This thread serves two purposes; first to say ‘hello’ because I just started working with Unity at the weekend and I think it’s genius and second to ask for some advice.
I’m a pretty decent developer - seven and a half years of writing business applications with Visual Studio means that I can see straight away what the scripts in the Lerpz tutorial are doing and what the compiler is telling me. And I have played video games regularly for the last twenty years so have plenty of ideas and inspiration to draw on. But i absolutely suck at art - I can’t draw and even if I did manage to master something like Blender or Maya I’m sure the results would be awful.
I’m interested to know what approach others who are also limited in the art department take to the look of their games. I started having a look around the web for some free 3d objects to use but couldn’t find much and it was all a bit of a mish mash. The last thing I want is to write something that has a strong story line and well thought out gameplay but looks like a dogs breakfast. Obviously there are plenty of sites selling fantastic artwork (www.frogames.net was one that really caught my eye, especially the dungeon layout) but this is a hobby that I would like to become a job and I haven’t got the cash to spend.
So what do other people in this situation think? Does it matter to you very much? Has anyone got any ideas they want to share without flaming me too much? I’m interested to know.
3DRT.com also has a lot of artwork that are all consistent in style… the only problem then is once you need something they don’t offer, you’re kind of screwed.
I would really suggest reading through the actual license yourself before investing much time into a project around using those assets. However, a quick overview:
The modern CC license allows for a modular approach to licensing out your work. There are four possible license modules:
Attribution (BY)
Share-Alike (SA)
NonCommercial (NC)
No Derivative Works (ND)
BY - This means that, if using these assets for any means, you must attribute them to the original source in a manner of their choosing.
SA - This means that, by using these assets you agree that any derivative works must be distributed with the same license (in this case, CC-BY-SA 3). Derivative works in this case would include your entire game. Honestly I am not 100% sure on this, but I do believe this also includes the source code to a game made using these art assets.
NC - Self explanatory, cannot be used for commercial projects.
ND - This means that you are free to distribute/display/perform the original work only as it originally appeared verbatim.
In your case you are asking about BY-SA - which means you can use these assets in virtually every way as long as your properly credit the source of the assets and that all work you do involving these assets is also released under CC-BY-SA 3.
Needing to release the source code would worry me a little bit; but again, I’m not 100% certain you would have to. If in doubt, I’d honestly contact the license holder to find out if that is a requirement and, if so, what it would take for them to waive that portion of the license (CC allows for any and all portions of a license to be waived with written consent of the license holder).
I checked out media.ryzom.com and like most sites that have free stuff on it’s poorly organised and difficult to search through.
I had a look at 3DRT.com and their stuff is amazing… but there’s no way I can afford $200 per pack. Wonder if I can strike some sort of royalties deal with them…
Thanks for the input. Like most things in life, you don’t get summat fer nowt.
Well if you like RPGs you should look up sonny an flash RPG which strips it down its essentials and its very popular. I would than say you need to either bite the bullet and pay for an artist or try to trick one to work for you
I would adapt the gameplay and mechanics to your artskill. Do games that isn’t reliable on pretty assets, like tetris for instance. If you feel that you want to do something with storyline than figure out how you can do it without depending on visuals. Tell the story through sound or text. its the “If you can’t do it good, don’t do it at all” approach I guess. Like in film. If you don’t have the budget to create an awesome CG monster, figure out a way where you don’t have to show it, rely on peoples imagination to do the work for you.
I’m in the same boat as you.
Been programming for ages but have only spent about 15 hours on unity in total.
The plan I’ve been following is to get a few free things and start making phase 1 of my game.
As time goes by, I’ll by a few assets here and there. I feel it’ll be a good way to learn unity, and it’s also a good way to see if the game is fun - if it works with crappy graphics then it’s bound to do well with good graphics - where as the other way round may not work: spending money on graphics won’t help a bad game.
It’s also a good idea to start with something like tetris - you’ll be surprised at how much work goes into the stuff around your game - a splash screen, intro, menu, high score list, credits etc. Also, completing your first project will give you a lot of confidence for creating something bigger.
Then, work on a prototype and test your ideas. When you have a decent result, if you don’t have enough money to invest into content pack or artist contractors, try to find and artist with a revenue share deal in mind.
