From a technical point of view, the cutting edge of commercial games is certainly ahead of Open Source. But then, that's not really surprising or unreasonable, commercial games and game engines cost millions to develop, with teams of developers working full time for months or years. It's not that Open Source game developers lack the expertise (they may well work as commercial developers too), but it's a question of time/money.
So I'd say the biggest limitation is simply time (or money to pay someone to do it).
But there are still plenty of commercial games with lower levels of tech - especially on mobile, just look at the massively-advertised games that have cartoony style graphics shown in the advert - and then you realise you're not looking at the actual game graphics anyway... Many of these games seem more like 1990-level "16-bit" era, and this isn't a limitation of mobile hardware.
If we mean from a "worth playing" point of view, as I think yd seems to be getting at, then this seems more subjective - by yd's definition, then to me a vast number of closed source games aren't actually games, because either it's not fun to play, it's not interesting to me, or it's riddled with bugs (in some cases show-stoppers - the original Medieval Total War was hopeless on every machine I tried; and most commercial games have some bugs here and there - I love that Morrowind has a console that you can use to change game parameters to get around otherwise show-stopper bugs like getting stuck somewhere or a vital NPC gone missing). Unfortunately software development is hard to get right, even if you think you've tested lots of situations on lots of hardware; having a dedicated team of employed professionals doesn't stop this.
I guess one question is why hasn't Open Source gaming had the successes of Linux or Firefox; it's not like those things are easy to write. One answer is that you can probably attract a far greater number of developers, it's clear that having an Open Source operating system, web browser (as well as office tools, etc) are a good thing, and it's easier to get developers to work on the existing projects. Whilst games are important, it's not just a case of writing one game - there are an unlimited different kinds of games people may want to write, or play. Another point is that non-game software is something that companies can make use of, and hence promote or provide funding (e.g., Linux's success of being used for various operating systems, most notably Android).
I don't find 3D technically harder in itself, though there are various issues:
* It's easier to get away with simpler stuff in 2D. So most 2D games will have axis-aligned tile-based worlds. You could do a similar thing in 3D, but as graphics become more "real" there's the problem that simplifications become more noticable. So this means more complex algorithms for path-finding, collision detection and so on. This also applies to art - in a 2D game, people don't mind if every tree looks the same (or perhaps you have two or three variations), or the sprites are rendered from low poly models, because it's not realistic looking in the first place, and the viewpoint is far more restricted, but this becomes far more noticable in a 3D world where things are trying to look more realistic, and you can walk up close - suddenly the other simplifications stick out like a sore thumb. Players are more likely to notice if the character isn't shown wearing the right kind of clothing/armour or using the weapon that they are meant to be armed with. It's not a hard rule - you could have a realistic looking isometric 2D game where you can zoom in close; and a 3D game that's cartoonish graphics. But most of the time people try to use 3D graphics to improve the realism. Rogue-likes take this to the extreme, shsowing how you can get away with simple graphics and no animation at time. You could do that in 3D, but there seems little point.
* A 2D game engine like SDL and SFML is all you need; for 3D, game engines tend to be more complex, there's more to learn, there's probably less choice if you're looking for Open Source 3D game engines, and probably harder to make something that's cross-platform across many platforms. Or you roll your own graphics engine, which is time consuming (and means fighting with graphics driver issues on various different chipsets or platforms).
* Maybe others have more experience of this than I, but one problem I've had is simply getting 3D content into a game. With 2D it's easy - there are standard common formats, which easily convert to one another. 3D gets more complex when you consider animations - different formats do things differently, and they don't translate easily (e.g., key frames versus using bones). There are also plenty of free libraries to read image formats, but less so for 3D. I tried ASSIMP, though depending on format, there were some things not supported; similarly some of the Blender exports don't support everything, as noted in comments above, so I had a hard time finding common formats to convert between. How do other developers do this? Is there an Open Source library for reading Blend models (which seem to be pretty much the standard on OGA), or is it a case of writing your own exporter (or dealing with the existing ones)?
