[Fury]

So it has been bothering me a lot recently that mod projects tend to keep their assets to themselves all the way to public release. It is understandable, since they want to have as much of an impact with fresh assets that are different from others. But therein lies a problem. Everyone else needs to keep reinventing the wheel because they have no access to assets that already exist. And if they do, they can't release them to public due to exclusivity.

This tradition of keeping assets exclusive seems to persist even though future of a project is uncertain, or even when it is already dead. In many cases said assets never see the light of day, which is sad.

There is also another problem regarding assets. When said assets are released, they often are in lossy format which makes it really hard to edit or improve them as some quality is always lost. We really, really need to start keeping original lossless assets around and distribute them to the community. Lack of lossless assets often result in having to recreate a replacement asset.

This is open community. We have small number people capable of creating outstanding assets. Assets that could be used in many projects at same time to create much better experience to player. It is my humble opinion that exclusivity hurts the community more than it helps the sole project assets are exclusive to. I've always been a supporter of open development when it comes to assets that does not spoil story.

Of course nobody can go and release others people's work without their consent, which is why I am hoping to have a good discussion on this subject. Would it be really that bad if people would create assets for the community, instead of exclusively to a project? There is so much more to gain from sharing assets than there is to lose.

But as briefly mentioned earlier, assets that would spoil a story can be exclusive. Usually those are so-called deus ex machina though, and I hope we're past those by now.

[Zacam]

I agree with the sentiment of this post.

I believe Aardwolf also had the idea of an assets pool at some point, though probably more related to the MediaVP assets in an open format for folks to use.

FSU have considered the idea as well internally, and AFAIK, it's on our wish/to-do list to accomplish.

The issue is with having a space for community members to post open formats of things like original source maps in uncompressed formats and models in Collada or some other easily portable cross-modeling app format.

At some point, _my_ desire is to set up either an FTP or SVN repo to do this with, but I still need to talk it over with rev_posix and sort out some hardware and a system for doing that. It'll take some time, since we are working with our limited (even if combined) assets to that end.

[Black Wolf]

This is all good in theory, but it only really works with 100% sign up, and let's be frank, you're not going to get that. Moreover, sometimes the assets are key to the storyline without being DeM devices. The best example I can give you is, of course, one from TI, since that's the mod I'm most familiar with. I could see some of our ships getting put into a pool like this*, especially if it was a true pool, with beneficial give and take. But I'll pretty much guarantee the Aesir ships wont be in such a pool because they're the ingame representation of the species that form the core of the TI storyline. Releasing them to be used for other purposes completely dilutes their impact in TI if they're used first by another campaign. Similarly, while I can't be certain of this, I doubt that you guys on the BP team would be keen to release your moon surface models, or your custom Sol fleet, for basically the same reason. And then there're other hero ships, like BWO's Golgotha, that are at the core of a campaigns identity. Keeping these exclusive is, in my opinion, a good thing, because it gives you moments in a campaign that are, essentially, once in a lifetime. Imagine if the vessel that rescued you at Enif Station hadn't been the Collosus, but a Hades, which we'd all seen in Silent threat. Wouldn't that have diminished that moment? If the shivan destroyer that took out the Lysander had been a Demon? Or the superdestroyer that destroyed the Tatenen had been a lucifer? All of those moments would always have been cool, but they were also all immensely improved by the existence of brand new, never before seen ships, and as such, they only really work at their full potential once. I want that moment in TI when you see a Xolotl unleash its fury for the first time. I'm sure I'll get that feeling one day when I see the Golgotha's main beam for the first time, or when I first get to skim across the surface of the moon in WiH. IMO, the creators of those mods deserve to decide who gets the opportunity to utilize it for that once in a lifetime moment, and that it happens in a project they care about.

That said, there are dozens, if not hundreds, of really good mods that are released publically, and, as a general rule, assets in released projects are traditionally considered to be free to use, so while they are locked up, they are also (eventually) released. Dead projects as a general rule do also release their stuff. Sure, there're examples of classic lost models (Dark's stuff is one of the better examples), but there're also really great situations, like Aldo's releasing of the Reci and LS ships, or the 158th modeldump (admittedly rescinded when the project restarted, but they were released when the mod was apparently dead, so the point does still stand).

One thing I do quite strongly oppose is private conversions of publically released models, which is why I applauded Droid's release of previously exclusive conversions of Stratcomm's Vasudan fleet, and also why I released my own conversion of Aldo's PVF Nefertum. But these are a specific class of mods, largely separate from what's being discussed here.



