allowing CC-BY art is still way more sympathic for me than allowing HL2 or Bioshock appear on the same action games list as OA or WoP (GameBoom does that). So unless tons of proprietary licensed texture sets specifically made and limited to Minecraft or models made for Mount&Blade arrive on OGA, I'm still satisfied.
The better server is great! GameBoom is also great for supporting open source gaming (well, it stems from Tremulous after all)! I wish they would keep a larger distance from shareware and freeware (as in beer), but I'm sure OpenGameArt is safe from those influences, so it's okay :).
I just saw another awesome example: Blender Open Movie Workshop DVD series number 5, Chaos and Evolution brings more than 20 hours of professional, time-lapsed artwork making and everything with the help of open source software! If you buy the DVD you support the Blender Open Movie projects, but it will be published on the internet since it's CC. We need such projects like this, it will instantly amaze people and since it's done with open source tools, everyone can try it in an instant.
We just need to spread the word, I was surprised that it's the 5th in the row and I didn't know about the DVDs...
Cenian wrote: "Anyway, I still say there're a few different issues here. Udi, could you clarify? Motivating people to work for free, FaiF art as such, or practical and social barriers that are prevalent right now?"
Well, actually I just wanted to start an open discussion and gather some ideas. This goal is already fulfilled, so thanks everyone for sharing thoughts :).
I don't think people need motivation to work for free, just look at the huge variety of indie games and mods on MODDB for example. If I would say that FaiF art needs some hype or cool factor just like DeviantArt, I would knock on open doors, because we now have OpenGameArt which is totally awesome and cool. So we are on the right track with that, it will only take some time.
The social barrier is an interesting thing, because as some of you already said you can always hire an artist to do work under the proper license. But the open source community may also have some barriers gathering these funds through donations. I believe the donation bar on the right doesn't include the monthly subscriptions (after I subscribed my monthly fee wasn't added), so I may be wrong, but it's a bit disapponting. Some other projects don't even want to hear about donations with "I need time, not money" excuses. But there are some positive examples too, just look at the art scolarship of Wesnoth.
Practical barriers can be hard especially if there's no real open source alternative. I wonder whether more popular open source software would also mean more open source artwork? Like if people would say "it's totally gimped" :). Or if a kid sees a time-lapsed screencast of somebody making artwork for an open source game, maybe he/she would start making art if the software can be downloaded legally.
I saw something interesting on the Syntensity hompage. When describing the license of the IntensityEngine they explicitly define what is not considered to be a derivative work. Maybe you can do the same with your game.
Another exception could be another explicit license. Like a CC-BY-SA content can't make a GPL licensed engine and code CC-BY-SA, and thus not making the whole game a derivative work. But of course separating engine and content is easier than separating some artwork in the content.
Ceninan, if I understood your comparison right, you meant that professional artists have to produce a high quality portfolio and manage themselves, thus they have less free time working on open art. But that's actually freelancing. I understand that there could be more freelancer artists than programmers, but I think that's just the top of the iceberg. Like a webdesigner who learnt Blender on his/her free time and making some artwork, does he/she count as an artist? Or an english teacher who can draw some 2D or write a story, or an audio engineer or musician who makes some music sheets or even whole scores does count as an artist? If yes, does the comparison still apply? If not, then could they one day become one?
Like Canonical now hired Matt Asay, who is a professional and has a lot of experience. But Linus Torvalds was a student when he started working on the kernel and became one of the most known person in the open source world. Can the second approach applied for open art making too? Which one is more worth it? Which one is harder?
As for the other post, yes it's the most annoying thing that you often meet the most dared "I don't know what I want, but I will know when I see it" answer when asking about concept and design. I think with Platinum Arts Sandbox and Syntensity also artists can start amazing projects.
I understand that, but that makes unnecessary duplication. Two examples I am familiar with:
- Battle for Wesnoth plans to make unit sprites facing north too. Currently that means rough 200 units fully animated. If they would make that through OpenGameArt that means 200 new submissions for bart. But since there's stirct quality assurance in Wesnoth you also need Jetrel's approval. What happens if it gets featured on OpenGameArt, but not on Wesnoth? Maybe you need just a little modification, is the communication running on OpenGameArt comments, or the Wesnoth boards with all the other Wesnoth contribs? Or if everything is ok, than it will be hosted on both OpenGameArt and Wesnoth?
- OpenArena has the plan to make GPLv2 licensed textures replacing all the Q3 and TA textures. There are still 400 missing. If more people are working on them, how should we organize not to duplicate the effort, on the OpenGameArt boards or rather on the OpenArena boards? And once again, if they are ready would the textures be on OpenGameArt and OpenArena SVN too?
Both project use GPLv2 license, which narrows down the uses. And if we post those materials on OpenGameArt should we not post the already existing stuff too (sprites and tiles of Wesnoth, 3D model, textures of OA etc.)? Wouldn't it be more clean, that the games handle their own art and their repos are added to the Free Art Search? (Both projects mentioned above are covered in the search.)
OpenGameArt should be a place for multi-licensed (or public licensed), generic stuff. The wanted list usually requires specifically themed and licensed artwork. I think dealing with massive amount of specific stuff requires more resources than needed.
Under the Links, there's a Game Project entry currently only with two titles. I bet if you contact bart, he will add any foss game project there.
Decentralization is bad, but I don't know if OpenGameArt has the resources (human, financial and hosting) to be able to handle the specific artworks of specific games. And we also have the Free Art Search for finding free art scattered among the different games.
