Open-source game development assets

by jwdunne • 12 years ago

156 25 12 years ago

skizm• 12 years ago

Love this site. I used it to make an iOS game. Finding free art is tough. I guess as a programmer we're spoiled with all the free software available.

hayksaakian• 12 years ago

Maybe it's because creating Art is a very individual experience, while programming can be very collaborative (a lá github)

gavanwoolery• 12 years ago

Notice one of the featured entries:

http://opengameart.org/content/recolor-all-the-items

Uses the Dawnbringer 16 palette. This is an awesome 16 color palette that can represent a lot of things and looks great.

http://www.pixeljoint.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=12795

There is also a 32 color variation:

http://wayofthepixel.net/index.php?topic=16078.0

jwdunne• 12 years ago

That's actually a really cool idea. Since I'm no artist, I thought this would be a great resource for game dev but then realised how out of whack everything would look if I put the parts I need to use. I could probably edit some too so that they are more consistent, if the license allows.

devindotcom2• 12 years ago

Nice to have these. A bunch of good games used Oryx's lo-fi fantasy sprite set:

http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=8970.0

I thought it would get old but they ended up being more like archetypes than unoriginal assets.

bokchoi• 12 years ago

Any good games in particular?

devindotcom2• 12 years ago

sorry, didn't see this until now. there are a few listed here: http://www.tigsource.com/2010/02/07/assemblee-competition-re...

not sure if people are still playing realm of the mad god but that game was fun as hell.

click170• 12 years ago

IIRC this came out of the Liberated Pixel Cup. A contest to create games and artwork which is available under a permissive license, allowing you to use the artwork in your own games. Very cool.

http://lpc.opengameart.org/

jonathanhefner• 12 years ago

OpenGameArt launched in 2009, several years before the Liberated Pixel Cup: http://lpc.opengameart.org/content/lpc-about

bthornbury• 12 years ago

I have been using this site for about a year now. Some of the art on here is fantastic but you usually need to do a little bit of work to get it just right for your game.

Also, finding good art can be tough. The search function has gotten a lot better in the last couple months though. I suggest browsing relevant collections, so you can take advantage of the work people have already done to find good stuff.

soup10• 12 years ago

Not sure how useful this is, seems like it would be pretty limiting without spending a significant amount of time customizing assets.

If your in the market for low-end art, there are offshore studios that produce decent stuff incredibly cheaply. $15-$25 hr range. Mid to high end stuff is more difficult and expensive to procure for indies since most really good video game artists have full time jobs at the larger studios and not much spare attention for freelance projects.

Ideally as an indie you want to partner with a really good well rounded artist who devotes their full time attention to the project, when that happens you get unstoppable teams like 2d boy and team meat.

momentofinertia• 12 years ago

Can you name one of these studios?

icelancer• 12 years ago

Agreed. I'd like to investigate and possibly commission some art.

slavik81• 12 years ago

I found it useful for my student project. It's easy to find something that looks better than what I could make myself, and the price is right.

ASlave2Gravity• 12 years ago

Kenney has some very good content on here. You can make a fully fledged platformer with all his stuff and it'll look great, perfect for learning. http://opengameart.org/users/kenney

tekni5• 12 years ago

Quite impressive and all public domain with an option to donate how ever much you want and get everything he ever made in a single zip.

ibisum• 12 years ago

Thanks for pointing that out - I donated and got the pack, its chock full of useful things for me to use. Great resource!

hnha• 12 years ago

Careful, this site is full of copyrighted material ripped from commercial games (sometimes edited) which is illegal to use.

bildung• 12 years ago

Can you provide examples? I'm sure the site maintainers would like to hear about copyright violations.

opless• 12 years ago

Seconded.

amarsahinovic• 12 years ago

Glitch: Art & Code from the Game Released into Public Domain

http://www.glitchthegame.com/public-domain-game-art/

redwall_hp• 12 years ago

Nitpick: non-software can't be "open source," as the "source" refers to source code. Neither does "open source" refer to libre usage terms, as it only means the source is available, not that it's licensed favorably.

personjerry• 12 years ago

Or you could read it as "(open-source game development) assets"

slashdotaccount• 12 years ago

"open source" definitely refers to libre usage terms:

http://opensource.org/docs/definition.php

The "source" for a bitmap image (PNG/BMP etc) can be a vector image (SVG, PostScript etc) or maybe a multi-layer bitmap image (Gimp, Photoshop etc). The "source" in "open source" refers to that the files that were transformed into the files in question are available under a libre license, not what kind of file format or language they are represented in.

Open-source game development assets

Related Stories