CA recruiting artists

[Saktoth]

Are you a competent artist who wants to see their models in a game that is actually played? Do you want to see an OTA mod finally be free of the tyranny of Atari IP? Are you an amazing 3d artist who doesnt want to do either of these things but we can convince to work for us with false promises, broad dreams of open-source ideals and sexual favours? Then we need your help.

CA's eventual goal is to replace all of the models in the game with new, original content, following original designs. We are not simply replacing the OTA models though, as there are some OTA units we dont/shant use, and other new units that were never in OTA.

Its a big task which will require a lot of work- but a hodge-podge of units culled from various sources will just make the game look messy. It is important that these models look better than the originals, otherwise there is really no point doing this. So to this end, we need artists working together coherently on this common goal- concept artists to come up with original designs, 3d modellers, texture artists, etc.

We have made some moves towards this end. We already include Mr.D's models, though they have core logos among a few other things that will need to be changed. We also have Spherebot and a few other in-progress works to replace models with original units of original design.

Its important that the models be suitable for an RTS- they must be highly visible, with distinct profiles and bright teamcolour. This is hard with s3o, as it always seems to turn out muddy (something we must find a way to overcome...), but i have written down some general guidelines on the subject.

We also have some concept art here and here.

Some basics on the direction the CA Story is taking can be found here.

If you want to join the team, or just contribute something, CA is a meritocracy. The ability to make the decisions as to our artistic direction will be is determined by the amount of work you put into realising it. However, in order to be consistent, we have to all agree to follow a common style (but there is still a lot of work to be done in defining that style).

Anyway, if you'd like to contribute in any way, post here with some idea of what you are capable of/willing to offer, an example of your work, or such. Right now we just need to get an idea of who is willing to contribute and to what to degree, so we can pool and organize our efforts.

Be aware that any contributions to the project will have to be CC/GPL/Public Domain- CA is an open source game.

[Machiosabre]

"the tyranny of Atari IP?" lulz, last time anyone checked they didn't even freaking know they had TA ip.

[url_00]

I can model, but I can't texture or uv map.
Because of that, you haven't seen any of my models!

If you need me to post examples, I could do that too.

EDIT: Nice concept art!

[Neddie]

Currently on my drawing board for concepts;
Naval Hulls
Naval Vessels
Submersibles
Mines
Resurrection Units
Capture Units
Horizontal Axis Wind Turbine
Revised Vertical Axis Wind Turbine

Note that you can work on anything, even if somebody else plans to. The best will probably be chosen, and few serious efforts will be disregarded.

[url_00]

Ok...
So, what's my poly limit? (Or, what is a good ploy limit?)

[rattle]

<1k

But without good UVs...

[rattle]

Oh yeah: lineart please, side, front, two perspective (front, rear).

[Saktoth]

It depends on the unit, url. Spherebot is 1100 and its one of the most spammed units in the game. Ive noticed no slowdown from it.

Note that you can work on anything, even if somebody else plans to. The best will probably be chosen, and few serious efforts will be disregarded.

For the sake of coherent design and not wasting effort (we have a lot to get through), i would like to get us all working in a structured fashion.

[Neddie]

Well, wouldn't there need to be a system before that can be asserted?

[Warlord Zsinj]

Yeah, I can strongly recommend having one clear person in charge of the art, who makes all the final calls and decisions regarding the design, and who the other artists need to listen too.

I know it's a cumulative open-source project, but with so much effort being poured into CA, it really needs the cohesiveness of design that can only be provided by an executive and decisive decision maker; just like gamedesign, art can be ruined by 'too many cooks'.

Which is not to say that lots of people can't be involved, just that people getting involved should be reporting to a clear artistic lead that can make the judgement calls as necessary, and guide artists contributing so that they contribute to a cohesive style.

Ideally the lead artist is someone who is capable of artistic production themselves, not a lead game design engineer or whatever (that wasn't intended as a jibe at anyone at all)

[DemO]

Good call, but seriously, no offense but can you please STOP adding new content and focus on fixing CA's glaring instability issues to a point where the mod can be played without crashes by the vast majority of the playerbase.

CA crashes a whole load more than any other mod I've played and it is one of the most frustrating things about the mod that discourages people from playing it. You took a poll recently on CADownloader where the a considerable majority voted that crashes and instability issues were the biggest issue with the mod right now.

Add to this that there seems to be a conflict somewhere causing CA to run at a far lower framerate than other mods for some users. Myself and det included. It's not lups or LUA as far as I can tell because my fps doesnt change regardless of whether these are on or off, but for comparison, I get 30 fps max in CA as soon as the game launches (without any units on screen) and in BA I get about 100-150 depending on the map. Perhaps it is a problem with the way the CA UI is rendered on screen?

Good luck getting content developers for CA, the mod has already made impressive progress and deserves the time and effort. I personally think that instability issues should be a bigger concern right now though. The more you add the harder it will be to find out what is limiting performance and stability.

[MR.D]

Good concept sketches are worth a thousand models.

[Neddie]

We're just working on replacing what we have, we can expect performance benefits as we move from 3do if I recall. But I agree with you Dem0.

[Saktoth]

Zsinj, right now, that person is me. I am an artist, though yes, i would prefer someone more talented than myself working in the role. If someone comes along who is willing to put in the effort and has the skills- they get the power to make the decisions. Thats what 'meritocracy' means.

DemO, sorry to say this, but there are totally different people working on these sides of the project. If we were talking about new lua content, then your objection would be valid.

Our lua devs are focusing fulltime on stability now, and we are seriously considering stripping out features that could be causing these issues.

Ive never touched the lua, and have no idea what the problems could be, so its not like im cutting into the development time spent on stability by working on models and recruiting artists to help in that. We dont have to wait around until the game is stable to start working seriously on the art.

Mr.D, what do you think of our current concept sketches, then?

[DemO]

DemO, sorry to say this, but there are totally different people working on these sides of the project. If we were talking about new lua content, then your objection would be valid.

Erm, not sure I get what you're saying here. Could you please define "these sides"? If you're implying that there are so many people contributing content to CA that you can't manage the instability issues then that's pretty worrying.

[Argh]

What he's saying is that that's an issue for the programmers. Which he isn't one of. I think you're really confused about who does what with CA- it has a fairly large development crew, and they have different areas of concern.

This isn't a game like Gundam, where Smoth pretty much does everything. Saktoth isn't ultimately responsible for whether or not it crashes or performs poorly, nor is content development really tied to performance at that level. Models do not cause Spring to crash, and generally aren't the root cause of poor performance.

They can cause lousy performance, mind ye, but I've seen no real evidence that the models in CA are any more / less efficient than anything else, and certainly they have to be less stressful than the models in P.U.R.E. are, yet that's not the chokepoint in P.U.R.E.- it's all the CPU-hungry stuff. Probably it's LUA issues that aren't Widgets- a poorly-coded Gadget can cause enormous amounts of CPU use, and CA has lots and lots of Gadget code.

IOW, it's not his problem- his problem is to make art happen, on a reasonable timeline. He's discussing how to go about that, and hoping that some people around here might help a bit. What you're talking about is really not relevant to his job.