After a long hard slog, I've finally reached an important milestone: the collision detection Works (TM)!

I finally finished it this weekend and it's such a morale booster finishing an important part of the game.

Sometimes I wonder whether the hours I spend on the game are worth it but when I remember the original "Idea" or reach important milestones it starts to make sense (barely) again.

I never thought game programming was so hard. It's not as if I'm going to sell this game or make money, I suppose I do it just for the thrill of seeing that Venus de Milo mesh collide accurately against the hind legs of a unicorn :)

My next biggest worry is art. Where in hell do I find an artist who's willing to gimme some decent art in exchange for a crappy amount of cash? Nowhere I suppose :(

Brian Azzopardi

Do the art yourself. I'm a programmer who's recently gotten into 3D artwork for the game I'm creating (I got frustrated with virtual team artists who wouldn't actually produce anything). It's not as hard as you think. I have Hash Animation Master, and the artwork I'm creating is comparable to what a pro could create (Seriously, it really looks good... I'm impressed!)

I can't say how hard texturing and animation are, I'm still modeling my first creature. I'll let ya know.

Plus doing artwork is a welcome break from programming.

I agree, if you can afford a decent modelling package, it is not that difficult. Of course it takes practice, but I actually found it to be a lot of fun!
Texturing on the other hand has been a real pain in the...

I've been enjoying my diversions to pixel art. It's great to demystify a process. I haven't been having that much fun with my 3D models because I'm tired of fighting with Truespace. It seems like everything I do with it is a battle. I guess I don't have the Truespace mindset, but I'll keep trying. I gotta stop thinking like a programmer. ;)

Dan McDonald has mentioned he's been frequenting some pixel art websites. Dan, could you post them here?

And as for collision detection, I got mine working last week, but buddy, it already needs an overhaul. :)

Sure :)
Pixelation (http://pixelation.swoo.net) is the main forum I frequent.
So you want to be a pixel artist? (http://pixeltutorial.cjb.net/) - The best pixeling tutorial anywhere, ever, period.
www.pixel-zone.com was another great pixelart site, but It went down. The guy who ran it is supposedly working on the next version of it, but it's slow going. His site can be found here (http://www.zoggles.co.uk/asp/index.asp) , it has some cool tutorials and pixelart examples on it...

Have fun! :)

Yeah, trueSpace is a different kind of beast. I like it, but the interface is weird. I've also been messing around a little with Blender. It's power and free, but man oh man is the interface fugly!

This may be a bit off-topic, but it concerns pixel artists (I keep wanting to write pixie artists! :) ). I may be wanting to hire one or possibly two for some contract work in the near future. So the question (for Steve and everyone else) is, do we want a "help wanted" item here? Would that be appropriate? I think we might get a higher hit-rate than you do on places like Gamedev, but I don't want to muddy the waters or anything here either. What do you all think?

Sure ... feel free to post help-wanted items to this forum for now. I don't know if you'll get much of a response rate for pixel artists, but you can try it and see what happens.

Brian:

If you're looking for 3d-rendered art (i.e. sprites, and not actual 3d models/textures) I highly recommend povray, at www.povray.org.

It's a raytracer wrapped in a programming language, which is great for programmers who want to do art. :)

Our games Intensity XS and ReCharge both used Povray for all their art. It does have a somewhat steep learning curve, but after a week or so you'll be happily creating along.

Just an idea.

Patrick

I bought truespace 5.2 and I HATE IT! You are right, everything with truespace is a battle. I am now a happy Blender user :)

I have also liked my diversions into pixel art and modelling. My SO is a fine arts painter so I had some help from her. I have also been doing a traditional live figure painting (You know with nude models). That has really been an eye opener. First it taught me to use coal decently and secondly my eyes opened to form and lightning in a radical way. You think you know how to paint a human but is is actually much harder than it seems. I really recomend traditional arts for anyone interested in computer arts. It has been very relaxing for a programmer type like me to play around with something that doesn't complain compiler errors all the time ..