ETA: That's good news about Leadworks Blender exporter - is Leadworks format open/documented (could this be used as a route even for people not using the Leadworks engine)...?
* Tools may be another issue. With 2D games using axis-aligned tile-based worlds, there are generic tools which can be used for that, and it's also very quick to generate levels/worlds like this.
I don't see anything wrong with the OP's request. Profit sharing is a perfectly normal way of developing games together, whether it's for programmers, artists or designers. If you want an artist for a commercial project without sharing source/profits/distribution, you need to pay them - but not all artists (or programmers) are after that kind of deal.
I would use "partner" to describe a programmer and artist working on a game. I don't see how "customer" is more accurate, to me that means the people buying the game...
@Kemono He's not asking to be able to distribute his own competing IOS port - he's asking for Windows 8 and Windows Phone, leaving other platforms to the programmer.
@MedicineStorm I don't think the OP was even after the source to be Open - just to be able to access it to be able to port it for those platforms.
It is however worth clarifying whether there is any burden for the programmer to use appropriate cross-platform technologies (e.g., using one of the engines you list in the OP). AFAIK, porting a standard Java Android application to Windows Phone could require a rewrite into a different language altogether.
I don't think it's fair to say he shouldn't use synths - I mean yes, perhaps the "fantasy music" section could be labelled "synth music" section, but that's a labelling issue. It's true these pieces don't feature lots of different instruments, or it's hard to hear anything but the synths - if the latter, the volume balance could be improved, if the former, well it is what it is, single-instrument pieces doesn't mean bad.
I also didn't get any connection to the Friends scene at all - that seems an unfair comment, that doesn't explain the criticism, and just seems to make the criticism seem bigger. On the contrary, Ross's performance had all sorts of different sounds, but didn't have anything to them apart from that.
Much of the music I like isn't about "memorable melodies".
From the video, one issue is that the tracks don't seem loopable as well as being fairly short ... OTOH, there's enough of them that one could perhaps feature lots of the in a game to keep up the variation and not need looping (some RPGs do this, play between different tracks rather than constantly looping).
It's a fair point that different aspects of a game can be represented by different sounds, so not everything should be synths. But there's more variation in sound under the other sections (unclear why the "Fantasy" section is also labelled "Game", if all the sections are potentially game music). The video also has the advantage that he already had a particular game to create music for - I imagine it's harder if writing music without a game. Firstly it's simply harder because you don't have that source of inspiration. But even if you do come of with some music tailored for some imaginary game, you've then significantly limited its appeal - so okay, great, you've written music for a game about singing centaurs, but that's not any good for anything else :) So to some degree, the music will have to be more generic in order to have any chance of being used.
"Would releasing the art itself as CC-BY-SA and warning people that the actual characters are CC-BY-NC-SA, and that they would still have to ask permission for commercial use be legal and okay?"
But in that case, what use would having the art itself as CC-BY-SA, if people are still prevented from using it commercially? Or do you mean, you are okay with people using those specific pieces of art commercially, but not creating new pieces of art with your characters? This is potentially a bit confusing, since CC-BY-SA allows people to create derivative works, including commercially.
Note that non-commercial licences prevent people from using the work both in commercial games (obviously) but also Open Source games. They can still be used in "freeware" games where developers release for free but don't care about everything being under "Free" licences. Though as noted, there are all sorts of issues, such as whether being distributed on a website with ads, or on a magazine cover DVD.
I don't know how Flash SWFs work - but if it's simply like a "bundle" or a different file format, I don't think that would be an issue. Otherwise CC licences would be a problem for all sorts of formats (zip files, installer archives, packages like .deb on Debian or .apk on Android).
A key point is "A technological measure is considered an ETM if circumventing it carries penalties under laws fulfilling obligations under Article 11 of the WIPO Copyright Treaty adopted on December 20, 1996, or similar international agreements."
So the problem with DRM is either the user can't get exercise their rights, or doing so would be illegal in some countries.
