http://taspring.clan-sy.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?p=15445#15445

it really isn't that bad. We are looking at several hundred textures with possibly another hundred varients.

Anyone with skill and drive that will actually help me see this through please reply.

and since skill and drive are relative....

Drive: aka... you really want to do this and are not going to dissapear mid project only to submit nothing and waste my time.

Skill: you are not a photoshop noob. you can produce quality textures quickly.

This shouldn't take us more then 1 to 2 weeks. Please I want to help the SYs and we can do it together as a community. Lets get off our asses and contribute.

I can help, I have some textures that ive made that could be used and modified.

Can post examples once I get home. The textures use paths, transparency and the bevel and emboss effect in photoshop, and tile perfectly.

1) You don't need to do all variants. The texture variants were needed in TA to do some pseudo shading, with one side of the unit darker and another side lighter. The Spring engine handle the dynamic shading of units, so not only you don't need the different variants but you need to not have the variants.

2) - Benito had made a texture cleaner to make all texture variants identical to remove the CD:3D (it's how some people call the pre-made pseudo shading of TA units).
- Sathanas, Sean Mirrsen and others had made many new models of TA units specifically for Spring.
- There's already some races and TC using their own custom textures.
Yet the Swedish Yankspankers completly disregarded all their work. What makes you think the SY will use your textures?

3) Don't waste time redoing TA units. Even after changing the texture and tweaking the stats, they're still reminding of TA units after all. I'm sure Atari could sue a 2D platform game where the hero would be call peewee and would look like that. If your aim is to protect spring from possible closing due to copyright infringment, then don't base your units on TA units at all. Work on total conversion or on new races. You'd better spend your time making sure Gundam Annihilation doesn't re-use a single texture nor a single sound from TA. (Ok, then you could still be sued by Sunrise or Bandai, but, let's hope it's less likely since they don't sell any Gundam RTS).

4) The Lost Legacy comes with a nice set of textures. However they're not supposed to replace but to complement TA textures. Still, they're worth a look.

like a lot of other issue's i think it's nice to hear where the SY's want to take this project, and where help is appreciated..

I don't think you should discourage them, zwzsg. New textures are already one step away from using TA content, and these new textures will be usable on third party units that currently use Cavedog textures.

I think that with these five steps we will be safe from being sued (note that they are STEPS and can be done in any order, which is much better than trying to ditch everything and reinvent the wheel):

1/ redo textures (they shouldn't be gross imitations of the originals)
2/ redo models (I think they can be fairly similar to original Cavedog models, given the other steps)
3/ find a new name for each unit (and for Arm and Core, if needed - anyways true fans will know which is which, won't we?)
4/ redo sounds (a nice occasion for adding ambient/continuous sounds, such as engines, tracks, and so on - I'm sure by then there'll be support for that in Spring.
5/ redo balance (i.e. make sure stats are significantly different from TA units - anyways it's needed to play well in Spring)

At that point the default Spring package units will be obviously inspired by OTA units (and will look a lot like them), but I don't think you can be sued for that, as long as everything is the product of your own work. Otherwise Microsoft would be suing everybody for making Age of Empires clones (75% of RTS that come out these times around are just that). What's nice about doing things this way is that it will still remind us of TA, which certainly has a sentimental value.

Once the two new races are finished, we can start adding new ones such as Lost Legacy, but we'll use our two main races as a reference for balance (i.e. you shouldn't automatically win or lose because you pick such and such a race). Eventually you'll get to pick from 30 different races when you play Spring, so forget about "perfect winner strategies", you'll have to adapt to your enemy everytime. Looks like a nice future to me .

Z, you are missing the point.

The textures are so people can play things like AA without having texture errors. this will eliminate the need for OTA textures to be included. I am not saying re-do the game I am saying redo the textures so we have textures for the mods that use them and the textures are not the OTA ones.

you need to realize I am not saying that we should take on some huge project like re-doing all of OTA I am saying we need the textures for the MODs that exist. that way spring can support them without having to include OTA textures.

It is a STEP in the right direction. NOT the full walk. There is no way I am going to ask anyone to re-do all the OTA scripts and sounds. However, at least we can have textures.

Sweet I'll look forward to it.

I didnt get around to fishing out the PSD files, but here is a flattened JPG preview.

I think we need a infrastructure to support artists.
Something like TAMEC only then for textures, models, sounds etc.

That way a artist can upload his texture, agree that it will be released under the gpl (and/or a compatible license) and receive credit/comment from others.

Someone in need of a model, texture or sound can then shop around for it in this infrastructure.

ecellent stuff.. although the caution line stuff could be 32X32. I don't think 128X128 would really be needed.

Looks great. I will have to get a list together, do you have a particular gaf that you would like to start on? I could probably start on logos.gaf and knock that out. Although I should be starting work this week, I think I can get started on it.

Tim, I am sure if we each knock one a gaf each we would have few problems with credit and once it is included with spring(assuming the SY guys like it) then I am sure we will all get our just credit.

A gpl for a texture pack like this seems quite over the top for proper credit.
-Smoth

I'm up for doing a few textures, just assign me a list of 12 or so.

While your are at it, may you guys should preoduce bumpmaps, too. They might come in handy some day.

Sweet. Could you redo the corevehicles gaf? I think you would do an awesome gaf!

-Smoth

Agree.

In regaards to the texture database: I think it could be done by someone with decent PHP skills (I'm looking at Everyone right here, heh).

Whoever does this might want to do the following:

Dump all the GAF textures into their .jpg form vin their respective. A folder would be a category. So for example, you'd have the armveh folder, corveh folder, etc.

Then you'd have to write a script to:

Create seperate pages for each category/folder, and print out the names of each texture on their respective pages. Each texture name would have next to it whether or not it has been Spring'ified, and if it has been, display the new texture below the name. if it has not been spring-ified, make the texture name clicable, so the artist can upload the texture. Once the texture is uploaded, it would be displayed as normal.

Might be a start.

NO! NO JPEG!!

Use a lossless compression format, like .png.

Jpeg is suitable for photography, NOT FOR 64x64 textures where every pixel matters!!

.png is not as efficient as .jpg for storing photographic-color level images.

Um... efficiency isn't the issue, quality is. JPG is efficient at photographic images because it's a loss-based compression.

PNG is good for textures because it's lossless, thus increasing your color sharpness and details, all of which are lost with JPG.

-Buggi

It's not holiday photo we're dealing with here. It's small textures. The loss due to jpeg on small image is way too high. Even with the lowest compression setting of jpeg.

Yah, but a little artifact her or there wont be noticeable in-game. IMO, its worth it if we save that much more space in memory/HD/whatever.