[02:14] <DKcross> hello people
[02:14] <DKcross> :)
[19:47] <dpic> who's here for the gaming team meeting?
[20:01] <dpic> who's here for the meeting?
[20:04] <doctormo> Hello, here for the gaming meeting
[20:04] <dpic> aha, thanks doctormo
[20:05] <doctormo> So what's on the agenda Mr Danny?
[20:06] <dpic> https://wiki.ubuntu.com/GamingTeam/Meetings/Minutes/2009-09-27
[20:06] <dpic> doctormo: oh no, matt lee kept calling my mr. danny at the boston reddit meetup
[20:06] <dpic> and repeating my name over and over in a disapproving tone
[20:08] <dpic> anyways, problem areas for FOSS games, so far the two major ones are lack of  content development platform as good as the code development platforms that exist, as well as maintaining a good art direction that isn't led by a programmer who isn't an artist
[20:11] <DreadKnight> me too
[20:11] <doctormo> dpic: You have a number of options with art, 1) create druple type site to make content, specificly Creative Commons (no NC or ND allowed)
[20:11] <Moustafa> So, basically, if we get artists to lead the projects, a portion of the problem would be solved?
[20:12] <doctormo> 2) Use launchpad in some way, this might include coding new features into launchpad for doing more art/marketing/content type things.
[20:12] <dpic> doctormo: yes, we were already considering bot h those options
[20:12] <doctormo> 3) Pair up with an existing site such as deviantArt or some gaming content art site.
[20:12] <dpic> and now that our ideas are a little more  planned out here:
[20:12] <dpic> https://wiki.ubuntu.com/GamingTeam/Projects/DistributedContentDevelopment
[20:12] <dpic> we wanted to revisit which should be the best option
[20:13] <dpic> Moustafa: yes
[20:13] <doctormo> You can't really solve the problem from the perspective of artists until you have a group of artists and modlers involved int he community you want to set up
[20:13] <DreadKnight> guys... what sort of games are you considering? A remake of tetris or something like "mass effect" ? :P
[20:13] <Moustafa> http://www.game-artist.net/forums/ should be a good place to find more artists
[20:13] <doctormo> dpic: I take it that you've read Jono Bacon's "The Art of the Community bitches"
[20:13] <doctormo> DreadKnight: This is more base line, any games that spring forth and any source resources that go into them.
[20:14] <Moustafa> Well, if you are looking for artists wanting to lead some projects, I'm one.  I've been planning on making a game using FOSS tools, and distribute it online, perhaps via the planned Canonical store
[20:14] <doctormo> DreadKnight: For instance, think of all the FOSS games int he repository where models, textures and graphics are not catalogued or sorted for re-use by other projects.
[20:14] <DreadKnight> I'm founder of Freezing Moon, a NPO developing 2 foss game projects www.FreezingMoon.org     http://www.blendernation.com/freezing-moon-open-games/
[20:14] <doctormo> Moustafa: It's not called "store" any more :-D
[20:14] <dpic> doctormo: i have not read that but looking it p-- there doesn't seem to be "bitches" in the title
[20:15] <Moustafa> Yeah, I read
[20:15] <Moustafa> But there are still plans for it
[20:15] <DreadKnight> using launchpad and "common art" for game projects is not the way to go if you actually wanna make quality stuff
[20:15] <doctormo> dpic: That's just me being funny
[20:15] <doctormo> dpic: But it's an excelent book for learning how to grow a community. A good starting point might be the blender gaming community
[20:16] <DreadKnight> www.gameblender.org and www.FreezingMoon.org (related to blender gaming communities)
[20:16] <Moustafa> I'll second DreadKnight here:  Each game has to make its own content.  To have some assets that could be used all around can help, though
[20:16] <dpic> doctormo: any suggestions as to how to coordinate something with them?
[20:16] <doctormo> dpic: Join any mailing lists or forums and work at it, see what kind of community it is and who would be interested in FOSS.
[20:17] <dpic> Moustafa: it's not just that artists are in short supply, but developers don't like stepping down and letting other people making art decisions
[20:18] <DreadKnight> games have their own graphic styles, polycounts budges... and so on, reusing content for another game is usually crap; but the good part of an open source project is that people would get access to files and eventually improve things (like optimizing a 3d model or tweaking it or adding animations to a 3d model)
[20:18] <doctormo> Moustafa: I expect all game projects will need to make a lot of artwork and content just for the feel of the game. But far too often we forget the ease of derivitive works. We can make a tree model into the moody tree for a different game in less time then making a tree model from scratch.
