Proposal: Nouns Animated Sprite Sheets and Game Asset Assembler!

[kerimbonia]

Tl;dr

I will create sprite sheet art for every asset of the nouns collection to make them metaverse integration, content creation and game development ready. They will be accessible through a fun and easy to use assembler. Ask is 24eth for both the art and the builder (+ bonus game integration!)

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Project details:

With initial prototype and testing funded with Lil Nouns Prop House, I will create game-ready sprite sheets for each asset of the Nouns collection and make them accessible through an easy to use art and animation assembler (with a bonus Metaverse Game integration included for free!)

Content creators and builders will be able to use the sprite sheets for their own proposals/productions which will fast track development and reduce costs for each of those projects.

The creation of Sprite Sheets for an NFT collection is a massive amount of work in terms of art creation and file management. Having the Nouns collection available as sprite sheets will save future content creators and every 2D game project budget and time, not to mention the value of being able to prototype and launch quickly.

To put it into perspective:

In total, the art for approximately 600 Nouns traits will be animated and/or assembled into sprite sheets (each of which consists of 128 frames), results in drawing approximately 76,800 individual frames.

The Meebits DAO created SpriteSheet assets to integrate Meebits into WorldWideWebb3. The DAO paid $60k for 697 traits (64 frames each/44,608 total) and the collection was completed in a total of 10 weeks. See their proposal below.

(Snapshot)

That’s $60k dollars and months of production that each further project will be able to save.

Furthermore, anyone will be able to build and animate any Noun they can imagine and export an animations of a them walking and idling in 4 different directions, as well as jumping and talking !

My ask is 24 ETH in funding for approximately 8 weeks of art and animated sprite sheet production (not including 8+ weeks of extended project pre-planning and prototyping with Lil Nouns Prop House 1466) and compensation for a website developer to build, integrate all Nouns assets, test and deploy the final builder website over the same period of time, not including final game integrations and fun extras.

Once the art is complete, I will work in collaboration with Worldwide Webb3 team, with whom I have already worked with before, to have the entire Nouns collection immediately integrated in their metaverse - with no additional cost added to the proposal.

Why WorldWide Web3?

They are a web3 MMORPG and have currently integrated over 160+ NFT projects (over 1 million NFTs total), with 2 years of playtime across all users and 15k trades in-game. For the recent Halloweeb event there were ~5k new players and 10k unique ones.

This Nouns game asset integration will add zero costs to this proposal because the sprite sheets are integration-ready right off the bat (just need to host on IPFS). This will also allow for proliferation of Nouns for free via in-game user engagement and official game integration promotions on social media. All included for free.

The Builder

I like to think of this Nounish assembler website as one of many stepping stones I’d like contribute towards the future of Nounish games, for game enjoyers as well as for game creators. A creative hub where multiple Nouns collections will be accessible (Lil Nouns, Food Nouns, Sound Nouns, Gnars, etc, etc).

I have many things planned for the future of this builder: the ability to add your own traits and having a sprite sheet drawing app baked into the site to make Noun game asset development seamless. Eventually, I’d like to make this site a place where artists can come to draw, host, share, and support Nounish sprite sheet collections.

Sky is the limit with the future functionality of animated Nouns and this proposal represents the first step on the stairway to Nounish Sprite Sheet heaven!

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Deliverables

• Sprite sheet art for every asset of the nouns collection (424) with new traits (159+) , for walking, idle and jumping animations. That’s approximately 76,800 individual frames!
• A website where anyone can easily generate sprite sheets for their games, or preview and download animations for a noun.
• Easy to use features such as a Randomise button, to generate unlimited animated nouns.
• Two view modes on the builder: sprite sheet overview and animation preview.
• Keyboard shortcuts (arrows to move, spacebar to jump) to test animations while in preview mode
• A video introduction to sprite sheets and how to use them in games.
• Immediate in Worldwide Webb in collaboration with their team as soon as the assets are finalized. Worldwide Webb team have been contacted and have confirmed that Nouns integration would be a top priority.

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Why sprite sheets?

