Preference for our game assets

[Carlos Camacho]

Some time when I am free, I plan to go through all of our games assets and fix/improve things. As for sound, the only thing I can do is to make smaller downloads to help slow-speed people.

For tiles, I have used PICT images that contain a bunch of tiles for most of my work. Should I consider breaking each tile into its own file? Should I consider saving the images in TGA or TIFF, or PNG?

I also have some nice (IMHO) tiles in Level Creator format that I am suprised no one has used. Now, I am thinking of making them regular images for those that don't have Level Creator.

I also need input on the type of game assets that people want...
As for me, I am interested in releasing small MP3 loops, isometric tiles, and graphics for a complete game "classic/retro" game. For example, Centipede or Berserk. These could be useful in tutorials or for newbies.

I'm also curious if my OpenGL fonts were useful? Are there any requests for more font faces along these lines?

Anyhow, if you have any requests for game assets, or would like to see more of a particular kind, let me know. (BTW... I don't like making characters/people since it is too hard and requires too much work to animate the bodies, so don't ask for them. :D )

Cheers

[OneSadCookie]

PNG or TGA. TIFF's basically useless and PICT is a dodo.

The thing is that while programmer art will suffice for most graphic elements, characters really do require an artist. Having all these beautiful tile sets is actually pretty useless without any characters to put on them.

[mySocksAreOnFire]

Maybe some instrument samples? Pianos, wind, string, percussion, stuff like that.

[Josh]

I would like to see some more music/sound effects. In my opinion, those are the hardest things for the general game programmer to make.

[ibullard]

I second OneSadCookie. More characters with animations to go with isometric tiles would be very, very cool. For me, music comes in a distant second.

[Fhizban]

Hi,
Im not often on this board, but i visit idevgames regularly for downloading assets. i think the graphic files are great for making a retro/freeware game. what i wanted to see are more RPG Tiles THAT FIT TOGETHER. There are various sections of tiles but all different size and color depth so you cannot use them all together in a game.

Animated Characters would be nice, and more landscape tiles too.

cya
-Fhizban
www.errandar.de

[Pascal Gane]

What font textures for 3D/2D games ?? Or shareware/freeware tools to create some ?? And generally better quality texture for 3D type games ??

:P.

[Josh]

3D models would be nifty too. :D

[Chris Burkhardt]

I think 3D models (with textures) are a good idea if you don't want to take the time to draw every frame of an animated character (which I completely understand): the programmer can use the model in a realtime 3D game, or can use meshworks to render some animation frames to use in a 2D game.

Also, maybe Mr. Ari Feldman could help out with a some animated character sprites :D Or, you could always pay him for his work (I think he does very good retro-style sprite animations) www.yogicflyer.com (http://www.yogicflyer.com)

Carlos, I love all your game assets so far. My favorites are the Phaeum Tiles and the Xaos Tiles... and I like your Level Creator sets, also.

> and graphics for a complete game "classic/retro" game. For
> example, Centipede or Berserk. These could be useful in
> tutorials or for newbies.

Yes, I think that would be very useful for writing tutorials (or for a uDG entry ;) )

[nohbahdii]

I found the resources to be useful especially the soundfx, but the graphics were good too[when doing a test run for game mechanics...an Alpha version]

[Josh]

Originally posted by Camacho
For tiles, I have used PICT images that contain a bunch of tiles for most of my work. Should I consider breaking each tile into its own file? Should I consider saving the images in TGA or TIFF, or PNG?Does it really matter what format you save the graphics in since we could convert them to whatever was needed? Maybe add alpha channels...

[robsteely]

Many of the RPG graphic elements in the library are too small and at too low of a color depth to be useful in today's games.

I would like to see much larger, tileable sprites at millions of colors for landscapes, character animations, and magical effects. In particular, I'd like to see artwork suitable for use in Coldstone games (2D RPG engine where the viewpoint is typically above and slightly behind objects). The graphics in Pillars of Garendall provide good examples of the size and type of graphics I'm looking for. Having graphics for a variety of eras would be nice, i.e. western, 1930's gangsters, medieval, modern day, futuristic, space, etc.