[20:18] <Moustafa> dpic: Wouldn't it then make more sense to have the artists start a project and find coders that are interested in bringing things to life?
[20:18] <dpic> DreadKnight: why would using launchpad be bad?
[20:18] <dpic> Moustafa: not a bad idea, but how could the gaming team coordinate that?
[20:19] <doctormo> dpic: launchpad, It's hard to code, hard to change and not set up at all for dealign with creative content development.
[20:19] <Moustafa> doctormo: Oh, things like trees, vehicles, or otherwise general objects (such as chairs) could be used from commons arts, that does make sense
[20:19] <DreadKnight> dpic, for game development, you need dropbox; launchpad is a joke for 3d games etc, only works for software such as empathy; when you tweak a model etc you don't need to have barriers and force the artists to commit patches, make branches and such using a CVS; dropbox is like sharing a folder with other people, way more practical and intuitive
[20:20] <DreadKnight> and if you're using launchpad, it's barely even usable if you're using blender and it's game engine, as most of the stuff happens in a single blend file, so you can't merge stuff in branches just like that
[20:20] <doctormo> DreadKnight: When did launchpad ever use CVS?
[20:20] <dpic> got it, so then what about the other websites listed? should we try helping them, or set u pa new site from scratch?
[20:20] <DreadKnight> bazaar = content versioning system
[20:20] <dpic> like opengameart.org
[20:20] <Moustafa> dpic: Do like the large companies and have a lead programmer that works in co-ordination with the director or lead artist to make sure things are going smoothly
[20:20] <doctormo> DreadKnight: Ah well, see I'm working on GUI launchpad/bzr intergration, but blender still wouldn't fit well enough for that.
[20:21] <dpic> Moustafa: yes, that's what projects can do, but what can this team do to make sure they do that? sent out a public letter asking all foss programmers to elect a lead artist?
[20:21] <DreadKnight> Moustafa, that's how I do it at freezing Moon... I'm the game design developer and 3d modeler... I make sure things follow the guidelines and so on; we have most of the documentation online for who wants to read about the workflow
[20:22] <DreadKnight> doctormo, something like ubuntu one would do, it's similar to dropbox, but the downside is that's only for ubuntu... so most people will be using windows and not be able to contribute...
[20:22] <dpic> doctormo: you worked on ubuntu one, right?
[20:23] <DreadKnight> dpic, don't bother; each struggling project leader will find it's way, just like turtles hatching on the beach making their way into the sea
[20:23] <dpic> do you think that has potential for being used as a platform?
[20:23] <doctormo> dpic: I did
[20:23] <dpic> DreadKnight: they're taking too long to do so =]
[20:24] <doctormo> DreadKnight: I'm not totally convinced that DropBox is the right kind of workflow anyway, you can't branch and you can't label or publish from there. It would be fairly course working with more than 20 people.
[20:24] <DreadKnight> dpic, it has, I guarantee; the downside is that you only get 2gb... while dropbox can reach up to 5gb for free.... and it's limited to ubuntu... and most artist you'll encouter will use windows/photoshop and won't be so eager about linux/gimp
[20:24] <DreadKnight> doctormo, you don't branch a blender game, you only branch empathy; games are complex/different things
[20:24] <dpic> DreadKnight: won't ubuntu one expand? or have paid storage?
[20:25] <doctormo> DreadKnight: One of the problems with artists creating content in Closed apps is closed source formats. It's important to have media sources available.
[20:25] <dpic> DreadKnight: and i'm pretty sure it'll be cross platform too
[20:25] <DreadKnight> dpic, of you're an indie developer, you won't afford paying for accounts for random people just to have them work, unless you're funded and such
[20:25] <dpic> ah, right
[20:26] <DreadKnight> doctormo, well, if the artists in your team do great concept artwork in photoshop and export as jpg/png and they don't charge you, it's all good
[20:26] <Moustafa> dpic:  If the project is started by a programmer, it might be best to actually encourage the election of a lead artist so that good art is made and avaiable.  Beyond that, getting some deadlines on goals each month could prompt the team to make sure their work is done.
