Most Open-Source Game Artwork Is Awful

[bulletxt]

lol, I'm really starting to love those pics!

[Snickersnack]

Woah, Michael! Picking on FOSS game art like that isn't cool. Most of those contributors are hobbyists. Their work may not be up to your standards but I fail to see what the community gains by humiliating them on the front page of a major Linux news site.

[alpha_one_x86]

No, gimp it's very great tool. But but how-to like:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szA1sPXCO34

in text, or beginner it very very rare. It have 10x more for photoshop.

More the most professional don't use gimp...

[devius]

The base is gimp, bug no beginner how to, simple how-to, but nothing to do a complete effect.
And part of artists use photoshop -> expensive, then wish gain with the artwork...

I don't think I understand what you're trying to say, but if it's something like "Gimp isn't good enough for quality art creation" then it isn't true. Most of what is needed to create game art is already in Gimp (especially in version 2.8). I created all the artwork for my mobile game Magic Defenders from scratch using nothing but Gimp, Inkscape, Blender and MyPaint. The only thing that gets a bit on the way of the creation process is the lack of a free transform tool in Gimp and the transform tools in general being very crappy (but they get the job done eventually).

[alpha_one_x86]

The base is gimp, bug no beginner how to, simple how-to, but nothing to do a complete effect.
And part of artists use photoshop -> expensive, then wish gain with the artwork...

No?

[rogerdv]

I think the approach in open source games needs to change to be more artists focused as they are the most rare resource.

From my own experience the problem with FOSS games is the art pipeline or actually the absence of one.

We've got enough 3d/game engines out there. What we need are robust and easy to use level/world editors supporting a standard set of file formats used/known by artists.

Lime engine is trying to solve that. Currently Im working to develop a set of tools including a mesh converter and an scene editor. If somebody wants to help, is welcome to join the team.

[rogerdv]

It is relatively easy to find developers who work just for fun and learning. Artists are usually interested in money or eventually they become busy and cant help anymore. I have worked with 3 excellent artists, all of them are too busy now trying to earn some money. Also, the community is not so splendid when you ask for donations, I did requested donations once and got $0, unless of course, you are a very successful project and it is a bit of contradiction because successful projects get everything they want for free: developers, artists, etc.

[log0]

I think the approach in open source games needs to change to be more artists focused as they are the most rare resource.

From my own experience the problem with FOSS games is the art pipeline or actually the absence of one.

We've got enough 3d/game engines out there. What we need are robust and easy to use level/world editors supporting a standard set of file formats used/known by artists.

[sagetarian]

Art dev Community

There should be a Open Source / Creative Commons Art Dev community that aims at giving recognition to the artists and such by means easily visible credits etc etc. You could encourage 3D and texture graphic design students to take part in supporting the community and give them a HIG to stick to. They should supply the resources used if the resources are licensed accordingly. Example if they used Blender then supply the .blend not just the 3ds or collada versions etc etc. I'm aware that there are similar ideas floating around but there is no emphasis on credit and a standard, so people tend to design resources that can't be used in the same game.

[MonkeyPaw]

There's probably a big gap between the ability to write code and the creativity to design. I'm sure that any game studio has conceptual artists that probably don't know very much about building a game engine, but there are also brilliant engineers that can take that art and turn it into polys and pixels. Also, for profit blockbusters spend years in production, as a quality, bug free (relatively speaking) game environment takes lots of hours. Look at how long Valve, ID, and Unreal will go between engine updates, and people STILL bag on the flaws.

I used to build Quake 2 MP levels back in the day, but I had an architectural background and an interest in computers. Even then, when using the free level builders out there, it took a few years before I felt that I got comfortable/good with it.