I agree that it is easy getting something done but pixel art should never be underestimated as a craft. As Dan pointed out earlier, there are many programmers that figure decent pixel art is just a wave of the hand. 3D modelling and especially texturing is something that is quite difficult to get really good. I think software has a big impact in this area. I am using Maya and I think it really saved me hours and hours of frustration. I have used a dozen free or semi-free packages before and concluded that the interface is really important. It is like saying your program is Turing complete .. Yes, you can do anything but can you achieve something useful in less than ten years. (This is a pun at all those people having "unlimmited scriptability" which most of the time translates to "almost no content")

As for collision detection I am slowly refactoring out the physics engine as it doesn't really make any sense gamewise. Hmpf.

No offense to anyone, but working with a designer/artist is important in my opinion.

Thinking you can jump into a profession you didn't learn/study/practice for years and produce professional quality is a bit of self-deception imo. There are people who are gifted in both areas, but they need practice to master both arts too.

And design is much more than just making something look pretty. Especially when it comes to selling your game. A good designer not only knows how to make things look good, he also knows how to create certain moods/feelings/desires to increase the sales and addictiveness of your game.

I know you don't necessarily need superb graphics in the shareware segment at the moment and can reach good sales numbers without it too, but I believe things will change and shareware games will become more graphics heavy in the near future. (if that is a good thing or not is ofcourse a good question)

And even if you can sell your game well without, why not increase the sales figures even more by making the game more appealing, even if it means having to search and cope with a crazy designer/artist guy.

I know many people who don't necessarily want AAA-graphics in a game and prefer good gameplay, but still wouldn't buy a game with 'too bad looking' graphics and design-work. They don't want top notch graphics, but await at least a decent quality.

pixelation forums are a very nice place for pixelers to hang out, unf, by experience (I'm sorry if any pixelation member comes here but this my experience) the users are usually kids or worst act as kids. unprofessional, unreliable, hard to work with.

Now, there are some decent pixelerers (man, some are amazing) there, and I wish I would have the privilege of working with them, but I haven't had the chance :(

TrueSpace has a crappy interface. It takes too much of time to learn the interface, then to learn how to use the interface and the program. Its good for quick models which are mainly based on primitives, but if you need point edit stuff, truespace is a pain.

Blender is nice, probably because the programmers designed the UI as they wished, meaning a 3d program with a programmers interface, makes it logical and easy for us to use.

If anyone actualyl has any tips, recomendations, or know some artists that are looking for freelance work do let me (us know).

Also have a look around: http://www.spritedomain.net/

Nice site with some sprites and a few tutorials.

For pixelzone, Zoogles should have the site up in a bit (I hope) I'll try to find out a bit more.


Also, if you need pixel art, do it yourself. Sure it isn't as good as the others, but its fun, you learn alot, you practise, and if in the end you need better art, artists already have a base to work from. :)

Bruno

OpenFX is a quite nice and free (GNU license) 3D package.
It is open-source and already has tons of very good plugins.
Personally I prefer it over Truespace.

For more info, visit:
http://openfx.planetmirror.com/



Also, if you need a good Photoshop-style image editor, GIMP is a very nice alternative. The newest versions are very stable and have almost full Photoshop-like functionality. Is a free (GNU) tool too.
www.gimp.org

Also, if you need a good Photoshop-style image editor, GIMP is a very nice alternative. The newest versions are very stable and have almost full Photoshop-like functionality. Is a free (GNU) tool too.
www.gimp.org

Gimp is to Photoshop in UI what Truespace is to Max.

Unless they changed the UI very very very much in the last year, gimp UI still over messy and unthinked.

Although I admire the people who try to learn pixel art, I 'm personally not willing to make that step.

I believe that it is better to concentrate on my own strengths and farm out the art to a competant artist - I can never hope to learn/have the talent to match so why bother?

Anyway, although the game will be free and, maybe later on shareware :), I still want good art - it is the art which captures the eye first no matter how accurate the physics or great the gameplay. So, for me, both excellent gameplay and art are a must.

