Request Needed texture list - let Drullkus help texture all the things!

[Cervator]

Well, he offered!

https://twitter.com/Drullkus/status/749315611382079488

(Drullkus is chief art guy for MC's Chisel mod)

At present I believe most the block textures in Core (all blockTiles were moved out from the engine) are still from Good Morning Craft! which was/is a great texture pack and we reached out to the artist once or twice with an occasional reply way later, but ultimately we couldn't stay in touch and its license at the time wasn't a perfect match.

It looks like GMC! was abandoned some time ago, although a continuation was posted recently. I can't find the original site but from memory its license was something akin to CC BY NC, which means it wouldn't qualify as a "free culture license" which ideally everything in our engine and base modules should. The continuation got permission from the author but I still don't see explicit license details.

Big question there is if we should continue to base our core on GMC! (try to get formal permission to perma-fork without the NC clause), find a different core set of texture (anybody know of a nice pack with the right license that wouldn't be too typecast as MC?), or aim to do all our own from scratch (keep it uniquely originated for Terasology)

Beyond GMC! we do have a few of our own, like the furnace in Core and various modules with their own textures, placeholder or not. What should we consider updating there? Any requests? Figuring probably @Josharias can think of some.

In any case when we figure something out we should ping Drullkus on Twitter with an update. We can always use more textures! Just a question of which

 

[ToadsworthLP]

That was quick!
I would prefer unique textures for Terasology, even though that would be a lot of work for Drullkus (But he said we shouldn't worry, see here).

 

[Florian]

I need some dungeon themed textures for the dungeons generated by my Gooey's Quests module. e.g. like stone bricks that are damaged or/and mossy or have iron rings. Or iron grating Or stone bricks with ancient symbols.

 

[Waterpicker]

Books could use new textures. I was thinking new book textures. I don't even need that many books textures. Just a set of textures that will responds nicely with being tinted.

If you are up for it, orginal textures for Book's book gui would be nice. The current textures are from the minecraft mod Tinker's Construct. It is public domain but it always good to have an original feel.

 

[Florian]

Library oriented block textures would be nice too. Then I could generate a library in the dungeon.

 

[Josharias]

My programmer art is far from awesome... any improvements on these would be welcomed:

Assembly Table - uses basic materials to craft other items and blocks. Made from 1 tree trunk.


Tool assembly table - an enhanced assembly table that can assembly tool parts into tools (shovels, picks, axes, etc).


Sifting table - put in water and crushed ores, and with some effort it will make remove the impurities from your ores. (based off of this real world idea)


Wooden gear box - takes rotating axle energy and splits/redirects it. (like this)


Windmill - put in a windmill arm, and it will blow in the wind. Basically the "engine" part of the windmill. The green squares signify power can be output out of that side. (see here) Meant to fit in with the wooden theme of devices.

 

[Skaldarnar]

What will the resolution of the texture be? I'd like to add building/city related textures for buildings/building materials (whitewashed, concrete, different bricks, ...) and a rework of tree-related stuff (bark, leaves, ...).

 

[Cervator]

Bit of a delayed summary here: I talked to Drullkus some this Friday about further details. He's up for trying a full re-texturing, mostly 16x16 with 32x32 mixed in where added granularity would be useful.

Two "groups" of block tile textures we're targeting

• Iota - the "base set" of block tiles for any world (can naturally override like with L&S). This should be a fairly finite list of basic textures all covered by CC 4.0 BY (similar to Apache 2.0). The base game / engine / libs should remain under a very permissive setup (it has all technically been Apache 2.0 so far).
  
• Omega - the expanded options in any direction from the base set, such as stuff for L&S. License here is up to the individual author, Dullkus mentioned he generally favors CC BY SA (GPL-like). The non-commercial variant would be fine too if an author wants it.

Our initial focus should the Iota set, especially since the exact impact of CC BY SA isn't entirely clear to me. If content and code are considered separate entities then everything is fine, but does the GPL-like infectious nature of SA reach other components it is distributed with, like when code and art are packaged in the same .jar, or even in the Omega zip? I dunno. Am not laywer. So will worry about that more later.

In the meantime we need a good and proper list to target, not to mention tracking art assets better in the first place. I'm thinking about an automated ArtAssetScraper much like the API and Binding scrapers that can parse out a list of assets at build-time and either create a list or compare to an existing list so we can catch the introduction of new art assets over time that might be lacking details/attribution in some other document. That's probably overkill before getting started though.

