I'm generally -1 on anything that requires revising all existing assets, unless it can be done automatically (which I suspect is not the case for most modifications).
I think new animations are fine, but they will require a significant investment of work to build out items. We would benefit from someone doing careful experimentation to make animations that are useful for multiple purposes. Evert, could you share your work on this so far? (I know you posted it in another thread somewhere but I can't find it...)
Or someone making a concerted effort to draw optimal tool/weapon/object sprites to implement new animations (for instance, I think the axe chop animation that pvigier proposed could work well using the slash animation played in reverse, as long as someone drew the axe in proper perspective and with motion blur etc). IMO any new animations should use the absolute minimum number of frames possible. It sucks that the current walkcycle is like 12 frames... the last thing we need is a 20-frame run cycle---it will never get any clothes drawn because it will take forever :p
This conversation is making me think automatic recolors and spritesheet generation (e.g., take 4 directions of hair and a "hurt" animation and generate a full spritesheet) is very important, since it will allow many items to be adapted to different bases. I'll mention again that these tools already exist for hair, helmets, and shields, they just need to be re-integrated into the current file structure. Obviously it will never help for things like shirts, which depend on the underlying size/shape of the torso, not just the position of the head/hands.
Evert, can you also elaborate on your thoughts about separate layers? I'd strongly echo BenCreating's comment that requiring separate layers is a big hassle that may not be necessary. The only place i have encountered this conflict is with hats, where I've found it sufficient to have an "under-weapon" and an "over-weapon" layer, and even then it was only an issue for the south-facing "shoot" animations.
Please check out the FAQ for these types of questions: You can pick any of the licenses listed and follow it; for this asset, you can use CC-BY 4.0 or OGA-BY 3.0+ instead of GPL---CC-BY and OGA-BY do not require you to share modifications under any particular license, just to credit me.
I am working on a slight re-organization of the assets in castelonia's generator https://github.com/sanderfrenken/Universal-LPC-Spritesheet-Character-Gen... which has number of duplicates, inconsistently-named assets, and some folder structures that don't make sense to me (for example, why is a formal coat torso/chain/formal/formal_iverness.png nested within the chain mail directory?)
Thanks Medicine :) And I don't mean to be a jerk to anyone here---I just want to focus on solving this specific problem, and there are many other discussion rabbit holes we can go down...
Please keep discussion here focused on attributions for the LPC character sprites. If you want to talk about better ways to make recolors, please start a separate thread.
@Kuranyem, we now have a chart listing the "prices" (attribution) of all items in our "grocery store". We also have a visual tool where you can pick items and it tells you the "prices" (attribution instructions), as well as (IMO) clear instructions in the project README. What more do you want? Nobody is advocating for the ridiculous grocery store you suggested. That was the situation before we started, but I think it's improved significantly.
If you have any other suggestions about how to make this information clearer or more useful, I'd be happy to hear it. But I feel like you are arguing against a position that nobody here is taking.
@Basto, Kuranyem: I think the issue of recolors is simpler than you are making it. Here is how CC defines "Adapted Material" (this is the term used in CC 4.0, equivalent to "derivative work" in other licenses):
Adapted Material means material subject to Copyright and Similar Rights that is derived from or based upon the Licensed Material and in which the Licensed Material is translated, altered, arranged, transformed, or otherwise modified in a manner requiring permission under the Copyright and Similar Rights held by the Licensor
I don't see anything here that would prevent a recolor from meeting that definition. Someone makes a recolored image, they are creating a derivative work, they need to grant a license to use that work and they get credit. The CC licenses have no notion of a "trivial" modification Practically speaking, it's important to track credit in order to make sure the asset is still free. For example, if you make a recolor of an asset that is under a non-Share-Alike license (e.g. CC-BY), technically, you are not required to release the recolored asset under a free license (as long as the original author is properly credited). So we need to know who made the recolor and under what license.
Philosophically, even if a color palette cannot be copyrighted, in my opinion there is clearly creative effort involved in selecting colors to produce an artistic effect. It's also practically useful to many developers, even if you personally don't find it useful because you want to do recolors by changing HSL. There was a long discussion about the legal status of fonts in another post... I'd rather not get into that here. The point is, the conservative position is to keep track of who made recolors and be sure they are licensed appropriately. If you want to make your own fork of the spritesheet generator where you do all the recolors automatically from an indexed palette---fine, knock yourself out.
I don't think the scenario where the engine produces recolors requires you to distribute 281 trillion images or whatever. Nobody is asking for that. If your engine is recoloring a CC-BY-SA asset, you can't prevent someone from using one of your HSL-recolored images under that original license (with credit to you), including "circumventing effective technological measures" to do so. But again, that's not the problem we need to address here. We have a discrete number of recolored assets and need to attribute them. I think the most straightforward thing to do (and this is what I have done) is to figure out who made the original, figure out who made the recolor, and credit both.
