How to contribute small changes to existing art?
Monday, March 31, 2014 - 17:33
What's the best way to contribute small changes to existing art?
Although OGA is great in providing game-ready art, sometimes there's a bit of cleanup required. I often find myself making these changes, which can be helpful for others:
- Cutting off silence for sound effects
- Making a music track loopable
- Lining up sprites in a spritesheet
- Completing a 3D model that wasn't mirrored
These are derivative works and of course I'm fully within my rights to just post a new entry and attribute the original artist, but there's a number of disadvantages:
- It will make searches less useful, as they'll turn up the original plus the derivative
- People seeing the original art won't easily see the derivative versions; I could add a comment pointing to the derivative but that approach has poor visibility
- People stumbling across the derivative might not notice it's a derivative, which could be interpreted as deceptive
What should I do instead?
Off the top of my head, I can think of two ways to go about it. The easiest way is just (like you said) to make a new entry. Link to the original very clearly in the description and in the copyright notice.
The other way, if you can get a hold of the artist, is to have them add you as a collaborator on their art, which will allow you to edit it in place. Collaborating is the better option, but obviously it will only work if the artist agrees to it.
I sometimes see folks post small/minor tweaks as comments to the original entry.
Not sure if this is considered a good way to do it or not, but does solve the cluttered search results problem.
https://withthelove.itch.io/