[20:26] <DreadKnight> agree
[20:26] <doctormo> DreadKnight: Concept art and content art are not the same
[20:27] <doctormo> Although artists that save in jpeg need to be corrected, it's just a bad format for anything other than photographs.
[20:27] <DreadKnight> doctormo, of course; we're only using blender for the 3d assets/animations/game engine etc  ... that's really important; I reject 3d artists willing to help if they're not willing to learn blender, with help provided of course
[20:27] <DreadKnight> doctormo, it was just an example; for concept art and linearts its just fine
[20:28] <DreadKnight> the goal is to get the idea of a new creature and prop in order to pass it on to a 3d artist and get it modeled
[20:28] <DreadKnight> for game textures and icons etc, png, tiff, tga would do
[20:28] <doctormo> DreadKnight: For line arts it's much more lossy than anything else, tiff, png or bmp for lossless formats.
[20:29] <hyp3rfocus> hi
[20:29] <DreadKnight> doctormo, you don't need loseless for anything
[20:29] <Moustafa> I'd like to add that Blender is making it easier for the modeler to do the texture work as well, thanks to its painting tools.  It's not perfect, but it's a damned good start
[20:29] <doctormo> DreadKnight: You don't need lossy for anything
[20:29] <doctormo> Why loose things ever
[20:29] <DreadKnight> Moustafa, most people won't use the 3d painting tools for example, beacause they're too buggy and slow for now
[20:30] <DreadKnight> doctormo, look at our gallery... I often get 2000x2000 drawings... i resize them to 800x800 to save up space, because those drawings don't have the details in them to be worth 2000x2000. so jpg just does the job anyway
[20:30] <DreadKnight> saving space is a feature :P
[20:31] <Moustafa> DK: Good point.  I pretty much am getting to use them as I gain more experience with Blender, but I agree that they're not quite up in terms of performance when compared to software like ZBrush or Mudbox
[20:31] <hyp3rfocus> what's the discussion here?
[20:31] <DreadKnight> hyp3rfocus, free open source game development
[20:31] <doctormo> DreadKnight: What kind of workflow requires such restrictions? at least back the files up locally.
[20:31] <hyp3rfocus> cool
[20:31] <hyp3rfocus> what engines do you guys use?
[20:32] <DreadKnight> doctormo, yes, but the shared folders are limited to 2gb for most people... up to 5gb for those who have referals and such (for free)
[20:32] <doctormo> DreadKnight: A problem with your workflow model that uses dropbox, nothing more.
[20:32] <DreadKnight> hyp3rfocus, blender's game engine, no bottle necks in the pipeline... you make everything, even code using drag'n'drop (logic bricks) and you press a key and play ... and you even see the game in your 3d viewport as it will look while playing
[20:33] <dpic> DreadKnight: jumping back a bit, perhaps canonical would, similar to launchpad, allow extra storage on ubuntu one for FOSS games for free? and then a platform could be built around that
[20:33] <DreadKnight> doctormo, dropbox or not, some things are not worth huge resolution or bmp format :P
[20:33] <DreadKnight> dpic, that would be awesome, as long as they would rename that application and make it cross platform
[20:33] <hyp3rfocus> DreadKnight: i'm very interesting in the blender game engine. i've spent a lot of time messing around with quake3 and doom3, but i'm getting tired of getting stuff from blender to the games. game engine sounds a lot more fun.
[20:34] <Moustafa> DK: Usually, game engines require that you keep your assets in the power of two, and most of the time, even high-def gaming uses about 512x512 textures.  Beyond that can get overkill, but does make things prettier
[20:34] <DreadKnight> hyp3rfocus, totally, no more save/import/export crap or compilation of the code
[20:34] <hyp3rfocus> DreadKnight: is knowledge of python essential?
[20:34] <DreadKnight> Moustafa, if you have OpenGL 2.0 compatible video card, you don't need power of two crap anymore
[20:35] <DreadKnight> in BGE at least
[20:35] <doctormo> DreadKnight: You can't know when a work will be vectorised or used in some future unknown way, I've found it's best to always at least keep backups of large res files.
[20:35] <DreadKnight> doctormo, stop finding hypothetical cases :D be more practical
[20:35] <doctormo> DreadKnight: BTW, what required renaming?
