSD kernel etc. You're talking about giving freedom to companies like apple, but GPL says - Kiss my ass. Btw. stop this idiotic dodging please.There are serious reasons why GPL doesn't allow to take ZFS or DTrace into the kernel.

In your opinion

. It barriers true freedom of what one can contribute on what terms they want. Public domain release is required for that.

In your opinion it barriers true freedom, but I'm talking about code freedom not about freedom to doing what you want with it (it's lawlessness or something like this)

The freespace license does not prohibit you in any way of making your code contributions free as you see fit.

That's why I mentioned I'm talking about overall not about FreeSpace or Homeworld.

[Duo Maxwell]

So, in order to be more creative, Linux game devs should clone tired old console games instead of YAFPS?

Are you offended by the proliferation of Rogue-likes?

Eh, I was just tossing up examples of games that have shown to be still wildly popular even in their modern iterations while half asleep, chronic insomnia will do that to your mind. Go look up sales charts for top selling games on the consoles and pc for the last 5 years. You telling me we can't do ANY of that? We ren't just a few years behind, we're more like at least a decade behind in terms of overall capability.

As for the art assets, try asking the Mac users, many of them have experience with it, especially with the music end since every Mac in recen years has come with a great little app called Garage Band which is built specifically to let any idiot make music. It's pretty versitile and many of the people using it are simply giving away their tracks, it wouldn't be hard to you know, just ask them if they could license some songs nd sound effects in a compatible license to you.

As for making money, I stand by that if its your hobby to do this you should still try and milk it, you can even do it while staying true to the GPL. But you first have to make something that omeone would actually pay money for. Theres no law saying that if you make an open source game that you automatically have to make 0 dollars in the process. There is however a stipulation of you having to produce something of at least moderatly interesting quality before you can get other people to open their wallets.

Go ahead, try and find a reason why we can't get everything required for a decent game that you could actually sell, I say Phoronix should start organizing it, maybe even go and ask around the other linux gaming sites about it, hell, even the Mac ones, they're almost as hard up for games as we are so I'm sure you'll get some help from them.

Call it "Phoronix And The Quest For The $5 Game".

Its very important to recognize the little guys who dedicate there time for making little things for us to enjoy. They deserve alot more credit then they get.

However when it comes to larger projects its important to remember that rome wasnt built in a day and it wasnt built by a man and his wife. When you beat 1 of these games look at the credits, they go on for a LOOOONG time. It took 50 people to port GTA 4 to windows and it was an awful port.

I think a major project COULD be done but would take a large collective of people and some strong leadership. However i might add that the linux community is good with both of these things and even has some talent to show it off.

If I'm not mistaken, wasn't the issue with the GTA4 port mainly one of processing power? I remember reading that it just seemed to be a limitation of the x86 cpu not being able to hold up the weight of the massive city engines and all the stuff the game has going at once that the console CPUs where able to handle much better due to their design. As I remember the players usig qads didn't get the slowdowns much if at all due to having more CPU grunt to throw at the engine.

I'm not sure if you understood me. I didn't say "funny" as in humorous, I said "fun" as in it gives me pleasure to work on it. I would also request that you cease with the insulting dialog(as in referring to something as being "badly designed"). I won't continue any discussion here if the insults continue, and I think it's in the best interest of the non-developers to show a little courtesy when they are requesting of the developers.

These engines are not nearly as inflexible as you think. I've seen a variety of game types created from them that are not FPS.

Insulting? You have yet to see insulting, besides if you're as old school as you claim then theres nothing anyone could be able to say to you on the "bad ole' internets" that could insult you. Or are you really that fragile as to have your e-p3|\|0? damaged so easily? I'd have figured an old salt of the internet would be made of tougher stuff then that...

[kraftman]

If I'm not mistaken, wasn't the issue with the GTA4 port mainly one of processing power? I remember reading that it just seemed to be a limitation of the x86 cpu not being able to hold up the weight of the massive city engines and all the stuff the game has going at once that the console CPUs where able to handle much better due to their design. As I remember the players usig qads didn't get the slowdowns much if at all due to having more CPU grunt to throw at the engine.

It's possible. Some time ago when new console arrived it was faster then PCs. Right now you can probably have PC which is much faster then the fastest console. The point is many PC owners doesn't have high end quad core PCs and maybe that's why someone mentioned about lack of processing power. I bet if GTA4 will be designed primary for PCs porting it to consoles will be a problem too.


It's really difficult to make a game which can compete with commercial titles. It has to be polished in every aspect, it has to be innovative and very playable. Many commercial titles which are developed for years and have big budgets are disappointing sometimes. Game reviewers are merciless