Sprite sheets are used in games to animate the characters on the screen. They’re a collection of single frame animations, laid out like a film strip. The most common animations for sprite sheets are the idle sequence (character moving while standing still) and walking cycles (stylistic walk as the character moves around the map)

This is an example of a pixel art sprite sheet created for Worldwide Web3 integration using a custom Dino Lil Nouns created with a Lil Nouns Sprite Sheet Builder Prototype

Additional Sprite Sheet Benefits:

Assets ready for use in future Nouns Community Game Jams or Hackathons

Assets easily adaptable and integrated into many different game styles: endless runner (Chrome Browser Dino), 2D platformer (Mario Bros.), top-down (old School Zelda), pixel-based NFT/Metaverse integrations (Worldwide Webb/Turf/Nifty League Degens)

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Who is Kerimbonia? (3D/Pixel Artist, Nouncillor)

Nouncil Member, Lil Nouns Prop House 1466 (Prop House - funded), Noun Sounds Pixel Art Contributor

I’m a professional 3D artist with over 20 years of experience. Previous clients include Lamborghini, Nintendo, Warner Bros., Taylor Swift, Justin Timberlake, and Rihanna to name a few.

I created the sprite sheets for all CryptoDickbutts collections and am responsible for their integration into Worldwide Web3. I was also the creator of Escape from Gooch Island Game (CryptoDickbutts) and have also assisted Meebits DAO with early 3D-to-Pixel Art rendering workflows and advised Pixel Shop in getting the Meebits integrated into Worldwide Web3 as well.

CryptoDickbutts

I love pixel art, animation and believe in the power of being able to totally embody characters in the metaverse, and the value of being able to socialize, proliferate and play games as our favorite NFTs… in this case, Nouns!

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Additional links:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/kerimbonia
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kerimbonia/
Discord: kerimbonia#5863

Lil Nouns Prop House 1466: Prop House
Noun Sounds: https://twitter.com/NounSounds/status/1601289119451475968

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Media and Links:

https://twitter.com/Cantillionaires
https://twitter.com/dicktoadz

Escape from Gooch Island by kerimbonia

Worldwide Webb | The original web3 MMORPG

Turf Avatar System

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Proposed Transactions

0x37b2020dDA56De5F49D80297D867292a44cF45EB.transfer(
24.00 ETH
)

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Thank you in advance for your support and looking forward to hearing your comments, feedback and any questions you might have about this proposal before going on-chain in early January 2023!

[kerimbonia]

** apologies for the multiple edits of the proposal, having issues with some gifs loading correctly into discourse

[kerimbonia]

if anybody wanted to catch up on prior feedback and discussion about this proposal, feel free to check it out in the nouncil discord:

Nouncil Discord > prop-incubator channel

[bradq]

This isn’t my world, but there are 2 things I love from what I’ve seen with your prop so far:

1. Your explanations and answers in the Nouncil incubator thread have been excellent. You clearly know what you are doing and know how to communicate your vision. Everything I’ve heard from you in this regard has been outstanding. It’s also evident to me that you have the chops to do this and have done similar in the past.

2. The ask seems both reasonable for the work and in line with what the DAO is looking for right now. There is clearly a long-term interest in game development and this seems like a strong infrastructure not just for your interests, but that many can build on. While I can’t fully evaluate that use due to my lack of expertise here, I expect it bodes well for your prop.

I have 1 question of my own and 1 that I suspect you should be ready for and probably already are…

Mine: For people like me (non gamers) are these resources useable for me to just create some fun animations to use in content…not a game, but maybe on Twitter or in a piece of content (maybe even like an article)? If they are, I would maybe add a sentence or two on that to broaden the use and value of the prop.

I suspect you are going to get questions about how this prop and these tools relate to other works in progress that may appear similar.

Good work. Good prop. Seems totally supportable even in this current scaled back climate so way to hit the mark on that. Hope it goes well. Take my thoughts for what they are…content creator type guy who doesn’t know gaming, but loves props and effective communication of them.

[Evil]

I absolutely love Webb3 and @kerimbonia is a real G who has done an outstanding work in everything he has stepped. I can trust you with* feeding my cats to watering my plants bro <3
Also the world building and storyline and all quest are so fun* in webb3 would be epic to compete with nounish characters both as playable and NPCs in there <3

[kerimbonia]

thank you @Evil that means a lot to me…

and i’m happy to see the sprite sheets for the meebits too as the early pixel art animation and r&d work i did with meebitsDAO is what kickstarted the sprite sheets being created for the meebits collection by Pixel Shop as well. converting 3d assets from a generative collection to 2d pixel art sprite sheets def took some collective brain energy but well worth it.

thanks again for taking the time to share and i’d be happy to feed your cats and water your plants any time bro

[kerimbonia]

@bradq i really can’t thank you enough for your kind words, much appreciated ser

to respond to the questions:

your question: yes, absolutely. the assembler will be useful for both game devs and content creators. it might be easier to illustrate in a diagram but this would be the flow for the website:

