Artistic Skills ? Painting & Sculpting

There is a fine list of desired skills in an early thread here.. https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/?topic=what-craft-skills-do-you-want-to-see

but I got to thinking, not every 'Crafting' skill is appropriate for a catch all crafting system. One skill in the afore mentioned list is Glassblowing. Which I would dearly love to see along with a couple others not on that list. Painting and sculpting.

Now I mention glassblowing in part because it fits in sculpting.. we could also add wood carving to the list.

Basically, we're talking skills that produce decorative items but require a different system than what a recipie based system can handle. (As much as I hate to admit that my crafting framework suggestion doesn't cover absolutely everything, it can handle everything that can be done with a recipie, just not these skills).

Before I forget I want to through out taxidermy (sp?) as a desired skill.. just not one I'll be dealing with here. Ok enough rambling.. on to the mechanics!

One thing all these skills have in common is they can all use existing in-game resources. The idea here is that the finished product is produce by taking a snapshot of a target "model" or a screenshot to produce a custom piece of work.

<b>Painting:</b> Activating this skill will allow you to take a screenshot which is then has a paint filter applied (or not?) to create a texture which is then applied to the canvas which can then be framed (by a carpenter yes?).

Ideally this should allow you to control how your screenshot is cropped and in-game text or the GUI shouldn't be visible at all. The game should only allow for screenshots taken within the game and those shouldn't be accessible by the player outside of the game.. The resulting texture should probably also be compressed so as not to bog up the bandwidth at all as it gets sent to others who view the painting.

I would like to comment that if a filter is applied this method could be used to reflect skill.. higher skill would maintain a higher amount of detail than lower skilled painters. If sufficient detail isn't retained then it just won't make for happy players.

<b>Sculpting, carving etc.</b> This is a little more interesting. The target model can be a player who would strike a pose. The sculptor would choose them as the subject of their craft and the game would take a snapshot of the model, what they're wearing and the pose in that moment. The end result of course being the snapshot with appropriate material textures.

This could in theory apply to glass blowing as well but the size of the finish product should be limited. Other sculpting type skills might be able to choose between a miniature and life side.. or in the case of people there should be a bust option.

All of these would make outstanding decorations and I'm sure real life artists who play will enjoy letting their characters have that experience. Not to mention other players who love to create stuff.

I'm confident these can all be accomplished through a proper GUI (that's the user interface folks in case anyone was wondering) without any new content needing to be created. Of course, there should be some static options as well but I think those can easily just be made from pre-existing content that'll be in the game anyway.

 

Oh! THIS is interesting! A truly rare piece of art could be a wonderful currency sink - and something that would definitely be worth displaying in mah home.

I would like to see players specializing in being Painters... and actually being able to sell their art in the game via their own vendors, but if they cannot afford a vendor, well, GALLERIES! Auction Houses! The social aspects of this could really skyrocket. The Painter could mass produce (if they can afford the cost of resources &amp; time) or create limited editions or even singular original pieces. All this, of course, with certain amount of resources and time.

There should be different levels of achievement/skill/fame(?) for a player to progress through if this is REALLY what they want to pursue. And that would, of course, lead to credibility and the higher prices online. It could even be a tie-in to RL artists who wish for another social avenue of marketing their wares AND play a game while their at it. A friend recently did an online sort of auction where people who bid at a certain level got virtual posters for their Second Life house, but the winner of the auction for the single piece of original art also got a large painting for their home in Second Life. Was really cool and did drive up his auction prices. The winner is proudly displaying a rather large, framed, custom picture in his SL home with its real world equivalent being displaying in his office.

Oh! Oh! I can run an auction house... and charge a percentage fee. Or even an art gallery where artists can display their pieces. Oh! I'm spinning! I fall from mah chair!


But in all seriousness. There is already the ability for us to upload our own images for our "family crest" and such what not (as a Kickstarter thing - I forget which level). This can be expanded into the profession of "Artist" and then tie in to the RL artists (thinking Second Life again, sorry) for a social outlet of advertising - <i>IF they can afford certain fees for such a privilege</i> - or attain sponsorship from someone who runs a gallery/auction house (hint hint). Yeah, I know, there would be limitations for licensing and of course that darned copyright thing (something for the lawyers to look into), but I personally know of some RL photographers and artists who would create art just for the purpose of using it as a "virtual calling card" to boost RL interest in their art and work.

