Hi all,
I'm currently in the process of packaging abuse for FE. abuse's engine is free, but its content is more problematic, there is a public domain altenrative content set called fRaBs and the shareware data has been released into the public domain (except for the sfx and music).
I've mailed the author and copyright holder of the sfx and music if he is willing to release it under a suitable license, lets hope so.
But that has got me thinking, replacing the music shouldn't be too hard, as we already have many games packaged under suitable license with some quite ok music.
For example trackballs has a -music subpackage with some ok ogg's and raidem too. Raidems are licensed under the Creative Commens By license and trackballs are under GPL. Also i maintain quite a few games which include some ok .mod's and .mid's (sometimes hidden in large package / datafiles, but extractable).
Thus it might be worth to build a database with a list of free licensed music for use in games, so that we can add music to games which lack it.
Much the same goes for sound effects and for textures. For example we currently cannot distribute tremulous because it contains some non-free textures, if we would have a database with free textures we might be able to find some suitable replacements. In the mean time I'll try mailing the author of those rextures again.
So is a free (game) content database a good idea? And if it is then does anyone know some existing (preferably web-based) software to maintain it? And if there is such software is anyone willing to build a website with it for a free content project?
I wouldn't mind filling the database (a bit) but I'm not an infrastructure type of person.
Regards,
Hans
Hans de Goede wrote:
So is a free (game) content database a good idea? And if it is then does anyone know some existing (preferably web-based) software to maintain it? And if there is such software is anyone willing to build a website with it for a free content project?
I wouldn't mind filling the database (a bit) but I'm not an infrastructure type of person.
It looks like these guys had the same idea:
And another collection of sites, some unreachable:
http://debianlinux.net/multimedia.html#game_data
It would be better to start by trying to contribute to these groups before starting something new.
--Wart
Wart wrote:
Hans de Goede wrote:
So is a free (game) content database a good idea? And if it is then does anyone know some existing (preferably web-based) software to maintain it? And if there is such software is anyone willing to build a website with it for a free content project?
I wouldn't mind filling the database (a bit) but I'm not an infrastructure type of person.
It looks like these guys had the same idea:
And another collection of sites, some unreachable:
http://debianlinux.net/multimedia.html#game_data
It would be better to start by trying to contribute to these groups before starting something new.
I realized after posting this that I may have sounded a bit dismissive. I didn't mean to be. I agree that a free game content database is a good idea, and apparently so have others. On #fedora-games Rahul posted a link to Debian's game resources page:
http://debianlinux.net/games.html
This contains not only a list of games available from Debian, but other game-related resources, such as the free content archives above.
I'll add this link to our SIG wiki page, as I think it contains a lot of good pointers to games and related tools that people can consider packaging.
--Wart
Wart wrote:
Wart wrote:
Hans de Goede wrote:
So is a free (game) content database a good idea? And if it is then does anyone know some existing (preferably web-based) software to maintain it? And if there is such software is anyone willing to build a website with it for a free content project?
I wouldn't mind filling the database (a bit) but I'm not an infrastructure type of person.
It looks like these guys had the same idea:
And another collection of sites, some unreachable:
http://debianlinux.net/multimedia.html#game_data
It would be better to start by trying to contribute to these groups before starting something new.
I realized after posting this that I may have sounded a bit dismissive. I didn't mean to be. I agree that a free game content database is a good idea, and apparently so have others. On #fedora-games Rahul posted a link to Debian's game resources page:
Don't worry I didn't take you mail in any neagtive way. Still all these links site are ok (and maybe we should start with expanding one as a first step) but what I really hand in mind is a site where a game developer can click on textures -> wall textures and then get (thumbnails of) all free wall textures known, so that he can see in one page all known available wall textures instead of having to click through many sites. Each texture would then ofcourse be accompanied with a License tag on this very same page.
http://debianlinux.net/games.html
This contains not only a list of games available from Debian, but other game-related resources, such as the free content archives above.
I'll add this link to our SIG wiki page, as I think it contains a lot of good pointers to games and related tools that people can consider packaging.
Yes thats a good idea.
Regards,
Hans
Hans de Goede wrote:
Wart wrote:
Wart wrote:
Hans de Goede wrote:
So is a free (game) content database a good idea? And if it is then does anyone know some existing (preferably web-based) software to maintain it? And if there is such software is anyone willing to build a website with it for a free content project?
I wouldn't mind filling the database (a bit) but I'm not an infrastructure type of person.
It looks like these guys had the same idea:
[...]
Don't worry I didn't take you mail in any neagtive way. Still all these links site are ok (and maybe we should start with expanding one as a first step) but what I really hand in mind is a site where a game developer can click on textures -> wall textures and then get (thumbnails of) all free wall textures known, so that he can see in one page all known available wall textures instead of having to click through many sites. Each texture would then ofcourse be accompanied with a License tag on this very same page.