So in Core and anything obviously Iota (Inventory, Hunger, Combat, etc) what do we have, what do we need, and what can we dump (we have a lot of unused bits and pieces from GMC!)

I'll try to find some time soonish to push that process further.

Another topic that came up is what if any style we would want to aim for with the Iota set - and honestly I'm clueless. Talked a bit with @glasz after the main conversation and he has some ideas (favor textures that could go well with stuff like the outline shader). Probably we should think about that a bit more, but again we can probably get started first to get a better idea and see some initial textures.

IRC log covering both initial part with Drullkus and later part with glasz:

Spoiler: IRC log

8:53:59 PM - Drullkus: \o
8:54:19 PM - Drullkus: Oh hey SkySom
8:54:22 PM - Cerv_afk: heyo
8:54:26 PM - You are now known as Cervator.
8:54:29 PM - Drullkus: o/ Cervator
8:54:50 PM - Cervator: we've picked up a few likely familiar names, though the evenings are more quiet
8:55:05 PM - Drullkus: Yep
8:55:06 PM - Cervator: usually Twitter is me as well, so good timing! good to see you on here
8:55:20 PM - Drullkus: Np! I just registered with NS
8:56:07 PM - Cervator: mainly i was curious to get a few of our contributors wanting textures together to talk about what the goal actually would be - all 16x16? higher res options? forget 16x16 entirely? etc
8:56:16 PM - Drullkus: Ah
8:56:25 PM - Immortius_ [~Immortius@180.200.139.116] entered the room.
8:563 PM - Cervator: tomorrow we're doing a multiplayer test session from around noon till 4-5 pm eastern or whenever really
8:56:42 PM - Drullkus: Honestly 16x is perfect for blocky games like terasology or minecraft
8:56:45 PM - Drullkus: Ah
8:56:54 PM - Cervator: that would be ideal timing if you could make it but if you're stuck at work on a Saturday then my condolences
8:57:09 PM - Immortius has left the room (Quit: Ping timeout: 252 seconds).
8:57:17 PM - Cervator: and yeah it is sometimes easier to stay in the lower res range, call it "style", and not worry about the race for pretty graphics
8:576 PM - Drullkus: I may do an occasional 32x but it's only for details
8:57:47 PM - Cervator: we'll never win anything like that anyway although sometimes seeing something higher res can be cool, it is all supported in any case
8:58:07 PM - Drullkus: Then there's the Unity minecraft texturepack, which does a 16x style with maybe 32x minor details
8:58:12 PM - Drullkus: Not not stand-off 32x
8:58:16 PM - Drullkus: but not*
8:58:21 PM - Drullkus: I kinda do the same sometimes
8:58:29 PM - Cervator: one thing i'll have to admit a lack of knowledge on, does Chisel cover a complete texture pack of everything MC, or just adds new stuff?
9:12:09 PM - Drullkus: ?
9:12:25 PM - Cervator: after a bit of research i didn't have time to do earlier i see the reference to Painterly now and why you probably talked about doing new stuff / different license stuff
9:12:46 PM - Drullkus: Chisel is a mod that adds chiselable variations to existing minecraft blocks and then some more
9:13:11 PM - Drullkus: The legacy chisel textures are in some weird license mess, I don't want terasology involved
9:13:12 PM - Cervator: yep i might have gotten some references confused, sorry about that
9:13:28 PM - glasz has left the room (Quit: Remote host closed the connection).
9:14:21 PM - Cervator: another big question i have, and a bit of background on our base textures right now - we started out ages ago with textures from Good Morning Craft! and i've been wondering if we should switch it out for all new textures but sourced from the same artist, or just look for a different base pack
9:14:44 PM - Cervator: thus i was wondering for a moment how wide the existing work with Chisel was, but i see some more of the details now
9:15:19 PM - Cervator: like mentioned on Twitter earlier there is just *so much* work out there already, and so much that could be textured
9:16:24 PM - Cervator: i know you mentioned being fast, and it would be awesome to have a full new set of pretty much everything, just a bit hesitant to ask for something that big, especially with so many people having gone through that exercise already with various existing packs
9:17:15 PM - Cervator: if you would enjoy it, however ... !
9:24:04 PM - Drullkus: I'll give it a shot
9:24:17 PM - Drullkus: It'll be all new stuff, no recycled stuff
9:24:42 PM - Drullkus: software licenses are the worse for dealing with when it comes to art
9:25:22 PM - Cervator: well you'd be very welcome i tried to get a hold of the GMC! author at one point curious to get a hold of a texture person we could count on over time to make updates and additions that would fit nicely with the overall style
9:251 PM - Cervator: but communication was sort of spotty at best
9:25:58 PM - Cervator: so since then we've stayed with the base set and just added bits and pieces here and there, which makes it look somewhat of a hodge-podge in places
9:26:05 PM - Cervator: it would be great to just have everything matching nicely
9:267 PM - Cervator: a mix of 16x16 and 32x32 for detailed stuff also sounds fine
9:27:21 PM - Cervator: if you have anything existing (and unencumbered so to say) you could save time by reusing feel free, but all-new is fine too
9:28:48 PM - Cervator: would you be up for covering a base set (think basics needed in about any world - super decorative high effort fancy stuff could be separate) under terms comparable to Apache 2.0? but for artwork - yeah i know that can get a little tricky
