Chances of an Offical Community PSD Repository?

[Laruae]

I know that Aedaeum and HanFox have started a GitHub Repository for some of the more familiar textures such as dusts, armor, and tools. This idea is a great way to maintain the quality and unity of the various Sphax Patches. I believe that the addition of PSDs and other Resources could assist mod texture artists greatly as often there is only a small thing which needs to be changed on a pre-existing texture.

Are there any plans or official stances on the upkeep and use of such a repository?



I know that all textures done in the style of or modified from Sphax's original work are technically under the ownership of the pack but I don't know what the official stance of the collection of textures from various patches for such a repository versus voluntary submission.

Thoughts, Ideas, any input at all is highly desired.

[Aedaeum]

My original plan was to put the PSD's up there, but seeing as I don't have access to those PSD's, I would need the community here to chip in and provide those files. As far as ownership of textures, we're currently viewing the repository as neutral. There's no need to provide credit for textures that aren't necessarily "custom" but would generally be created the same over multiple mods. That being said, if anyone feels they want specific credit for an image, we can provide that on the github wiki.

I would also like to add that filthificate is helping us out with some good ideas and the potential future of the repo. Hopefully there can be a merging of good ideas, into a single solution for everyone. The ultimate goal is to make texturing as painless as possible, providing a strong starting point for new artists.

[Laruae]

Thats wonderful to hear! When I originally saw the Repo I was quite excited. It will allow artists to keep work to a minimum, and will provide a strong base for the community to maintain the style of Sphax to the highest possible amount.

[BonaireDreams]

I agree having PSD's avaiable, viewable and searchable? in one location would be great. An online database of sorts. Not sure if is even possible, but it would be great to be able to filter by material type (stone, wood, lapis, etc) and item type (food, tool, weapon, block, etc)

*edit* I'll ask one of the guys at work if he knows of any good online image cataloging database that can be run on a server.

*edit 2* Ok a little over excited about this idea, but I did some looking. I think even Gallery 3 (or Gallery 2 which apparently is more powerful?) [link]https://galleryproject.org[/link] might work. It seems to support viewing PSD's, creates thumbnails and has 3 levels of access: User (allow viewing, searching and downloading); Editor (create, rearrange albums, upload photos); Admin (all the powers) [link]https://codex.galleryproject.org/Gallery3:Features[/link]

Albums could be created under categories (Food, Tool, Weapon, Machine, Ore etc) with keywords added to each PSD to assist in searching (stone, lapis, glowstone, etc) and secondary keywords for size (512, 256, 128, 64)

A team of editors can manage uploads provided by artists.

Thoughts?

[Aedaeum]

Looks promising, I'll look into it. Right now I'm in the process of creating something for patches, that will make finding/downloading them much easier.

[BonaireDreams]

Looks promising, I'll look into it. Right now I'm in the process of creating something for patches, that will make finding/downloading them much easier.

I'd be happy to assist in setting/managing up a Gallery/repository if you decide to move forward with it. I've used Gallery 3 before on a website I did for a client. It was fairly basic but I did setup multiple albums.

[Llama Farmer]

Love the idea, man! Perhaps uploading PSDs to the repository after completing a patch should become somewhat of the 'norm' (at least for those textures that are original (i.e. there'd be little need to upload a dust or ingot that has had it's colours changed). Aside from allowing people to edit textures and stuff for whatever reasons, it'd also allow those who wish to use 512x patches where only say 128x/64x are available, to go ahead and upscale the unflattened vector images, meaning we won't have to trace everything.

[BonaireDreams]

Just did some more research and Coppermine Gallery may be a better fit.

Code: Select all

arrangement of pictures in categories and albums;
search feature;
integration of user management with various bbs (like phpBB, YaBB SE, SMF, Invisionboard, vbulletin);
caption, title, description and user defined fields for each picture (searchable);

Coppermine Gallery
Coppermine Demo

Will keep researching both and others to see what may be the best fit. It may be necessary to create albums named after the mod due to duplicate image names. Then additional fields can be added for item type, material, size, and anything else that may be needed.

-- 05 Feb 2014, 17:46 --

So I did some testing using coppermine and met with some success. Creating albums based on Mod Name would be best. The search options works good by adding tags to each image for item type, material etc etc. They only thing I was unable to get working was to have the PSD's actually display as a thumbnail. From what I understand you need to have coppermine use imagick to convert the thumbnails instead of GD2. My shared hosting does not allow that option so I was unable to test. But I was able to upload a few PSD's. Search via the tags, view the thumbnail (albeit a blank missing image icon) and then download the PSD.

Coppermine seems to be a viable option.

The only other thought I had that might work is to setup a dedicated Dropbox account. Have a few admins with login permission and do all the 'Add free space' tasks. I'm sure we can find 32 people willing to create a dropbox under an alternative email to get the 16GB bonus. We'd again need to create albums based on Mod Title. Dropbox does display PSD's natively. The only drawback is a lack of search function.

[Aedaeum]

Using dropbox for high-bandwidth transfers is not a good idea as free user accounts are capped. I, myself, do not have a premium account and I don't know if anyone would be willing to fork out for that. This makes the 16 gigs storage a moot point, if we don't have the bandwidth to back it up.

[BonaireDreams]

Using dropbox for high-bandwidth transfers is not a good idea as free user accounts are capped. I, myself, do not have a premium account and I don't know if anyone would be willing to fork out for that. This makes the 16 gigs storage a moot point, if we don't have the bandwidth to back it up.

I was not aware of that cap so that would hamper using Dropbox.