Remaxim,
allowing CC-BY art is still way more sympathic for me than allowing HL2 or Bioshock appear on the same action games list as OA or WoP (GameBoom does that). So unless tons of proprietary licensed texture sets specifically made and limited to Minecraft or models made for Mount&Blade arrive on OGA, I'm still satisfied.
The better server is great! GameBoom is also great for supporting open source gaming (well, it stems from Tremulous after all)! I wish they would keep a larger distance from shareware and freeware (as in beer), but I'm sure OpenGameArt is safe from those influences, so it's okay :).
I just saw another awesome example: Blender Open Movie Workshop DVD series number 5, Chaos and Evolution brings more than 20 hours of professional, time-lapsed artwork making and everything with the help of open source software! If you buy the DVD you support the Blender Open Movie projects, but it will be published on the internet since it's CC. We need such projects like this, it will instantly amaze people and since it's done with open source tools, everyone can try it in an instant.
We just need to spread the word, I was surprised that it's the 5th in the row and I didn't know about the DVDs...
Cenian wrote:
"Anyway, I still say there're a few different issues here. Udi, could you clarify? Motivating people to work for free, FaiF art as such, or practical and social barriers that are prevalent right now?"
Well, actually I just wanted to start an open discussion and gather some ideas. This goal is already fulfilled, so thanks everyone for sharing thoughts :).
I don't think people need motivation to work for free, just look at the huge variety of indie games and mods on MODDB for example. If I would say that FaiF art needs some hype or cool factor just like DeviantArt, I would knock on open doors, because we now have OpenGameArt which is totally awesome and cool. So we are on the right track with that, it will only take some time.
The social barrier is an interesting thing, because as some of you already said you can always hire an artist to do work under the proper license. But the open source community may also have some barriers gathering these funds through donations. I believe the donation bar on the right doesn't include the monthly subscriptions (after I subscribed my monthly fee wasn't added), so I may be wrong, but it's a bit disapponting. Some other projects don't even want to hear about donations with "I need time, not money" excuses. But there are some positive examples too, just look at the art scolarship of Wesnoth.
Practical barriers can be hard especially if there's no real open source alternative. I wonder whether more popular open source software would also mean more open source artwork? Like if people would say "it's totally gimped" :). Or if a kid sees a time-lapsed screencast of somebody making artwork for an open source game, maybe he/she would start making art if the software can be downloaded legally.
I saw something interesting on the Syntensity hompage. When describing the license of the IntensityEngine they explicitly define what is not considered to be a derivative work. Maybe you can do the same with your game.
Another exception could be another explicit license. Like a CC-BY-SA content can't make a GPL licensed engine and code CC-BY-SA, and thus not making the whole game a derivative work. But of course separating engine and content is easier than separating some artwork in the content.
Ceninan, if I understood your comparison right, you meant that professional artists have to produce a high quality portfolio and manage themselves, thus they have less free time working on open art. But that's actually freelancing. I understand that there could be more freelancer artists than programmers, but I think that's just the top of the iceberg. Like a webdesigner who learnt Blender on his/her free time and making some artwork, does he/she count as an artist? Or an english teacher who can draw some 2D or write a story, or an audio engineer or musician who makes some music sheets or even whole scores does count as an artist? If yes, does the comparison still apply? If not, then could they one day become one?
Like Canonical now hired Matt Asay, who is a professional and has a lot of experience. But Linus Torvalds was a student when he started working on the kernel and became one of the most known person in the open source world. Can the second approach applied for open art making too? Which one is more worth it? Which one is harder?
As for the other post, yes it's the most annoying thing that you often meet the most dared "I don't know what I want, but I will know when I see it" answer when asking about concept and design. I think with Platinum Arts Sandbox and Syntensity also artists can start amazing projects.
Thanks for the ideas. (I defined the acronmys, but the HTML filter doesn't allow the <acronym> tag.)
I understand that, but that makes unnecessary duplication. Two examples I am familiar with:
- Battle for Wesnoth plans to make unit sprites facing north too. Currently that means rough 200 units fully animated. If they would make that through OpenGameArt that means 200 new submissions for bart. But since there's stirct quality assurance in Wesnoth you also need Jetrel's approval. What happens if it gets featured on OpenGameArt, but not on Wesnoth? Maybe you need just a little modification, is the communication running on OpenGameArt comments, or the Wesnoth boards with all the other Wesnoth contribs? Or if everything is ok, than it will be hosted on both OpenGameArt and Wesnoth?
- OpenArena has the plan to make GPLv2 licensed textures replacing all the Q3 and TA textures. There are still 400 missing. If more people are working on them, how should we organize not to duplicate the effort, on the OpenGameArt boards or rather on the OpenArena boards? And once again, if they are ready would the textures be on OpenGameArt and OpenArena SVN too?
Both project use GPLv2 license, which narrows down the uses. And if we post those materials on OpenGameArt should we not post the already existing stuff too (sprites and tiles of Wesnoth, 3D model, textures of OA etc.)? Wouldn't it be more clean, that the games handle their own art and their repos are added to the Free Art Search? (Both projects mentioned above are covered in the search.)
OpenGameArt should be a place for multi-licensed (or public licensed), generic stuff. The wanted list usually requires specifically themed and licensed artwork. I think dealing with massive amount of specific stuff requires more resources than needed.
Under the Links, there's a Game Project entry currently only with two titles. I bet if you contact bart, he will add any foss game project there.
Decentralization is bad, but I don't know if OpenGameArt has the resources (human, financial and hosting) to be able to handle the specific artworks of specific games. And we also have the Free Art Search for finding free art scattered among the different games.