IDEA: Content development web app

krychle · Post by **krychle** » 20 Sep 2007, 21:05

I think main problem with creating units for mods is that in most cases the whole mod is created by few pepople (sometimes only by one). In regular game development are pepople that do only one type of work, because they are good in it. I think this model will be helpfull in open source geme development too. But there is no web application for this kind of cooperation. There are tools for programing, like cvs, svn, wiki (?) ... Maybe this existing tools can be used for content development, but there are missing some usefull functions.

For every game part shoud be created this:
- textual definitions
- basic 2D sketches, drawings, blueprints, ...
- 3D model in usefull format
- animation scripts
- finished, compiled, packed content files

The parts of game can be:
- unit
- map
- mission
- race
- world
- story
- ...

For example: someone write little sci-fi novel about some war. In the story is basic definition of world, relationships, units... Than someone else will draw pictures about the battle. Another one draw blueprints for units, Than 3D artist make model, maybe texture and animations... All things can be changed by anyone, but comunity or main game developers will approve the change. If someone make good model with bad texture, and someone made better. The texture should be changed. Just posting the patch (for texts) or new file (for models, maps,...). Also there can be more than one model or story for something, but only one will be official and used in final release.

... I think you know what is the idea. It is hard to explain all thoughts in english for me ...

Also there are 2 main problems:
- Who will make this app. (I am not enpugh skilled to make it.)
- Where we will save our works.

Mr.Frumious · Post by **Mr.Frumious** » 20 Sep 2007, 21:12

You're overcomplicating it. You just need an open SVN and an auto-build system that can compile all the COBs, maps, etc. The latter would be the hard part. If you wanted, from there build a web-front to your open-SVN. I'm sure there are some opensource projects that can help with that.

And for the record "idea people" and "writers" and "concept people" are useless to a project.

Post by **Tim Blokdijk** » 20 Sep 2007, 21:39

@krychle
I sure would like to see something like that at some point.

krychle · Post by **krychle** » 20 Sep 2007, 22:37

Mr.Frumious wrote:You're overcomplicating it. You just need an open SVN and an auto-build system that can compile all the COBs, maps, etc. The latter would be the hard part. If you wanted, from there build a web-front to your open-SVN. I'm sure there are some opensource projects that can help with that.

This can be used if project will have stable team. If you have one game (engine) with 10 mods and only few stable 3D atrists, than 1 guy for texturing, bla bla ... for them will be problematic to work together on all this projects. You need more people to make content. If noone can see they work, noone else will be motivated to do something for it. If you look in the forum there is lot of noobs, they want to be usefull, but without any success they are disapointed to do more things. I think some chalanging will be good for the comunity, anyone can write just one sentence, or little bit help with model without difficult communication and file exanging ... also I want to say I'm not talking only about Spring, this app can be used for any game/mod.

Mr.Frumious wrote:And for the record "idea people" and "writers" and "concept people" are useless to a project.

This is big mistake. For 3D modelers is easier to make 3D model if they have some references. Without the "idea people" and "writers" will be spring still again abput Core and Arm. I wish to kill this races. People still remaking the original models. I'm looking every day to DeviantArt and thera are lot of drawings that can be used for making completely new game with new look and ideas.

If mod creator writes: I want to have units that looks like biologoc devil creatures, no humanoid. Then anyone can make model. And every model can be used. When I look on ARM or CORE it is mess. Too dofferent models. I'm not talking only about make a game, but make it nice and believable. Look on Battletech, Transformers, Aliens, Zergs, 1944mod, kernelPanic, ... all this "thinkgs" has style, without style game will be mess without FUN, it will be pathcwork. My friend says: "Playing Supreme commander is work, it is no fun". And I must say he is right, there are no features that can make game more funny. Even Age of Empires is more funny than SupCom. And I don't know why, but spring looks for me more funny than SupCom too.

Nemo · Post by **Nemo** » 20 Sep 2007, 22:38

Three mods (that I know of) are already using SVN for dev.

Basically...this already exists. And it does work quite well, especially since you can create repositories in .sdd folders and simply update them before you play, thus letting you test the absolutely newest changes all the time.

Post by **Tim Blokdijk** » 20 Sep 2007, 23:33

I agree with Nemo that it's already possible to a large extend. We lack someone to connect the dots and actually make it work the way krychle describes. For a large part this is getting people to understand that they can.

Saktoth · Post by **Saktoth** » 21 Sep 2007, 01:34

We do have this. CA has a large team of part-time contributors. SWS is developed by a team with dedicated modellers and modders AFAIK. Same with 1944 and P.U.R.E (Though thats mostly Arghs baby). Kernel Panic was a collaboration as well.