*I can only, of course, speak for the mods I've made, not the ones made by other TI contributors, who would, of course, have to decide for themselves.

[Fury]

Almost all of WiH's UEF fleet is already publicly available. We have some ships from Steve-O we only have his permission to release as part of BP. Then there is esarai's Arashi, which is being used at least in one another project other than BP. Besides those, we only have HerraTohtori's skyboxes and possibly a ship or two cobbled together by Darius. Oh, there's interface art too but templates are publicly available. In the end, WiH doesn't have that many exclusive assets really.

However, it won't take as long as you may imagine to get your grubby hands on those assets, exclusive or not.

Personally I wouldn't mind if HerraTohtori for example would release the skyboxes to public before WiH release, they are his assets. But those sentiments aren't necessarily shared by other staffers.

Oh and one more thing. This doesn't need 100% support from the community, that would be impossible. However, let it be said that if assets are released to public, it would be greatly appreciated by other projects that can possibly make use of them. As so much time is spent on creating assets that quite likely already exists.

[Nx]

I agree, looking at the user-made ships list on the wiki, I can't find a lot of high-quality (i.e. FSU/MVP quality) ships to build a post-capella fleet. For example, show me a high-quality Shivan or Vasudan destroyer. Even the terran side, which has the most ships, is lacking, with only the Raynor, the Titan and the Sirona, but neither is really really good.

[Fury]

After some discussion on irc, I need to make a clarification.

The original point in releasing assets wasn't to give them in a format ready for in-game. Whoever releases the assets can use whatever format he/she wants to, but preferably in a format that is easy to convert and modify. For example, for models format could be 3ds or cob. For textures and effects psd or tga. In addition, as I said in the first post, effects and maps really should be released in lossless format as well to retain quality if someone wants to edit them.

Edit: Think about modeldump, but one that covers all assets including effects, interface, hud, music(*), you name it.

* As long as they are made by community members or someone else who gave his/her permission to use it freely.

[Snail]

The problem with releasing assets as-is (ie. in a .cob or .3ds format) is that there is a serious lack of people willing to do conversions to .pof. There are a lot of models swimming around, like in modeldumps, but they're all just sitting there because nobody is converting them.

And when somebody does come along and convert them it's usually quickly snapped up by one of those blackhole vacuum mods.

[General Battuta]

Similarly, while I can't be certain of this, I doubt that you guys on the BP team would be keen to release your moon surface models, or your custom Sol fleet, for basically the same reason.

I actually think we'd be happy to release the moon surface models - in fact, I think they may be public already - and we've shared all the custom Sol fleet ships to various parties already. We also shared our new AI and table tricks pre-release.

However, I do understand the sentiments you're espousing.

[headdie]

imho the technical side of this thread will fall into place within days once we get over the big issue which is that at the moment the prevailing attitude is one of i would rarther retain control over my material.  now there are many reasons for this attitue from simple i/we want to maintain the impact of my asset when the player first sees it in any given campaign to issues where people feel uncomfortable seeign other use their material for whatever reason.  This will not change over night despite best intentions.

I think a one way to approach this is to encorage more comunity members to try their hand at creating new assets, esspecialy in a "freelance" cappacity in a kind of i did it because i thought it would be cool and not because i am recruited in a mod project.

One of the problems i keep running into when modding FS is that the wikki is quite fractrured on the subject and often relies on sending the reader off to company websites after giving little / fractured or otherwise incomplete information. while taking up to 3 steps to get to a list of moding topics in the catagory page.

what i would like to see is a start to finish cube ship with basic texture using blender, truespace, 3dmax at the least with a how to export to PCS2 from each and how to finish off the model in there (fine tune empty placments, etc.)

similar pages in background images, effects and sounds would also help expand the available resources.

Now i know this is a community project and everyone is limited on time but at the same time but i think it would make FS more accessable to FS newbies.

Yes i also know more input will from an expanded base of people will cause a lot of low quality stuff but if you run it like the mods in that you only support stuff directly that is of a good quality then what people find regularly will be the better stuff

[JGZinv]

I'll add my .10 worth...

In general I agree with the publicly available or a repository for mod materials.
It keeps things from disappearing, as with many mods that have died or fallen silent.

That said, I also echo the sentiment that there's stuff you just can't release for the sake
of plot, wow factor, or what have you. Even with FS (fringespace) we have a policy of not letting
our model assets out unless we need help fixing something, or until we've got a sufficient release.
Ultimately, short of common courtesy, once something is released in the mod world, as long as you've
got the mod tools... people can grab whatever they want. It's inevitable.