[20:35] <dpic> i think we're getting a little side tracked =]
[20:35] <doctormo> dpic: your the meeting chair
[20:36] <dpic> alright so, starting with the development platform
[20:36] <DreadKnight> doctormo, "ubuntu one"... if you make it cross platform or even use that in other linux distros, it doesn't makes sense.... it's as arrogant or confusing like "gnome-do"
[20:36] <dpic> has everybody looked at the page: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/GamingTeam/Projects/DistributedContentDevelopment ?
[20:36] <doctormo> DreadKnight: Stop finding emotive cases :D be more practical
[20:37] <DreadKnight> :D
[20:37] <DreadKnight> I am practical, I'm a game developer :P
[20:37] <doctormo> I'm a busybody
[20:38] <Moustafa> dpic: I'm looking at it.  Unfortunately, family business came up and I have to leave for now, should be back in 30 minutes, but I'll keep this window up
[20:38] <dpic> what would be the most suitable platform for our needs? are we agreed on ubuntu one or some similar and possible future version of it?
[20:38] <DreadKnight> "3D artist love to have lost...." should be lots*
[20:39] <DreadKnight> dpic, agree, if crossplatform and providing more space
[20:39] <dpic> alright, perhaps we can get in touch with canonical
[20:39] <doctormo> Lots of space, very fast space, making sure everything is propperly copyleft (not NC or ND) and making sure sources are available in open formats. <- my advice.
[20:39] <hyp3rfocus> also, shouldn't that be "3D artists"
[20:39] <doctormo> Now I must go
[20:39] <doctormo> good luck dpic
[20:39] <dpic> does it seem *possible* for ubuntu one to to support the features we outlined?
[20:39] <DreadKnight> hyp3rfocus, lol... right xD
[20:39] <dpic> thanks doctormo
[20:40] <DreadKnight> people come and go :D
[20:40] <DreadKnight> that's why it's very hard to make a 'real' game as an indie dev
[20:40] <DreadKnight> not to mention most people barely have any skills suitable for your project
[20:41] <dpic> as far as contacting canonical goes, how can we make a real business case for them?
[20:41] <dpic> how do we get them to listen to us?
[20:41] <dpic> and is there still possibility of partnering with the blender foundation if we go with ubuntu one?
[20:42] <DreadKnight> dpic, well, I was considering emailing canonical at some point in order to make a partnership; My life is sort of on the line regarding FreezingMoon as I even quit my job and im working full time on the projects... I have lots of experience in the field and I wanna do high-quality stuff
[20:43] <dpic> cool, what kind of partnership were you emailing about?
[20:43] <DreadKnight> Ton Rosendal or Nathan Letwory use Mac os x and Windows, without any direct interest in using something only ment for ubuntu...
[20:43] <dpic> right, but of course nothign is possible until ubuntu one goes cross platform
[20:44] <DreadKnight> I was thinking of montly fonds ($) and 'link exchange'; You see all the cool games have a windows logo on them, "product developed for windows"... I think Ubuntu would use some games with that kind of stuff on the box etc as well
[20:44] <DreadKnight> otherwise people won't take Linux seriously with preinstalled chess games and only open arena
[20:45] <DreadKnight> most foss games are multiplayer/online, no singleplayer or storyline
[20:45] <DreadKnight> some have singleplayer, but we're not in the 80's anymore.....
[20:47] <DreadKnight> and I think CC NC should be allowed; artists are usually scared to make drawings everybody can use, I can assure you that; and commercial usage will just allow 3rd parties to make moneis without even contributing/sponsoring the devs, not cool... as games are very demanding projects
[20:47] <dpic> hm, well do you think you could help with contacting them about this development platform too?
[20:47] <dpic> it's not a foss license so we can't
[20:47] <dpic> developers used to be just as afraid
[20:48] <DreadKnight> well, as far as I know, Launchpad even allows copyrighted projects in certain cases
[20:48] <dpic> and not ture if they use SA
[20:48] <DreadKnight> don't confuse coders with artists;
[20:48] <dpic> yeah, with a commercial license
[20:48] <DreadKnight> artists have a very different mentality... they put a part of their souls in every drawings and care about them
[20:48] <DreadKnight> drawing*
[20:49] <hyp3rfocus> and coders don't?