As long as extracting it isn't covered by this, I don't think it matters that it requires some expertise.
Just to clarify my earlier comment, yep, I agree the UI needs to be updated (including for touchscreen laptops, I found some things fiddly on my Transformer Book) but I meant that the availability of the Qt API for Android means this is an option, albeit still a rather large task, but at least the entire codebase doesn't need to be rewritten in Java (or fiddling with writing your own front ends to native code) :)
I'm still using the classic Qt widgets myself and keep meaning to switch to Qt Quick, my understanding is Qt Quick is the preferred way of doing GUIs now in Qt, whether tablet or not.
I tested Tiled out on my Asus Transformer Book - for touchscreen, the GUI buttons could be larger, and the menu may need some thought especially on Android. Using something like a spinner would be better for things like entering tile/map sizes. But it all seems feasible.
For editing, a touchscreen works really well to quickly paint maps. If I plug in my keyboard dock, I have something that works well with both the UI and to use the touchscreen for painting. It would be good to have some way of scrolling using my touchscreen without using the scrollbars - maybe a two-finger pan gesture? Multitouch zoom would be nice too (especially since it's already supported on a touchpad).
Tiled uses Qt which now supports Android, so porting the code shouldn't be a huge problem. Support for multitouch for dragging and zooming should be easy with Qt too, and would be a useful thing to add for the existing platforms also.
I think the way you've done it is fine. If there's only a user name, put that, but sometimes people will say what name should be used as the credit.
"You don't need to link to the licencing rules"
Not sure if I misunderstand this, but note that the URL of the licence must be included (or else the full text of the licence itself) for CC BY 3.0 (although yes, it doesn't have to be implemented as a link).
From a technical point of view, the cutting edge of commercial games is certainly ahead of Open Source. But then, that's not really surprising or unreasonable, commercial games and game engines cost millions to develop, with teams of developers working full time for months or years. It's not that Open Source game developers lack the expertise (they may well work as commercial developers too), but it's a question of time/money.
So I'd say the biggest limitation is simply time (or money to pay someone to do it).
But there are still plenty of commercial games with lower levels of tech - especially on mobile, just look at the massively-advertised games that have cartoony style graphics shown in the advert - and then you realise you're not looking at the actual game graphics anyway... Many of these games seem more like 1990-level "16-bit" era, and this isn't a limitation of mobile hardware.
If we mean from a "worth playing" point of view, as I think yd seems to be getting at, then this seems more subjective - by yd's definition, then to me a vast number of closed source games aren't actually games, because either it's not fun to play, it's not interesting to me, or it's riddled with bugs (in some cases show-stoppers - the original Medieval Total War was hopeless on every machine I tried; and most commercial games have some bugs here and there - I love that Morrowind has a console that you can use to change game parameters to get around otherwise show-stopper bugs like getting stuck somewhere or a vital NPC gone missing). Unfortunately software development is hard to get right, even if you think you've tested lots of situations on lots of hardware; having a dedicated team of employed professionals doesn't stop this.
I guess one question is why hasn't Open Source gaming had the successes of Linux or Firefox; it's not like those things are easy to write. One answer is that you can probably attract a far greater number of developers, it's clear that having an Open Source operating system, web browser (as well as office tools, etc) are a good thing, and it's easier to get developers to work on the existing projects. Whilst games are important, it's not just a case of writing one game - there are an unlimited different kinds of games people may want to write, or play. Another point is that non-game software is something that companies can make use of, and hence promote or provide funding (e.g., Linux's success of being used for various operating systems, most notably Android).
Similar thread (though more specific to 3D RPGs) on Freegamedev at http://forum.freegamedev.net/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=4070 .
