Hello all. I've been more of a lurker on these boards in the past, and have used some of the wonderful tutorials here to great benefit in D&D games I have DMed. My real passion is programming, however, and I have recently begun to learn how to program Win32 game applications using directX. I'm taking the scenic route and coding my own engine for my first few projects (as opposed to wussing out and using someone else's!), and have reached a point where I can begin involving artwork in a basic fashion.

Let me just say that never before did I realize that creating quality art took so much time! My experience so far is that if I were to attempt to build this game entirely on my own, I'd spend roughly two thirds of my time on non-programming related things (3d modeling, textures/terrain heightmaps, sound effects) and only a fraction of my time on what I really love. This is unacceptable to me, because it slows down the project a great deal - and so I turn to this community, the most talented collection of artists I know, for help. I'm looking for a few good men (or women!) who might be interested in designing detailed landscapes, and possibly other art-related endeavours if you are capable.

At this point I'll show you a couple of my achievements thus far, and what my engine is capable of up to this point. Please keep in mind that I've only been working on this for a couple weeks, and the graphical abilities of my engine will be far improved as I implement multitexturing, shaders and other more advanced tools.

The basic idea thus far is that you combine a heightmap (greyscale overhead view of the terrain where pixel color indicates height) with a colorful landscape texture, and my game engine converts it into a vivid landscape that players can fly around in and (eventually) do other game-related things in.

HeightMap: Link
Texture: Link
Screenshot 1: Link
Screenshot 2: Link
Screenshot 3: Link

If you think this might be fun and something you're interested in, feel free to discuss it right here in this thread or send me a PM. Again, you would be working to design the heightmaps and textures for in-game landscapes as above, probably minimap images to go with them, and you would have the option of being involved in the creation of textures for 3D models and other game entities. If you're capable of making 3D models or sounds/music, that is also something I am looking for but which is optional.

There will be no money involved - this is a portfolio project only, and the likelihood of it being made available commercially is probably slim to none. On the plus side, you only have to put in as much time as you'd like. The game development lifecycle is going to take months if not more, which you may spend art-ing to your heart's desire.

On a closing note, I do hope that I haven't broken any forum rules or made this post in the wrong subforum in error. Thank you for your time, and I hope my mediocre attempts at map drawing didn't offend anyone ;0)