Most Open-Source Game Artwork Is Awful

[NomadDemon]

The solution is simple. 1. Stop peddling Blender as the solution to everything. Blender has a SHIT interface and it won't get better by just claiming "aww you don't want to invest time" that argument is bullshit. Caligari Truespace hasn't got half the modern stuff blender has yet it makes better art because it's easy to use, and it's been a dead project for like 5 years now. Open source projects need reasonable tools. The lack of reasonable level editors/importing tools hinders development massively. I don't want to develop freespace 2 mods/levels on windows I want to do it on linux. But none of the tools are linux native. FIX IT. I shouldn't have to because I'm art focussed not code focussed. BTW I AM trying to fix these complaints by editing mg2modeller.sf.net but fixing C code memory leaks is a total bitch and I haven't got the time to waste on it. I am hitting coding brick walls because funnily enough I'm not a school-trained programmer. Vegastrike massively suffers from this. Great engine, shit editing tools. I'm tired of asking for this for ten years, I'm tired of seeing stuff like the Wing Commander Saga project being 1000x better than Vegastrike because a mod team on Windows can actually make missions and playtest them without needing to know python, and function calls. Open source gaming is shit because open source game development is shit. FIX the engines by making decent tools. An engine that runs UT5 graphics but has no level editor is a BROKEN engine and until open source game devs realise this their games will continue to be broken. The same issue runs across all levels of Open Source game development. Really amazing code, but no tools to leverage that code in useful ways.

ok i will give you 3ds max and blender, then you will make some models, we will se HOW INTERFACE AFFECT WORK RESULT.

it have nothing to do with it. belive me. you seed some fud.

[DMJC]

The solution

The solution is simple. 1. Stop peddling Blender as the solution to everything. Blender has a SHIT interface and it won't get better by just claiming "aww you don't want to invest time" that argument is bullshit. Caligari Truespace hasn't got half the modern stuff blender has yet it makes better art because it's easy to use, and it's been a dead project for like 5 years now. Open source projects need reasonable tools. The lack of reasonable level editors/importing tools hinders development massively. I don't want to develop freespace 2 mods/levels on windows I want to do it on linux. But none of the tools are linux native. FIX IT. I shouldn't have to because I'm art focussed not code focussed. BTW I AM trying to fix these complaints by editing mg2modeller.sf.net but fixing C code memory leaks is a total bitch and I haven't got the time to waste on it. I am hitting coding brick walls because funnily enough I'm not a school-trained programmer. Vegastrike massively suffers from this. Great engine, shit editing tools. I'm tired of asking for this for ten years, I'm tired of seeing stuff like the Wing Commander Saga project being 1000x better than Vegastrike because a mod team on Windows can actually make missions and playtest them without needing to know python, and function calls. Open source gaming is shit because open source game development is shit. FIX the engines by making decent tools. An engine that runs UT5 graphics but has no level editor is a BROKEN engine and until open source game devs realise this their games will continue to be broken. The same issue runs across all levels of Open Source game development. Really amazing code, but no tools to leverage that code in useful ways.

[madjr]

No plug for http://lpc.opengameart.org/ ? Seems like a fine plan they have there- looking forward to the results of it.

exactly what i thought.

i think phoronix hasnt even mentioned once the Liberated Pixel Cup open source game art contest ...

shame Michael !

[titi]

Give people easy ways to mod the game

I think there are not that many artists out there who are able to make nice 3d models.
What we did with MegaGlest is to make modding the game VERY easy. even kids can do this and by this we go more and more people who mainly make artwork and many mods! The big benefit that even other OpenSource projects will have from this, is the fact that there are many people now, learning how to use blender/gimp to make 3d models! So give the people really easy ways to modify things and you will see many more artists soon, who simply have fun to create good artwork for open source games .

examples what modders do! ( That they cannot do more is mainly a problem of the older engine :-( ) :

[titi]

artists need motivation too

I think there are not that many artists out there who are able to make nice 3d models.
What we did with MegaGlest is to make modding the game VERY easy. even kids can do this and by this we go more and more people who mainly make artwork and many mods! The big benefit that even other OpenSource projects will have from this, is the fact that there are many people now, learning how to use blender/gimp to make 3d models! So give the people really easy ways to modify things and you will see many more artists soon, who simply have fun to create good artwork for open source games .

examples what modders do! ( That they cannot do more is mainly a problem of the older engine :-( ) :

[PsynoKhi0]

Is there no tool to crowdsource artwork, like the Linux kernel?

[dashcloud]

No mention of Liberated Pixel Cup?

No plug for http://lpc.opengameart.org/ ? Seems like a fine plan they have there- looking forward to the results of it.

[NomadDemon]

iam musician i make record and play music by myself, "warzone" was interested in my music come time ago, but i have many songs/loops that i can give to OS games.

[Azpegath]

The few textures I've made for Vdrift are absolute crap. I just don't have the time.

What's sad is that I have way better textures sitting on my hard drive just waiting to be pushed. Low on time for that too.

One big issue for FOSS artwork is that the artists feel like it's pointless to update a few textures here and there for what their time allows. We feel like there's no point unless we can update all the textures, which can take way too long.

Why would I upload my finished road textures to Vdrift when the default grass textures look terrible? Then the guardrails will look terrible.

Then I have to retexture the entire racetrack. Then my textures look crappy on all of the low-poly track objects. Then I have to make an entirely new track for the game.

While you are of course correct, I do think that iterative improvements are the way to go, and just accept that it's the only way. It's the same for everything connected to software development: a programmer sitting at his desk always feels that there's so many things to improve and so much to do, while you still have to fix bugs and other (more) boring issues.
You just have to split into smaller tasks, and start at some place, and work your way through. You can never get everything you want done in one go, so fix either low hanging fruit (can be a lot of fun and very rewarding in the short run) or the thing that annoys you the most. Then release often and early, so everyone can see and enjoy your progress. This will also (hopefully) mean that other people get attracted to the project because things evolve and changes happen frequently.
Of course that doesn't always happen, but I think it's more likely to happen if it's done that way.

[portets43]

The few textures I've made for Vdrift are absolute crap. I just don't have the time.

What's sad is that I have way better textures sitting on my hard drive just waiting to be pushed. Low on time for that too.

One big issue for FOSS artwork is that the artists feel like it's pointless to update a few textures here and there for what their time allows. We feel like there's no point unless we can update all the textures, which can take way too long.

Why would I upload my finished road textures to Vdrift when the default grass textures look terrible? Then the guardrails will look terrible.

Then I have to retexture the entire racetrack. Then my textures look crappy on all of the low-poly track objects. Then I have to make an entirely new track for the game.