I don't find 3D technically harder in itself, though there are various issues:
* It's easier to get away with simpler stuff in 2D. So most 2D games will have axis-aligned tile-based worlds. You could do a similar thing in 3D, but as graphics become more "real" there's the problem that simplifications become more noticable. So this means more complex algorithms for path-finding, collision detection and so on. This also applies to art - in a 2D game, people don't mind if every tree looks the same (or perhaps you have two or three variations), or the sprites are rendered from low poly models, because it's not realistic looking in the first place, and the viewpoint is far more restricted, but this becomes far more noticable in a 3D world where things are trying to look more realistic, and you can walk up close - suddenly the other simplifications stick out like a sore thumb. Players are more likely to notice if the character isn't shown wearing the right kind of clothing/armour or using the weapon that they are meant to be armed with. It's not a hard rule - you could have a realistic looking isometric 2D game where you can zoom in close; and a 3D game that's cartoonish graphics. But most of the time people try to use 3D graphics to improve the realism. Rogue-likes take this to the extreme, shsowing how you can get away with simple graphics and no animation at time. You could do that in 3D, but there seems little point.
* A 2D game engine like SDL and SFML is all you need; for 3D, game engines tend to be more complex, there's more to learn, there's probably less choice if you're looking for Open Source 3D game engines, and probably harder to make something that's cross-platform across many platforms. Or you roll your own graphics engine, which is time consuming (and means fighting with graphics driver issues on various different chipsets or platforms).
* Maybe others have more experience of this than I, but one problem I've had is simply getting 3D content into a game. With 2D it's easy - there are standard common formats, which easily convert to one another. 3D gets more complex when you consider animations - different formats do things differently, and they don't translate easily (e.g., key frames versus using bones). There are also plenty of free libraries to read image formats, but less so for 3D. I tried ASSIMP, though depending on format, there were some things not supported; similarly some of the Blender exports don't support everything, as noted in comments above, so I had a hard time finding common formats to convert between. How do other developers do this? Is there an Open Source library for reading Blend models (which seem to be pretty much the standard on OGA), or is it a case of writing your own exporter (or dealing with the existing ones)?
ETA: That's good news about Leadworks Blender exporter - is Leadworks format open/documented (could this be used as a route even for people not using the Leadworks engine)...?
* Tools may be another issue. With 2D games using axis-aligned tile-based worlds, there are generic tools which can be used for that, and it's also very quick to generate levels/worlds like this.
I don't see anything wrong with the OP's request. Profit sharing is a perfectly normal way of developing games together, whether it's for programmers, artists or designers. If you want an artist for a commercial project without sharing source/profits/distribution, you need to pay them - but not all artists (or programmers) are after that kind of deal.
I would use "partner" to describe a programmer and artist working on a game. I don't see how "customer" is more accurate, to me that means the people buying the game...
@Kemono He's not asking to be able to distribute his own competing IOS port - he's asking for Windows 8 and Windows Phone, leaving other platforms to the programmer.
@MedicineStorm I don't think the OP was even after the source to be Open - just to be able to access it to be able to port it for those platforms.
It is however worth clarifying whether there is any burden for the programmer to use appropriate cross-platform technologies (e.g., using one of the engines you list in the OP). AFAIK, porting a standard Java Android application to Windows Phone could require a rewrite into a different language altogether.
I'm going to criticise the criticism:)
I don't think it's fair to say he shouldn't use synths - I mean yes, perhaps the "fantasy music" section could be labelled "synth music" section, but that's a labelling issue. It's true these pieces don't feature lots of different instruments, or it's hard to hear anything but the synths - if the latter, the volume balance could be improved, if the former, well it is what it is, single-instrument pieces doesn't mean bad.
I also didn't get any connection to the Friends scene at all - that seems an unfair comment, that doesn't explain the criticism, and just seems to make the criticism seem bigger. On the contrary, Ross's performance had all sorts of different sounds, but didn't have anything to them apart from that.
Much of the music I like isn't about "memorable melodies".
From the video, one issue is that the tracks don't seem loopable as well as being fairly short ... OTOH, there's enough of them that one could perhaps feature lots of the in a game to keep up the variation and not need looping (some RPGs do this, play between different tracks rather than constantly looping).
