WorldForge Community

Hi Cyrius007,

I'm glad to hear of your interest with helping the project as we can always use more modelers, creating virtual worlds means there is a limitless number of items we will be needing.

I'd like to direct you to two key places of interest for you, the first is the Guidelines, its fairly up to date, but will be getting a little attention shortly. Its a good place to start. http://wiki.worldforge.org/wiki/Media_Guidelines

Also there is a Media TODO List, I am actually in the process of updating it as I just finished a number of models recently and removed them from the list, and I was thinking of adding some new ones. The models on that list are considered more important then others because there is gameplay or new features which could make use of them, or they'd be really nice to have in making Game worlds with. You can find it here: http://wiki.worldforge.org/wiki/Media_ToDo_List and I'll spend a little time and try to get it a bit more updated over the next few day, feel free to add your own ideas and choices to the list too if you like.

Really though you are always free to make whatever you think would be a good addition, and even if there are is something already made in the repository that you would like to do, or think you could make a nicer version you are of course welcome and encouraged to do so as variety is the spice of life as they say and giving world builders more variations and options is always a good thing.

One of the nice things about WorldForge is that its a great environment to learn and develop in, you can work and learn within the community, and have opportunity to develop yourself in time, taking on subjects that interest you. WF also is in need of alot of the sort of content that as you say alot of modelers don't really have great interest in making because of their simple nature. Rocks, Bushes, Flowers, Trees, Hand Tools, Small creatures and alot more things, here we generally try to focus on things that would compliment current gameplay features and the spirit of people living in the wilds as pioneers trying to settle a new land, so we need lots of those sorts of things.

A few more quick points and suggestions...

WF media is Licensed under GPL2.0/GFDL1+ so all assets used in our work has to be compatible with this license, so utilizing external textures might be an issue as we need to provide the source for all our work and have clear rights to do so. But this is not really a big problem as you will discover that the WF repository is full of great textures already that you can use for you models.

In fact re-using existing textures from the repository is highly recommended and promoted. The more texture assets the games try to consecutively load together is more memory so we strive to re-use whenever possible.

Also important to note is that alot of the textures have been designed as Templates, and if you look in the art section within the textures directory for a type you will discover a clearly defined template graphic with regions and descriptions that lets you maximize the use of the texture and makes laying out your UV map to use it much simpler. This also helps promote re-use, minimizes specialized textures wherever possible, and also gives world builders more variety in their creations, 4 fish models, and 3 template textures for instance would allow for 12 species of fish to be created.

Well I hope that was useful and not too overwhelming a response, feel free to ask more questions, or drop into IRC chat if you like. And good luck with your modeling, I'm looking forward to seeing what you decide on!

Thanks alot for this quick answer. I'll read those pages you linked and start modeling. I'll be glad to help you fill the todo list and I'll probably build variations of existing items just to add more possibilities for devs.

I'll use thoses textures. Reusing existing textures really make sense. Thanks again and congratulation to you all for the good work already done.

I may seem a bit noobish, but I can't find the repository...

Can someone link me where to get the existing textures and where I can see the work already done?

I looked at the todo list, there is plenty of stuff to be done! ... lol

Your welcome,

Yep there is quite a few things on the list I did a little updating today to add some things from my personal future list, and there is always room for more, you should see my personal TODO lists. lol!

Don't worry we all got to start out this way, there is alot of information available so finding things at first is one of the bigger chalanges you will face, so no worries about asking any questions, as the saying goes the only bad question is the one you don't ask.

Information about the Repository can be found on the Media FAQ found at: http://worldforge.org/media/documents/media_faq and there is also some information at the bottom of the Media Guidelines too regarding the SVN repository that will be useful to you. At the top of the Media FAQ page linked above you will find a link to the Media Repository, all original source files 3D media can be found in the Art, directory structure, game ready assets are located in the 3DOjects directory, 3DSkeletons directory is old an is being phased out but still holds some workings data too. For now the majority of your interest will be in Art I think.

I'm not sure if WOMBAT is 100% functional at this time, but you can always try yo use it to browse the repo with your web browser, but there is a newer version in the works that will include alot more functionality like a 3D preview window at such.

I'd highly recommend for now that you just grab Tortoise SVN (being a 3DSMax user I am assuming you on Windows) at some point and just grab the whole repo locally so that you can easily review things like original models and use anything you might need for textures quickly. Also whenever I or other artists make updates you can quickly and easily get those as well.

There can be alot to look at, read, learn and try when you are first getting setup, so don't worry to ask many questions as you need, we'll be more then happy to help out.

I added a new section to the Wiki Media Guidelines last night detailing the use of Texture Templates, there is a section there which lists the templates and locations etc, I will be going through the Repo and locating all the templates and adding them to list which will help make finding a suitable template for your needs much easier in the long run.

You can find it here: http://wiki.worldforge.org/wiki/Texture_Templates