• enter website
• select the traits for your nouns from drop down menus
• sprite sheets and/or animated previews will be either selectable or both visible immediately
• the different animations linked to your custom nouns will also be playable with keyboard shortcuts in a preview window

from there you have a few options (so far!):

1 - download your sprite sheets (if you’re a game dev or content creator wanting to work with them)
2 - download a gif animation of any of the animation sequences included in the sprite sheets (walk, idle and jump in all 4 directions + talking heads pfp, etc)

this is just the beginning… with the idea of being an animation hub and cc0 asset library, over time, new functionality and animations will be included in the website. inevitably, game devs and content creators will use these assets as a base to build on but also create their own sprite sheets for their own needs and those assets could then be plugged back into the builder to include new animations and styles to create content or games with (ie. punch, kick, talking heads, emotes, dances, etc, etc)

i hope that answers your part of the question and i’ll do my best to illustrate that better in the final on-chain proposal

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their question: the fact that there are other props and works in progress with similar goals just illustrates the fact that i’m not the only one that sees the unlimited potential and power of bringing game development and content creation tools to the nouns ecosystem.

we’re not talking about playing pac-man as kids here, we’re talking about the largest entertainment market in the world (gaming) worth billions and billions of dollars and bringing that to the nouns ecosystem and then merging that with the power of a DAO governance + CC0 content and assets libraries never before seen in the traditional gaming ecosystem… this isn’t just huge, it’s fffff* HUUUGE!

i see all of the other proposals as similar in that we all share the same vision for nouns x gaming/content creation but we all have our different flavors and expertise to add to the ecosystem. no two content creators or game devs will ever create the same end product even with the same cc0 assets. the other similar props i’ve seen would only add more animation flavor and options to an animation hub, not take away… not even one bit.

tbh, i’m just here because i believe in the Nouns, i see potential here and i want to bring my own flavor, expertise and passion to the nouns ecosystem by offering this proposal to DAO… and i’m pretty sure there is absolutely no similarity to anybody else’s proposal here… well… unless the nouns AI pod just trained their models with my idea and cloned another prop out behind my back or something lol

on that note, sorry if i rambled on and hope i answered yours (and their) questions

thanks again for your support my man you rock!

[bradq]

Thanks. Downloading a gif animation is cool and useful way beyond gaming. I can envision that your plans going forward will have even more value beyond gaming for content creators.

[kerimbonia]

looking into the future of nouns content creation, i see entering the website, creating your custom nouns, uploading an audio track (using your own voice or music from noun sounds, for example), selecting from a huge library of animations and having your nouns synced up and moving to the audio… download and you’re good to go!

use it in a prop, on socials, animated discord pfp, youtube, etc, etc

i see this prop as being the first lego building block to seeing that day happen, that’s why i’m starting with the absolute bare minimum in terms of ask and scope to start with… with the added bonus of a free metaverse game integration with tons of exposure in the space.

i posted this nouns x worldwide webb3 integration teaser video yesterday:

i think the world is ready for nouns x gaming/content creation

[bradq]

oh man. i’m ready for that!

[Evil]

Nouns being in various games is the way to go ser!
Good luck and have a great day bro

[Noun12]

This looks ready to go and great. If you need someone to put this onchain for a vote, I am happy to do it Monday or Tuesday of next week, just find me on Discord, would be a good Prop to kick off 2023 with.

Cheers,
12

[kerimbonia]

Thank you for the support and offer to get this on-chain… that’s awesome of you

I’ll have a chat with nouncil to see if they would be interested in switching things up with the line-up of proposals going on-chain and maybe take you up on that offer.

Either way, thanks again and a happy new years to you and the Nouns fam!

[maxand98]

Am calling for nouns infra that details in a much more granular way what resources are required to fund software dev projects like this.

As a non technical voter, $3K USD per week for 8 weeks seems eye watering amount for a project that took 2 weeks for the lil nouns implementation? (may have misinterpreted something here)

Though I would love to see open source software development as a big focus for nouns, these proposals need to be structured in a more professional way to allow voters to assess what is required. Code Maintenance and upgrades seem to be routinely ignored.

Some of the proposals I see seem to be copypaste across a number of DAOs, and I get that.

Could nouns develop a more precise and granular template/management system for software proposals that covers maintenance and hosting/ownership of code as well as dev resource expenditure?

Having said that, I think the prop is awesome!

Could more detail be provided on why the prop cost is 24ETH?