To the latter part - I can suggest a solution.

Have your storage for everyone setup with a hidden (permissions) area for files that are sensitive.
Run it like a mod or admin section for a forum. The mod team has access, and have a small group of
trustworthy people that are the admin class that manages the file space itself with access to the private areas.

This solves keeping some assets hidden until needed, and it remains accessible in case the mod dies and a new team
wants to come in to pick it up. Come to think of it... sort of like "Cloud Modding."


----

As to what headdie said, better documentation is always appreciated. Tis why I put together the PCS2 guide.
Really though, that kinda is another topic in and of itself... "Wiki Upgrade Project" or something...


---

Another issue arises that I don't believe has been brought up so far....
What do you do in the case of a mod which is in progress, places a asset on the public side of things,
for it to be downloaded, and then they replace it later with an improved version? You'll end up
with bunches of different copies floating around... and if you're using say a well known FS2 ship, you'll
likely end up with even more copies.

Naming does not seem like it would be sufficient alone to solve this, as many would likely just keep the
existing model name to avoid additional table work.

[Scooby_Doo]

I'd also like to see some version of revision for this too.   That way if there's a modification or fix to the resource then everyone can get an update for it.  I was working on a very simple ftp revision, but that's far off in the horizon.

[Zacam]

This can also provide a spring board for future work in the case of the MediaVPs.

The first step in making a more updated retail model is one of conversion first to the modeling program in question...but what if we had a repo that already had stored all the retail models in a as-universal-a-format as possible with uncompressed textures and/or a UV-unwrap for people to start out with?

What about current already modified assets that still have flaws or are now perhaps out-dated, that can also be added to the repo (or a sub-repo) where the same can also hold true?

So this isn't just about fan-made campaign content, but also about having actual community assets in a community open format to help encourage progress for anyone who is willing, but have difficulties in getting past the first step of converting the first model to something to work off of.

[FUBAR-BDHR]

The problem with releasing assets as-is (ie. in a .cob or .3ds format) is that there is a serious lack of people willing to do conversions to .pof. There are a lot of models swimming around, like in modeldumps, but they're all just sitting there because nobody is converting them.

And when somebody does come along and convert them it's usually quickly snapped up by one of those blackhole vacuum mods.

Maybe someone should set up a Mantis for models needing conversion.  That way when someone isn't busy or needs a break from other stuff they can grab one and convert it.  Fighters/transports/small cap ships are usually only a couple hour job. 

[JGZinv]

Could be people too just don't know how to rig. I've heard that from at
least one project head anyway...

The information before the tut was at best, scattered and old.
I got some things wrong when I made the tut for that matter.

Turrets are still a mystery, so I shy away from working on them.

[FUBAR-BDHR]

I don't rig I just use PCS2 to do all that.  Lot easier.  Have to change something just reconvert and do a global import from the old version. 

[Droid803]

I don't rig I just use PCS2 to do all that.  Lot easier.  Have to change something just reconvert and do a global import from the old version. 

QFT, that's how I do conversions.
However, that makes providing "lossess sources" a bit more difficult cause you'd need to get the POF as well to import the data.

[FUBAR-BDHR]

Well you can export to .dae from PCS2 and that contains the helpers.  Think the same is true for .cob as well. 

[Droid803]

No, exporting to DAE/COB from PCS2 then reimporting breaks more things than you can imagine.
Especially for COB - object centers, smoothing, turret data, and more are lost.
Even with DAE you need to fix up the file in a modelling program before the reimport doesn't crash PCS2.

[FUBAR-BDHR]

The idea was to get the helpers into the modeling program via dae or cob.  Yes cob looses smoothing info and other things.  Don't have a problem with TBP since most of the models have no smoothing and were converted via .cob to begin with.  Even dae looses rotation info and moi. 

[Scooby_Doo]

I don't rig I just use PCS2 to do all that.  Lot easier.  Have to change something just reconvert and do a global import from the old version. 

I seem to do the opposite, rig most things in Max (gun, eye, missile, glow, thrusters). It's easier to setup than in pcs2.   I just wish glowpoints actually had a linear layout (glowpoint1, glowpoint2, glowpoint3...)  It's extremely annoy and hard to setup some complicated landing lights when the order gets scrambled up.


also my version updater is actually come alone good, client side is over halfways done I think.