I would also like to see longer, looping theme music for a variety of game situations.

Lastly, I would like to see additional interface elements such as: windows and controls (buttons, sliders, scrollbar replacements, etc.).

Bob Steely

[Josh]

Originally posted by robsteely
Lastly, I would like to see additional interface elements such as: windows and controls (buttons, sliders, scrollbar replacements, etc.).Just out of curiosity, why do you want interface elements? We have the Mac GUI already, plus with IB and PB, it is easier to use and interact with those elements.

[robsteely]

Originally posted by jabber
Just out of curiosity, why do you want interface elements? We have the Mac GUI already, plus with IB and PB, it is easier to use and interact with those elements.

Oops, I meant *graphics* for interface elements. I don't use standard OS and aqua controls in games or they ends up looking like MS Excel.

Bob

[Chris Burkhardt]

> I don't use standard OS and aqua controls in games or they ends
> up looking like MS Excel.

Yes, nothing takes away from the game environment like adhering to Apple's human interface guidelines.

[Carlos Camacho]

Making isometric characters are a pain unless you make them in 3d and use bones to move the body parts and then render out the various needed angles. (But you have to consider them holding objects and so on.. a real pain unless you are getting paid for it.) Thus, I tend to stay away from them. SNES style RPG games that were isometric would be something I'd like to tackle at some point though. They generally use only 10 frames for 4 direction movement.

Flat, Sonic Hedgehog and Rockman style characters wouldn't be too hard. And since I want someone to make a FAST pace Sonic/Zool style game for the Mac, I'll give it a shot.

I think I will switch to TGA. I realize that anyone can convert, but if it saves time, then all the better. I think I will also try to focus on providing enough graphics for complete games like I mentioned. Since I have many 3d models (high-polygon count), I will render them out for some R-Type style games.

As for low-count 3d models - to be used in 3d engines. Since I am eager for certain games to be made for the Mac, I will make objects and characters. Maybe learn Meshwork for that. I'd like to make some anime style (big heads) golfers, and baseball players. (tennis and volleyball too.) I mean with all you OpenGL pros, is it that hard to whip up a little golf game or tennis game? (tennis is like pong!) Some fighting people, race cars and mechs/ships would also be nice to make.

Every few months, I stock my shelves with the latest Japanese video game screen shots to get inspired. I got some neat stuff planned.

I'm not sure about instruments sounds. I do have drums and precussion and synths, but acoustic instruments... I don't know.. I think you can find enough of them on the net. And on top of that, to accurately playback a Piano, you need to sample it as different octaves, otherwise you are stretching things far too much.

I put some nice goodies on Mark S's book. I am pretty proud with the tiles that will appear on the CD. Very SNESish. And there are some neat backgrounds for RPGs as well.

BTW.. Some graphic assets on this site are in the PD, and most likely old 8bit stuff. Nothing I can do about that unless I want to pull a Ted Tunner. My work is all done in Photoshop.

Also, I'm wondering if the car sprites are handy at all? I supppose if the tires moved, they would have been better. I was hoping for retro style top down racing games or even a frogger game from those sprites.

I often get nasty emails from PC devs about not letting them use my graphic assets. That really grates my nerves. JUST GO AWAY I want to say! It is my work, and I DECIDE how they should be used. Obviously, people are using goggle and finding this site to collect graphic assets. If you see any of our stuff in PC games, let me know. I may let PC devs use my art but charge them a HUGE fee someday ;)

Ok my thoughts are all over the place. (No order.) To summarize. My hope is to offer enough complete CLASSIC style game assets for educational purposes. Thus, are tutorials can utilize them to help people go from A to Z to building certain types of games. Next, I hope to provide assets that can be used during dev of a game. IMHO, a game really needs a full-time artist. But to attract one, you have to be able to show some build. The build can use our assets, but ideally, the finished product should have some nice original art. (But, you are more than welcome to use anything here for your final Mac game.) In the past, tile size and many things were kept small because of HD space. Now, we have space, we can improve the quality of the assets. Thanks for your input, please add more...

