[Freeciv-Dev] Graphics updates.

["Bobby D. Bryant" <bdbryant@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Carsten Engelmann wrote:

> Nicolas Brunel wrote:
>
> > You can draw a new regular tileset for freeciv.
> I'm thinking of chnageing the current one. Most of it is OK.
> But e.g. the Warrior shouldn't have a pike, maybe just a stick.
> Hills could be somewhat bigger.
>
> > I have another idea.
> > "Bobby D. Bryant" <bdbryant@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> has done
> > a modpack for freeciv. He modified freeciv rules to cover the history
> > upto gunpowder. It works already. But, he hasn't yet draw new tiles
> > for the unit. If you have some time, you can draw units for his modpack.
> > If you interested, send him a mail. I'm sure he will interested !
> I will contact him.

I'm chipping away at it slowly, and enjoying learning how to use The GIMP in
the process, but if you've got the talent and are interested, go for it --
there are other things that I could be doing more efficiently.

But what I'd really like to see for graphics is a big sheet full of unit tiles
like the Civ II crowd has collected.  These "master sheets" have several rows
of ships, several rows of artillery, several rows of infantry, several rows of
cavalry, etc.  So whenever anyone sits down to create a scenario or modpack
they can just copy the tiles they want from that master collection onto the
units.xpm that they're building.

If you want to do this, start a new, larger sheet and copy all the official
tiles to it (grouped by basic type), then add the handful of additions that
I've already made, and then start adding new ones.  Get them to post what
you've got to the FreeCiv graphics page, and then update it intermittently
whenever you've drawn more units.  (Actually, we need a scheme that would let
multiple people contribute updates to the same master image.)  Then the
maintainers could pull the best available tiles out to build the units.xpm for
each new release, and the graphics would improve incrementally rather than by
big jumps with long delays in between.

This would also be a really nice resource for creating modpacks, and maybe it
will get more people interested in creating them.

Bobby

p.s. -- I've been meaning to mention this, so maybe now is a good time:  The
FreeCiv graphics page recommends scanning in images from other games, and of
course there might also be a temptation to download a Civ II tileset and
convert it to our requirements.  However, the legal status of GPL'd work seems
to be quite precarious until we see what the courts and lobbyists are going to
do with it, so we should be extra careful not to steal copyrighted work and
incorporate it into our GPL product.  Just my opinion.