9:29:11 PM - Cervator: i figure https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ is the closest
9:47:22 PM - SkySom: Oh hey Drullkus is here
9:48:13 PM - Drullkus: Cervator: I kinda prefer https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
9:48:45 PM - Cervator: oh that also has the free culture thing
9:49:13 PM - Cervator: it has a more GPL feel than Apache tho?
9:49:56 PM - Drullkus: Well honestly I prefer people who use my textures to share under the same license :/
9:50:00 PM - Immortius_: ShareAlike is a GPL style clause
9:51:11 PM - Immortius_: I guess the question is... does that term extend to code using that asset? What if that code modifies the asset (e.g. palette shifts it)
9:518 PM - Cervator: Drullkus: yup, understandable. We've talked a bit about it from time to time, there's a desire to have the engine (and maybe base range of general vanilla style content) covered entirely free Apache style, then the more novel artwork like our Light & Shadow series could be under SA or even NC depending on involved contributors
9:51:56 PM - Drullkus: Ah
9:51:59 PM - Drullkus: Hm
9:520 PM - Cervator: imagine for a moment a hypothetical port of Chisel - that wouldn't be "base content" so it could be under SA/NC just fine
9:531 PM - Cervator: but standard textures for dirt, sand, stone, some common trees, plain furniture, etc - something you could imagine seeing in a vanilla MC style world without mods, would be Apache style
9:54:04 PM - Cervator: which could be a pretty thin layer of content, probably even thinner than vanilla MC (there's a fair amount of higher end / fantasy style stuff in vanilla these days iirc)
9:54:44 PM - Drullkus: Ah
9:54:45 PM - Drullkus: Sure
9:54:46 PM - Drullkus: Ok
9:55:02 PM - Drullkus: I getcha now, ok, CC 4.0 is good then
9:558 PM - Cervator: cool and yeah it doesn't have to be everything, i would just say anything that would go into our "Iota" series of modules should be covered that way
9:55:52 PM - Drullkus: I'm just paranoid as hell about licenses because of some drama I had a while bacl
9:55:54 PM - Drullkus: back*
9:55:58 PM - Immortius_: that is fair
9:56:07 PM - Cervator: Iota is the sort of proto-vanilla MC range of content, but the exact details aren't completely nailed down yet
9:56:28 PM - SkySom: yeah...
9:56:40 PM - Cervator: we've had a few fun encounters too, at least a couple times somebody has tried to run off with a fork changing everything, erasing history/names/license info etc
9:57:25 PM - Drullkus: jesus
9:57:27 PM - Cervator: but i don't think that or any other minor transgressions have ever really stayed active, probably just kids thinking they're making the next MC on their own somehow
9:57:40 PM - Drullkus: but yeah, SkySom knows what I'm talking about
9:57:48 PM - Cervator: "You made this? *scribble scribble scribble* "I made this"
9:57:50 PM - Immortius_: I'm perfectly happy with someone taking, say, gestalt and creating a fork they never share and using it commercially - but they do need to keep attribution in there.
9:57:58 PM - Drullkus: Cervator: Summed up perfectly
9:58:03 PM - Immortius_: But that shouldn't extend to every content module.
9:58:08 PM - Cervator: yup
9:58:14 PM - SkySom: DDDRRRRAAAAMMMAAAA
9:582 PM - Cervator: fun fact: i am really not sure we've ever had any real drama here yet
9:58:45 PM - Drullkus: Good. Stay sane, my friends
9:58:48 PM - Cervator: i'm not sure that's a good sign or a bad sign
9:58:50 PM - Immortius_: We could make some.
9:58:50 PM - Drullkus: Drama is never good
9:59:14 PM - Immortius_: I'M LEAVING THE PROJECT BECAUSE CERVATOR SAID BAD THINGS ABOUT MY CAT AND YOU CANNOT USE MY CODE ANYMORE.
9:59:27 PM - Cervator: that cat had it coming
9:59:46 PM - Immortius_: Harley is not fat, he is big boned.
9:59:47 PM - Cervator: always being all furry and stuff
10:00:12 PM - Drullkus: lol
10:00:27 PM - Drullkus: Fat, fluffy kitties!
10:00:48 PM - Cervator: incidentally, the intent is to consider artwork covered under CC, but effectively it is all still assumed Apache since we haven't sprinkled the right magic license words all over the repos
10:01:13 PM - SkySom: YOU CAN'T CHANGE THE LICENSE ON ALL MY BEAUTIFUL ARTWORK HOW DARE YOU.
10:01:15 PM - Cervator: module repos may not even officially be Apache either, usually lacking LICENSE files
10:01:28 PM - Cervator: although any source files tend to have the header
10:01:40 PM - SkySom: Really should have the default make place license files
10:01:45 PM - Immortius_: also, here is some info on the gestalt-entity-system prefab support development for review: http://forum.terasology.org/threads/gestalt-entity-system.1196/page-2#post-13737
10:021 PM - Cervator: but one day we really should clean that up and set all code under apache, all artwork under CC BY, and recommend good variants if authors have different desires for "further out" content
10:02:43 PM - Cervator: Immortius_: yep i have that open in a tab in my browser already, naturally
10:03:16 PM - Cervator: first question that came to mind if it would make what Xtariq is trying to do with Anatomy easier (multiple entities for different body parts) - which i figure it would, but i worry about eventual entity bloat
10:05:05 PM - Cervator: Drullkus: as for my questions and the event tomorrow you can consider me happy with this chat session i can start putting together an exact list of textures if you like, or alternatively you could start trawling through our Core module looking for current ones to replace?