Cheers,

[Nimrod]

A thought about image formats. I'd imagine that if I was using sprites, it'd be nice to have them in a format that keeps transparency (PNG, Photoshop). Otherwise, you could provide 8-bit masks along with the sprites. (Not sure if you do that already, I've never felt the need to use any of your resources yet...)

[robsteely]

Originally posted by Nimrod
A thought about image formats. I'd imagine that if I was using sprites, it'd be nice to have them in a format that keeps transparency (PNG, Photoshop). Otherwise, you could provide 8-bit masks along with the sprites. (Not sure if you do that already, I've never felt the need to use any of your resources yet...)

Please no images in Photoshop format. It's proprietary and not everyone owns it. The absolute best non-lossy format that retains alpha information is PNG. And developers can use Quicktime to convert it to anything else they might want to use.

Also please create graphic assets at millions of colors and large sizes. If need be, the developer can reduce the color depth and scale the images, but if they're too small, or at too low of a color depth to begin with, there's no way to fix them.

Just my two cents,

Bob Steely

[Carlos Camacho]

Yes, I wouldn't want to use PSD format for the fact that not everyone can use Photoshop. I've had luck with TGA, but sometimes found some quirks with PNG format. (Like losing my alpha channel after saving.)

Cheers,

[OneSadCookie]

No fault of PNG, sounds like buggy saving and/or loading code. Still, whatever works for you :)

[Carlos Camacho]

How about 3d format? I haven't worked in Meshwork, and my guess it isn't so easy to create models when comapred to some other tools. To people want OBJ, 3dmf, 3ds, LWO??? I'm not sure if textures or bones would be retained unless saved in native Meshwork format. I'll have to study this area more and talk to the OpenGL devs here. I'm interested to know what they think my models should "weigh under." ie. Polygon count/size of model.

Switching to audio. When saving AIFF, there are many compression setttings. I haven't explored the differences much. So I tend to not use them. But uncompressed 44K, 16bit sound can take up space. Anyone in the know, want to give me some tips? Also, is AIFF still your preferred format, or would you like MP3 or WAV??

Cheers

[monteboyd]

Going by what a lot of people have said on the boards I'd say having them in native Meshwork format would be useful to most people.

Carlos if you don't want to create in Meshwork it can import a few different file types, can't remember which off the top of my head, so you could make them, import them into Meshwork, and save them. The only realy problem with that is texturing, often the models will lose texture information on import.

I must say from personal experience that UV-mapping a texture onto a reasonably complicated model is an artform in itself, and a *major* exercise in patience.

[Carlos Camacho]

Yeah, I would probably make the model outside Meshwork and import it. and then apply textures inside Meshwork.

Thanks

[aarku]

I'm not sure this is something you'd want to do but I thought I'd throw it out there. For things like your interface graphics, (which are real nice btw) I think it'd help if you'd include the photoshop source files for final graphic. I wanted to implement some of the interface graphics, but I couldn't just because there weren't buttons that said what I needed to be said. It'd be really neat if you could include photoshop styles. (if that's how your doing it I dunno) For instance on the Inkubator board the artist posted a photoshop style for the cool ice text effect. Things like that benefit those with photoshop a lot. But I realize not everyone has photoshop so this would (hopefully) be in addition to instead of a replacement for image files. (in whatever format) I know you had blank buttons but still it is really hard (for me at least) to try and match what I put in them to the other text. I love the idea of the big headed character thing. I want to make a quick paced original-idea arcade game after I finish my current project.

