[Once-media] General status and artwork needed

[Manuel A. F. M. <ma...@us...>]

Hi there,

In the devel dept. we've been very busy in the last weeks, mainly to use
the Planeshift Windows System for the interface of the menus (PAWS, done
mainly by Bryan and new things by IngeniousMask) and RakNet (pinniped)
as the net layer, there are still some problems here and there but all
the functionality that we had before is again implemented -most of them
enhanced-, and a lot of new things.

We also rewrote big parts of both server and the client, replaced parts
not used, badly designed or obsoleted. There are still some things to
reorganize, but then again everything is working as well or better
than before.

We were supposed to make a new binary release in the next weekend, but
there are some problems with cal3d models at the moment (not moving
legs, due to some bug apparently in cal3d), and we don't have much time
to finish all the work in the art needed, so maybe it's delayed a bit.

But the main problem that we're having now is that there're almost no
active artists in the team, the current status is:

- Player models: We have the six models (Human, Dwarf, Elf; both
genders) but some of them still naked and without hair; probably Johno
will complete them quickly for the release. But some of them need still
work to look really good, and apart from that we would need to make good
animations and a few new animations; and after that clothes, several
textures for hairs and other decorations to customize characters. Some
of the people doing this (in example Jerome and Kayvan with the elves,
and Ganja with a Dwarf male) is missing.

- World: PJ is the only one making maps at the moment, he's trying to
make a new map of the same town of the previous release (Rotmar), but we
would need new artists to do all kind of things, from new terrain (mine
is really bad) to world objects such as rocks, trees and things like
that; and a lot more zones. There are about 4 towns (almost) fully
designed and some more semi designed, and probably the initial island
should have another 10 special places to design, so there are a lot of
work to do here (probably the one that needs more work). There were some
people who asked to make some area, but seems that no one of them made
anything really, at least at the moment.

- Interface decorations: there was some guy (Yeap) making backgrounds
for screens in the last weeks but I haven't seen him for a while, and
would be good to have backgrounds for all the screens for the release :)
Besides this, we need to make also decorations for buttons, bars,
cursors and other things of the interface, so.. more work to do.

- Objects: at the moment there are only the objects made by Larry (half
of the weapons and a few more), but we would need all sort of objects:
plants, furniture, food, ... most of this stuff can be done quite
quickly with the help of the templates and textures of worldforge, it's
not a big job that requires weeks or months as the areas, so even people
with few time available could pick some of this and do some models in
the weekends or so.



For this release maybe we can only use the interface decorations if
somebody can make them; but at this point of development of Once we
really need artists more than other things: we put already some code to
interact with objects, it's quite primitive so probably won't be
available in the release, but when we make it work with one object
we can make the same for a whole range of them: such as pick up them and
put them in the inventory, handle them, trade, etc. And with areas out
there we would have a lot of territory to explore, would be awesome even
to just give a walk.

But now, with the world empty except for buildings and models, and the
interface with the same background all the time and test drawings for
buttons and cursos, we can't make even nice screenshots.

So please, all people with ability in this areas please take some of the
tasks listed above, I'm sure that with some coordinated work of people
we can make something playable by the end of the year. Anyway, any
comments about this would be appreciated :)


Regards.

-- 
Manuel A. Fernandez Montecelo <ma...@us...>