Open Source MOD Repository

[MonkeyKing]

I've been dutifully watching the progression of some excellent looking mods being produced since the release of BF2. I have to say that it's very impressive. Having combed through mod updates on Planet Battlefield and TotalBF2 this morning I had an epiphany - why is everyone developing the same weapons over and over?

If you look at mod after mod you'll see repeated production of the same government issue weapons. How many different ways can you render an M1A1 or 9mm Pistol?

With that said - I think it would be great if you guys modeled your modding (forgive the pun) after the Open Source community like Red Hat or Firefox. If you shared your renders and skins with the other members of the community, and they were subject to peer reveiw before being accepted, you would have a large library of equipment to use without having to re-invent the wheel for EVERY mod. This may be a good idea to some, and a horrible idea to others but it would certainly increase the production speed of a mod if 50% of your equipment were already done.

Take Eve of War - guys are remodeling basic modern day small arms. How much more work could they get done if they only had to worry about items, scenery, and equipment specific to their mod?

I'm interested to see what the general opinion of the mod community is on this? Obviously it's not going to help if someone is doing a futuristic mod or something specific like Star Wars or Battlestar Gallactica, but it will certainly help the countless mods based around the same time/era/theme.

Nuff said. Your turn, let's hear it.

[grolsche]

Then every mod would look the same, defeating the purpose of mods and games.

[imported_CDNCommando]

I agree but that would be like just grabbing crap off of turbosquid. It would kind of like googleing a pictue and claiming to took it with your camera. Mods should be unique thats why I play them.

[Turtle-ZED]

No I think this is a very noble idea. I proposed the same thing to the guys at MOD DB a while back. It's really a time-saving practice- a lot of time is spent getting models produced and skinned...as has been commented...how many ways can you model and render the same weapons/vehicles? If it means that Mod teams can spend more time fine-tuning code and making new animations for these models, I'm up for it...

And...there are mod teams out there starting out who could be given a boost if there was a model pack for them to either get jump-started with ...or for such models to be used as a learning tool.

http://z-3d.turtlezed.co.uk/Sigs/ETQW-userbar350X20c.png

[MonkeyKing]

Then every mod would look the same, defeating the purpose of mods and games.

ya, someone said the same thing on Planet Battlefield forums but I disagree - here's my response to that -

In regards to the statement about look and feel being individual - personally I don't feel that a slightly different shadow on my M-16 makes me get all wet and squishy inside. The environment is more specific to buildings, maps, types of vehicles, etc. not a specific piece of equipment being rendered slightly different from the next mod in the same time/theatre of war. Not to mention - if people want variants of a vehicle they could use the base model to work from and then add the finished product to the repository. This way you could have desert Hummers and Forest camo Hummers to choose from as well as the differnet load outs. Modders can still have all the fun of creating equipment, just share it with others and borrow from others so you have less work to do.

Like I said - mods like First Strike can't gain much from this concept where they're the only Star Wars mod, but others may benefit from it. Also - can't you use models cross-game? As in, can a model that was created for Desert Combat be spiced up a bit graphics wise and used in BF2? I saw some impressive models for BF 1942 but didn't keep the look in the game because the game couldn't handle it.

[Turtle-ZED]

Also remember- a lot of MODs don't make it to public beta. PPl start with good intentions but for many reasons, a lot of dev work gets left behind including some really good models and textures that just stay on someone's hard drive and go nowhere. Now that's a shame.

[grolsche]

People have talked about these type of things since modding became a large team effort and it never arrives. Every game Ive modded for, a topic like this has come up but because its not plausible/good for the mod community, it never comes to light. I agree though that many mods now have very similar looking models but the idea behind modding is you're creating something and it was all made by you/your team. Its not nearly as fun or exciting to just have somewhere where everybody could just get models. The slippery slope argument then to this is then oh these team is made of modellers but they have no level designers or sound designers, so why arent there resources for levels or sounds or maybe textures.