What about a texture exchange server?

[tachzusamm]

Shorah.

Since the GoW was founded, I was thinking about how I could help in creating user ages. I've been registered here for some while, did not post yet, but was reading with interest.
My Blender skills are still a bit childish, but I'm okay with C/C++ programming. Maybe I could assist with plasma shop (I'm not aware of all projects running), or adapting the 3DS Max Plasma plugins for blender - although I believe most of you are currently more involved in the internals than me.

But let me come to the point of interest.
As far as I understand, one of the most important and critical factors in age development is using proper textures. An age can be well designed, with amazing puzzles or even without, if can be "safe" (well tested), it can be large or small. But what it makes look pretty and compareable to Cyan quality is - you get the idea - textures. It can be really, really time-consuming to find matching textures, and if you don't find one, you can take a "similar, but not proper" one for later change (that's the unhappy but faster way - and maybe the reason why some people think user ages cannot have Cyan quality) or you can take your camera and try to find some matching textures in the nature by your own (thats the long way, which can lead to losing interest to continue).
Of course, we don't want to use Cyan's textures (and are not allowed to); an alternative would be to buy some. There are hundreds of texture sellers around - but I assume a fan developer would not like to pay for something he is giving away for free finally. Yes, there are some free texture libraries as well - but you have to find them.
(Just for test, I did a search here in the forum to get an idea if there is already a similar thread, but the search function did not allow me to search for "textures" - word too common. LOL)

Currently, in the H'Uru community (http://www.huru.info/Forum , you know their members), we started an attempt: Explorers who are willing to help in any form, do wander around in the nature with their camera (yes, I'm doing this too) to make photos. Just to have a growing texture pool over the weeks and months. Basically the idea has grown because Edwin asked for help in his new Takla'Makan 2 project (which will be GREAT, I've already had a small look at). But we were wondering, should we just email Edwin our textures? Upload to RapidShare? Send CD-Roms? And maybe there are some others interested in what we collected.
At some point, while "writing" an age, each Writer (Artist or Builder) will be confronted with this same problem: Where the heek do I get my textures from? Why not share bewteen the community?

So I got the idea to setup a texture exchange server, accessable for each member of GoW and H'Uru. First idea for a domain: texturu.org (or info or com).

It should have the following specifications:

• plenty of space available
• facility to upload pictures and textures
• it should be possible to tag files (e.g. Wood, Stone, Rock, Animal, ..., Photographer, Creator, Date, ...)
• maybe with sub-tags (old, rubbish, fine, bird, top, left, dark,...)
• search-function (creator, type, material, size, 3D/flat, ...)
• maybe a rating?
• ... etc ... ideas?

Areas on the server:

• the pure texture download area
• the upload area
• a link-collection to other free texture libraries (just to have a common list)
• a texture-request area (builders could use this area to ask the photographers for actual needs or discuss what's not proper with this or that picture)
• a small wiki (or just a textual description - how to make photos to get good textures)
• a sound-library area?
• any other ideas please?

Currently I have no idea what it will cost (I would just pay it by myself without losing any word about it, assumed it's not about hundrets of dollars per month), or how much time it will take to setup the thing. If some of you have server installing skills - greatly welcome. And if you have any hints where to get cheap big webspace, also welcome. I guess 30GB for the first start will be sufficient, later 100GB or more. Or am I calculating wrong?

I'm NOT going to install this server soonish - this is only a first idea. First I want to spread the idea, see if we could find more attendees (photographers), and hear what's the opinion about such a project.
So, what do you guys think about it? Worth to discuss or think further?

(Oh, and please don't ask for getting some textures right now, we just started and are still learning how to make them useable)

Greetings from Germany and the H'Uru's,
tach

[Trylon]

Sounds like an excellent idea.

[Deledrius]

A resource repository is pretty much what I had in mind nearly three years ago: http://cobbs.ca/bbs/showthread.php?t=593 and worked on for some time with Robert Kosten: http://cobbs.ca/bbs/showthread.php?t=597

I still think it's a good idea, but maybe now there will be enough demand for it.

[tachzusamm]

I already guessed someone else *must* have had this idea already, because it's nearly obvious to share resources. But I forgot to check COBBS. Ok, well.

Oh, this is funny: Trylon, in both threads you were the first to comment "good idea".

Deledrius, thank you for the links. Wow, it seems you and Robert already put much thoughts into it. Really well thought-out. Good idea to include models as well.
So, maybe we should work together in revive this project. If you are interested.
But I understand there are some differences: Yours was related to have a repository, connected to a database - mine is more to have a file-server (with a database as well). Well, we could glue this together. But I guess we should leave out this age-thingy for the first instanciation, because this will keep it a bit more simpler to handle, and we don't know right now how age installation will be handled in the future (MORE) - and currently it's part of the ULM. Or do I get something wrong?

