Artist with Stuff, any Coders Interested?

[GreyFluffs]

Hi guys, I've accidentally found myself with a few fantasy animal graphics finished, and a bunch more in the works. I'm not sure I could personally complete a mod, but if there are other people willing to collaborate on something I'd love to contribute my art.

Here's the completed ones so far:

And this is a page of doodles... Which also include some dinosaurs for some reason.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/47235290/rimworld/rimworldcrittersprev.jpg

Ideally I'd love to see a project that anyone could contribute to, since there's an awful lot of coding talent in these forums. Anyone interested?

[kaptain_kavern]

Hiya,

I have to say that I'm surprised nobody else has replied (maybe more this weekend) because if I weren't engaged in already too much projects, I would jump on board right now 

Fucking crazy awesome lil' monsters you have there!

Love the way it's drawn and (I'm a total noob about drawing) you retain Vanilla graphic style very well IMHO

[AshbornK9]

If there is already art for it all done, then I could do coding for you. Art is usually the only thing holding me back.

[Shinzy]

Looook at theeese stubby lil things! I hope someone is able to make em puff puff some smoke and cinder

[Dingo]

This art is REALLY good. I'd probably never do animal modding but I look forward to seeing these in a mod.

[GreyFluffs]

Thanks for all the compliments guys, the vanilla style just seems to mesh well with my own personal doodling preferences. <3

My biggest concern is that I might not be able to leap headlong into an extended project, and I'd be much happier simply contributing monsters than actively managing a mod. So I'd really like to see how much art I can put out, and turn the project loose into the community for other people who have a little bit of time or skill to help add some fantasy to their game. Whether it's coding, or more art, monster-specific drops or crafting projects, whatever they think would be pretty neat.

Most of the projects I've seen on the forums here have been smaller one or two person teams though, I'm not quite sure how feasible a public project might be.

[14m1337]

maybe they would fit perfectly to hendrikpfaff's Rim Magic Mod ... I'd suggest talking to him

[Tammabanana]

If there is already art for it all done, then I could do coding for you. Art is usually the only thing holding me back.

Me, too. I'm embarking on trying to figure out how to XML new animals, but I'm terrible with art. I'd be happy to try to help with these cuties.

I'm somewhat restricted on time, due to small children, though, so I wouldn't want to call exclusive dibs on any particular toon; I wouldn't want them held back by my lack of speed if someone else has ideas too.

I'm interested in a team project, but I don't have any experience with any tools that might be needed to manage it. (Github? Is that one?)

Also... do you do requests? My test animals project is giant glowing mushroom monsters that mutate each generation, and my placeholder art looks like a color-coded stick-figure goomba.

[GreyFluffs]

I'll definitely look into Rim Magic, this is certainly a similar flavour!


Tammabanana, I was thinking Github too, although I'm a complete newbie there as well. My best hope might be to get things started, and then pass off the project to someone who does have that experience and is better at overseeing proposed changes. Then people can just add and improve, and I can keep tossing in textures.

I'm hesitant to take on requests just because I don't want to limit people to my own sporadic schedule, but I do have a fondness for mushrooms. <3

[kaptain_kavern]

Github could be your better option (but I'm biased as I use it everyday) IF your willing to works open-sourcely. Especially when you can't be sure to continue on a project IMHO because with it anybody could eventually fork (copy) the project in order to continue, expand or just add features/code/arts (it's a feature at the core of how github's work). It's one of the reasons I've put all my mods on it.

It also have bug/issue/suggestion tracking features, wiki and project management all integrated in the same place.

It may be needing you to learn a bit how it works at first but then I find it perfect for those kind of project.

Per example I just provide a French translation for AllowTool mod, today. All I had to do was to go on the Github repository of the mod, click on fork to copy it in my library. Then with the app I downloaded a copy of it, worked a bit to add my translation and just send a Pull Request to the author. Provided my code is right (and it wasn't the case in first time ;P) all he have to do is accept and bam! The code is added to the project ready to be released.

[Tammabanana]

It sounds like open-source is really the way to go, for a hopefully-public project where several contributors can't commit massive+regular amounts of time.

So, OK: I've created a github space for it at https://github.com/Tammabanana/Community-Fantasy-Animals , with the tentative plan that... somehow... GreyFluffs can upload art at whim; associated modders can code relatively simple versions of the animals, and we can integrate those into the ecosystem fairly quickly.

For fancier versions that need more time to work out details, or where we want to talk about what kind of animal this should be - firebreathing or heat-pushing or attacks with bodyparts that don't exist in vanilla, or... whatever... we can work more slowly in branches?

