Scripters vs Artists

[XinChao]

I just take a look at the forum and the number of posts in scripting sub forum double the posts in resources. In sort of artists?

 

[Arin]

This is mostly due to the fact that, from experiences I've seen, scripters will go out of their way to provide you with something simple, like a patch or a fix to one of their scripts, without going overboard and asking you for money to do so, whereas artists tend to be doing most, if not all of their work, for commissioning. I don't blame them; if I was going to make money off the skillset I had, I would be doing the same thing.

I think one of the major contributors of "more posts in the scripting department" is that many people ask for things in their project that they seem that they almost HAVE to have. They're always requesting "hey, I want this battle system" or "hey, I want this menu system" or "hey, can you patch this for me?", even though anyone can learn scripting if they have half a brain and are at decent at math.

You can also account for resources being shallow in how many topics they have because usually people will just update their topics if they have new resources to release.

Again, this is all from personal things I've witnessed. I could be totally wrong. xD

 

[Engr. Adiktuzmiko]

Maybe just because more people need help with scripts, and in a short amount of time too... while for art resources, it's usually


"Wait for the artist to finish" or "It will not be done" or "find something else" or "do it yourself"


and also because even non-script savy person might be able to help out with simple script requests especially those that can actually be done via events, while for art request, only artists can normally help when it comes to direct requests...

 

[orochii]

When you're making scripts, you can easily adapt them to be usable with this or that or neither of those. So scripts are very useable by community, whose overall gameplay designs range from negative infinite to positive infinite.

Resources, on the other hand, are different. If I make a set of resources, this set of resources has to be able to be usable by itself, or to offer the necessary amount to be used by people that can't do assets from zero (people that can edit but are afraid of taking the next step because it costs so much time). And mixing resources is bad 90% of the time (this style clashes with this other one). Even when talking of the same artist!

Surely people can make RTP edits or something like that and share them. But for editing something, all you need is to make this graphic to meet your existing design, or your expectations. Any edit-capable person will do it by his/her self with the appropiate basis, and will make the, i.e., characters he/she need on that specific style.

Following the example, you will not make any possible character combination of course. Your best bet is a resource set. Something that exists too (known as character generators, OR just plain pieces you merge on your preferred image manipulation/editing program).

For music the options are way less. Unless you get some samples and merge them by yourself (or take some MIDIs and start bashing some Soundfonts and VSTs like I do!). But I think you need some music theory to back up that kind of thing.

So, why are there more scripts? Because sharing scripts has more sense, that on my humble opinion of course,

Orochii Zouveleki

EDIT: Here goes personal experience. Before, everytime I did some small work I knew I wasn't going to use (or even some that I did wanted to use), I shared them. All of those, never got used by anyone, or not that I knew of. Why? Because stand-alone graphics are never going to be used, even if there were people who did said they liked them or whatever (maybe they lied to me so I felt better :'D -idk ; idc-).

 

[Engr. Adiktuzmiko]

and scripts are more general I think... And maybe because two games that uses the same set of scripts can look and feel totally different, but two games using the same set of other resources could easily look the same

 

[Shaz]

Because scripts are more fun to make than art.


Now wait for an artist to come along and contradict me

 

[kerbonklin]

Scripting/programming is much more of an easier skill to learn than general forms of art.

(Unless it's abstract art, that's just throwing random splashes of colors onto a paper and selling it for a million dollars)

 

[Sharm]

I'll contradict you Shaz.   I find scripting extremely tedious and dull.

These sorts of differences in game making communities aren't uncommon, it's often just based on what sort of things attract more artist or more programmers than others and what tends to get community attention because of the type of game being created.  This is probably the most balanced one I've seen between artists, programmers and writers, usually it's much more slanted.  The VN community, for example, is much more weighted towards artists.  Adventure Games are more likely to get jacks of all trades.  Places that lean heavily towards pixel art tend to have artist who are also decent amateur programmers with almost no writers.  I have yet to find the game making community that has a lot of background artists.  I'm not in a point in my game where I'm looking for musicians so I haven't paid much attention, but they seem to be a small but active presence in any game making community.

The resources aren't just found in the resources subsection, there's also members+ and restaff and the product releases.  Were those counted as well?  (I'm ill today, I refuse to check myself, normally I would.)

 

[Engr. Adiktuzmiko]

and maybe because scripting requires less resources... you can write a script with just notepad or word or RM no matter how complex the script is... but for art, complexity will require either much more time or a higher end program...

 

[Celianna]

RPG Maker attracts people who want to create their own RPG (imagine that), which is focused on battles and requires a bit of thinking and math. That's why it's more slanted to those that are predisposed to programming.


Artists usually flock towards the Visual Novel engines like Sharm noted, and there's barely anyone there who knows how to code. It's just that simple. Different engines draw different target audiences. Hell, I'd have joined the VN crowd if it weren't for the fact I love having a sprite that walks around in a 2D world - drawn backgrounds and portraits bore me.

and maybe because scripting requires less resources... you can write a script with just notepad or word or RM no matter how complex the script is... but for art, complexity will require either much more time or a higher end program...

Art also takes years of training to make usable resources. I've seen some people here take up scripting, and make something very good after only 6 months of studying. You can't find that in an artist who has studied the same amount of time. Here's an example of my own progress:

Spoiler

Even though I started in 2004 (well, actually, 2001 would be more accurate), my art only became good enough to be used in 2011. Sure, you could use all of the other stuff before, but it's amateurish and looks bad. And anyone can see that. No one can really see if a script is amateurish unless they read through the code.