-Jon

[griffin239]

The resources should be sub-catagorized to fit into their types and possibley genres (that ones a hard call)

But their should be a break down of
Tile Backgrounds
Sprites
3D models
3D textures
Sounds
Music

I guess source code and reference material should also be included
in the break downs...knowing where to go with the resources you've got is important too.

What ever else I'm missing in there...I don't think you should have to have one file format or other..but a label to let us know what the format is and maybe a readme that points to conversion methods for the format would be good. Maybe a little "?" icon for that...

[ClarustheDogCow]

OBJ are very easy to write, but they do not contain built in texture support. So, in otherwords, you would most likely be exporting just the placement information from your 3d editor and nothing more, a white 3d mesh.

[Carlos Camacho]

Yes, it was my hope long ago to break down our assets into lists that make things easier to find. If you like this idea, please help me convince Griggs. :D As for a link to a conversion program, I think everyone knows Graphic Converter does it all 8)

From what I have seen, some programs do well in retaining OBJ textures and some do not. But as far as I know, it does support textures.

My past tiles were of various sizes. At first I starte with 32x32. What is the size that most of you prefer? And for sprites?

More input please!

[Mars_999]

I would like to see some mech 3D models also. Once my Mac shows up in the next week or (GOD I HOPE not) two, I plan on working on my code to load 3D models. I would like to see .3ds or .obj file format. I have done some reading and can't remember for sure but .obj will not save the texture info, but you use openGL to apply the texture if I remember right? Problem with .3ds is it's 3D Studio's file format and wouldn't you need to own the program to use the models in your game? I think object files are free but not sure? I would like to see more tiles done in either 32x32, 64x64, or 128x128 with 32bit color and alpha included. I like the .png format also but .tga works to. I would like to see some tile sets that could be used to make a RTS like TA or Starcraft. Yes music is important as is sound fx. Trying to make a game without the necessary data is really frustrating and somewhat discouraging. Here is my wish list in order of importance

1. 3D Models
2. 32bit (Whatever size as long as its a power of 2) tiles or textures
3. Sound FX
4. Music 16bit at least and 44khz stereo

But whatever Carlos wants to do is fine with me because anything is better than nothing!!! =) BTW what 3D modeling program on the Mac will you be using? Thanks

[robsteely]

Originally posted by Camacho
Yes, it was my hope long ago to break down our assets into lists that make things easier to find. If you like this idea, please help me convince Griggs. :D As for a link to a conversion program, I think everyone knows Graphic Converter does it all 8)

From what I have seen, some programs do well in retaining OBJ textures and some do not. But as far as I know, it does support textures.

My past tiles were of various sizes. At first I starte with 32x32. What is the size that most of you prefer? And for sprites?

More input please!

I recommend making tiles and sprites at least 128 X 128 for maximum flexibility. As I said before, we can always scale them down if we need to and having larger sizes available could extend the usable lifespan of the graphics. (Screen sizes seem to be growing all the time.)

Bob

[Josh]

Originally posted by robsteely
I recommend making tiles and sprites at least 128 X 128 for maximum flexibility.Yep, make 'em big :D perferably with an alpha channel.

[Carlos Camacho]

128x128? Wow that is big! I can do alot in 64x64. Well, once the new site, udevgame, tutorials posted - then my to-do list is complete; I can start to pump out more stuff.

What 3d program do I use? All of 'em except for Maya which I can not afford yet. Maybe if they give me a review copy then I will be set ;)

Last year I started to make a neat Isometric dungeon tile-set. (Like Diablo) Things were looking neat but I got side-tracked. I also attempted to use Bryce to make isometric tiles, but their camera angles don't allow for correct isometric views. (Too difficult to explain) That is a shame as it could make neat tiles I think. I will have to check out Bryce 5 if that has been solved. Or focus on Eon's 3d terrain program or ZBrush.

I do have MANY high-polygon count models (like Mechs) but need to reduce them in size.

Keep the dialog going. It really helps...

