Place to keep art resources relevant to Freeciv

[Y.D.]

Hi admins,
as an author of Cimpletoon unit set I have been thinking from time that it would be nice to improve it, replacing some old 3D models with better ones (or adding new ones). And in general, while browsing the web sites like Blendswap, Opengameart etc. I have stumbled upon artwork that would be potentially useful for Freeciv (3D, 2D, sound effects and music).
So the question is: is there a possibility to have a place to upload/keep/organize such stuff within the Freeciv project?

[cazfi]

On the old server machine we had ftp server with possibility of anonymous uploads. Given that none of us has too much time in our hands to things like monitoring what would happen on such a server, I'm afraid that's not going to come back any time soon. We have files for download on both sourceforge (releases) and gna.org (other files), but only maintainers can upload to those places.

If we're talking about occasional uploads and in low volumes only, I guess we could at least try if such a model that you make upload request to maintainers. Could you post links to most important files you'd like to have uploaded to freeciv file area.

[Y.D.]

I can not say which ones are more important, but say we are talking about unit set and some ruleset requires an elephant unit. Here is a nice elephant blender model: http://www.blendswap.com/blends/view/18009.
It would be nice to have it in the Freeciv database just in case someone decides to work on it further. This can be applied to anything, e.g. architecture http://www.blendswap.com/blends/view/40019, ships (old http://www.blendswap.com/blends/view/15532, modern http://www.blendswap.com/blends/view/58043), vehicles http://www.blendswap.com/blends/view/59717 etc.
BTW, I gave links to Public Domain resources only.

[Ĩmhotep]

I can not say which ones are more important, but say we are talking about unit set and some ruleset requires an elephant unit. Here is a nice elephant blender model: http://www.blendswap.com/blends/view/18009.
It would be nice to have it in the Freeciv database just in case someone decides to work on it further. This can be applied to anything, e.g. architecture http://www.blendswap.com/blends/view/40019, ships (old http://www.blendswap.com/blends/view/15532, modern http://www.blendswap.com/blends/view/58043), vehicles http://www.blendswap.com/blends/view/59717 etc.
BTW, I gave links to Public Domain resources only.

That is really great.

I've been trying on the Ancients modpack to change and improve some things, but what goes for artists, I have utterly failed.
The sprites I tried to make cannot even be said to be ugly --- they are plain unrecognizable.
I resorted to have the letter "F" in earth-brown colors for a "Farm" as a resort.

Can you please give me (and "us") some hints on how to avoid at least the biggest mistakes?

Some time ago I installed blender, but I did not even manage to open a new file and do some "hello world" equivalent for a picture,
some red dot on a black background or something like that as an easy success.

Blender, especially, seams to be so very different from any other computer tool.

I had tried gimp, with which I have some low level of experience.

But drawing sprites obviously needs some even more advanced tech than even very simple pictures.

Thanks in advance
Imhotep

[Y.D.]

I am afraid there is no a simple recipe for everything. It takes practice for every tool. It took about a year for me to learn basics of BIG-bundle (Blender+Inkscape+Gimp). Now I am capable of not only using the someone else's models and render/process them (which is not hard and taking into account HUGE amount of freely available models gives you a lot of material to work on) but also to create smth of my own.
If you have problems with smth specific m.b. I can help, at least give some hints or point to accessible tutorials.

[Ĩmhotep]

I am afraid there is no a simple recipe for everything. It takes practice for every tool. It took about a year for me to learn basics of BIG-bundle (Blender+Inkscape+Gimp). Now I am capable of not only using the someone else's models and render/process them (which is not hard and taking into account HUGE amount of freely available models gives you a lot of material to work on) but also to create smth of my own.
If you have problems with smth specific m.b. I can help, at least give some hints or point to accessible tutorials.

Thank you, I didn't know Inkscape.

For 3D, what would you use if Blender didn't exist?
(I would really like to avoid it, not only for the overkill in complexity but from the strange unintuitive handling and the utter lack of tutorials and documentation in text form.)
I'm kind of a command line freak, and blender requires the exact opposite.

[Y.D.]

I do not know what I would use for 3D, m.b. Maya. But when you are not familiar with any program Blender does not seem too counter-intuitive, it just has its own flavor that you quickly get used to and actually begin to appreciate. Having spent $25 on "Blender Foundations" by R. Hess (not the best book, in retrospect, but a very decent one) and a couple of month of exercises I find Blender a very good tool.
As for the lack of tutorials, this is probably true if compared to 3D Max or smth. But check out this link http://www.blendswap.com/page/learn especially the section "More" at the bottom. You will be surprised how much accessible tutorial are out there.
Also, for the Inskscape check out www.openclipart.org.

PS As a command line freak I am sure you will like Blender when you learn it a bit more. You can do a lot in it using keyboard shortcuts.
Regards.

[Arbogast]

A little out of date, here it goes:
Where can one find themes, tilesets and such? half of what's in Wiki are dead ends, the other half is already in recent versions of Freeciv.
What I want:
There used to exist a theme called 'windows' but I can't find it.
Also the Realism tileset seems to gone to limbo, too.
Are there any other iso tilesets for version 2.3.x or 2.4.x?

Note: Y.D.'s comments are good tips, is he the only one into graphics?

[cazfi]

Where can one find themes, tilesets and such? half of what's in Wiki are dead ends, the other half is already in recent versions of Freeciv.
What I want:
There used to exist a theme called 'windows' but I can't find it.
Also the Realism tileset seems to gone to limbo, too.
Are there any other iso tilesets for version 2.3.x or 2.4.x?

For freeciv-2.3 and later some tilesets are downloadable/installable with freeciv-modpack utility (part of freeciv distribution). There's more tilesets than those in http://freeciv.wikia.com/wiki/Tilesets.
I don't remember theme called "windows". Where it's mentioned? (Is it possible that it referred to the fact that now discontinued native "windows" client had theming support though no available themes?)
Freeland (for 2.3) from the above mentioned wiki page is listed as isometric.

[Arbogast]

Well, I checked the Wiki site again. (a royal pain)
Found only the ones I already have for 2.3.4 and 2.4
My new question is: Are the older tilesets compatible with newer versions of Freeciv? I'm refering about the Hires iso from 2005.
The windows theme was a silver version of the default theme, with some various small details like font size.