We also have a bunch of mods made entirely by 1 person- EE, Gundam, Simbase, Eternal Struggle, Nanoblobs.

Problem with those mods is that nobody will play them. Thats the problem with content creation in spring. The people doing it are doing it as an exercise to please themselves, not because their games are going to be played. Its not very encouraging, why make a game to play it with yourself?

Krychle has a point though- most mods are based on someone elses IP, not original ideas. A bit sad. Still, if someone here came up with a solid concept with blueprints, concept drawings, etc, im pretty sure people would jump on the bandwagon. But nobody is doing that...

Concept people arent useless to a mod. Its just that 90% of content developers out there are 'concept people' themselves, and are brimming over with ideas and projects they dont have time to complete.

If mod creator writes: I want to have units that looks like biologoc devil creatures, no humanoid. Then anyone can make model. And every model can be used.

If you want a chaotic, ugly looking mod with lots of weird, different units, do this. Even from someone elses concepts, even with someone elses concept art, you'd be hard pressed getting a universal style.

Peet · Post by **Peet** » 21 Sep 2007, 01:38

Eh, SimBase was getting several games a day for awhile. EE was reasonably popular for a period of time as well, iirc.

Saktoth wrote:
If mod creator writes: I want to have units that looks like biologoc devil creatures, no humanoid. Then anyone can make model. And every model can be used.
If you want a chaotic, ugly looking mod with lots of weird, different units, do this. Even from someone elses concepts, even with someone elses concept art, you'd be hard pressed getting a universal style.

That'd be an interesting experiment really, even if the art was crap it would be quite amusing and bring new content developers together.

REVENGE · Post by **REVENGE** » 21 Sep 2007, 01:44

Saktoth wrote:mod with lots of weird, different units, do this. Even from someone elses concepts, even with someone elses concept art, you'd be hard pressed getting a universal style.

Not if you draw unit concept art first, then mandate that submitted models and textures must follow the theme or be scrapped.

Saktoth · Post by **Saktoth** » 21 Sep 2007, 03:38

Interpretation, ability and style would play a huge factor. Your concept art would need to be very precise, with multiple angles for each unit and done with skill and style in order for there to be any coherence. Even then you would need to apply a standard and reject and edit a lot of models.

I dont think its going to happen any time soon, even if we get some competent 2d artists (Given the dearth of texture artists, i doubt we have many of them in the community).

krychle · Post by **krychle** » 21 Sep 2007, 19:45

Saktoth wrote:Interpretation, ability and style would play a huge factor. Your concept art would need to be very precise, with multiple angles for each unit and done with skill and style in order for there to be any coherence. Even then you would need to apply a standard and reject and edit a lot of models.

I thought about that, problem is that i don't see any good 2D artists here. I think we no need so detailed drawings for units (modelers have brain too). we wider porfolio ... sketches or drawings for more (all) units, or its parts.

For example, my problem with making 3D model is that I waste lot of time to tune it to good looking model. I think I can make good models (technicaly) and uvw maps. Also I have problem to make good looking texture and I stoped work on my AK because of this. And I'm not able to make animation scripts and all other things that are needed to make working model. I don't want to study this things, it will take lot of time to learn it (good enough). I think there people that know this things better than me.

Anyway good example of problems about all of content developmet is in Freshened Up" TA Units thtead. There are some models, someone wants to make models look like old units, someone wants to make completely new models. Without the "style keeper" this will be mess.

1. someone post the TopDown pictrue of almost every units for Core and Arm. It is good example of 2D artwork that define the style.
2. Than Runecrafter made some good enough models (Link). I don't know why he ends work. Maybe if he will build little team with modeler, texture maker and animator than the speed of work will raise and the other ppl can motivate him to make more models ...

Also, I don't know who is making Gundam mod now, but he doing good job. For him is definitely easier to make models, because there are lot of material that describes the style.

We no need to make profesional looking models, but we need to make lots of good fresh models (or new models for new mods).

Why I wants to have web appl. insted of svn like tools:

For first svn is goog for making things in text form, If I am interested in some program i will go to svn and look on it. If I found some mistake or I want just play with it, than I will download it. But when you are interested in unit models, you must dload it first, than you can change it. I dont know how people works on models in svn. Are there source files (3d, pixmaps, gimp/photoshop files, vectorart)? It is bigger problem when someone change your drawing than if someone change your programm code. Better is to make new drawing.

Lots of ppl here taking ideas to extremes.

