In this post you learn how to post your contribution (themes, maps, missions, etc.) in a way that Hedgewars and the community have the greatest long-term benefit from it.

First, the short version:

Checklist for good and fair release practice

• Release under a free license (preferably FDL 1.2 or GPL 2.0 "or later")
• Package your things in HWP, if it makes sense
• Use version numbers for maps, themes, forts and scripts
• Upload your things on hh.unit22.org
• Keep SVG files (and other source files) and publish them separately

In this thread I'm asking, as a developer, any artists to volunteer for specific art-related tasks in Hedgewars. As we're not really artists ourselves, so we highly appreciate any help in this area.

This thread is about tasks specific to the official Hedgewars artwork, not add-ons.

We are tracking all art requests (and “art bugs”) on our bugtracker:

http://issues.hedgewars.org/buglist.cgi?component=Art&list_id=1804&product=Hedgewars&resolution=---

Share & Discuss

If you want to share your content with other players we suggest to create a new thread for your creation(s).
That way players (incl. developers) can comment on it and discuss their opinions.

Also read this FAQ entry: I have created something awesome for Hedgewars, how do I share it?

Submission threads

You can also link/place your creation in the following threads:

• Flags
• Graves
• Hats
• Forts
• Hand-drawn maps
• Game schemes and ammo schemes
• Teams
• Fan art

Topic naming

To make it easier for people to know beforehand what your creation is, we recommend using one or more tags followed by the name of your content as topic.

Suggested tags:

• [Hat]: Hats
• [Flag]: Flags
• [Grave]: Graves
• [Theme]: Complete themes
• [BGTheme]: Background themes. These are themes which can not be used for random maps, but they work as background in fort mode, hand-drawn maps, etc.
• [Script]: Multiplayer scripts / game styles
• [Mission]: Singpleplayer missions
• [MissionMap]: Multiplayer mission maps (e.g. TrophyRace)
• [Campaign]: Campaigns
• [Code]: Code contributions other than Lua (e.g. game engine or Qt frontend)
• [Map]: Image maps (PNG)
• [DrawnMap]: Hand-drawn maps
• [Fort]: Forts
• [Scheme]: Game schemes and ammo sets
• [Voice]: Voice pack
• [WIP]: Anything which is not finished (work in progress)
• You can of course also make up your own tags

Examples:

• [Hat] Tomato
• [Theme] Monkey
• [Grave] Pile of bones
• [Mission] Eat the cake
• [Map][Theme] Farm

Inclusion in official release

If you want your content to be added to the official hedgewars release, those things are required:

• Your content meets the Hedgewars style guide-lines and doesn't look bland or offensive.
• Your creation must not contain any (copyright-protected) content of others; it must be available under a license that permits inclusion in the game and is compatible with the license used by hedgewars (GPLv2)
• It helps if you specifically state your permission in the thread(s) of your creations. Otherwise we might have to ask you at a later time (when you might or might not be available)
• Even if your creation meet all things stated above, it still has to get noticed and accepted/liked by the developers based on their their judgment of what would fit into the game and what doesn't.

Please note that even when your submission meets all requirements we cannot guarantee that your creation will be included or when.

Find past submissions

• find flags
• find forts
• find graves
• find hats
• find lua scripts
• find maps
• find themes
• find voice packs

Note: If you find something that needs an update, then your help would be very appreciated.


Flags

• Flags explained on the HWKB

Forts

• Forts explained on the HWKB

Graves

• Graves explained on the HWKB

Hats

• Hats explained on the HWKB
• Animated preview of hats currently in the game (might have bugs)

Maps

• Image maps explained in the HWKB
• Important note if you use masks
• Hedgewars Wiki

Themes

• Overview of theme creation
• Explanation of which files define the theme
• Syntax of theme.cfg

Lua Scripts (Missions, Trainings, Campaigns, Game Styles)

• Lua guide on the dev wiki
• Lua API documentation on the dev wiki
• Automatic list of undocumented functions of the (latest development) Lua API
  
• Hedgewars Wiki

Voices

• Voicepacks explained on the HWKB
• Recording Voices guide by Armagon

The aim of this thread is to aid people in creating graphics that fit the Hedgewars graphics style.
For a while now I've been receiving graphics submissions from people that, whilst well drawn, simply do not fit the game.

One of my aims as graphics designer on the project is to make sure that the entire game adheres to one particular style.
Graphics that do not match this still will never be included in Hedgewars, regardless of how good they are.

So let's start by talking about what defines the Hedgewars style graphics.

- Bold Outlines (usually 2-4px in width)
- Cartoon style shading
- No Gradients on foreground objects
- Bold Colours
- Shading depth is usually 2-4 colours deep
- Well defined shapes

Let's take a look at the same object drawn in two different styles.

A.B.

Anchor A does not fit the Hedgewars graphics style
Anchor B on the right does.

Anchor A is shaded with a gradient, whilst it's only made up of white + dark grey, shading blends between those two colours as it closes in on the center of the object. This means there are actually many different shades of grey (i.e. different colours) between the outside of the anchor and the center. As mentioned above, the hedgewars shading style is made up of 2-4 solid colours. As you can see on anchor B, which contains 4 different shades of grey to achieve the same effect.

The shape of Anchor A is very clear cut and perfect, Anchor B is slightly more organic, it has lots of smooth curves and a chunky shape that adds to the cartoon look.

Let's look at another graphic

Here I've drawn a quick red glass ball in both styles.
It should be quite obvious, from the style of shading and outline which fits the Hedgewars style most.
All lines, even those made by shades of colour inside an object are clear cut and sharp.