RE: Direction of Linux games...

[Gareth Noyce <GarethN@solvera-inform.com>]

> I'm going to take a wild guess and assume that you HAVE a 
> snes or snes emu.
> When all was said and done, you could sit down and play the 
> game and see your
> graphics in action... If you didn't have a snes or emu, would 
> you have done it?

Well, as this is going back quite a few years I din't have a snes as at that
time they weren't available in the UK. I was given screen res and depth and
told what to do, so yes I would have done it regardless of availability of
target platform ;)

> If I make a game that only runs on unicos (another 
> assumption, I'm assuming you
> don't have a cray in your living room), would you work on 
> graphics for it? I

Yeah, as long as the project interested me... I'm not trying to be
argumentative either. Nearly all my legacy stuff was done without
availability to target platform. 

> highly doubt it :) My argument isn't that people usually 
> won't contribute to a
> project unless they benefit from it (get to use it). If you 
> have both windows
> and linux, and you like the tools in windows more than linux, 
> you should use
> windows to contribute to the linux project. A large majority 
> of graphics
> wizards use windows and/or macs EXCLUSIVELY. Those're the 
> best platforms for
> doing what they love, and it happens to fullfill their other 
> needs to a degree.
> For the most part, they don't have a need for linux.

Agreed. You'd be surprised how many GFX artists are portable though. For
example most of the in house GFX design work at my company is done blind and
the artists seem to love it... It gives them a chance to show off. Me - well
I'm different in that I have a CS degree so my background isn't art anyway -
I just have a talent for it...

> now I wish I had a project that was at a stage where a 
> graphic artist would be
> handy :) 

As and when - let me know! :)
 
> limited experience, that's probably an extreme, BUT if you 
> look on most game
> pages, there's usually a flock of people contributing to code 
> and MAYBE one who
> does some gfx... I beleive most commercial game production 
> entities have more
> graphic artists than programmers...

Agreed, and this is a problem. I've noticed I'm fairly lonely anyway. I'm
surprised that more GIMP fans aren't taking the plunge, although it isn't
particularly well suited to the task IMHO (I have some problems with GIMP
anyway so I'm biased). I personally joined this list for programming advice
as I have a game fully designed that I want to do. However having noticed
the need for artists I'm probably going to offer my services doing that for
a while... It seems there is more need of my GFX than my crap code! ;) Maybe
this is the start of a trend?! (Ok I doubt it but...)

G