 

[Shaz]

It doesn't take long for a scripter who knows what they're doing to recognize an amateurish script. Sometimes you can't tell unless you read through the code, but sometimes it's pretty obvious with just a quick glance. Sometimes I spend a minute scanning through a script and am left scratching my head, thinking "what on EARTH are they trying to achieve here?" And sometimes it's because they really don't know what they're doing, and are just adding lines and hoping at some point it's going to work, and sometimes it's because they really DO know what they're doing, and I'm far, far behind


And, and, and ... I've seen lots of art contests and challenges, but I don't think I've ever seen a scripting contest or challenge.

 

[Archeia]

I was thinking of code-offs before or boss rush challenges but it was something that didn't went on since lack of time ;~;

 

[Andar]

Another reason for a higher number of scripting posts is that scripts often require configuration.

If you get an artwork, you can simply import and use it. If you get a script, you'll need to place it in the correct part of the script editor, sometimes configure it in the script itself, often place some notetags in the database and/or script calls in the events and so on. And if you do something wrong with the artwork, it's usually a quick fix (transparancy or so), while getting a script error message requires you to check with the scripters on the forum, give them additional data, test out their fixes and so on.

 

[sabao]

I think graphic resources have to be made in large sets to be useable by anyone (unless it was designed intentionally as supplements to the RTP). There used to be plenty of custom graphic resources supported on other communities, particularly differently-proportioned character sets, back in the day (2k-XP days, although the volume of 2k's may be attributed to several of them being rips or edits of rips). That said, I've found stylistic variety in resources disappointingly sparse recently. I suppose more people just find the workload and performing the work to be too tedious to bother with.

 

[Ellie Jane]

The entire nature of resources seems to have changed, Sabao. It's weird. I don't know why it was how it was in the first place, thousands of people making resources just to share them and for no reward, but it was pretty great; nowadays it seems a different place, with some RM websites not even having a real resource scene. People make their own things more, and are less willing to share them (whether that's a good or bad thing).

As for scripts being bigger, I think scripting, really, is "game making". Harsh, but if you never venture into the scripts editor, or develop complex events, i don't think that's game making at all, it's game playing: you're playing RPG Maker. That made more sense in my head. In short I'd expect script support forums to be as big and important as general support forums.

 

[Andar]

The entire nature of resources seems to have changed, Sabao. It's weird. I don't know why it was how it was in the first place, thousands of people making resources just to share them and for no reward, but it was pretty great; nowadays it seems a different place, with some RM websites not even having a real resource scene. People make their own things more, and are less willing to share them (whether that's a good or bad thing).

Part of that is probably correct - but there is another reason for that.

Ten years ago, you got enough money from your job to be able to spent your free time on your hobbies - today many companies expect their employes to work overtime, or pay the them less to force them to work a secondary job just to get by. So the people who would otherwise provide those free resources don't have the time anymore to work free, but have to work for their living first.

Another reason is probably that there have been too many pirated resources - as everyone can see on the forum, every other month we get a new topic asking how to prevent people from pirating the work done on a RM-Game.

 

[Galenmereth]

There's also another simple reason in play: Graphical resources are what people notice immediately on screenshots and when playing the game. It's what most notably and immediately makes a game unique. If I shared my custom window skins and menu designs, my game would lose its most obvious identity as soon as a few others use them. If I share my scripts for functionality within those menus, most of them are general enough to be useful without directly mimicking my game.

I'm going to solve this conundrum by giving away a ton of my games' graphical resources after it's been out for a while That's my plan, at least.

 

[Archeia]

Part of that is probably correct - but there is another reason for that.

Ten years ago, you got enough money from your job to be able to spent your free time on your hobbies - today many companies expect their employes to work overtime, or pay the them less to force them to work a secondary job just to get by. So the people who would otherwise provide those free resources don't have the time anymore to work free, but have to work for their living first.

Another reason is probably that there have been too many pirated resources - as everyone can see on the forum, every other month we get a new topic asking how to prevent people from pirating the work done on a RM-Game.

Aside from this, not a lot of people comment on the works of free graphics made by some users. An example of such cases is like in Restaff the praise is isolated to only one person and/or no improvement feedback is given even when the contributors asked so that they know/have a better idea next time. It makes it a lot less motivating to make stuff for other people. That's only the tip of the iceberg though, I know some other things but that might derail too much :/

I remember the RM community being more responsive to feedback too, like in project threads and some such. Now it seems to have decreased dramatically compared to older stats.

 

[orochii]

I'm going to solve this conundrum by giving away a ton of my games' graphical resources after it's been out for a while That's my plan, at least.

I'm going for that too. I will release a resource pack with all of the resources I've made for my game. Anyone can grab them anyway from the game, as I'm not going to encrypt the game. Feel free to play and modify the game as you wish! (that sole reason made me drop the GameJolt integration lol x'D). Be prepared tough! Let's see if you can understand my mess!

I like to see people doing weird stuff, so I'm going to make a special mods place in my game's webpage (which will "exist" after the game is out). I don't know if it's a good idea, but let's see! Experimentation FTW!

BTW, making artworks and writing scripts both are fun. I don't know why some people says otherwise. Scripting is fun, just like eventing. But BETTER, because you don't need to make redundant or tedious things to work around a limitation (and if there's a limit, go and call for Win32API's help!). I'm not really good with any of both (script or graphical assets), but I know that at least I can make what I need, and that's enough for me.

I even like bug testing, sometimes I just facepalm myself, but feel happy to be able to fix a potential pace breaking for the player's experience,

Orochii Zouveleki

 

[Kes]

Another way of looking at the comparison of artists/scripters is not just to look at the number of topics and posts within a topic, but also the number of views.  Art threads often get very high numbers of views from people (thereby demonstrating interest), script threads, in general, seem to get fewer - I suppose on the basis that if you don't have that particular script or problem you aren't going to spend time looking at them.  For example, I don't have Falcao's Pearl Battle script in my game, so I never look at queries about how to use it.