The Art for Code http://www.artforcode.org/ project is ready for you to use. Art for Code is an idea conceived of by LetterRip (Tom Musgrove) and implemented by Benjamin Tolputt. A way to get more desired features for artists faster.
The Art for Code project is ready for you to use. Art for Code is an idea conceived of by LetterRip (Tom Musgrove) and implemented by Benjamin Tolputt. The idea is that Blender users (and soon users of other open source art tools) submit an item that they wish were in Blender (a bounty), then the submitter and other artists can add incentives to the bounty - ie offers to do 2 hours of modeling, texturing, concept art, rigging, animating etc. The more and bigger the incentives, the more worth the developers time it will be.
The artist signs up for the site, posts the bounty and incentives, and provides a link to their portfolio.
The next step is that coders who need artwork done (all coders need artwork - regular programs need icons, splash screens, and logos; and indy game creators need characters, environments, vehicles, etc) - look for a project they have the knowledge and skill to implement, and that has incentives that match their needs and how long they think the project will take.
The potential coder can ask questions in the comments, and the feature requester can make clarifications. Also the coder can make a specific request for a piece of artwork. Together they can negotiate what coding work and artwork needs to be accomplished to make both parties happy.
The coder can also list previous coding work he has done.
The programmer then accepts the coding assignment and goes to work on it. Once he is done, he provides some sort of indication of accomplishing the task. The artist can start work at the same time, or wait for completion.
Then an exchange of the art and code is made (code goes into the tracker as a patch and also the coder might do a binary build of it for the artist).
In this way we can get more features we want for Blender - yipee! and coders working on other projects can get art assets that are not 'programmer art', artists can do what they do best, and coders can do what they do best - a win win situation.
23 Comments
What a great Idea! I might just watch that website for a couple of weeks...
Hope It really catches on!
I'll post soon as well, because I'm an artist and I'm not able to code features for blender and I really want for a few years now some simple features other 3d popular packages have and that make life/work a lot better.
This sounds like a REALLY GOOD IDEA! I wonder:
-What kinds of issues and policies are there regarding licensing and copyright of the bartered artwork?
-Is the "payment method" (the artwork you'll do in exchange for coding) mandatory, or just strongly recommended? (Obviously, you have a better chance of having your idea implemented if you can offer something in return, but really popular features could get "bid on" by artists who like them a lot -- so does the proposal have to be tied to a promise of artwork?)
-Is the portfolio link mandatory? That could be a good way to help screen users, I guess...
-Is there a way to get answers to questions like these before signing up?
It'll be interesting to see where this goes.
What a brilliant idea! Love it!
grab for 2 pixels drop for two pixels
or possibly shrink the pixel radius of the brush for every pixel
moved or two pixels moved
Brilliant! But as someone else said, an option to bid 'Money Payment' would be great too, just as one more incentive for the coders to come onboard and do it. Just so people who aren't coders or artists can also submit an idea and give an inventive.
Although Ton and I aren't exactly best friends, I still think he ought to be in charge of Blender (and thus it's features).
Good idea. I think we need some filtering options like "Show only open bounties with incentives" and "Show only open bounties with portfolio links". I expect that there will be lots and lots of feature requests that offer nothing substantial in return. There should be an effective way of filtering those out. Otherwise this great idea might get swamped in requests with very low value incentives.
This certainly looks like a great idea. I hope it takes off!
I'm sure that our cooperation will really help to do these bounties. For example (it's really true) - I need selective bevels in 2.5. Yes, b-mesh is already in development but I guess that just bevel feature for current mesh edit system will be faster to develop. So I'm ready to pay 10$ for this NOW (through VISA). "No pain - no gain"... "No pay - no gain" :)))
Somebody will say: "it's open community, we must work together and NO MONEY PAYMENT" I will NOT agree with this because I don't have any coding skills (little AS3 practice isn't a real skill) but I get money for working with 3d graphics and I ready to let them work for improvement of Blender 2.5 which I use now for all modelling process. Somebody has good skills in coding so I'm ready to share money...
