Messages

Just use timers, they are a great tool.

Whoops, timers will not work for less than 1 millisecond. Or you mean 0,4 seconds?
Maybe it is not possible.

EDIT: I think what you need is 0,4 seconds, which is 400 milliseconds. If that's the case, you can use timers.

[Diarandor-SA]

For example,
Diarandor-SA

Diarandor license allows one to use art for commercial and non-commercial uses. If sells exceed [insert number], then you must pay [insert number] for each sell exceeding the selling that number. You must put Diarandor's name in the visible credits or text file linking to his works.

You must also link to the Diarandor website and notify of any changes you make to the art for your game because others are allowed to use your edits or reworks as long as credit to you is given for those modifications.

Also, you can set that you are able to choose or pick [insert number] sprites for free, but must purchase a Diarandor-SA-E (E=extended)  at the price of [insert number] for using more sprites.

That type of license would be compatible with GPL because you are allowing commercial and non-commercial use.

Yes, some customized license like this is what I need. It is like the one used by the creators of Unity.
I prefer to avoid inventing a license if possible (which is too risky since I am not a lawyer and do not know the consequences), I will make some investigations to see if that license has a known name, and re-license all my art with it.

EDIT: a different solution would be to say that we use a freeware distribution instead of a free one. Although probably Christopho will disagree, so better to forget about this possibility.

This is what it says here: http://www.gnu.org/distros/free-system-distribution-guidelines.en.html

Non-functional Data

Data that isn't functional, that doesn't do a practical job, is more of an adornment to the system's software than a part of it. Thus, we don't insist on the free license criteria for non-functional data. It can be included in a free system distribution as long as its license gives you permission to copy and redistribute, both for commercial and non-commercial purposes. For example, some game engines released under the GNU GPL have accompanying game information—a fictional world map, game graphics, and so on—released under such a verbatim-distribution license. This kind of data can be part of a free system distribution, even though its license does not qualify as free, because it is non-functional.

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So it should be possible to distribute the assets (non-functional data) with non-free licenses with the GPL functional data. If my non-commercial license does not allow it, I will have to find another non-commercial license allowing it.

EDIT: I still don't understand completely the situation since I do not understand what does "distribution" mean in this context. I always thought that the art license was independent of the software and code.

My intention is to keep exclusivity of my graphics keeping them non-commercial, at least until a commercial game is released, just to be sure that I receive some money (I don't mind if it's not that much). My current salary is too low and I need some money to live.

Then, if you are not wrong, the best solution would be either to separate my art from the sample quest (which is included in the distribution), or to separate the sample quest from the engine distribution.

Christopho: what do you think about this? what should be done?

Sorry, I misunderstood. You are not causing any trouble. And you are right, CC-BY allows modifications of the logo (I did not remember this and reading so many stuff about licenses confuses a lot).

I did not know that non-commercial data could not be used in free system distributions. So, does that mean that the art I included in the sample quest should not be distributed with the engine too? Maybe we should separate the sample quest from the engine for not having problems with the definition of free system distribution? Also, is solarus really considered a free system distribution?

This topic is a little old, but I would like to help clear things up. Christopher is right about the naming by the way.

A CC-By logo is fine with a GPL engine because only functional data is affected with the GPL license. The CC-BY Logo is non-functional data based on beauty, so it is not affected by any GPL functional code. The package must be for both commercial and non-commercial purposes for this case to be true. I have sources for this on the license part of the help guide. That means it is okay for the logo to remain CC-BY.

I agree that CC-BY-SA is a good option for the Solarus logo (CC-BY is bad since it does not allow modifications of the logo). But I do not know if GPL is bad or not for a logo and which differences there would be in that case. Maybe for a logo the GPL license is good enough.

Diarandor's non-commercial assets might conflict with this....just something to think about.

CC-BY-SA would be better in my opinion. That way people will have to share edits of the art when releasing their game. Also, the creator and the one that edits the art gets credit in the way they wish. For example, if Diarandor wanted, then he could require anyone that edits his or of work of his that was edited to link him to that edit. Name, url, etc.

I do not know what the the Solarus logo has to do with my work. I think that it is not a good idea to mix works of differents authors in the same file (I do not know if this is even possible in case the licenses are compatible, but even so, it would be bad to credit each author properly). Solarus logo has no connection with my own work since it will always be in a different file, so I do not understand what you mean with that.

As you already know, since my work is non-commercial, it cannot be mixed with art licensed under CC-BY-SA, and I will not change my license because I do not want other people making profit from my hard work while I do not receive anything.

As far as I know there is no problem with incompatibility of art licenses if each piece of art is kept in a different file. From my point of view, we should keep art as separated as possible. The case of tilesets is an exception, because there is no other option than having everything in the same file, but I have not shared yet anything related to tilesets (I made only entities, items, weapons and hero sprites, which can be on different files each one, and should be kept in that way IMHO because there is no problem arising from that).