10:06:04 PM - Drullkus: A list would be helpful
10:06:14 PM - Drullkus: With priorities as well
10:06:26 PM - Cervator: the main pile is here: https://github.com/MovingBlocks/Terasology/tree/develop/modules/Core/assets/blockTiles - with just a few not from GMC! like the companion cube (that's mmy one artistic contribution!) yet a ton of them not used
10:066 PM - Drullkus: Like, which textures are not good at all, which ones you'd not want to get retextured, etc
10:06:48 PM - Drullkus: I'd also like to see a few example textures of the art style
10:06:50 PM - Cervator: that works we can figure out which are actually in use, which would like become used, and so on
10:07:28 PM - Cervator: we have a style of sorts for creature models, or two styles really, one general and one Light & Shadow
10:07:46 PM - Cervator: as for block tiles - we don't really have much of a unique style since it is whatever GMC! does plus hodge podge
10:08:00 PM - Cervator: Josharias has a nice little collection of basic machines
10:08:25 PM - Cervator: he put examples in the thread: http://forum.terasology.org/threads/needed-texture-list-let-drullkus-help-texture-all-the-things.1566/#post-13723
10:08:26 PM - dualmal has left the room (Quit: Ping timeout: 250 seconds).
10:08:52 PM - Cervator: i think he drew them (all?) himself, but will ask tomorrow
10:09:19 PM - Cervator: or alternatively they may be tweaked versions of base stuff, like a simple tree trunk
10:13:24 PM - Drullkus: Ah, not too much of a fan of hodge podge
10:13:40 PM - Cervator: indeed! that's why we *need* a nice style
10:14:21 PM - Cervator: although i dunno how stylish 16x16 "base world" blocks really get, since they generally have to be pretty plain to not cause constant patterns when used all over the place
10:14:59 PM - Cervator: check out / glance through at the artwork in this thread: http://forum.terasology.org/threads/las-light-and-shadow-art-discussion.762/
10:15:22 PM - Cervator: that's the Light & Shadow setting, which is unique insofar as anything can be unique in today's world
10:15:40 PM - Cervator: i'm sure twisted Alice in Wonderland has been done a thousand times, but anyway
10:16:10 PM - Cervator: Metal Renegades is another but less developed setting: http://forum.terasology.org/threads/metal-renegades-wild-west-meets-robots.1079/
...
102:11 PM - Cervator: heya glasz - up late or up early?
103:42 PM - glasz: hey
103:44 PM - glasz: up late
104:04 PM - Cervator: good late evening / early morning to you then
104:14 PM - Cervator: we were just talking about block textures and such
104:44 PM - Cervator: was curious what you might think - we've talked about art style for *models* and such, but i'm thinking we have never really developed much of a style for block textures
105:10 PM - glasz: oh
105:17 PM - Cervator: there are a few blocks in L&S, but otherwise we have the base texture pack and occasionally one-offs or sets of new stuff
106:23 PM - glasz: i have a few general ideas but it might be a little off topic
106:28 PM - Cervator: i'm thinking it *is* possible to have a flavorful style even for 16x16 general world block textures, MC packs certainly have different feels to them, but i don't imagine we've ever really had a target
1067 PM - Cervator: that's fine, i'm curious
107:08 PM - glasz: well its more about the kind of world we might build, i'm kind of not into realisme
107:27 PM - glasz: i like things with a strong graphic identity
1076 PM - glasz: a Tron world for example
107:57 PM - Cervator: right, i think L&S is one example, sort of a sub-style for a particular setting
108:07 PM - Cervator: Tron could be another setting, yeah, i'd love that, big fan
108:16 PM - glasz: yup
1081 PM - Cervator: but would there be one for the *base* world? like could you imagine some unique flavor in a world playing Josharias Survival?
1084 PM - glasz: glowing textures, abstract electronic landscapes
108:49 PM - Cervator: i figure there are only so many ways to design grass
108:56 PM - glasz: yup
108:57 PM - Cervator: (normal regular world green grass)
109:15 PM - glasz: there were tons of texture packs for minecraft
109:17 PM - Cervator: loved the candy/bubbly/crazy grass in a Dwarf Fortress "good" biome
109:50 PM - glasz: you can toonify things i suppose
109:54 PM - damiel_ has left the room (Quit: Konversation terminated!).
10:40:14 PM - glasz: have some comics like style like in borderlands
10:40:43 PM - glasz: with black lines
10:40:59 PM - glasz: or something cute and pastel
10:413 PM - glasz: i think it needs to be thought about in the context of a general style for the world, including sky box etc...
10:419 PM - Cervator: yeah, we got the line thing, although that's a shader, not really a block tile texture thing
10:41:53 PM - glasz: we can combine both
10:42:06 PM - Cervator: textures that are enhanced more easily by shader magic?
10:42:11 PM - glasz: yup
10:42:23 PM - Cervator: that's cool, way out of my league tho
10:42:53 PM - Cervator: closest i can think of was the cool bit about parallax/3d shading of textures despite being flat
10:42:55 PM - glasz: small black lines would fit better in a world with larger black outlines
10:431 PM - Cervator: any chance you'll be able to be around for the test session tomorrow? maybe we could get some texture discussion going
10:43:54 PM - Cervator: at some point during it anyway, starts in about 12 hours plus change
10:44:17 PM - glasz: i'll be out i'm afraid, we go to a concert
10:44:51 PM - Cervator: oh cool enjoy!
10:44:57 PM - Cervator: i'll try to summarize in the forum

