Free Repository for Tile Graphics? 24
Hentai asks: "I want to make a game. Specifically, I want to make a good, open-source computer RPG, with the same artistic style of the early Squaresoft sprite-pushers, like Secret of Mana and Chrono Trigger. I can code well enough, and I can get artists to provide character sprite graphics (which will be open-source, too), but I need background tile graphics on the same vein and caliber as those titles. Web searches invariably lead to commercial or shareware packages, or 'free to the public' tile sets that are, frankly, abysmal. I just need enough quality tiles to start with, and will happily add any new derivations to the repository. Anyone know of a good GPLed tile package that could get me started?"
Crack.com's donatation (Score:5, Informative)
It's not in the style you desire though - so -1, offtopic, I guess :(
Re:Crack.com's donatation (Score:2)
Contributors? (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, when you have artists working for you, they can work to give the game a look that fits to the style and content.
As an added bonus, sprite loving artists are often creative enough to draw stuff that you would never have imagined yourself, which can in turn really improve the atmosphere and even the story of your game.
Freely available tiles can get you started... but its only a good solution in short term. Say, use them to create an enjoyable demo, and lure artists to your projects.
I'm currently working on two projects (a platformer and a 2d shooter), and trust me on this, you need art that fits your game, and that has *not* been seen elsewhere.
Re:Contributors? (Score:1)
Gfx is pushing out gameplay as a quality of todays games...
Re:Contributors? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Contributors? (Score:1)
Just look at all the commandline games still being played, for or all the good old x11-games..
I played xgammon just a couple of days ago!
But I kindof go along with your argument that for most games new games gfx usually breaks rather than improves upon whats there...
Good luck... (Score:1)
There was a push to get such things made, but as far as I know, most people outgrew Qbasic at that point, graduating to C++ and other languages... glancing though a few Allegro sites, the lack of open tilesets is still the case.
Time to look for some artists who want to contribute...
A way to create good textures is needed... (Score:4, Informative)
I have a few pictures I took with my digital camera which would make very good textures, only problem is I don't have a good way to make the images tileable. GIMP's "Make Seamless" plugin sort of works, but has obvious visual problems. The Resynthesizer [monash.edu.au] may work, but I haven't tried it for a while (when I did, it took lots of CPU time.
There also need to be good texture editors. Some photo editing program where you can view the image in a tiled setting and edit it. I don't know of any. Maybe using the tile function in GIMP, editing it, and recropping the image will work?
BTW, there used to be some public domain textures listed in gimp.org (called something like farm textures--they were taken from real photos), but I can't find them now...
Re:A way to create good textures is needed... (Score:3, Informative)
Although in cnosole style RPGs they probably want low res textures that all look nice together.
The Resynthasizer (Score:4, Interesting)
texturey (Score:3, Informative)
but some of the really nice tiles are for sale only.
try:
presetcentral.com
luxology.net
and if you're looking for some 3d models
turbosquid.com has a bunch and they're not THAT expensive, considering how long it would take to make some o this stuff by hand.
Re-inventing the wheel.... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Re-inventing the wheel.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Anyway, contributing to an old project is a great way to increase your coding skills, play with coding a game, and NOT have to deal with all of the stupid stuff, because it has already been done by someone else. Take Crossfire (http://crossfire.real-time.com/) [real-time.com] as an example. You have a stable multiplayer online RPG that's been around since '92 or even longer. It runs on many un*x variants, and has some win32 stuff too, although no fully supported win32 client. If you're interested in monster AI, go ahead, code that. Everything else works perfectly fine. If you're interested in writing a new client, go right ahead. You can even take the networking code from the current clients, and write only the GUI. Hell, there have even been three Perl based 'bots that I know of. Network code, but no GUI.
The point is, if you contribute to an existing project, you can skip straight to the part you enjoy the most, and you're much more likely to finish.
Re:Re-inventing the wheel.... (Score:1, Interesting)
Check it out if you really want to build YOUR own net dream (cool acronym too).
Re:Re-inventing the wheel.... (Score:3, Insightful)
That said, the artist problem is one that has plagued me as well... most artists are fickle and unreliable at best. However, if you manage to find one that doesn't fit the stereotype, more power to you.
tutorial on "Make Seamless" GIMP filter (Score:5, Informative)
A couple (Score:2, Interesting)
There is also a listing here of image libraries: http://web3d.org/vrml/txlib.htm [web3d.org] if you find some good ones you should submit them to this listing.
Some guy also has made a ton of really strange tilable images, in a collection called Propaganda:
http://www.ibiblio.org/propaganda/ [ibiblio.org]
reed
Re:A couple (Score:1)
Do note the Copyright terms for the vrml Universal Media: http://www.web3d.org/WorkingGroups/media/textures
reed
Free Stuff (Score:3, Informative)
I've found the best places to look are on sites for RPG engines, like Verge [verge-rpg.net]. Generally there are links to sites with literally oodles of tile banks. You may also want to try DIV Arena [div-arena.com] and, of course, the Freecraft [sf.net] and FreeCiv [freeciv.org] projects, both of which offer free art assets.
Hope this helps. Oh, done a google for SpriteLib lately? Or Ari Feldman?
... and I'm spent.
Tessellations (Score:2)
You're asking for the hardest part of "your" game (Score:4, Insightful)
The tiles ARE the tile scroller, the code that does the scrolling is trivial by todays standards. This is the underlying problem with free stuff like this, the content tends to define these projects.
What are you actually going to write? A background scroller and sprite muxer? That's old hat, and all you want is the content (the hard part) so you can go claim a project as your own. Join one of the existing efforts out there, talent is diluted enough as it is on these projects.
Some links (Score:1)
http://www.planetquake.com/gg/textures/open.html
http://www.planetquake.com/gg/textures/aardtex.h
http://www.planetquake.com/gg/textures/mmgplte
Re:Some links (Score:1)
http://buzzsaw.gamedesign.net/?page=files&