Monday, September 14, 2009

Calling all FOSS Game Artists and Free Content Producers!

The first Ubuntu Gaming Team meeting was a huge success! With over two hours of discussion going strong, we covered a lot of ground. One of the major topics for out next meeting, and our most ambitious project, is coordinating the creation of a distributed content development platform. For this, we will need lots of input from FOSS game artists and free content producers like the Blender Open Movie Project.

The meeting will be on 9/27 @ 19:00 UTC in #ubuntu-meeting
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/GamingTeam/Meetings/Minutes/2009-09-27
Please contribute to the agenda!

Lack of good content is the #1 impediment for FOSS games. Most developers are not artists and the challenge of content creation is much more difficult than code. The need for FOSS content is the same for code, but current platforms that exist for code do not offer features needed for content. Code is all text and much easier to handle, while content is difficult as you cannot “diff” a picture or a blender file. On top of that, while distributed code development has been refined since computers were invented, content is a much newer ground, especially to apply FOSS distributed development to, and it simply hasn't received any of the focus and effort that code has.

We need input to help agree on a base for the platform and what features are most needed. Additionally, we might like to look to Canonical and/or the Blender Institute for support as they will benefit most from and be willing to contribute to such a project. 
Posted at 9/14/2009 07:41:00 AM
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13 comments:

  1. Call me silly but wouldn't bringing playdeb into the 'official' ubuntu fold be a bigger (low hanging fruit) boost to ubuntu gaming right now?
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  2. Speaking as a FOSS loving artist (vector, 3d and video) I'm not sure this is what we really need the most. Already in Blender you can collaborate through the use of linked objects and Inkscape has it's whiteboard feature. Granted neither of them hold a candle to something like SVN / BZR, but that's never been the main problem anyway in my experience.

    The main problem is that projects are nearly always started by programmers, who become the lead maintainer. The problem with that? They tend to be able to spot bad code, but not bad art / art direction - especially when they're the ones who created the art in the first place! Too many times have I seen artists beg to have some appalling piece of artwork replaced with something else only to have the lead on a project go "Nah, I still like my version better.

    In short, people with no art experience tend to be bad art directors, the same way that people with no coding experience tend to create bad code. Difference is that the coders are usually the ones who decide what stays and what goes. You can only run into this so many times before getting discouraged. *sigh*
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  3. @ Bugsbane, that is something else we are aware of and will be trying to kill with the same stone if possible.
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  4. I'll try to be there.

    - Founder of www.FreezingMoon.org - Open Source Game Development NPO
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  5. Hi,
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  6. Yes I agree with you that actually the need for FOSS content is the same for code. It's too bad that current platforms that exist for code do not offer features needed for content

    Melvin,

    Games
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