[20:49] <dpic> yeah...
[20:49] <DreadKnight> code is a different thing; it's easier to be made in collaboration or to branch
[20:49] <dpic> but the point is NC is not foss
[20:49] <DreadKnight> Consider it how you want, but I'm letting you know the real-case scenario :)
[20:49] <dpic> perhaps the mindset is a bit different
[20:50] <dpic> but NC is incompatible with FOSS
[20:50] <dpic> hopefully that mindset can change
[20:50] <hyp3rfocus> i'd like to see 3d modelling done in collaboration in the same way as code.
[20:50] <DreadKnight> most of the artists I managed to get into my projects don't know about foss... and copyright their works and use huge watermarks :D but I couldn't do without them
[20:50] <hyp3rfocus> easy to do with text based model formats
[20:51] <dpic> hyp3rfocus: that's why we want this new development platform =]
[20:51] <hyp3rfocus> oh cool
[20:51] <DreadKnight> I wouldn't be working on games giving everything for free, as Canonical thinks of the $ as well (consider tech support, ubuntu one etc); I invest a lot of time to not get anything? Wouldn't be fair to allow a 3rd party to make money off my back;
[20:51] <hyp3rfocus> it would also work with svg based art
[20:52] <dpic> DreadKnight: shareAlike clause.
[20:52] <DreadKnight> There are cross platform or free games nowadays, but they're closed source; Leagueoflegends.com heroesofnewerth.com (this one is cross platform), the CC NC allows for people to share/learn/contribute, so I think it's a good enough case
[20:53] <hyp3rfocus> there are gpl cross platform games too
[20:53] <dpic> the problem is that it's incompatible with FOSS
[20:53] <hyp3rfocus> nexuiz, openarena
[20:54] <hyp3rfocus> the xreal engine is gpl too, but it's media isn't
[20:54] <DreadKnight> nexuiz and openarena are cool games, but as I said, we're not in the 80's anymore; openarena is based on quake 3 engine, which was closed and made lots of money... it got old and they released it... but times moved on....
[20:55] <hyp3rfocus> xreal is worth checking out
[20:55] <hyp3rfocus> modern graphics, skeletal animation
[20:55] <dpic> how about we start by contacting canoincal. DreadKnight, were you just going to shoot them an email? Do oyu know how would be best to reach them?
[20:55] <hyp3rfocus> apparently the graphics are better than doom3
[20:55] <dpic> and is collaboration with the blender foundation still possible
[20:56] <DreadKnight> dpic, perhaps emailing Mark Shuttleworth; I am planing to email them this year... want to have a community again when Google Wave will be released and to have a demo (an early alpha) for at least one of the 2 projects
[20:57] <dpic> alright
[20:58] <dpic> and how about encouraging games to elect a lead artist, how can we best do that?
[20:58] <DreadKnight> dpic, blender foundation doesn't usually gets involved with 3rd party stuff, but they're interested how other people use blender and they're looking forward to hear feedback on how could blender be improved and such; maybe at some point I'll get their attention and have "development sprints" for the FM projects and they're hearquarters in Amsterdam
[20:58] <dpic> DreadKnight: considering the open more and game projects, i think this could benefit them too
[20:59] <DreadKnight> dpic, I usually pay my concept artist from time to time, and looking forward to pay other devs as well... next year I want to have the core-team of Freezing Moon to be rewarded financially and work part time at least; about 20 people; pretty much like blender foundation does each year, having a payed team + contribution/feedback from the community
[20:59] <DreadKnight> lead concept artist*
[21:00] <DreadKnight> I think huge art or gamedevelopment related communities should try to involve people into open source game/movie projects, rather than just random weekly/monthly challenges
[21:01] <dpic> hm, what challenges are oyu referring to?
[21:01] <dpic> and is there anything in that this team can do to encourage games lacking a lead concept artist to elect one?
[21:01] <DreadKnight> because getting things together into an animation or demo is more challenging for people and the end result is more interesting rather than random creatures for portfolio showcase
[21:03] <DreadKnight> dpic, not sure what to say about that... it's a low of 'triall' to find people as an indie developer and *really* get things going in the right direction
[21:03] <DreadKnight> the people need to be serious about it, they need to get along fine and so on
[21:04] <dpic> yeah
[21:04] <dpic> are there any other areas besides those two that are such a significant barrier to FOSS game adoption?
