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"Why is it taking so long for my art to show up in the archive?"
Hey folks!
Some of you may have noticed that in some cases it takes a while for a particular piece of art to be approved. Generally, we're trying to resolve some licensing questions so we know we can legally post the work. Here's how you can help:
- If you're posting a work by someone other than you (or an anonymous public domain work), leave a source link in the description so we can go check it out.
- If you're submitting a musical piece or a textured 3D model, we need to know where your samples and textures came from. Many sites that distribute free sound samples or textures have odd license clauses that render them incompatible with the Libre licenses we support on this site. In many cases, if you contact the original creator of a texture or sample, they'll be willing to relicense their work so that you can post your art here.
- Don't include a licensing restriction in the description of your submittion that the license(s) you selected don't allow for. The most common of these is "for noncommercial use only," which is incompatible with every license here, although any restriction on the manner a work can be used (save for a generic assertion of moral rights, which can vary from country to country) is generally incompatible with the license choices here on OGA. Please note that your moral rights are maintained whether you specifically mention them or not, although sometimes it's a good idea to mention it if you intend to enforce them.
- Anonymous submissions are fine with us; we want to make things as convenient as possible, including for people who would prefer not to disclose their contact information. Just understand that, if you submit a work anonymously and we have a question, we have no way of reaching you, so we may never be able to post your artwork. If you've posted an anonymous submission that hasn't been approved, we'd love to talk to you on IRC (see the top right corner of the page) so we can resolve the issue and post the work.
- If you've been submitting art regularly, we often give you permission to skip the moderation process. This is something we have to do manually, though, so sometimes we might miss someone. If you're a regular contributor and your art isn't showing up in the archive immediately, prod us about it on IRC or on the contact form.
We know licensing is crazy and confusing. It took us quite a while (and many hours of research) to determine what we can and can't accept. Most people (the ones who aren't insane enough to tackle running a medium-sized website) don't have the time to dig around through arcane licensing documents, so we're always happy to answer any licensing questions you might have. Feel free to post on the forums or talk to us in our IRC channel if you have any questions.
Peace!
Bart
Come chat with the OGA community!
Greets!
In case you've missed the little box int he upper right corner of the page, OpenGameArt has an IRC channel on FreeNode. We're a pretty active channel, with generally 10 to 20 people online at any given moment, including a number of great coders, artists, and musicians. We're always up for critiquing artwork and just chatting about games and art in general, so feel free to drop by!
Chat with us from your web browser here:
http://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=opengameart
...or with the IRC client of your choice.
Peace!
Bart
New commissions: "WIN" sound effects and 16x16 woodland tiles
Hey folks!
Just wanted to draw your attention to our latest commissions, namely a set of forest tiles, originally by Surt and updated by Blarumyrran, and also a set of victory sound effects and fanfares by Remaxim, here:
Peace,
Bart
New 16x18 sprites commissioned!
Greets! Just wanted to draw your attention to a recent OGA commission by Antifarea. These little guys and gals are particularly suited for use on portable systems such as mobile phones, and also for small, casual type games. They're a perfect fit for Surt's 16x16 town tiles.
We've got more 16x16 content coming, so keep an eye out. And, as usual, your contributions are encouraged! :)
Peace,
Bart
Introducing the OGA Friday Challenge!
Hey folks!
OGA administrator and contributor pfunked has agreed to run a weekly event called the Friday Challenge!, in which we will give our community a prompt through the Friday Challenge Forum and then accept any and all types of submissions (any genre or medium) until that Friday. Our first challenge, "Touch of Nature", is already underway. Check it out, read the (very brief) FAQ, and give it a shot. :)
Peace,
Bart
Upcoming feature: DRM
Greets!
I'm very excited to announce a new feature that's been in the works for some time now, and will likely be pushed out to production in the next couple of weeks. By popular demand, we are now including Digital Rights Management on all of the art we archive. This will allow incredible new options for our art, such as:
- Only working on certain devices, like as the MicroApple ZunePod
- Demanding a 60-digit serial number at inopportune moments
- Only being usable on alternating Tuesdays
- Randomly failing on some systems
- Causing games to freeze up and dump you out to a command prompt the moment there's a glitch in your internet connection
- Limiting art to being installed on a total of two devices
- The ability to remove features from games you already own
Until now, features such as these have only been available on closed, proprietary devices. How many times have we heard people say things like, "man, I wish I could only listen to this music on my ZunePod" or "why isn't there a feature in Linux that shuts it down if it thinks my copy isn't 'genuine'?" or "gee, I wish this single-player game required me to be connected to the Internets at all times"? Now, OpenGameArt.org is bringing you what you've been demanding -- a proprietary experience in Open Source software!
You can thank us later.
Bart
P.S. Happy April Fools' Day. ;)
Happy birthday OpenGameArt!
Hey folks!
Just wanted to let everyone know that, as of today, OpenGameArt.org is 1 year old! I think this is a good time to say thank you to all of the art contributors, donors, and community members who have made this site what it is. Here's to many more years!
Bart
P.S. We're in the planning phase of OGA 2.0, which will have more tools for the art and development communities along with the archive that made the site popular. If you have any ideas for improvements or collaboration features, drop us a line, either here, or on our IRC channel.
A fun little game to check out...
Just wanted to give props to Anton Lapshin for developing Bart's Game, based on an idea by yours truly and conceived right here on the OpenGameArt Forums. The basic idea is that it's an arcade/puzzle game in which there's a human in a maze inhabited by monsters. The catch is that you don't control the human at all (who is constantly freaked out and running in random directions) and instead you move the walls of the maze to corral the human toward the exit while preventing the monsters from catching him. Check it out!
Please note that, while it works in its current form, it's still under heavy development.
Peace,
Bart
OpenGameArt.org is looking for donations
Hey folks!
I'd like to start pushing toward creating more 3D content for the community, including high-poly, rigged 3D models (perferably with textures and basic animations). As things stand, we just don't have the budget to do that right now, as such a job would run between $1000 and $3000 or more for male and female models.
So, this is where donations come in. To the right of this blog entry, there is a "Donations" box, and contained therein is a button marked "Donate to OpenGameArt.org". In particular, I'd like to nudge people toward the small subscriptions ($3 or $5 per month) which, despite the small denominations, would go a long way toward purchasing more art for the FOSS community, particularly if a lot of people decided to help us out.
Also, I've mentioned this in the past, but it bears repeating: For the forseeable future (as long as our bandwidth usage doesn't exceed the capabilities of the fairly hefty dedicated server I'm renting), every penny of the donations to OGA will go toward commissioning art for the community. In addition to that, I will continue to put money from my own pocket toward commissions on a monthly basis as I am able to do so. You can see more about our costs in the "More Information" section of the donation page.
Finally, if you're interested in creating some art for OGA, we are always thrilled to accept art contributions. If you'd be willing to donate some of your time and talent but don't know what to contribute, consider stopping by our IRC channel (linked in the upper right corner of the site) and asking around. There's always something to do. :)
Peace,
Bart
3D Sci-Fi props contest winner
Congratulations to Osmic, winner of the OGA 3D Sci-Fi Props contest! This was far more extensive than we were expecting -- you could furnish most of a space station with this stuff! :)
For this amazing entry, Osmic will receive a $75 Amazon gift certificate. The objects can be downloaded at this link:
http://opengameart.org/content/sci-fi-prop-set-0