Some ppl say that svn is enough, but this tool is only for ppl that works only of this project. For anyone else is problematic to help project time to time ... Many of working people has not time to get new work.

Some ppl say that you need "perfect" drawings for making good models or something. I think no one here is profi modeler or game designer. The web app will help to noobs study and train their skills. This is good start to growing from noob to pro.

If you want to invite artists to work here, you need some showroom.

Neddie · Post by **Neddie** » 21 Sep 2007, 19:51

Smoth is making Gundam RTS.

iamacup · Post by **iamacup** » 21 Sep 2007, 19:51

its called trac

smoth · Post by **smoth** » 21 Sep 2007, 20:23

wow.. ok, I am not gonig into detail because frankly I don't want to be here right now. For one, a style keeper as you call it is normaly what is REALLY called a LEAD ARTIST!

bah, you have not looked at starwars, s44 otherwise this thread would be moot to you.

FURTHERMORE...

gundam has such inconsistent art that it vexes me terribly, that is where I just call a shot. What you are proposing is tedious micromanagement. Frankly, in this community people have to control their own projects there is no point in recruiting some text jockey to whine and bitch. As someone said earlier those of us who are making our things have our own ideas.

gundam is entirely me(outside of the pd cursors by erom, thx man), although soon I may have an announcement for a much needed second in my gundam work it took me 2 years to find 1 person I found aceptable. I don't need some new guy butting it with "his vision"

Erom · Post by **Erom** » 21 Sep 2007, 20:25

overcomplicated solution is overcomplicated!

Argh · Post by **Argh** » 21 Sep 2007, 21:05

We no need to make profesional looking models, but we need to make lots of good fresh models (or new models for new mods).

The easiest way to accomplish what you're talking about is to get people to grab OTA models from UnitUniverse, et al, import them into UpSpring, convert to S3O, and redo / revamp the textures. It's not hard, and there are no modeling skills involved, really.

The hard part would be taking the resulting models and then making them look halfway decent, and you'd need skilled animators to get them working.

There's where most of this idea of yours actually falls flat: while any idiot can script a typical four-piece tank, it takes a lot of expertise to do really good work on complex animations, like walkscripts, deploy animations, and other stuff.

Many of the units you can download from UnitUniverse are OK geometry, but have scripts that are terrible, or don't work right in Spring for various reasons.

Your idea as proposed, though, is pretty much a non-starter- I've been here a lot longer than you have, so please hear me out, before writing off what I'm going to say as mere cynicism- I would be very pleased, if you could get a grassroots modeling project working, but you're not going to make it happen if you try going about it as you propose.

If you really want this idea to fly, then I would suggest that you realize first and foremost that:

A. Good artists and animators for the 3D format / animation format Spring uses aren't terribly common- there are maybe 15-20 of us. And of those people, about half are lazy, or too busy IRL to do much. And the other half are all engaged in projects of their own, or with a team. We're not very likely to help you directly, other than minor stuff- if you start learning how to import / manipulate 3DOs with UpSpring and convert to S3O, you will start to appreciate how much time that it will take, and why we're likely to be very reluctant to help out much.

B. If you want to grow the number of people making art, the best way to do it is to have open discussion about how to build basic stuff using OTA model pieces, applying different textures, and then conversion to S3O (I'm really surprised nobody has done this- copy/paste in UpSpring is totally awesome).

Create "artists" who basically just recycle existing geometry and make minor changes. Ok, it won't be wonderful art, for the most part (although I'll bet that some of it will be, when people learn how much they can do with simple scale / move / rotate / copy / paste / better textures, tbh).

C. Put these "artists" in charge of the process, or subordinate them to experts in their fields, not the public. Artists should just submit work to a common "collection", and if it's cool, it will get scripted. If not... it won't. You don't get any benefit from public input, the real decisions on what gets modeled + scripted are between two people, and that's all there is to it.

The idea of a completely democratic artistic project, run by a benevolent public, is just a fantasy- any of the experienced folks here would say it's a sucker's choice, I think- even SpikedHelmet. And even the more democratic mod projects have people who make final decisions. And they aren't the "community".

Too often around here, I've seen somebody say to the community, "hey, I'm gonna re-make X unit"... then they spend hours or days of their lives on the project, to have the "community" dump on them in various ways, and then they waste even more hours trying to please the "community", and then ... they never finish the geometry, let alone present a final, animated model.

Artists participating in your project might want to submit their work to a master artist, if any of that very small number wants to critique / repair their work. But the general public should be told, gently but firmly, that if they aren't happy with a piece, that the final decisions are the artists', not theirs, and that no piece of art produced by your project is even guaranteed to be used by anybody, ever, unless an animator animates it, and a game designer likes it enough to use it. That should be more than enough review.