Brian Azzopardi

Hmm lots of stuff to respond too...

Some comments were made about pixelation being mostly 13 year olds who are unreliable. I wont dispute that characterization, recently the signal to noise ratio over there has been getting smaller and smaller due to the sudden growth of that community. However there are still some very talented pixelers who do contract work on a regular basis and are reliable. You just have to filter your responses; it would probably be easier to know who's legitimate and who's not if you've been following the community for a while. As with all things online, you need to do you research :)

As for programmers doing art. I find it a rewarding and relaxing break from coding. You can see some of my pixel art in my plan file (http://www.rainfallstudios.com/plan.aspx?id=2) (one of the images has two guys in a sword fight and there is some blood so don't click if that type of thing bothers you)
Looking at that one might thing i'm a decent artist, well I'm severely lacking in actual art education (nothing beyond high school) I don’t understand a lot of things about art. I've actually hired someone to re-do the logo for rainfall studios because doing things like graphic design is a mystery to me. I just thought I’d mention it, because pixel art is a nice subset of art and it can be picked up relatively easily without too much of an art background.

I do believe, however, it's important to know your limits and where your resources are best spent. In the late stages of a game acquiring a skill like pixel art to produce all the art content for your game is probably not a good idea. If you start early and you enjoy doing pixel art then growing your art skills while you develop the framework for your game is a more viable option.

I definately understand the need for having artist on you team. But I also know from real world experience. Trying to get an artist to join your team before you can actually take what he creates and immediately put it in the game is next to impossible.

Unless you are paying for the art, the artist needs some form of reward, i.e. seeing their artwork in the game. When they don't get that immediate satisfaction, they will quit or stop producing.

From now on for my indie projects I will create my own art during the development phase, and once the code is far enough along that I can immediately use other's artwork, I will bring artists on to the team.

Besides I really love doing artwork now. I used to think I didn't have any talent for this, but now I'm starting to think I do (see my other post showing my first attempt at 3D modeling). And seeing artwork for my game is starting to get me pumped up again about coding my game.

I only wish I had started doing 3D artwork earlier in life.

PS: I use Hash animation master, and it rocks. It's $200 and it's worth every penny. It's super easy and really powerful. I recommend it to anyone who thinks they might want to try creating 3D art. I've played around with MAX, and frankly it's way too complex for me to work with. AM is perfect for what I want.

Originally posted by Dan MacDonald
Some comments were made about pixelation being mostly 13 year olds who are unreliable. I wont dispute that characterization, recently the signal to noise ratio over there has been getting smaller and smaller due to the sudden growth of that community. However there are still some very talented pixelers who do contract work on a regular basis and are reliable. You just have to filter your responses; it would probably be easier to know who's legitimate and who's not if you've been following the community for a while. As with all things online, you need to do you research :)[/B]

Dan (or should I say Kable ? :)) as I said, from my experience with dealing with some of them, that was the impressions I got. As I said, " Now, there are some decent pixelerers (man, some are amazing) there, and I wish I would have the privilege of working with them, but I haven't had the chance"

:)

I believe you can see I support that community (check thread = "Temporary Image Storage [aka Hi I'm new :)]") :)


Bruno

Iwasn't disputing that impression Akura, or your loyalty to pixelation ;) I concur that lately the maturity level on that board has been dropping. I just didn't want people to get the impression that pixelation was a total waste, it still has some (a little?) value...

Originally posted by Mike Boeh
I bought truespace 5.2 and I HATE IT! You are right, everything with truespace is a battle. I am now a happy Blender user :)
I started using Blender a couple weeks ago and now that I'm over the learning curve for the interface I have to say I'm very happy with it. A lot of it can be cryptic, but at least when I learn how to do something it always works. Most the time with Truespace I'm trying to figure out what I'm doing wrong (or it's crashing, or it's changing my rotational values on me for no good reason). Zoinks, and I paid for the Truespace 6.0 upgrade; what was I smoking? Blender is a relief.

