Art Timeline - Alpha 11, 12, 13, Beta, and Beyond.

[Mythos_Ruler]

The following timeline assumes that the programming required for Beta won't be completed until early 2013 at the soonest.

Recruitment

• Endeavor to maintain at least 5 active artists on the "official" team and recruit when necessary. Though, never turn down qualified candidates.
  
• Adapt recruitment to the new "open source" model (below). The line between "official" team member and "open source contributor" will blur. Embrace it.
  
• If there are enough open source contributors, then "Official art team member" may just come to mean "we trust this person with SVN commit privileges."
  

Transition to an open development model for the Art Dept.

• Make a list of essential art (below) left to complete for Beta (which pretty much consists of the Mauryans, the remaining animal models and animations, and technology icons). (ongoing)
  
• Create a secondary list (below) of "wants" that can be completed anywhere between now and Gold: Animations/rig revamp. Updated trees, etc. (ongoing)
  
• Decide on the structure of an open art forum, then implement it. (easy)
  
• Review threads in the art task manager that can be moved to the new open forum. (time consuming, but relatively painless)
  
• Create new threads (for posting progress) and Trac tickets, cross linked, based on the items in the essential and secondary lists. (Make sure to give items the proper ticket priority.)
  
• Encourage existing and new art team members and open source contributos to use the new system and Trac. Encourage open source contributions using the same.
  

Essential Art for Beta

Resources

• Mauryan Indians civ profile: http://trac.wildfire...Civ%3A_Mauryans
  
• Mauryan Indians forum discussion: http://www.wildfiregames.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=16056
  
• Animals List (by biome): http://www.wildfireg...showtopic=15562
  
• Technology Tree discussion: http://www.wildfireg...showtopic=15611 (includes links to outside resources)
  

Mauryan Indians unit textures and unit props.

• Unit props include: bamboo spears, bamboo bows, various Indian headgear. All of these are super easy and pretty low poly.
  
• Unit textures: The minimum is 1 texture for each of the ranks of the 3 citizen units, and then 1 texture for each of the other units. This is easy as well, but definitely takes time.
  
• Units List: http://trac.wildfire...NITDESCRIPTIONS
  

Mauryan Indians ships

• Need to find references for Indian ships of the ancient age. References will probably be hard to come by, so the time frame should be widened to include the Vedic, Nanda, and Gupta eras.
  
• Modeled and Textured.
  
• Ships List: http://trac.wildfire...A_Mauryans#NAVY
  

Mauryan Indian Structures

• Again, references are hard to come by. This allows folks to be creative. Again, widen the timeframe for references to include the Vedic, Nanda, and Gupta eras.
  
• Modeled and Textured.
  
• Structures List: http://trac.wildfire...UREDESCRIPTIONS
  

Animals and Animal Animations

• The thread here lists all of the animals and their respective biomes. Many animals have more than one biome, though. http://www.wildfireg...showtopic=15562
  

Technology Icons

• 20-30 more tech icons would probably suffice for all the game's technology needs.
  
• The thread here has links to the various technology documents, including a list of the stat effects and suggested look for their technology icons: http://www.wildfireg...showtopic=15611
  

Secondary Art ("Wants" that can be completed any time between now and Gold)

New dude&dudette models and rigs compatible with Blender are not necessary for Beta (or even for Gold), but highly desirable.

• If this is done, then decide on a list of necessary and a list of desirable animations.
  

Continue Updating Old Assets

• Greek special buildings, Dock, etc. Delete old Greek assets and textures.
  
• Iberian Corral
  
• Britons Fortress.
  

Updated & Additional Gaia Assets

• The biomes could use some additional tree/flora assets for authenticity.
  
• Flora assets by biome: http://www.wildfireg...showtopic=15562
  
• Geology, like rocks/stone, and metal mine assets could be improved or updated with new variations.
  

Updated Terrain Textures

• Some biomes should get new terrain textures.
  
• Biomes that are okay: Desert, Mediterranean, Temperate. The rest could use another pass.
  

