FreeDoom, OpenQuartz Help Recreate Classic WADs

Toddd writes "Everybody knows that the Doom and Quake engines are opensourced. But the game data (such as graphics, sound, and maps) are not. Therefore, if you want to check out the quality of today's source ports like Doomsday for Doom or Tenebrae for Quake, you either need to download the shareware versions or buy the retail boxes. However, what is less well-known is the existence of projects like the recently updated Open Quartz, offering 'GPL-compatible content - including models, maps, sounds and textures - which are required for a fully GPL game using the GPL Quake source.' FreeDoom also does similarly for Doom." We recently covered a new release of Doomsday.

Comments

FreeDOOM looks horrible...

[Mitleid]

No offense to the artists and developers of FreeDOOM, as I'm sure they work very hard, but I saw this a few weeks back and just thought it looks terrible. Personally I think some of the artistic concepts are pretty cool and interesting, but overall they just aren't professionally executed (at least not up to par enough to compete with DOOM and DOOM II, which I've seen on sale for 20 dollars or less at some places.)

This is a pretty consistent problem with "free" software, though. Most of the time the graphics just aren't up to snuff enough to compete with professionally developed games. While the coding seems pretty solid, it's obvious that the art needs some work. It'd be interesting to get some input from artists who use computers as a medium: why is quality art in open-source or free games so lacking? What draw isn't there for good artists to pick up a project and help out? Inspiration? Income concerns? Inquiring minds want to know!