[kerimbonia]

thanks for your questions and feedback @maxand98, appreciate you taking the time.

so just to begin with this is not a software dev project, its for an animated nouns asset library and custom nouns builder website for the nouns community to have fun with and game developers/content creators to access the art and animations to use for their own proposals and projects. it’s art, animations and a builder tool i’m proposing for the nounsdao to help reduce the cost of future game development proposals and enable anyone to create nouns content and as an added bonus, the community gets a free metaverse game integration (with a solid product and community) at no additional cost to them.

about the compensation, i’ll be completely honest here and say that taking a proposal budget and dividing it by estimated weeks of work to come up with a salary is not the way the dao is going to drive innovation, make the most sound decisions with voting and attract the best of the best to this ecosystem. i have been working on this proposal (along with my website dev) and prototyping since lil nouns prop house 1466 was funded (over 2 months ago), reaching out to fellow game devs, the nouns community, working with worldwide webb3 team to get assets integrated and tested as well as trying to add as much bang for the buck to this proposal and make it as clear, feature packed and budget-friendly as possible - given the current state of market.

about lil nouns prop house 1466, i wish the community would have asked me these questions before going on-chain with this proposal but i’m happy to break that story down so its as clear as possible:

lil nouns prop house 1466 was my intro to the nouns ecosystem and it was a proposal for me to research and prototype lil nouns animations, figure out the lower body designs and what would be necessary for me to develop (website, hosting, etc) to get these into the hands of the community in a functional and fun way - in the future. it wasn’t 2 weeks to animate the entire collection AND create a functional builder website for 1eth… that would be kinda crazy. it cost meebits $60k to do the same for their collection with no builder involved, just as a frame of reference.

back to the story, it took me 2 weeks to prototype the walk and idle lil nouns animations but what became apparent after week one is that i wanted the collection to be more inclusive (not just male-centric pants and traits). i wanted to explore adding more lower body design options to the animation collection as well (pants, shorts, long skirt, short dress). as i prototyped those new animations i realized that i needed a way to host all these assets and/or create a functional website so that the community could understand and use them efficiently. i reached out to a dev to help with advising on a builder website and the lil nouns/nouns community for feedback on how to proceed given my new findings… everybody encouraged me to flesh things out better with the art/animations and go for designing a more robust builder and propose my complete animation library vision for this project to the nounsdao first. that way i could prove myself to the community by finishing the project, then start building and integrating more nouns (and subdao, lil nouns) assets from there.

and that’s where i am now… after over 2 months of working my way through the nouns ecosystem, learning about it and working on refining my proposal.

this proposal was kickstarted with lil nouns prop house funding,
took feedback from the community to help flesh it out and add as much value as possible (lil nouns, nouncil, nouns),
used art and assets already funded by nounsdao (https://www.figma.com/community/file/1117824291358512052 by zylag.eth) as well as 3d lil nouns to respect previous nouns art, designs and proposals that came before it.
this proposal takes the 2d static nouns art from asset libraries already created via nounsdao funding and adds a pixel art animation and content creation layer to them with a fun builder website experience and free metaverse game integration to go along with it…

instead of dividing the ask by weeks of estimated dev time (total will be closer to 16+ weeks - past and future), i would divide it by what the nounsdao gets in terms of value for the community, proliferation potential, asset library, builder, fun experience, content creation possibilities and future game dev savings… not to mention videos/tutorials on what can be done with the assets.

i really put a lot of thought and passion into this proposal and believe that nouns is the best place to share it with the world so whether the community votes yes or no, i hope that’s the lasting message that sticks with the nouns fam moving forward.

well, i hope that answers your questions and i didnt ramble on too much about all the rest

thanks again for your input and support. much luv fam

[maxand98]

Thanks for the detailed response and I think the project is very good for nouns.

This commentary is more about proposals in general, but from above I understand that some of the funding in this proposal is retrospective.

That’s fine, but what I am suggesting is that if the code is law framework is extended to work like this then software development projects (I mean that abstractly, any kind of paid computer based work) then all these parameters can be easily templated in the nouns proposal mechanism to make it easier for voters to assess.

-Has this project been implemented anywhere else?
-Is the software open source/CC0?
-How will the project be maintained, and where is it hosted?
-What is the development roadmap if any and are more funding proposals planned?
-How will project be reported/delivered?
-Granular templated budget

Thanks again for your response above and all the work you have put in to this! Very much looking forward to animating my noun

[kerimbonia]

100% agree about including parameters to make proposals easier to understand and vote on.

i love the list you put together and for what it’s worth, i’ll do my best to go through and address each item and post them here or the jungle (discord) before voting is complete.

thanks again for your input and suggestions, it really helps!