I wonder if there could have a library of ready to use free and paid assets, like animated humanoids, trees, plants, animals, vehicles and so on…
They could be hosted at jmonkeyengine site, we could download and also buy thru this site, and they MUST be hassle free, just plug and use, so each creator would put a good effort on granting that.
I just ask that users are allowed to modify assets, but only allowed to re-release on library with original creator permission, like a derivative artistic work, and therefore linked to the original one, so if it is a paid asset, the original creator would get a share on it.
Begginers could make their projects with free assets, and buy more elaborated ones later on.
So kinda like the unity store? I would say that is one of the main reasons anyone would use their engine, so if a working solution could be found this would be great. Question would be who is responsible for it, and maintain it, since jme is opensource.
i think the only way for this to work is if people released assets AS open source so it could be used on github and have a tie in to github repos. besides the fact that it would require actual work to maintain the server, there would be hosting costs.
(of course im assuming github doesnt consider hosting asset files on their service as abuse even if it is “open source”)
in absense of such a feature. i just have a “stock assets” folder on my computer with various models, textures, sounds, etc that ive found on the internet. its also quite easy to just drag and drop in to the sdk from windows explorer.
the real benefit would just be a central place to find jme ready assets, similiar to how the plugin’s repo is a central place to find jme plugins (though even that has some issues)
It doesn’t need to be a working solution. This library could begin only accepting free assets, until it gets mature, until the delivery is working like plug and use, and later on evolve to provide the commercial option. Or you could even accept only free assets and stop on that, up to you.
I cant think anyone else other than this very site maintainers. The assets would be hosted here. Users could improve the assets and re-release them, someone makes the skeleton, other one improves the animation, other one improves the textures, other one improves the shaders and so on…
Keep it free, until you understand it is a good idea to go commercial, otherwise keep it free only.
I think this could provide a great quick start to indie devs.
You know we have an asset pack system embed in the SDK right? You have all the test models of JME and the complete worldforge collection. Not great models but some of them are quite nice.
It could use a web based showcase ans a bit more of advertisement though.
The real problem is to find models to put in it…There are not a lot of artists around and there is more need, than offer.
@nehon said:
You know we have an asset pack system embed in the SDK right? You have all the test models of JME and the complete worldforge collection. Not great models but some of them are quite nice.
It could use a web based showcase ans a bit more of advertisement though.
The real problem is to find models to put in it...There are not a lot of artists around and there is more need, than offer.
Thats why the commercial version in unity works os great, a modeler creates it model once, than punches it till oit works great with the engine, and can get money for his long hours of work. In a opensource enviroment -lets be honest here- mostly stuff for yourself is developed. Or you cannot release the converted models (and I put hours into converting them) since they have a commercial license.
Yeah, thats what I basically added the AssetPack support for, making it an actual store means lots of maintenance overhead though. I proposed the idea a few times and its in the back of our heads I guess but given that not even our forum works properly I don’t have much hope for this to happen soon ^^ Plus, nobody really uploaded any AssetPacks as of yet anyway.
I would really see this feature on jmokey world… Actually I was looking for this in the forums some months ago but I drop it because of I’m now busy with nify-editor integration . The assets pack support is just amazing it’s a pity that is not used a lot. I guess it’s because of the lack of designers in jme community as you said, but I think that with a bit of advertising you could attract some of them here . The idea is to make a favorable environment for them . After my project with nifty-editor will end , I’d be happy to help you here. By the way , is this site open source ? Could we contribute to it on github?
NwN uses a similar system for packaging assets (called hak packs). Part of my long-term plan for jME is to leverage the huge library of assets contributed to NwN into a toolset and engine much more modern and flexible (ie. jME).
In other words, I intend to make a great deal of use of the AssetPack system. And part of that will be converting all the assets I can verify provenance for. Not just models and textures, but music, sound, movies and entire prefabs, as well.
As it applies to this thread, I intend to supply quite a lot of assets, in quite a wide variety of AssetPacks, and look forward to a decent cataloging/previewing system
May be, ppl who wants to sell assets could create a simple version of the asset and add a screenshot and a link to get the paid one.
So that simple version could be part of free packs, and the paid one would be dealt with without jme crew being required to deal with it. This would be great also to increase the library!
@nehon
Indeed, may be more advertisement like a session on this site showing screenshots as a showcase of the freely available online assets could do the trick; even now that I have all assets installed, I still miss an easier way to choose the assets I want, as on the library there is dozens of swords for ex (just to make it sure, I am not complaining at all heh).
@foxhavendesigns
Never winter nights? cool! I expect they can be freely used? I count on you too xD
In some cases the licensing can get a bit… convoluted. But the vast majority of assets contributed to the Vault (Link removed) were contributed under a “fair and reasonable use” clause.
Additionally all of the contributions to the still quite active Custom Content Challenge are freely distributable, such as the Orcish idols and totems (link removed) I am making for this months challenge.
Add to that that there are still some very good artists (including professional game designers) contributing to this pool and it’s definitely a worthwhile source. The trick is getting it into jME usable form.
We have some pretty savvy coders who’ve written blender import scripts that can handle a lot of that, but not all.
That is the focus, to start with, of my NwN asset loader project.
But I’m an old guy and most of my real programming experience was assembler (6502 & 68000) and early c for the Amigados kernal. Heh. All this java & OO stuff is really cool, but it’s taking me a bit to gain traction
Just saying don’t hold your breath until I pick up speed or get some help
Edit: @PSpeed I tried using the link widget and hand tagging it both. I even tried just putting in the url as text (non-link), but it appears the bioware forums are suspicious either way Odd, since I’ve linked there before. Anyway, this post is attempt… heh, about 12 or 13 I think.
What’s that definition of insanity? Pounding your head against a wall even when you’ve proven something doesn’t work
@foxhavendesigns said:
Edit: @PSpeed I tried using the link widget and hand tagging it both. I even tried just putting in the url as text (non-link), but it appears the bioware forums are suspicious either way :-P Odd, since I've linked there before. Anyway, this post is attempt... heh, about 12 or 13 I think.
I was just curious. The forum seems to be auto-marking some things as spam that aren’t. I don’t know anything about the forum software so I was just trying to narrow it down.
I have this simple plan that I would like to accomplish:
To create a project with completely free assets that allow me to modify any aspects of it, and even be allowed to continue using them, and my modified versions (that will be made free also), if the project becomes commercial.
Later on if I manage to raise enough money, I will be willing to buy a fully blown commercial version of the assets to update the project, even if asset by asset.
The already available jme “online assets” conform to this?
@foxhavendesigns
Well, I think the assets should be classified clearly, so we know that we can only use on free projects, or how we are allowed to use in commercial ones, without too much confuse definitions if possible.
Five times!
Five times!