Additional Factions *if time permits*. Could put off any number of these to post-release patches or official mod packs.

• Chinese (as a possible "official" mod?)
  
• Seleucids
  
• Ptolemies
  
• Split Iberians into Celt-Iberians and Lusitanians. This would require lots of research and contributor input. But art assets could easily mostly be shared between the two.
  

UI and Single-player Campaign Assets

• This depends heavily on what is decided in the coming months and what is possible from the programming department.
  

Unknown Artwork required

Depends heavily on the new graphics features coming down the pipeline: parallax, normal, and light maps.

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Milestone Timeline

Meet or exceed the following milestones.

Alpha 11 (mid-Summer)

• Rowing animation for Roman Quinquereme.
  
• Complete civ profile for Mauryan Indians.
  
• 5 more tech icons.
  
• Gen_Kenobi's updated geology assets. Don't wait. Get these into the game asap.
  
• Start to convert Art Dept over to "open" development.
  

Alpha 12 (Autumn)

• Complete Art Dept conversion to "open" development.
  
• 1/2 of the Mauryan Indian faction complete.
  
• 10 tech icons.
  
• Complete Greek building update.
  
• Elephants rigged and animated. Elephant and War elephant actors updated with these new assets.
  
• 5 more other animals modeled/rigged/animated.
  
• Blender models/rigs/animations finally sorted out. Planning begun to decide on what is desired and how to integrate these new assets into the game over time. Suggested plan: Start by modeling/rigging all of the desired unit body variations, unwrap them, and commit them. Then over time add animations by unit-type (e.g. spearman/hoplite/swordsman/cavalry spearman/horse/etc.). Once all of one unit-type's animations are completed, convert all of the actors of that unit type (e.g. all spearmen in the game) over to those new models and animations and commit. Over time the old assets will become unnecessary and can be deleted.
  

Alpha 13 (end-Autumn/Christmas?)

• 2/2 of the Muryan Indian faction complete. Merry Christmas.
  
• The rest of the tech icons.
  
• 5-10 more animals modeled/rigged/animated
  
• Begin unit model/rig/animation conversion. Slowly integrate these over the subsequent releases as suggested above or according to whatever plan is decided.
  

2013 - Beta and Beyond

• All of the remaining animals modeled/rigged/animated.
  
• New Blender unit meshes/rigs/animations integrated into the game. Old assets deleted.
  
• Gaia assets (flora and geology) completed. Can be continued to be worked on throughout Beta.
  
• Add new B.C. factions. as time, energy, and interest permits.
  

[Mythos_Ruler]

This is the general "road map" moving forward. "Official" WFG art team members and open source contributors alike can use this as a general guide on what to work on for each Alpha. It is subject to change, especially if all the graphics improvements from myconid are implemented. Also subject to change and revision when/if a direction is settled upon for the single player aspect of the game.

Specific roadmaps for each alpha or beta release should be written up after each release. An example is here: http://www.wildfireg...showtopic=16220

As open source art development proceeds, the distinction between being a simple "contributor" and being a "team member" will blur, and that's fine. Essentially, "team members" will become those who are trusted with and who desire SVN commit access.

WFG looks forward to a new open art development direction, and I personally can't wait to see what kind of cool things contributors can come up with.

[Josh]

How will you handle non-team member art submissions? Like a new Mauryan model or something else. Should we create a new thread for the model, or should we just post a submission inside the respective thread (like the Mauryan thread for a Mauryan model)?

Thanks in advance, Josh.

[Mythos_Ruler]

How will you handle non-team member art submissions? Like a new Mauryan model or something else. Should we create a new thread for the model, or should we just post a submission inside the respective thread (like the Mauryan thread for a Mauryan model)?

Thanks in advance, Josh.

The Art team will probably make a [Task] thread either for specific Mauryan buildings or Mauryan buildings as a whole. That would be a good place to zip up and post your submissions for now, until we figure out how/if we want to use Trac. You can also make threads of your own and then we can moderate/combine them with others as needed.