[21:05] <DreadKnight> so trying to assume the role of a 'match-maker' is similar to making a website for 'selling' brides to say so
[21:06] <dpic> haha
[21:06] <DreadKnight> moneis are a key factor :D I think like it was discussed about Ubuntu/Linux to have some sort of payed jobs, like people raising money in order to pay a developer to implement a feature or fix some bugs.... I think the commercial aspect of a game should be considered as well
[21:06] <dpic> it should
[21:06] <DreadKnight> It would be interesting to have some foss related website to showcase projects to possible investors
[21:07] <dpic> but that something that has to be take on a per-project basis
[21:07] <DreadKnight> of course
[21:07] <dpic> hm, does nothing like that exist?
[21:07] <DreadKnight> there are websites showcasing 'lame' foss projects, but there isn't one as far as I know to only showcase the most promissing/demanding projects
[21:08] <DreadKnight> Don't get me wrong, I love foss games, but for a real gamer, they're just crap to say so, that's why you see "does it run crysis?" on digg when it comes to linux related articles and such
[21:09] <DreadKnight> even if a projects is foss, there's a huge difference between a successful project and one just started for the sake of doing something
[21:09] <dpic> yeah i know
[21:10] <dpic> well, maybe we should start a FOSS gaming website from scratch for this purpose
[21:10] <dpic> it could double as the development platform if we got enough support
[21:10] <DreadKnight> so I really want to get things to a new level and solve part of the "linux is not for games" issue, since I'm all into this foss thing; therefor I even need to consider the commercial-like aspects :)
[21:11] <DreadKnight> there are a few foss gaming website; the thing is to get involved in helping a certain project to be able to 'match' a commercial quality like game
[21:12] <DreadKnight> as much as possible; most games have huge budgets and lots of people working full time in a studio
[21:13] <DreadKnight> even the free games I listed earlier, have that kind of stuff, but they also consider making $ using all sorts of strategies, like in-game shops, e-shop selling items and so on
[21:13] <dpic> yeah
[21:16] <dpic> alright well there aren't enough people here for the next two agenda items so we can hold off until next month
[21:16] <dpic> or should the next meeting be in two months again?
[21:17] <DreadKnight> the agenda items are... ?
[21:17] <dpic> priorituze projects and assign jobs
[21:18] <DreadKnight> Im guessing some people only read now or later...
[21:18] <dpic> huh?
[21:18] <DreadKnight> maybe even having a log online would help
[21:18] <dpic> #ubuntu-meeting is logged
[21:18] <DreadKnight> 154 peeps here, quite a lot :)
[21:18] <DreadKnight> good
[21:18] <dpic> well participating, people =]
[21:18] <DreadKnight> well, it's up for you to decide :D
[21:19] <dpic> hm, well what do we have to do in the meantime? contact canonical...write up a blog post, summarize the meeting logs, anything else?
[21:19] <dpic> sounds doable in one month
[21:20] <DreadKnight> I might even join the ubuntu/gnome/kde planets and start blogging more often about foss game development / usability and graphic design using foss
[21:20] <DreadKnight> I keep up to date with everything related..
[21:20] <dpic> that would be awesome!
[21:20] <dpic> are you an ubuntu member?
[21:21] <DreadKnight> hmm, guess not; I have wiki account and a page..
[21:21] <dpic> you need to become an approved member
[21:21] <dpic> http://www.ubuntu.com/community/processes/newmember
[21:21] <DreadKnight> seems I need to do some more stuff as I got rejected earlier on launchpad when joining kubuntu-members :D
[21:21] <dpic> =]
[21:22] <dpic> any final thoughts?
[21:22] <DreadKnight> I see; guess I'll start translating again soon and do some artwork/mockups
[21:23] <dpic> excellent =]
[21:23] <DreadKnight> all good with me; only that people shouldn't confuse an application with a real game; so branching is usually out of the way
[21:24] <dpic> alright, this meeting is hereby concluded
[21:24] <dpic> thank's to everyone who showed up!
[21:24] <dpic> thanks*
[21:24] <DreadKnight> \o/
[21:24] <DreadKnight> cheers!