- The new fruits and veggies; added >100 new sprites (highlighted with purple box), notably beans, cereals, and herbs, as well as more of basically every other kind. Several sprites also edited or re-drawn to match the crops or trees. I also have ~10 new breads and a handful of new meats (not shown here). The same basic format as the original, with 4 sprites per item (1 item, few items, many items, and items to go in a box/container)---I'm just showing the single item here for simplicity. Let me know if you can think of anything to add---I'm pretty much out of ideas!
- Some "meals"/"dishes" I've been working on with castelonia; this is a modular set of prepared foods that can be combined to make various dishes. The preview image is made entirely by layering in Tiled.
Also, what do you think about including variations with junk/clutter on the shelves (like, in addition to the books/dinnerware, you could have little sacks, bottles, boxes, etc.)? Could be on separate layers of course. Or should that just be in separate sets?
Thank you for making the preview as well! Quite a strange room with two pianos, an organ, some desks, and a kitchen :p But it showcases perfectly some of the combinations I (and really Sharm to begin with) had in mind. I also intended for the dressers/shelves to be stackable/recombinable, but that's not always possible in the current arrangement.
It seems like the glass doors from the original LPC assets do not properly fit the shelves.
Yes, I notice a few issues here too. The small, top glass door is off by a few pixels, and some extra tiles will be needed if you want to have two stacked sets of glass doors.
I still have no idea what the beds are supposed to be paired with.
They are meant to be layered on top of the bed spreads from [LPC] Upholstery!
Your preview also makes me notice a few problems with missing or incorrect shadows.
I'm curious if you can tell where the extra colors came from. Some of this started life in Photoshop when I was first learning to edit sprites, so I wouldn't be surprised if there were a few mistakes. Checking over my latest version though, most of the colors appear to be from the LPC palette. Also it looks like there are few places where you changed colors to transparent (like on the skirts of the bunk beds).
Do you want to upload the .zip as its own submission? Or post a Dropbox link or similar and I can upload it to this one (and add you as an author)?
I'm thinking I should update this with a few changes/fixes, but I'd like to start with your cleaned-up, layered version as a base:
Fix missing/incorrect shadows
Remove some duplicate tiles
Add glass doors to allow more combinations and fix bugs
Optimize tables so bottom edge of table surface is on or near bottom edge of tile (this makes it easier to place items on top of the table, for instance from [LPC] Food, [LPC] Containers, or [LPC] Victorian Town Decorations sets)
Add oblique (45°) chairs? Like in the attached image (from Victorian Town Decorations). I got kinda obsessed with this with the Victorian town sets because I think they add some nice variety to the scene, but I'm not sure I want to put in the work to re-draw all the chairs :p
I'm generally -1 on anything that requires revising all existing assets, unless it can be done automatically (which I suspect is not the case for most modifications).
I think new animations are fine, but they will require a significant investment of work to build out items. We would benefit from someone doing careful experimentation to make animations that are useful for multiple purposes. Evert, could you share your work on this so far? (I know you posted it in another thread somewhere but I can't find it...)
Or someone making a concerted effort to draw optimal tool/weapon/object sprites to implement new animations (for instance, I think the axe chop animation that pvigier proposed could work well using the slash animation played in reverse, as long as someone drew the axe in proper perspective and with motion blur etc). IMO any new animations should use the absolute minimum number of frames possible. It sucks that the current walkcycle is like 12 frames... the last thing we need is a 20-frame run cycle---it will never get any clothes drawn because it will take forever :p
This conversation is making me think automatic recolors and spritesheet generation (e.g., take 4 directions of hair and a "hurt" animation and generate a full spritesheet) is very important, since it will allow many items to be adapted to different bases. I'll mention again that these tools already exist for hair, helmets, and shields, they just need to be re-integrated into the current file structure. Obviously it will never help for things like shirts, which depend on the underlying size/shape of the torso, not just the position of the head/hands.
Evert, can you also elaborate on your thoughts about separate layers? I'd strongly echo BenCreating's comment that requiring separate layers is a big hassle that may not be necessary. The only place i have encountered this conflict is with hats, where I've found it sufficient to have an "under-weapon" and an "over-weapon" layer, and even then it was only an issue for the south-facing "shoot" animations.
Please check out the FAQ for these types of questions: You can pick any of the licenses listed and follow it; for this asset, you can use CC-BY 4.0 or OGA-BY 3.0+ instead of GPL---CC-BY and OGA-BY do not require you to share modifications under any particular license, just to credit me.
I am working on a slight re-organization of the assets in castelonia's generator https://github.com/sanderfrenken/Universal-LPC-Spritesheet-Character-Gen... which has number of duplicates, inconsistently-named assets, and some folder structures that don't make sense to me (for example, why is a formal coat torso/chain/formal/formal_iverness.png nested within the chain mail directory?)
After that, I'd like to re-introduce the scripts from JaidynReiman (aka jrconway3)'s fork https://github.com/jrconway3/Universal-LPC-spritesheet/tree/master/_build to recolor and auto-generate hair sprites. I have a few similar scripts for generating hats and shields.
I'd then like to carefully review several other adaptations which have attempted to fix some bugs in the animations, namely:
and make sure their work is merged into the generator/spritesheet repo.