[griffin239]

When making a map for coldstone..I was struck with the whole Tile Concept and it really bugged me..I just don't think in this Piece the swaure Puzzle together graphic methodology. Well not since BASIC.

I can't remember whether I tried to Slice my large (enourmous) map into tiles with Graphic converter. But with De-babelizer I was able to take the enourmous Map and turn it into some 1,000+ tiles.
This was probably overkill and I did this because it was a top view of a 3D scene I'd created. It was my first experiment and it was based on the map size and number of tiles placed in the Coldstone Tutorial.

There's an awful lot of Programmers here..could ya'll get together and brainstorm a technique for making tiles from images..or a tile resource for that matter? That way artists could supply a complete image and then the app would do the breaking down into tiles based on some parameters the game maker needs? like 100x100 squares @ 32x32 or oops wrong map kind make it 100x100 @ 128x128...for example.

Just a thought.

isn't the .obj format from Alias Wavefront?
I think you all should stick with 3DS since it is fairly standard and cross platform. I don't see any of the PC people using .obj format and meshwork doesn't support it...

Meshwork's format is fairly cool for games but it needs some better texture viewing/editing methods (like a complete mesh spread out that can slap into photoshop..it almost does this trick..but it needs to be more robust.

Its low in price which opens it up to more people, especially if hobbyists want to try a hand at the whole 3D game thing...it outputs to 3DS..and ye olde 3DMF.

Meshwork also appears fairly versatile..Check out 20th Century Arial Joust (TACS)..and then compare to..Tobi's Engine..totaly different sides of the coin. I was blown away when I found TACS using Meshwork after working on Tobi's engine. Here I was slaving away at Polygon after polygon..and TACS is just lines an points...amazing! What else can be done!?!?!

With OpenGL you could easily render in 2D...but have all the animations of a 3D file!!

So you developers there...try meshwork..see how the file format might suit your needs. Its low cost alone could make a big difference in the amount of artists that can work on your games.

(Psst...most of the time I'm pulling my hair out and cursing the app...until my models WORK in the game..then I'm laughing my butt off and having a good old time!)

[Carlos Camacho]

griffin, we HAVE some tools on this site that will do what you want! Search for them.

>isn't the .obj format from Alias Wavefront?
Yes, and I have found support for it in many Mac apps. 3DS is also in many apps, however the otheer Max format is not.. what the heck is it called, something like .max

When I get time, I'll have to re-load Meshwork. But I think I'd rather use something else to make my model parts, align them, import in Meshwork, and then set up whatever bones. etc I need.

[griffin239]

Well I don't actually intend on using tiles myself.
I was thinking of those who requested it. I'm no big fan of tiles.


.Max is StudioMax's propietary format, which stores all the plugin data from a studiomax scene and then uses that to build a model from the saved data upon launching the data..assuming the plugins exist in the Studio Max you are using. I can't imagine any Mac app being able to do it since Studio Max is totaly PC, unless someone wants to translate studioMax plugins to other apps. In theory a Sphere, Cube, Cone etc..is built entirely with Plug ins in Studio Max.


Torque comes with these tools, but so far I have not seen anyone build them for the Mac. I've included short notes from the read me files it comes with where it came with one.

map2dif

max2dtsExporter
Installation
Place the file 'dtsexport.dle' in the Max 'Plugins' directory.

max2mapExporter
ms2dtsExporter
texture2bm8

If I knew what I was doing with code I'd build them...but I'm at a loss to figure it out. I get 1152 errors when trying to compile map2dif. Dif being the torque/half-life interior format (inside buildings etc). So far I have to rely on Pc users to get some usuable models for Torque...and of courses..Nothing has been produced in 2.5 months.

I've sent a message to investor relations at garage games to see what the license for the tools to source is. Although looking over those filenames it all seems very very .MAX specific...pretty useless if they require StudioMax entirely.


So for the time being..lets all just forget about .MAX on the Mac.
Its my understanding that on its own .Max format is useless for games ...you would need to write StudioMax as the base of your engine.