Spore Patch Nearly Lets Creatures Into Other Games 60
Dalambertian writes "The release of Spore's Patch 5 lets players export their creatures (and soon vehicles and buildings) in Collada format. This includes textures, bump mapping, and rigging for animation. Maxis developer Ocean Quigley recently posted a nice tutorial for getting said creatures into Maya, and other 3D packages are soon to follow. This could have a huge impact on the games industry, and the indie games scene in particular. Unfortunately, if the patch falls under the usual EULA, then any legitimate use of the art assets outside of the Spore community becomes impossible. EA is apparently just teasing us with its taste-but-don't-swallow policy, and at present it's not clear whether the genius that came out of Spore's development will ever truly be accessible to the game dev community."
Re:The reason I quit making my game was cuz of mod (Score:4, Informative)
It only has about 3 more months of work(all I need to do is add moves through my animation maker), and I have spent on and off for 6 years making it.
I checked out your site and from the list of things it "will" do, it looks like you have far more work to go.
That said, if your passion is for Tekken/Virtua Fighter style of thing then go for it. But if you want it to be tremendously popular, why not make a Babe Fighter? Here's your first models:
http://www.buy3dmodels.com/3dmodels/bustybabe.php [buy3dmodels.com]
http://www.the3dstudio.com/product_details.aspx?id_product=78246 [the3dstudio.com]
http://www.the3dstudio.com/product_details.aspx?id_product=73390 [the3dstudio.com]
http://www.the3dstudio.com/product_details.aspx?id_product=69243 [the3dstudio.com]
For a few hundred bucks, you could have a real crowd-pleaser! Or search on those sites for other models. Yes, they're out there and most cost under $100... peanuts really.
Re:The reason I quit making my game was cuz of mod (Score:3, Informative)
I develop games (I do the art and the scripting, use a freeware engine), and I just wanna say if your interested in trying for your self, 3d modeling isn't all that hard to pick up. Even if you don't plan on making models for your game, it's fun just to mess around-hell, it might turn out that your good at it. Here's some freeware I use:
http://www.gimp.org/ Not as good as photoshop, but it works for me.
http://www.blender.org/ This thing is awesome. 3d modler, animator, rendering app, you name it.
Both of those run on Mac, Windows, and probably Linux.
As for getting other people do make art for you---post on some forums, but don't just say "I need models plzz", people will think you're just another noob who will never even start the game. Show off what you have done, ask if anyone is interested. Many people will probably decide to try and "help you", but don't listen to them, find someone who actually wants to be on a team. Crowdsourcing the models would suck as models have style, no matter how realistic, every artist adds their own touch to them. If each model is by a different person with no collaboration, it will look like a bunch of random models that happen to be loaded into the same game.
Good luck and I hope it works out, I know what it feels like to work on something and never finish it, I've had enough failed projects for my time.
Re:The reason I quit making my game was cuz of mod (Score:2, Informative)
some genres eliminate this problem (Score:3, Informative)
Rogue-likes, MUDs, puzzle games don't need sophisticated assets. You're generally only limited by your own ability to doodle or type in those cases.
Virtua Fighter (the original) characters should be pretty easy to do yourself if you just sit down and work through about 6 or 7 of the Blender tutorials over a weekend.