It's a fair point that different aspects of a game can be represented by different sounds, so not everything should be synths. But there's more variation in sound under the other sections (unclear why the "Fantasy" section is also labelled "Game", if all the sections are potentially game music). The video also has the advantage that he already had a particular game to create music for - I imagine it's harder if writing music without a game. Firstly it's simply harder because you don't have that source of inspiration. But even if you do come of with some music tailored for some imaginary game, you've then significantly limited its appeal - so okay, great, you've written music for a game about singing centaurs, but that's not any good for anything else :) So to some degree, the music will have to be more generic in order to have any chance of being used.
"Would releasing the art itself as CC-BY-SA and warning people that the actual characters are CC-BY-NC-SA, and that they would still have to ask permission for commercial use be legal and okay?"
But in that case, what use would having the art itself as CC-BY-SA, if people are still prevented from using it commercially? Or do you mean, you are okay with people using those specific pieces of art commercially, but not creating new pieces of art with your characters? This is potentially a bit confusing, since CC-BY-SA allows people to create derivative works, including commercially.
Note that non-commercial licences prevent people from using the work both in commercial games (obviously) but also Open Source games. They can still be used in "freeware" games where developers release for free but don't care about everything being under "Free" licences. Though as noted, there are all sorts of issues, such as whether being distributed on a website with ads, or on a magazine cover DVD.
I don't know how Flash SWFs work - but if it's simply like a "bundle" or a different file format, I don't think that would be an issue. Otherwise CC licences would be a problem for all sorts of formats (zip files, installer archives, packages like .deb on Debian or .apk on Android).
CC gives some info at http://wiki.creativecommons.org/License_Versions#Application_of_effectiv... and http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Frequently_Asked_Questions#Can_I_use_eff... .
A key point is "A technological measure is considered an ETM if circumventing it carries penalties under laws fulfilling obligations under Article 11 of the WIPO Copyright Treaty adopted on December 20, 1996, or similar international agreements."
So the problem with DRM is either the user can't get exercise their rights, or doing so would be illegal in some countries.
As long as extracting it isn't covered by this, I don't think it matters that it requires some expertise.
Just to clarify my earlier comment, yep, I agree the UI needs to be updated (including for touchscreen laptops, I found some things fiddly on my Transformer Book) but I meant that the availability of the Qt API for Android means this is an option, albeit still a rather large task, but at least the entire codebase doesn't need to be rewritten in Java (or fiddling with writing your own front ends to native code) :)
I'm still using the classic Qt widgets myself and keep meaning to switch to Qt Quick, my understanding is Qt Quick is the preferred way of doing GUIs now in Qt, whether tablet or not.
Larger resolutions than you are after, but may be of interest:
http://opengameart.org/content/orc-flare-sprite-sheets
http://opengameart.org/content/lpc-male-sheets
http://opengameart.org/content/lpc-ladies
I tested Tiled out on my Asus Transformer Book - for touchscreen, the GUI buttons could be larger, and the menu may need some thought especially on Android. Using something like a spinner would be better for things like entering tile/map sizes. But it all seems feasible.
For editing, a touchscreen works really well to quickly paint maps. If I plug in my keyboard dock, I have something that works well with both the UI and to use the touchscreen for painting. It would be good to have some way of scrolling using my touchscreen without using the scrollbars - maybe a two-finger pan gesture? Multitouch zoom would be nice too (especially since it's already supported on a touchpad).
Tiled uses Qt which now supports Android, so porting the code shouldn't be a huge problem. Support for multitouch for dragging and zooming should be easy with Qt too, and would be a useful thing to add for the existing platforms also.
I think the way you've done it is fine. If there's only a user name, put that, but sometimes people will say what name should be used as the credit.
"You don't need to link to the licencing rules"
Not sure if I misunderstand this, but note that the URL of the licence must be included (or else the full text of the licence itself) for CC BY 3.0 (although yes, it doesn't have to be implemented as a link).
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