I signed up for the free, public version, so I'm assuming that means (a) I get to choose who is part of the main mod team (speak up - I don't know how to add people yet but I'm sure I'll figure it out), and (b) anyone can fork the project and veer off in totally different directions from the basic project if they want, right?

I set this up as specifically for GreyFluffs' art, because (a) GreyFluffs is the OP, and (b) different artists have can have different styles, and it seems to me that this can be a visceral dividing line on whether animals should be in the same mod together or not.

But I'm not opposed to setting up similar public projects for other artists-in-need-of-modders/modders-in-need-of-artists, er, once I figure out what the best workflow/structure is. I'm a n00b at modding and abysmal at art, but actually I do organization/workflow-creation/troubleshooting for new-and-sometimes-crazy-situations professionally, so I fancy I can pick that up fairly quickly. 

(Though I'm sure I will have to ask questions about how GitHub works.)

EDIT: updated link. Renamed GitHub repository to Community Fantasy Animals, instead of GreyFluffs-specific, upon Greyfluffs' comment about opening it up to other artists.

[kaptain_kavern]

Hi folks,
Like I've said I wanna help, so maybe I can help with Github uses, at first

For fancier versions that need more time to work out details, or where we want to talk about what kind of animal this should be - firebreathing or heat-pushing or attacks with bodyparts that don't exist in vanilla, or... whatever... we can work more slowly in branches?

Yes, you could have anyone working on any version they've forked also, and merge only in branches per example.

(speak up - I don't know how to add people yet but I'm sure I'll figure it out)

Settings(gear icon) > Collaborators

Here is a brief comment where I explained a bit how I use Github when modding

Having the repo sets up also mean you/we could already get more organised and plan things.
- Using the integrate wiki;
- the issue tracker (me I tend to use it for everything, not bug tracking only : taking notes, discussions, requests, etc - Here is the one for aDS for instance)
- and they've add project management page recently (here is one from CK - A&PP mod, per example)

As I like community projects, you all can count on me to try to help, even if I can't manage more than "from time to time"

Cheers

[Draegon]

We're adding biomes with our mod and will eventually add a Fantasy Forest, so these would be epic for it! As well as the other stuff from your doodles. It would be awesome to have assistance with it or any other biomes you would want to make creatures for. We're currently doing a Cave biome. Feel free to post here or message me if you'd like to help sometimes. More art is always appreciated.

[GreyFluffs]

You guys are amazing, I'm really quite pleased to have the actual managing of the mod out of my hands. It looks like Github is just the right thing for making these resources available.

I actually like the idea of this project being open to other artists as well, for creatures or items or whatever, provided they are also attempting a vanilla-friendly feel to things. Different artists might have different styles, but if we are all trying to mimic the game's style it will be easier to hold it all together in one fantasy mod.

On that note though, I was thinking about how I might be able to handle requests from coders who are interested in helping out, but also had ideas for specific things I might not have drawn. Doing recolours of the creatures wouldn't be a challenge, so if someone wanted to request a frost wyvern on the wyvern base and whip together it's code, I could recolour the green wyvern to match a more icy biome. I'm still thinking this through though, it might take more energy than I've got in me depending on how much requesting goes on.

Also, the fantasy forest sounds pretty perfect for fantasy critters, hopefully we'll end up with someone who knows a bit about mod compatibility! I only have a little experience in that area, which is summed up as "it's complicated". XD

[Tammabanana]

Cool, GreyFluffs. I've renamed the project: Community Fantasy Animals. Updated link in earlier post.

If there's more than just you, other artists could help with creating art for coders' requests, too. We could probably set up some kind of guidelines on how an awesome-but-non-vanilla art idea might get re-worked by other volunteer artists into vanilla style?

I'm still messing around with the structure of GitHub, trying to figure out how it works. GreyFluffs, what did you think about the process of dropping art in the art-in-need-of-code folder vs. straight into the textures folder? I wrote that before I discovered Issues - might it be easier to just drop everything into its appropriate Textures folder from the beginning, and use Issues, or the adding of Issues to the Project, as the alert that there's something new to work on?

Kaptain, a question about community projects - I'm seeing a lot of forum threads where people are tossing out art they'd like someone to code, or vice versa, or just coming up with an idea. Sometimes they're picked up, and sometimes they just fall down the forum pages. I'm not really seeing a central community project to pull all these things together. Are forum threads about as organized as we are on putting people of different skillsets together? Would there be value in creating some kind of overarching GitHub repository to collect as many of the half-finished proposals as possible, to make them more easily findable/browsable by other community creators?

(I'm not sure how one would organize that on a large scale, where some proposals may conflict with others. But I'm willing to try to figure out how - or get involved with such a project if it already exists somewhere?)