More features in blender is always welcome! YAY!
Very good idea.
It's very flexible and might hit the target (small handy features) head on.
That extra continuous polish could give blender some really good prospects.
Ugh! I just saw a post requesting python for a game! Come on. Lets keep this new site clean, with only serious requests that help the whole community. I understand that it is for any purpose, but the difference between code for blender, and the code for your own personal project...is vast IMO.
I'm sceptic. I know 'Im always like that, but super sceptic about this.
Not only do I not see how coders would need any art. But also, I'm not convinced I need begars features.
With most features its not that coders don't know how to come up with them, but where to find the time to create them, and how to determen what the workflow of a feature should be, and specially within blender. But of course I did not look into 2.5 that much to see if flexible scripts can be worked with, I do know I don't really like the Maya plug-in system as it has a ton of broken plug-ins on every update.
Anyway. intent is good and needs praise. :)
Hi,
I don't got what's the difference to the normal tracker? You can submit bugs and feature requests, too. You can comment them you can upload things. What is making this special? This would only "force" the coders to have a look at another website, beside the already existing tracker.
maces
http://www.seanjmacisaac.com/misc/Blender/blendermind/design_for_blendermind_logged_in.png
http://www.seanjmacisaac.com/misc/Blender/blendermind/design_for_blendermind_view_polls.png
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Also, users need to be able to have karma or reputations. That will ensure more transparency between peolpe.
In my version of the design, there is a design phase for what feature will be implemented before it gets coded--that way everyone can vote on the plan before anything is invested--reducing the risk.
Nice idea although I already see posts where there's no artist portfolio.
I would like to have each camera in a scene also acting as render layer for compositing to facilitate easy rendering 3D without concern of having scenes as render layer and maybe offer a 3D stereographic camera.
I do support the exit save change confirmation that was posted. That's been bugging me for a while. Lucky they fixed the exiting when pressing x or q some years ago :)
But I think some suggestions without an artist's portfolio will make the requests numerous from people who may or may not be talented artists. Coders searching for something might get discouraged this way.
@Aussiedude, Moolah:
I'm afraid you guys are completely missing the point. This isn't supposed to be about money. It's not supposed to be about "no money," either. It's got a very open-source feel to it. It's like bartering. I don't think it needs to become some kind of code-for-cash marketplace; there's already too much obsession with money in the world.
I'm with those that feel there should be a money option (at least think of it as cash donation). Currency is the end product of bartering. I'd be more than willing to put up some cash (especially with help of others) to fund great code development (features I want to see)...why should that be wrong? It's still open source - code is available, owned by the project...but now I'm getting started on my rant "the problem of Free" so I'll stop.
Barter though is a great concept. I got to thinking about this yesterday infact, how barter may be the only true way of keeping open source open. Because barter also encourages community. It is a natural way of trade to keep things pure.
@Moolah, sorry I'm laughing, but did you say *ten* dollars?
After a little more thought, it seems to me that *if* this project really did take off then there'd be a danger that the unglamorous maintenance coding would be harder to motivate. That's one reason why I'm not a supporter of pay-per-feature schemes. But I like this idea because it seems like it would favor the requests of serious working artists.
As for money, I think the best way for a paid coder to work would be as part of a studio or large production. That would ensure that the focus isn't all on new fancy features but also on stability and bug fixing. That's why Blender-based studios and productions, especially ones that hire coders, are so important.
Hey I got an idea, since coders might not necessarily need art: how about the artists offer some kind of points that can be used for art if the coder wants, or could be used for other things like food or movies?
I like the idea, but I agree with people that money would make it worse. The great part of this is that both people are creating something; this way, the artist has to practice art. On the other end, money would be quite the opposite. Not only would the artist be doing nothing artistic, but the coder would probably just buy something random.