 

[Cervator]

Alright, progress! I have a workable ArtScraper (I know, not the prettiest name, but there are other Scrapers...) that'll make me a nice list of all blockTiles (or other Assets) given one or more modules. I have some later automated doc and related ideas for that, could maybe also help with #1487 and #1402. Going nuts with that is for later, in the meantime I'm doing some Google Doc work:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1AxCyqn7XB6w0n52N0AAyxVuSPH0OoqU_p2jNQuKtP1U/edit?usp=sharing

That's a list of everything in Core + two of the requests above + a surprise block tile we missed from @eleazzaar's nice plant thread of ages past (we didn't have a "vine" shape yet so it didn't get added back then). I've added a bunch of details and dug up the author for almost every tile, then used priority to build an initial texture request on GitHub. Sending that off to Drullkus for round one, more to come later

Review/feedback appreciated. In particular:

• @eleazzaar: You still out there? While some of the stuff you contributed way back was explicitly spelled out ("I hereby release them to be used under whatever license Terasology picks") I'm not sure the plants in this GDoc have had explicit permission or license applied. I am thinking we're free to include them as per our general expectation (Apache 2.0 like, so probably CC 4.0 BY) but confirmation would be nice
• @Immortius: Waaay back I believe you contributed the door and torch textures. Recall if those were original works or placeholder / grabbed stuff from somewhere else?

 

[Immortius]

Looks liken the door texture is derived from the chest texture (or the other way around).

Otherwise... not sure. If I made them they may be derived from the other textures we had around at the time.

 

[Cervator]

Alright, no problem. Just three textures anyway. We have a few other door textures floating around in the forum. Will notate next round, thanks