Only now have I begun to realize the extent of the artwork that will be needed for this game. All those animations of every pixel, from front to back of each piece of clothing, not to mention the paper doll artwork for the upcoming paper doll feature will take an awful lot of time to do. It would be nice to have some help on the project. That said however, there are certain things I would stipulate out of our artists.
1) Absolutely no copy-pasting from other games, yes that includes free-software games, because no one wants to look at the same artwork they have already seen, Wograld should have a unique look all its own (modified public domain and GPL art is ok, provided it fits into the game.) ,
2.) Its okay if the piece isn't up with the rest of the artwork, but there is no need to reject artwork that fits all the criteria (better than the current (mostly non-existent or old crossfire) artwork) and also nothing that breaks rule one, and it must also be in the proper perspective for the game. I won't be too much of a drag about style unless it is blatantly bad (such as too realistic, not pixelated enough etc)
3) No emotional abuse of other team members - period, this will not be tolerated. This is not a contest and artists should each work on different things to avoid walking over each others territory and turning it into a contest rather than getting the project done. I admit I started doing that with some of gnurpgs/ Serpentshard's tiles and realized that I was wasting time instead of getting the project out the door.
4) there is a limit to how much "better" a piece can really get. Often, all that needs to be done is a re coloration to make it more appealing, using intermediate colors rather than photo-realism gray and brown. I will put an end to the stupidness of "better and better art" found in some other games. When it is done, it is done, there is no "making it better."
Monday, August 24, 2009
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Ego - why developers need it.
Sometimes people make out developer egos to be the big evil in a software project. They worry about things like the quality of the work and give harsh critics to developers of their contributions, be it code, documentation, music or artwork. Sometimes a person may want to work on a project, but feel that no matter what they do it is not good enough to get on any project and that they will not be recognized for what they contribute. Many of these people just give up, feeling that the lead developer will not be happy with their work no matter what they do.
They feel they have just wasted all that time working on things that will not be used for the project. I know, because I have been there along with several other people. It was one of the things that motivated me to start my own project rather than try to work on some one else's project.
I know that a lot of projects wish they had more people developing on the project, but at the same time have such high expectations for the quality of contributions that they do not find what they are looking for. Wograld is more of an entry level project. The art and code needed is pretty simple. Just a semester of C or the equivalent experience is all that is needed for programming. For art you just need to be able to use a simple editor like the gimp. A lot of the artwork is simply editing some sprites so they look better. The code also has a lot that is fairly simplistic. The time consuming part of the code is getting up to speed on the current code base and what it does, and then making some modifications. That is much easier than trying to write the game from scratch.
I think too much critic can turn otherwise good developers away from a project. Many people have their self-confidence sabotaged at work. They do not need more of this when they come home to do a hobby project. I believe developers should receive a lot of praise for the things they do right. It encourages them to work harder on the project, putting in more time and effort and producing more results.
They feel they have just wasted all that time working on things that will not be used for the project. I know, because I have been there along with several other people. It was one of the things that motivated me to start my own project rather than try to work on some one else's project.
I know that a lot of projects wish they had more people developing on the project, but at the same time have such high expectations for the quality of contributions that they do not find what they are looking for. Wograld is more of an entry level project. The art and code needed is pretty simple. Just a semester of C or the equivalent experience is all that is needed for programming. For art you just need to be able to use a simple editor like the gimp. A lot of the artwork is simply editing some sprites so they look better. The code also has a lot that is fairly simplistic. The time consuming part of the code is getting up to speed on the current code base and what it does, and then making some modifications. That is much easier than trying to write the game from scratch.
I think too much critic can turn otherwise good developers away from a project. Many people have their self-confidence sabotaged at work. They do not need more of this when they come home to do a hobby project. I believe developers should receive a lot of praise for the things they do right. It encourages them to work harder on the project, putting in more time and effort and producing more results.
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Maps and hunting down bugs.
I finally got the lead programmer to do some work on the project again. Maybe it was because I took away his big bag of chips and soda pop, as well as two certain people being away for a week. Anyway, we finally got the major crash bug fixed. You can now walk around on the scorn map and not crash just because you try to enter places like the scorn school. I heard those areas were never finished even in the original crossfire. I also started working on the graphics again. I have completed an undead lady from four different directions with two frames each to replace the same 8 frames that all crossfire characters have. I also did a few terrain tiles. Map changes are still tedious and the map editor could use some work to fully display the new tiles. It would be nice to have some more help on the project, but I really only need someone who is dedicated since the project requires a lot of getting up to speed, figuring out how the code and maps work etc. Unlike the artwork, the code seems to take a lot of getting up to speed on it, rather than just making things of a certain size and copying them in, and then running some scripts. The directories are still the crossfire directories. It should really have separate directories for wograld. You also have to run the server as root, otherwise it will not have the permission to write to certain folders and you will not be able to save your characters or maps.
The reason the map and editor is so critical to fix, is because I need it working so I can see how my new terrain tiles look before putting them in the game. Not that I have not already done some of this work in the gimp. Also, Wograld is not crossfire. I want it to be a completely different game with different areas and maps.
There are many things I would like to add such as wearable clothing, but I think it is important to get the basics down first, by that I mean things like the menus and maps not crashing when you teleport into them. For some reason, our lead programmer found a bug where if you walk into nevar, it crashes. There is also buffer overflow errors. I don't want to add tons of new features over that kind of serious buggy code.
The reason the map and editor is so critical to fix, is because I need it working so I can see how my new terrain tiles look before putting them in the game. Not that I have not already done some of this work in the gimp. Also, Wograld is not crossfire. I want it to be a completely different game with different areas and maps.
There are many things I would like to add such as wearable clothing, but I think it is important to get the basics down first, by that I mean things like the menus and maps not crashing when you teleport into them. For some reason, our lead programmer found a bug where if you walk into nevar, it crashes. There is also buffer overflow errors. I don't want to add tons of new features over that kind of serious buggy code.
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