It seems to me that this is what freegamearts is trying to do, as they've already categorized the contributions by music, textures, and models. But they could really use some better organization to make things easier to browse for game developers. The jpeg galleries for textures are a good start, but more meta-information about each texture would be useful so that someone could search for, say, wall textures or water textures, the license and author contact info, and what games make use of the media.
--Mike
Michael Thomas wrote:
Hans de Goede wrote:
Wart wrote:
Wart wrote:
Hans de Goede wrote:
So is a free (game) content database a good idea? And if it is then does anyone know some existing (preferably web-based) software to maintain it? And if there is such software is anyone willing to build a website with it for a free content project?
I wouldn't mind filling the database (a bit) but I'm not an infrastructure type of person.
It looks like these guys had the same idea:
[...]
Don't worry I didn't take you mail in any neagtive way. Still all these links site are ok (and maybe we should start with expanding one as a first step) but what I really hand in mind is a site where a game developer can click on textures -> wall textures and then get (thumbnails of) all free wall textures known, so that he can see in one page all known available wall textures instead of having to click through many sites. Each texture would then ofcourse be accompanied with a License tag on this very same page.
It seems to me that this is what freegamearts is trying to do, as they've already categorized the contributions by music, textures, and models. But they could really use some better organization to make things easier to browse for game developers. The jpeg galleries for textures are a good start, but more meta-information about each texture would be useful so that someone could search for, say, wall textures or water textures, the license and author contact info, and what games make use of the media.
Yes freearts seems promising, but the jpeg galeries you talk about are provided by the linked to sited, not by freearts itself.
Still I think it would be a good idea to join with freearts in this effort I'll start by sending them some links, and discuss the idea of becoming more then a links site with them.
Regards,
Hans
Dnia 16-08-2006, śro o godzinie 15:29 +0200, Hans de Goede napisał(a):
Thus it might be worth to build a database with a list of free licensed music for use in games, so that we can add music to games which lack it.
Wart already provided links with resources you're talking about, but I have a question: why do WE have to hand-pick music, textures and so on for games instead of their authors? Is it even ethical to f.e. use Metal Blob Solid's music for Abuse? I mean, the authors had something on their minds when choosing track A for level B in a platform game, so even if we have some public domain art, it really should be left up to the authors to decide which one is okay.
In case of the Abuse engine, I believe Free Abuse (fRaBs) author should pick music if there still are "silent" levels. At least if he's still alive :)
Providing data to the existing free artwork databases for all game creators' use is, of course, another matter and I can offer myself to input some entries if there's lots of links not covered by one "database" or another and all there's left is to submit them :)
Lam
Leszek Matok wrote:
Dnia 16-08-2006, śro o godzinie 15:29 +0200, Hans de Goede napisał(a):
Thus it might be worth to build a database with a list of free licensed music for use in games, so that we can add music to games which lack it.
Wart already provided links with resources you're talking about, but I have a question: why do WE have to hand-pick music, textures and so on for games instead of their authors? Is it even ethical to f.e. use Metal Blob Solid's music for Abuse? I mean, the authors had something on their minds when choosing track A for level B in a platform game, so even if we have some public domain art, it really should be left up to the authors to decide which one is okay.
In case of the Abuse engine, I believe Free Abuse (fRaBs) author should pick music if there still are "silent" levels. At least if he's still alive :)
Providing data to the existing free artwork databases for all game creators' use is, of course, another matter and I can offer myself to input some entries if there's lots of links not covered by one "database" or another and all there's left is to submit them :)
Don't worry if get around to doing stuff like this I will coordinate this with upstream as much as upstream is willing too, as I always do.
Regards,
Hans
On Wed, 2006-08-16 at 15:29 +0200, Hans de Goede wrote:
So is a free (game) content database a good idea? And if it is then does anyone know some existing (preferably web-based) software to maintain it? And if there is such software is anyone willing to build a website with it for a free content project?
My coder really needs a bunch of graphics, so this would be a great idea! Couldn't you have it hosted at sourceforge? They have a database engine, if you can figure it out! Ric
Ric Moore wrote:
On Wed, 2006-08-16 at 15:29 +0200, Hans de Goede wrote:
So is a free (game) content database a good idea? And if it is then does anyone know some existing (preferably web-based) software to maintain it? And if there is such software is anyone willing to build a website with it for a free content project?
My coder really needs a bunch of graphics, so this would be a great idea! Couldn't you have it hosted at sourceforge? They have a database engine, if you can figure it out! Ric
Currently http://freegamearts.myexp.de/ seems the best place to start. It would also help if you could let us know what you're searching for.
Regards,
Hans
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Hans de Goede -
Leszek Matok -
Michael Thomas -
Ric Moore