Oh, and last thoughts...

1. There are plenty of people around here with the relevant skills to do concept art, they just don't bother, mainly I think because they don't see any point in making concepts for stuff, if there is no demand from 3D artists.

Most of the high-end modelers don't really need concept artists- I can't speak for Smoth, Spiked, Warlord, and all of the other talented folks here, but I usually draw my own concept sketches, for original design work, and many of the other projects around here are using IP that is not original, so they are working from reference sources. IOW, the few people like me, KDR, and a few others, who are doing wholly original stuff, don't really need concept artists (the guys working with me on PURE are sent vague descriptions of what the unit does and should look like, screenshots of what I have done already, and then I let them do whatever they think will fit and look awesome).

For your project, concept artists might be a good idea, but only insofar as they provide sources of inspiration and concepts. Concepts are great for getting people excited about a topic. One of the best ways to get excitement going is to have contests, like "draw me some tanks", and let the community have its proper place there- their comments on concept sketches, which are a much lower time-investment than a 3D model with a good skin, would be useful in weeding out the obvious duds.

If you expect more than that (i.e., modelers working to spec.), you're basically asking to become an art director, and you're not qualified to do that, unless you have some serious prior credentials- and if you actually had those credentials, we wouldn't be having this conversation, I guarantee

2. If you really want this idea to get going, you will be 100% more credible, and sound less like you're just fantasizing, if you start immediately grabbing old 3DOs, importing into UpSpring, and starting to make combined models, etc., while teaching what you've learned, instead of writing long posts that are full of vague ideas, and very short on actual work. I know that most of the serious people here take a very dim view of all of the lazy "idea people" who always seem to have something to say and do nothing.

Be a doer, not just a talker, and I will help with advice, if you get stuck, and I'm sure other people will, too.

FLOZi · Post by **FLOZi** » 22 Sep 2007, 01:59

AFAIK you are neither a modder, nor someone capable of implementing such as system as you propose... So really, I have to ask why you think we need it.

Pressure Line · Post by **Pressure Line** » 22 Sep 2007, 04:28

imo it would only really work for a historical mod, or where the work is recreating models from another game or from a well defined fictional universe (star wars, star trek, wh40k et al).

simply put, any idiot can come up with an idea, but it takes a lot of skill to implement it. as well as the problem with art being so subjective, its unlikely that 2 people working on the same idea independantly are going to come up witht he same artistic solution, or that either solution will fit into the 'universe' of a given mod.

Argh · Post by **Argh** » 22 Sep 2007, 05:12

That might be solvable- simply have artists put stuff into categories, and skins can make a huge difference in feel- if the geometry's decent, then you can very easily go from a colorful, anime feel to Realism.

I think the bigger problem would just be incoherent levels of quality, especially on the skins, with pro stuff and stuff that looks like it was done with three texture fills all being submitted. But it'd be better to have the three-texture-fills stuff than nothing at all.

Heyas... y'all want a fictional universe, that can be done with Spring, and is vague enough, IP-wise, to avoid lawsuits?

I hate to sound like the llama Idea People, but I've got one- how's about an After the Bomb setting? Cars with armor plates strapped on, futuristic tanks that are obviously missing the turret, but have a couple of grungy dudes with .50 cals in the ring, motorcycle gang members, buses with guns sticking out the sides... sort've Mad Max meets Car Wars meets Fallout?

The cool part is that nobody could sue us- the universe of After the Bomb fiction, comics, and other sources would be totally safe, so long as nobody ripped anything specific (i.e., do not look up Autoduel Quarterly and copy the cars directly- just do like I do, and stare at them for four hours, then go draw stuff that's fairly similar).

So, how's about it? A safe, rich source of IP that most people agree is cool, and people could do a lot of things without it being "unreasonable", so long as they made decent quality stuff.

Pressure Line · Post by **Pressure Line** » 22 Sep 2007, 05:58

you mean as a sort of community mod project?

in the end you'd still have to have a lead (or lead team) to make the final say on what goes in and what doesnt. tbh, anything involving this comminity is likely to erupt into massive flamewars, continual bickering and enough forum drama to fuel a forest fire.

thats not to say it couldnt happen in a meaningful and constructive way, but i consider it unlikely (and anyway its a bit "whats the point, because people are just going to play BA anyway.)

Spring RTS Engine

IDEA: Content development web app

It is good idea?

IDEA: Content development web app