Department:Graphics

From Post-Apocalyptic RPG wiki

Welcome to the Graphics Department documentation. You will find here a basic set of information describing how to create artwork for the project and how to operate within the project. Look for tutorials, external materials to use, tips, technical information - whatever you wish. If you won't find what you have expected to be here - please drop a line in our forums or IRC.

Style Guide for 2D artists

We would like to present you our warm and informal Style Guide. You should be able to find a basic set of information and advice there, and also see some examples of good work. We like individuality, you really don't need to mimic those works. Its maybe just good to know our approach to creating art for the game.

Communication channels

This are obvious things, but maybe someone is missing a piece of information...

We operate at GMT/UTC time. Every time you precise a time, please do it in UTC time (or specify clearly your time zone). Developers are really scattered around the world.

IRC

The IRC channel (#parpg at irc.freenode.net) is our favorable tool for temporary discussion, quick-fixing, asking questions and arranging meetings from time to time. Its also good to solve problems quickly or to cooperate with members of other project, like FIFE or UH. Chats are usually logged, so no discussion is lost if you're eg. too late for the meeting.

Forums

This is the best place to discuss some things that will make its way into the game, so that everyone involved will have a chance to see what is going on and take voice if needed. Forums are holding our "Hello!" section and portfolio thread.

Wiki

Our wiki should contain design documents and personal notes. This is not a place for discussion or temporary communication. Only important or personal things (notes, plans, proposals) should be there, really. Its not an advertising cork board everybody reads, so if you prepare any kind of document there - link it where it should be linked, or mark clearly as your personal stuff. Cork board - well, this is what we have forums for ;)

Trac

The trac is the main todo list here. You take the job from there and upload it when it is finished. Its not too hard to work with it (you will have to do only three things: search a thing to do there via provided query, upload files to the ticket you've been working on and leave comments when necessary).

E-mails, IMs, telephones...

E-mails and IMs should be used only in an very urgent emergency situation, like when someone erases whole code tree or there is a troll/flood during meeting that needs to be eradicated ASAP ;)

Tools and Sources of External Materials

Workflow and Tutorials for 3D Artists

Image Sizes for 2D Artists

Inventory items in this early phase should be roughly 500x500px in size. It should be provided with 50x50 pix version on transparency or on this background: [[1]]
There is sometimes a needed for a small bitmap representing the object lying on the ground. It is hard to feel the scale v. visibility balance, but once you get it - it will be all OK :)
Portraits usually share hi-res 4x5 vertical rectangle, like 2000x2500px (we need those, the GUI will be rebuilded with time and the sizes can change), but in game for now are smaller versions, 100x125px.
Tiles are 72x36 pix (adjusting the scale of graphics may be discussed after gathering feedback)
Reminder: we use only .png files in game. This are lossless quality files (the compression affects file size only, not its quality), so if you do not use layers while drawing, this may fulfill the GPL license conditions. Otherwise you can send hi-res lossless layered files in .xcf, .tiff, or .psd.

Watermarks

Please do not put any logos/watermarks in images and don't scale them down. You put your things here for PARPG to use it!

Licensing

We release the artwork under certain licenses and it is hard to release the game with artwork licensed in any other way. Be sure to use only the kind of content that can be released without any lawsuit issues. Esp. if you're doing 3D - be sure the textures are licensed in compatible way. Its an obvious thing, but every single piece of art you release here is treated as released for the project, under the license the project uses.

For more inormation please read our License page.

Looking for Something to Work on?

Most common thing should be working with the trac ticket list. This is ment to be our main and least neglected todo list. It is easy to work with, not biased by someone's personal point of view, its easy to combine it when interdisciplinary work is needed. Most important thing is that our trac is really transparent if its maintained well.

Trac tickets

look (here is a good query) for a ticket to work with, check if its not ready to be closed or if someone works upon it
announce you start working on it on forums, posting with the topic like "WIP 2D concept art for XY". If it will be a longer work - like a week - leave a note inside the trac, giving an expected date of finishing it, so that other developers would be informed regardless of topic being pushed out somewhere deep.
make something good :), discuss it on the forums and IRC, be ready for taking some constructive criticism (and if it will hapen - it is to make your work better)
upload renders and models or lossless bitmaps into the ticket. All the 3D graphics should be provided as renders from 4 or 8 sides, with zipped models and external textures and attached to the ticket (textures should be compatible with our licensing terms, best if with the source link). 2D work should be prepared and uploaded in lossless quality files (optionally also as .xcf, .psd, .tif, .png in larger scale), in game we use .png files. You could also use OpenGameArt, which will make your art available to other projects as well, will give attribution to you and make licensing clear. If you won't provide licensing information with the files attached to the trac tickets, we will assume it is released under the current PARPG licensing terms. We will always remove an artwork if the author will write to us and ask for it.
leave an information for someone, who will take care for moving your work into the code tree - this may be on forums, may be inside the ticket or even via IRC.

Other lists

You can find yourself working with other todo lists on some occasion, not only with trac tickets. Some of them may be interdisciplinary, personal or topic/target-oriented lists that are gathering and coordinating very high or very low prioritized tasks. Be carefull if you're not sure what kind of list you're browsing. Be sure the list is not neglected, try to search a ticket for the task you've choosen and check if it was not done yet. Also be sure you won't make mess by filling someone's else tasks from his/her personal list.

When you're not sure what you're expected to produce...

You can find really descriptive things when browsing documentation or discussion of our writing department. On the other hand - when a concept art is needed, its you, who should show the invention and creative powers ;) If you really don't have a clue... Ask for a more verbose description or for a place to find it.

Gallery

There is a concept art & renders gallery, collecting most important artwork we made so far for the project.

Inspiration and Research

Having blocks? Just lacking some inspiration? Check the Inspiration and Research section! Or use the help of your good friends Google and Wikipedia.

An article on how other engines handle tiles, sprites, etc: Graphics:Field Research
List of inspirational references: Graphics:Inspirational References. The purpose of this list is collect various website links with useful images, photos, concept art or anything that can be used for inspiration for PARPG.
There is a thread on our forums

Old page

You may want to look into our old page, this is how it looked like before 6 VIII 2010