Well, there are plenty of good, working FOSS 3D engines. BGE, Irrlicht, XReal, etc. Rather than making a new one, it would be nice to have a solid, easy-to-use, integrated editor for those. BGE is probably the closest, but it need to improve by leaps and bounds to become intuitive.
I agree about the game thing, though. In my own experience with building my JRPG engine, I realized a lot of things when I started building my tech demo. I imagine that once I get a chance to build a real game with it, I'll learn a lot more. Dogfooding is hella important.
Generally when we commission art, we may $10-$20 an hour, which is enough to hire a good art student or a professional who is giving us a good deal. The hourly cost of art can get a lot higher than that, mind you.
A typical sheet of sprites generally costs $50-$200. A typical high poly, textured, rigged model can go over $1000 (either TheCubber works fast or is giving us a huge deal on his commissions -- probably both). Single musical tracks can range from $50 to hundreds of dollars each, although we tend toward the low end. I can generally give a more accurate assessment of what a commission ought to be worth if I know exactly what the commission is and who you're hiring. I've dabbled in enough art (and commissioned enough) that I've started to get a better sense of how much things are worth. It's not easy, but what I can say about commissioning art is that you'll become more comfortable with it as you do it. I can and do frequently give advice to people looking to commission art on their own projects.
It might be useful to get some acutal pictures of old chinese wall scrolls. If they're originals, they'll be in the public domain, so if you can find them and take a picture of them, it would be legal to use them as textures.
If any artists have questions, kornerr or I would be happy to answer them.
While I appreciate the offer, I think we'll probably have to decline. I'm a bit too demanding for a shared server, and I think I'd probably end up stepping on everyone's toes, which is something I'd rather avoid. Thanks though -- as I said, I appreciate the thought! :)
Can i ask, why do you need such high specs? for what the quad core, root access and 4 gigs of ram?
OGA is a hog -- it's that simple. :)
The long version is that I make use of a Drupal module called views, which queries an awful lot of data, sometimes more than it needs, strictly speaking. That said, views can be built in a GUI and it speeds development up a lot. Since there's only one of me, it's cheaper to throw hardware at the problem than it would be to throw hundreds of hours at it to optimize everything, particularly since I'm in the process of completely revamping the site. At the moment, our current server has 2 gigs of ram. Even after all sorts of database tweaks and apache tweaks and website caching tweaks to make it run leaner, we're getting traffic at a level that's exceeding what the server can handle. At the moment, RAM is our biggest bottleneck. A quad core server would just make things faster, particularly since we're usually getting hit by several users at a time, and the queries can be processor intensive.
Is there anything behind the site which needs such a root?
Yes. Me. :)
I do web development professionally and I run my own servers. When I need to change a setting, I don't want to be limited by someone else's settings. I don't want to be limited to a certain number of databases. I don't want to have to go through a panel interface in order to get anything done. I work fastest at the command line, and with access to adjust things like apache and mysql configuration. If OGA ever gets to the point where it's no longer under active development (which seems highly unlikely) then I might consider a managed solution, but for the time being I don't want to have to work around the restrictions of managed hosting. I've dealt with it before and I hate it.
For the record, I realize that I'm asking for a lot. I'm mostly doing it on the chance that someone will be willing to provide the specs we need (or the money to buy them). I'm prepared to front the money myself rather than go with something less than what I'm asking for.
Well, there are plenty of good, working FOSS 3D engines. BGE, Irrlicht, XReal, etc. Rather than making a new one, it would be nice to have a solid, easy-to-use, integrated editor for those. BGE is probably the closest, but it need to improve by leaps and bounds to become intuitive.
I agree about the game thing, though. In my own experience with building my JRPG engine, I realized a lot of things when I started building my tech demo. I imagine that once I get a chance to build a real game with it, I'll learn a lot more. Dogfooding is hella important.
Someone needs to make this guy into a sprite. :)
Just a heads up, the "I'm using this" button will be part of OGA2. Great idea! :)
Generally when we commission art, we may $10-$20 an hour, which is enough to hire a good art student or a professional who is giving us a good deal. The hourly cost of art can get a lot higher than that, mind you.
A typical sheet of sprites generally costs $50-$200. A typical high poly, textured, rigged model can go over $1000 (either TheCubber works fast or is giving us a huge deal on his commissions -- probably both). Single musical tracks can range from $50 to hundreds of dollars each, although we tend toward the low end. I can generally give a more accurate assessment of what a commission ought to be worth if I know exactly what the commission is and who you're hiring. I've dabbled in enough art (and commissioned enough) that I've started to get a better sense of how much things are worth. It's not easy, but what I can say about commissioning art is that you'll become more comfortable with it as you do it. I can and do frequently give advice to people looking to commission art on their own projects.
Bart
kornerr has agreed to let me do a little art direction for his game, so here's what I'd like to see, specifically:
He's already using a set of nice tiles:
http://opengamestudio.org/wp-content/gallery/mahjong/7.jpg
Thematically, I'd like to see this take on an ancient chinese theme. Here's some specific stuff we could use:
It might be useful to get some acutal pictures of old chinese wall scrolls. If they're originals, they'll be in the public domain, so if you can find them and take a picture of them, it would be legal to use them as textures.
If any artists have questions, kornerr or I would be happy to answer them.
Can I ask what browser you're using? That issue seems fairly common on Opera.
Also, sometimes that just randomly happens once in a while. Did you try more than once?
Thanks,
Bart
While I appreciate the offer, I think we'll probably have to decline. I'm a bit too demanding for a shared server, and I think I'd probably end up stepping on everyone's toes, which is something I'd rather avoid. Thanks though -- as I said, I appreciate the thought! :)
Bart
Can i ask, why do you need such high specs?
for what the quad core, root access and 4 gigs of ram?
OGA is a hog -- it's that simple. :)
The long version is that I make use of a Drupal module called views, which queries an awful lot of data, sometimes more than it needs, strictly speaking. That said, views can be built in a GUI and it speeds development up a lot. Since there's only one of me, it's cheaper to throw hardware at the problem than it would be to throw hundreds of hours at it to optimize everything, particularly since I'm in the process of completely revamping the site. At the moment, our current server has 2 gigs of ram. Even after all sorts of database tweaks and apache tweaks and website caching tweaks to make it run leaner, we're getting traffic at a level that's exceeding what the server can handle. At the moment, RAM is our biggest bottleneck. A quad core server would just make things faster, particularly since we're usually getting hit by several users at a time, and the queries can be processor intensive.
Is there anything behind the site which needs such a root?
Yes. Me. :)
I do web development professionally and I run my own servers. When I need to change a setting, I don't want to be limited by someone else's settings. I don't want to be limited to a certain number of databases. I don't want to have to go through a panel interface in order to get anything done. I work fastest at the command line, and with access to adjust things like apache and mysql configuration. If OGA ever gets to the point where it's no longer under active development (which seems highly unlikely) then I might consider a managed solution, but for the time being I don't want to have to work around the restrictions of managed hosting. I've dealt with it before and I hate it.
For the record, I realize that I'm asking for a lot. I'm mostly doing it on the chance that someone will be willing to provide the specs we need (or the money to buy them). I'm prepared to front the money myself rather than go with something less than what I'm asking for.
Bart
Haha, these are awesome. :)
How much money is needed per month? All this technical stuff is fine but business people need a dollar amount.
Well, I'm asking for the actiual hosting, and not cash. :)
That being said, I believe I could purchase this for roughly $120/month, so if someone were willing to sponsor us that way, it would be just as good.
Bart
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