I am not sure if this would be expandable toward carvers/sculptors as their custom art has limitless dimension (not just on a flat template) and that would require frame &amp; wire work (3D?) which is VERY time consuming and can be a resource white elephant (so to speak). To add that to a persistent world could really put on a load on data transfer when a player enters into the persistent world (auction house, gallery, museum, etc) and how often would a player actually enter those areas of "customized dimensional art" once they experience the lag/load time? I've contributed to IMVU's catalog of avatar clothing &amp; items. There is no wide, persistent world in IMVU, everything is driven by a chat interface which is fixed and allows a very low amount of connected users or it would be detrimental to the clients. Not sure if SotA would be up for that. So having "custom sculpture" would be limited by templates - something I know for a fact is only good for limited creativity - NOT true artists.

Painting (portraits, flat media) would be a much easier item to load as there is no real dimension, it is just texture 986768454 being applied to a dimensional object 12 in position x42y34z9 in house number 987429, level 2 room 1. Dimensional object 12 (say, a 50x50x5 pixel portrait) need be downloaded to the user's computer/tablet once and the texture (the actual work of art) set onto that portrait according to the programming of the frame would be a minimal download (mere bytes I'm sure).

Whereas, a custom piece of sculpture would require a new mesh for EACH dimensional object (particularly free-formed glass blown items *wink*). Think about what it will take for a moment for an object to be truly unique in the game and what sort of load that would put on a server, a database, the graphic involved, transfer of the data to (we hope) millions of users all over the place at any given time when that ONE object is looked upon in a city!

You get the drift.

I do so much like the painting idea though... that REALLY piques the merchant in me!

 

As long as the artistic skill has fine enough to cover multiple bases. Painting is fine to create art, using various brush strokes, etc. But the same system should handle cartography, inscription/linography (think of the 'illuminated books' that monks used to create), metal etching (using acid or base), maker's marks, etc. Items could be very highly detailed using such a system, with a relatively small footprint, by overlaying a single custom image with proper alpha on top of the existing model.

 

I would love to see the freedom to be able to do things like Cartography or Illuminated Books in game,
So many ideas and possibilities. If we get Illuminated Books, then I for sure want usable bookshelves in my house!

I am unsure about sculpting though, as that is quite a bit harder to pull off with z space and all.

How great would it be to see woodcarving/engraving though, where you just modify the texture. Engrave shields armor and weapons, carve surface decorations into furniture, stamp/imprint leather.

 

The challenges to both of these in terms of creating unique content is why I suggested the 'snapshot' solution sculpting and screenshots for painting as no new content is truly generated. Sculptures would essentially be a copy of various meshes already in-game and nothing would need to be reviewed by SotA staff.

I have the distinct impression that RG would like something with a little more freedom but seems no one yet has a clear idea how to go there. To give any real true freedom to create new content would necessitate reviews by staff.. sculpting would be a particular nuissance to review new models as checking it would require more effort. On the other hand... sculptures could be submitted and reviewed and tested in groups during development for each game to allow for variety.

I don't really see how painting will allow artists to truly make their own art without either importing or having some sort of tablet interface in a similiar fashion as what has been talked about for MIDI and musical instruments or some sort of paint simulation. I mean it's possible to simulate painting or sculpting like a paint program or mudbox but both of those options would probably be pretty expensive to do.

Still I think something simple like capturing a screenshot to be made into a painting or capturing the pose of a character for sculpting is ideal to start.

 

To have true creation within SotA itself could be done by way of "mini games" - but that would be far down the line in development, wouldn't it? I mean, you need to have a stable world, stable mechanics in place, etc. It could be done with painting - could see a whole lot of abstract art appearing in the persistent world - custom paintings on a set canvas (read: wired object). Custom sculpting, glassblowing, etc could be done by way of wire templates, but I see that being very frustrating for artists. The only real creativity involved with that would be... painting (if wanted).

Painting modules could be done based on some open source stuff out there now.

To fit said "mini-game" into the world, it could be done as a school of sorts where an aspiring artist would have to be sponsored or apply for it (to gain access to the module) and then go through all the "classes" to learn how to use the module. None of the paintings created during school would be able to be sold, only displayed in the player's own house (if s/he has one). Once a person "graduates" from the painters' school, THEN they could sell their paintings.

I still like the idea of real-world artists uploading low-res versions of their painting/photography (if they meet certain qualifications and/or pay premium) and applying it to a painting which would be a unique way for them to advertise their work within another virtual realm. That is already being done in other virtual realities.

Insofar as having things approved - another virtual reality uses a peer-review system. After so many other content creators give approval, then the item is added to the overall catalog for the entire community to enjoy. Guidelines would have to be set up, of course.

All of this is REALLY dependent upon the legalities of ownership. That could be the only thing that really does stop any sort of "outside creative input" to any virtual world - especially this one. And you have to consider the "farming" aspect of all this, and who will be buying (is it the buyers' money, or mommy's &amp; daddy's credit card?) and if the system has checks and balances in place to deter the secondary market that will ultimately be created.