After that, I'll probably set up a system for programmatic recolors of the other clothing assets, based on the work from others.
I have other thoughts about the tilesets I'll post separately.
Thanks Medicine :) And I don't mean to be a jerk to anyone here---I just want to focus on solving this specific problem, and there are many other discussion rabbit holes we can go down...
BenCreating recently posted a thread which would be a great place to discuss the palette issues, etc: https://opengameart.org/forumtopic/improving-lpc
Please keep discussion here focused on attributions for the LPC character sprites. If you want to talk about better ways to make recolors, please start a separate thread.
@Kuranyem, we now have a chart listing the "prices" (attribution) of all items in our "grocery store". We also have a visual tool where you can pick items and it tells you the "prices" (attribution instructions), as well as (IMO) clear instructions in the project README. What more do you want? Nobody is advocating for the ridiculous grocery store you suggested. That was the situation before we started, but I think it's improved significantly.
If you have any other suggestions about how to make this information clearer or more useful, I'd be happy to hear it. But I feel like you are arguing against a position that nobody here is taking.
@Basto, Kuranyem: I think the issue of recolors is simpler than you are making it. Here is how CC defines "Adapted Material" (this is the term used in CC 4.0, equivalent to "derivative work" in other licenses):
I don't see anything here that would prevent a recolor from meeting that definition. Someone makes a recolored image, they are creating a derivative work, they need to grant a license to use that work and they get credit. The CC licenses have no notion of a "trivial" modification Practically speaking, it's important to track credit in order to make sure the asset is still free. For example, if you make a recolor of an asset that is under a non-Share-Alike license (e.g. CC-BY), technically, you are not required to release the recolored asset under a free license (as long as the original author is properly credited). So we need to know who made the recolor and under what license.
Philosophically, even if a color palette cannot be copyrighted, in my opinion there is clearly creative effort involved in selecting colors to produce an artistic effect. It's also practically useful to many developers, even if you personally don't find it useful because you want to do recolors by changing HSL. There was a long discussion about the legal status of fonts in another post... I'd rather not get into that here. The point is, the conservative position is to keep track of who made recolors and be sure they are licensed appropriately. If you want to make your own fork of the spritesheet generator where you do all the recolors automatically from an indexed palette---fine, knock yourself out.
I don't think the scenario where the engine produces recolors requires you to distribute 281 trillion images or whatever. Nobody is asking for that. If your engine is recoloring a CC-BY-SA asset, you can't prevent someone from using one of your HSL-recolored images under that original license (with credit to you), including "circumventing effective technological measures" to do so. But again, that's not the problem we need to address here. We have a discrete number of recolored assets and need to attribute them. I think the most straightforward thing to do (and this is what I have done) is to figure out who made the original, figure out who made the recolor, and credit both.
Hi there, just a quick preview of a few things:
- The new fruits and veggies; added >100 new sprites (highlighted with purple box), notably beans, cereals, and herbs, as well as more of basically every other kind. Several sprites also edited or re-drawn to match the crops or trees. I also have ~10 new breads and a handful of new meats (not shown here). The same basic format as the original, with 4 sprites per item (1 item, few items, many items, and items to go in a box/container)---I'm just showing the single item here for simplicity. Let me know if you can think of anything to add---I'm pretty much out of ideas!
- Some "meals"/"dishes" I've been working on with castelonia; this is a modular set of prepared foods that can be combined to make various dishes. The preview image is made entirely by layering in Tiled.
^ let me know what else is needed ;-)
Which ones? Horizontally or vertically?
Also, what do you think about including variations with junk/clutter on the shelves (like, in addition to the books/dinnerware, you could have little sacks, bottles, boxes, etc.)? Could be on separate layers of course. Or should that just be in separate sets?
Thanks Basto!
Thank you for making the preview as well! Quite a strange room with two pianos, an organ, some desks, and a kitchen :p But it showcases perfectly some of the combinations I (and really Sharm to begin with) had in mind. I also intended for the dressers/shelves to be stackable/recombinable, but that's not always possible in the current arrangement.
Yes, I notice a few issues here too. The small, top glass door is off by a few pixels, and some extra tiles will be needed if you want to have two stacked sets of glass doors.
They are meant to be layered on top of the bed spreads from [LPC] Upholstery!
Your preview also makes me notice a few problems with missing or incorrect shadows.
I'm curious if you can tell where the extra colors came from. Some of this started life in Photoshop when I was first learning to edit sprites, so I wouldn't be surprised if there were a few mistakes. Checking over my latest version though, most of the colors appear to be from the LPC palette. Also it looks like there are few places where you changed colors to transparent (like on the skirts of the bunk beds).
Do you want to upload the .zip as its own submission? Or post a Dropbox link or similar and I can upload it to this one (and add you as an author)?
I'm thinking I should update this with a few changes/fixes, but I'd like to start with your cleaned-up, layered version as a base:
I'm also open to other suggestions!
EDIT: added image of the oblique chairs
Pages