By the way, is Robert Kosten still around? We had some mail contact many years ago, when End of Ages was released, but I did not even know he is nearly my neighbor in Germany at that times. And our mails were english. Crazy.

[Whilyam]

I agree. I would like to see "The Repository" come alive. Not just textures but music and sound effects, code and even 3d objects.

[BenB]

Tachzusamm, this is great.
It's exactly what I had been asking about in an earlier thread (http://guildofwriters.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=1761&p=18865&sid=781187e0966c827eec8ebf30436510ea&sid=9890f1087b89209d7afa5dad9d079917#p18865).
I hope to have more time available next month, and will be happy to pitch in at that time!

(separately, I'd been hoping to set up a Wiki page referring agebuilders to static external resources, or add to the existing resources page, but have had to postpone that project.
It's still on the list, but won't happen until August I fear)

[dtierce]

Another "requirement" for the textures in this proposed library should be that there is no "license" attached which raises questions about its inclusion in other works (e.g. gpl3).

[Chacal]

This is still a great idea, I hope it comes through.
I have brought back Gigs of high-res textures from Japan (rock walls, moss, pathways, weathered wood, etc) and I'm trying to find the best way to make them available to Writers. These are 7MB pictures that could each be separated into several texture files.

[tachzusamm]

Thank you for all your replies.
Now I get the feeling that we really should get this project to start.

I hope to have more time available next month, and will be happy to pitch in at that time!

That would be great, BenB. Yes. Very welcome.

Chacal, good to hear there are already some photographers around making textures, because this was one of the points I was wondering about - if we would be able to fill the repository with content. But I believe, we will. Great.

I have brought back Gigs of high-res textures from Japan (rock walls, moss, pathways, weathered wood, etc) and I'm trying to find the best way to make them available to Writers. These are 7MB pictures that could each be separated into several texture files.

Oh, man, I guess we really do need at least 30GB to start with, hehe. I already did some research if we could get such a server (which should be not only cheap, but reliable as well) - and it seems, we can. Traffic could be a problem, but we will see.

Now I'm thinking about... well... a lot.

First, about a server. Simply webspace is not available in such sizes, or you get limitations - e.g. other persons are not allowed to upload, or very low allowed traffic, restricted content, and such. Then a virtual server (a root server would be too expensive for me), where we can do what we want. But on a virtual server, you have to get working everything by your own. I would recomment linux as the operating system (to install LAMP - Apache MySQL PHP on Linux should not be a problem). Then, which Linux? We could get Debian (Etch or Sarge), Fedora, SuSe, Ubuntu, ... so, do you have any recommendations or wishes? I would prefer Debian or Ubuntu because I already used them a bit. Altough I guess we need LAMP running, and that's all.

Then, webdesign and software. I think we cannot just install a forum software - but maybe as well. A forum software would lack of a lot of functionality. E.g. to add tags to files. Handy uploads. Search for tags, and such. So, does anyone of you have a recommendation or an idea if there is already a ready-to-use (and free) software package around? We could write the whole thing by ourselves, sure, and I have some MySQL and PHP programming skills as well, but I would prefer to concentrate on the project itself.

Finally, is somebody interested in doing a more specific description about the categories, tags and areas we would need? I already made a start and had a talk to some 3D people in my circle of friends, and maybe I will come out with some description next week, but I'm still a bit confused because I fear I'm not enough involved in the whole age building process to fully understand the needs - and help is always appreciated.

Oh, and I really, really would prefer that someone else other than me could think about the legal things, like dtierce mentioned; a disclaimer, texts about copyrights, what is allowed to upload, and such. I'm not an expert and I would just forget important things, and my native language is not english, so that would lead to a fiasco.

[Tsar Hoikas]

Okay, so I took it upon myself to do a little bit of poking around, and I found a dedicated server for $70 per month that offers 1,500GB of traffic and 160GB of space. So, I personally could not afford this; however, what if we were to get a group together that would share space on the server? The Guild of Maintainers and Guild of Writers, for example, could get together and share resources on the server. That breaks the price down to $35 per month. Now, if we could perhaps do some smaller hosting accounts on the side (very small sites), we could further reduce our costs... Maybe even get the GoMe or GoCa involved? If we could do that, all of the Guilds would be in a pretty neat, central spot (that doesn't mean they would give up their identity or URLs)... Or maybe it's just me and my love of centralization.

The server I'm looking at in particular offers centOS, Debian, and Fedora for free, and I'm familiar with all of those. We could get Windoze 2003and potentially run a MORE "Shard," but that would be $25 more... Real servers don't run windoze IMO anyway.

Anyway, that's just something to think about.

P.S.
The HD Space updates are very cheap. $10 more per month and we double that to 320GB. I forgot how cheap space is now-a-days... And FWIW the uplink is 10Mbps, 100Mbps is an additional $10/mo.