I do not know if it is legal to combine art from different authors that have compatible licenses and what would happen in that case, but in my opinion it should be avoided if possible to avoid having several copyright holders [all the authors of the original sources?] of the same file and to give credit more properly.

It is important to note that in derived works, the copyright holder (or copyright owner) is the author of the original work, and not the creators of the derivative work. So in the license it must be clear who is that person.

There is an interesting link here related to this topic about giving credit:
http://freegamedev.net/wiki/Art_licensing_guide#Remixing_third_party_assets_.28creating_derivative_works.29

EDIT: If you have a deviantart account you can download all my pixel art from the following link, but you need to login first. (Everything is CC-BY-NC-SA, which is zero-price but non-free.)
http://diarandor.deviantart.com/

New video showing the new weapon animations: bow, boomerang and hookshot.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t02HS7kxX7c&feature=youtu.be

3. sfxr - This software is recommended by one of the best people (Diarandor) apart of the Solarus community. He says that it is very easy, simple and intuitive to use.

I did not know I was one of the best, lol. Thanks for the compliment! XD XD XD

I've heard  good things about musagi, though I haven't used it myself. It's by the same guy who wrote sfxr for making sound effects for games.

I have never used musagi. But I use sfxr to create my 16-bit sounds and I recommend it (it is very easy, simple and intuitive to use).

Thanks! Your feedback gives me motivation.

I plan to program a few more features for the custom sword in the future:
1-Custom boots compatible with sword (like in Link's Awakening). This will be easy to code.
2-Fast attack if the attack command is pressed many times and quickly (like in Terranigma). This will be easy to code too.
3-Some powerful attack to replace the super spin attack (maybe a tornado-with-electricity effect). This will be quite tedious to draw.
4-Maybe a slash-electric attack towards up, if the jump button is pressed during a normal attack (good against flying enemies). Although I am not sure of this one because maybe there is enough diversity of sword attacks.

Some sword abilities will be unblocked during the game (sword loading, spin attack, super spin attack, sword inverting direction on each attack, fast attack, etc).

New video! Here I show how the custom sword can be combined with the custom jump (like in Link's Awakening).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REtiEtbxt_s&feature=youtu.be

I think Aseprite deserves to be on the list too. It is a great tool, quite minimalistic, but it has everything you need and nothing unnecessary. If I am not wrong, it is free open-source (although the creator is selling it too to make some money).

http://www.aseprite.org/
https://github.com/aseprite/aseprite

[non-commercial]

That is up to Diarandor. I do not want to take time away from his works and it would be best for me to complete everything I can before asking for others to join in.

Hi Zefk! Do not worry, you are not taking my time away. We can coordinate our work if you want, for the sake of the Children of Solarus project. (We can talk better on the IRC Chats if it's ok for you.)

I am focused on the graphics of the hero, which includes animations for weapon attacks, and also the weapon inventory items (to have consistency with the weapon sprites of the hero attacks). I also made almost all the sounds (I can do the remaining ones one of these days). I plan to make the graphics for NPC's when I finish all of this.

So you can focus on free (or at least, zero-price) tilesets fitting with the ones in ALTTP, and also the musics, and with that all would be done. Maybe you can create/find NPC graphics that fit with the project, too.

As I usually recall, my graphics are not free as in freedom since they are non-commercial (the licence is CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0), they are just zero-price. For people without commercial concerns that should be ok (if someone wants to use them for a commercial game, a deal with me could always be possible). For the Children of Solarus project that license is good enough too.

Anyway, if someday someone creates free graphics for all the hero animations of nice quality (which is a huge work), then we could replace my art for the free one in the Children of Solarus project, which would be better for other people with commercial intentions. As far as I know, no-one is working on this (at least using a free licence), and it would be necessary to keep the size of the hero sprites (for compatibility) and make all the animations. Most of the internet free art for a hero is incomplete (most animations are missing), or does not fit with what is needed here.

Greetings Solarus community! I uploaded a new garbage-video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKRV_kcr3Vw&feature=youtu.be

Improvements and added features:

1) A new (original) HUD has been added, similar to the one in Link's Awakening. It can display the current hero, three assignable items for each hero, a money counter and an action icon (it will show the action that can be done, like lifting, speaking, etc). The life counters for the three heroes are still to be done (I have not decided yet if they will be hearts, or bars, or a mixture of both).

2) As you might have noticed, the sword in the video is not the built-in one but a fully scripted one. I was able to mimic all actions of the sword, including the loading and tapping animations and the spin attack. New feature: the normal sword attack changes direction each time the sword is used. New features still to do for this custom sword: fast attack, sword jumping attacks, and running with (custom) boots attack.

Thanks a lot Zefk!