Grimrock

Is that a confirmation of a pack of new assets, or just that we will have access to the cow on wheels in the future?

Isaac wrote:I have a question about the asset pack: I'm sure many users will modify commonly used assets for their dungeons; but is it impossible for them to publicly share those modified assets with other LoG modders? (as in an LoG modder's resource.)

The terms state that, "The redistributed assets must be contained in a package file (.dat file) generated by the Dungeon Editor.", but the editor doesn't open .Dat files (AFAIK).

I'm curious about this too, I'd like to create some custom item and monster textures and share them with the community for other mods but it doesn't sound like this is allowed by the current rules.

That would indeed be sad
Somehow understandable though.

A texture you create could, by itself, be redistributed, with instructions how to put it on the monster. Maybe that is easy enough?

But if they want to only re-color the texture (example would be the green lizard from the other thread) that would be a violation since that's not their "own" texture. And for someone that has no clue about graphics programs and such it would be much easier to just use the changed texture that has been altered by another user. And this is only a basic example.

In order to redistribute a texture in a community pack, the texture will have to be an original, drawn by you. If you post a dungeon with a modified original texture in it, that's fine.

Having at least some of the stuff in CC-BY-NC license or like that would be nice. maybe only the textures, meshes can stay like they are now. That would allow distribution of modified monster skins around and would help many dungeon builders by having a larger monster library. Lets also hope that we get some nice monster creators to do us some free monsters to use in our dungeons

It should be possible to distribute the modified skins/monsters as patches that just contain the changes to them, but that is quite far from user-friendly.

The point (as I understand it), is to allow content use, [via the .Dat files] without actually spreading the assets around (to non-LoG users).
This is why I suggested having an alternate archive format in the editor. It's much the same idea [conceptually] as what's done with 'Adobe Flash'. With Flash, you can export a distributable file that the Flash Player presents to the user, but that the Flash editor cannot import or pick apart; alternatively you can also save an .FLA project file that can include an embedded asset library.

So imagine that if [in addition to .Dat Files] the editor were to export AH-library files for later use in the editor. The process would still not provide the assets in the clear; you'd need the source files to pack an archive [same as the .Dat], but that the editor would directly import these archives... basically the library would be a modified .Dat file to be used as a library for the editor. Files would never be in the clear, and the user could choose to export either a regular .Dat (for the game), or an "unlocked" .Dat [given some other extension name than .Dat, ] for the editor to import the assets contained as though they were the User's own [custom] assets.

*Maybe/perhaps the editor could optionally open that file as a project itself. If that were the case then Users could choose to distribute editable levels if they wished.

** Blender does this quite well. It allows the user to 'Pack' any and/or all images directly into the .Blend file itself. When you pass the file to another user and they open it, all of the textures still work. Blender also allows the User to link to the assets in other .blend files ~Blends are all simultaneously usable archives of other projects. This is ~very~ cool!

Isaac wrote:The point (as I understand it), is to allow content use, [via the .Dat files] without actually spreading the assets around (to non-LoG users).
This is why I suggested having an alternate archive format in the editor. It's much the same idea [conceptually] as what's done with 'Adobe Flash'. With Flash, you can export a distributable file that the Flash Player presents to the user, but that the Flash editor cannot import or pick apart; alternatively you can also save an .FLA project file that can include an embedded asset library.

Yeah I was thinking something along these lines would work well. Perhaps if the editor could import additional .dat to a project to add assets. Then you could publish entire asset packs with pre-defined monsters, items, even entire script libraries.

Bucnasti wrote:

Isaac wrote:The point (as I understand it), is to allow content use, [via the .Dat files] without actually spreading the assets around (to non-LoG users).
This is why I suggested having an alternate archive format in the editor. It's much the same idea [conceptually] as what's done with 'Adobe Flash'. With Flash, you can export a distributable file that the Flash Player presents to the user, but that the Flash editor cannot import or pick apart; alternatively you can also save an .FLA project file that can include an embedded asset library.

Yeah I was thinking something along these lines would work well. Perhaps if the editor could import additional .dat to a project to add assets. Then you could publish entire asset packs with pre-defined monsters, items, even entire script libraries.

That's the idea... We can hope for it; it' be great if it gets implemented; (but we have to remember that it is a free utility, one that's already cost several months work).

If it did get this feature though... consider pre-fab rooms, or pre-fab traps / or puzzles, each saved as an importable archive that loads the asset into the list of placeable items.

(And of course alternate creatures ~reskined and/ or redefined variants; and unique new creatures.)