I guess that just goes to show how different people can be. I personally can't believe someone would think that Blender is a relief compared to trueSpace. I've worked with both, and had completely the opposite reaction. trueSpace has been far easier to work with, and far more reliable than Blender. Try a boolean subtraction with Blender.

You think trueSpace's interface is cryptic, and Blender's isn't?!? To each their own, I suppose.

No, I think they're both cryptic. When I ran Blender for the first time I said, "Just run away -- run away from the horror!" It's just that whenever I think I understand Truespace, a hand comes out of the side of the monitor and smacks me in the head. I also think I had compatibility issues with it. Blender looks good to me perhaps only in comparison. ;) Also, in Truespace, I always had trouble finding where they put stuff. For instance, I liked keeping the view centered on the selected object but under which of two dozen submenus is it placed? Once I find and select it, it replaces another function, something I might have to dig for later. I don't seem to have that problem with Blender, I guess the way it's set up better suits my instincts. But I can see why one would prefer it the other way around.

When you're learning a new interface you ask yourself questions like "How can I do X?" Whenever I asked that in Truespace getting the answer was an unforgiving brawl: the object becomes mangled and I can't undo it, the app crashes, I perform an operation successfully once and can't figure out how to repeat it, etc. The number of times I failed to relocate to the beginning of the animation and made changes to the wrong frame is uncountable. True, this is more thick-headedness on my part than a flaw in Truespace. Arguing with the KFE was total frustration, if it wasn't changing my numbers on me it was giving floating point errors. With Blender, I wanted to rotate the object 180 degrees over 10 frames, so I inserted points at 1,0 and 10, 180, adjusted the curves, and it did exactly what I wanted. I was grateful.

You're right about feature-set -- Truespace can do a lot, and boolean operations on Blender are a chore. I'm sure at some point I'll go back to giving Truespace a shot, but at this point I'm just happy to be making progress.

Between the trueSpace manual, and the quick guide card, I didn't have any trouble finding anything. My problem is more along the lines of learning how to do the modeling. :)

Heck, we're all just waiting until we can afford Maya. :)

Well that's true. :D

Wow, you are praising Blender and Truspace. Well, I suck in both. :) My choice is 3dstudio and I encourge everyone to start to learn this tool, since almost any artist can use this. I have been using it for almost 10 years now and I have never found any modeller so easy to use. Unfortunately it crashes a lot and this feature alone makes to think twice about to fork out so much money for this bugfest.

My first reaction when starting on the current project was to make the modeller myself (like I always done). Then I reminded myself that this project was for completion. That helped.

I chose Maya because of the lower price point than 3D Studio Max. I did a evaluation of both (and some others) and features were roughly comparable. Maya had a bit slicker interface and much lower price so that decided it. I have been quite happy with it, especially since they included Mental Ray with the new 4.5 release. I wasn't an expert modeller when I started and knew that the software should not put another block on the road.

Hi All,

Greetings :-)
My first post here (Joined this forum today itself).


quote:
---
Gimp is to Photoshop in UI what Truespace is to Max.

Unless they changed the UI very very very much in the last year, gimp UI still over messy and unthinked.

---
That depends on the platform you are using gimp on. On Linux, it totally rocks! On the other hand, on windows, it's not so hot, largely because of the limitations of the windows shell (No focus follows mouse, If you click in a window it is always raised to the top, etc).

I personally find it quite easy to use, and not to mention that gimp brushes rock!

Ps: For those wanting to build websites, gimp has some scripts that will build buttons, logos etc in one shot. Only thing is, they are not so great ;-)

Regards,
Pallav

Just passed one major milestone; I just got the basic BadGuy AI to Not Act Totally Stupid. They're still dumb as posts, but at least they're aggressive now ;)

For an artist who's finally getting deep into the programming side of this biz, that's a pretty major event :D

Congradulations, it's very rewarding to see your game start acting like a game and know it's all your doing... ;)

I second that. I surprise myself positively every time I turn on the computer, creativity sure is fun!

Happy New Year!