My experience with this pack is a decent example of what Bighead's trying to say. (This post kind of turned into a... memoir of sorts of my history with this pack, but there is a point eventually)
The vast majority of my contribution to this pack has been dumping, testing various settings/textures/etc., and general slave driving . With dumps, either in the form of paletted textures (the 100,000 paletted textures in the now outdated Europe pack), or in the form of uploading what I now call "dump packs" back when there was tons of UI/misc. stuff left to do. Basically I would retexture simple UI stuff that was in the realm of my talent (which is almost non-existant compared to others around here), and then upload the dumped original game textures for people to take a crack at. Bighead and Echoes were the two guys that remade most of those textures. I was happy that the various parts of the game were coming together, and that I was able to help out in my own way. Basically posting stuff for other people that needed to be redone that I wasn't able to retexture myself. I was referred to a slave driver on numerous occasions. I don't know if they were serious, jokes, or half-jokes, but I kept posting what needed to be done and people kept making stuff. So I just rolled with it.
Eventually it came to a point when most of the UI was done, and then degasus fixed the paletted textures. People were having tons of problems loading in 100k textures so one of the devs (degasus) totally reworked the texture hash code (and is now permanently on my favorite people list) and got it so instead of 100,000 texture in a pack, we were down to around 3,000 and also eliminated the need for multiple region packs. With these fixes and with everyone else having their own special contributions: Narcku with his hair, eyes, faces, Echoes with his amazing UI and armor icons, Bighead with his very detailed maps and weapon icons, and both of them together creating Seven's speed armor set, I wanted to leave my mark.
A small sample of the type of stuff I mostly contributed the pack:
Even after the hundreds of hours I put into icons, minor UI stuff, boxes, circles, etc., my skill was still very subpar compared to what Bighead, Echoes, and many others were pumping out. Bighead gave me a TON of advice, linked me to a lot of stuff he eventually linked here, and even had me send him XCF (GIMP) files and he would take a look at it for me and tell me what he would do. Then he would do it, screenshot it, and make a little tutorial for me. Even following exactly what he did, I could never get it looking as good as he got it. So I practiced more. Watched the videos he posted. Practiced, practiced, practiced.
Eventually I came up with the retextures of the official Monado I retexture, my optional Metal Monado, and I did about half the work for the official Monado II retexture (Bighead did the other half.) Bighead still had to shade the Metal Monado for me, and also worked on lightening up the official Monado I one for me since I made it a little too dark.
The end results:
In the end I probably spent close to 100 hours on the Monados, not counting the amount of work I put into practicing enough to get good enough to start on them. I also learned a lot from just experimenting as I went along. I actually came up with a few of my own tricks that Bighead and the video tutorials never covered. Whether or not these tricks are the most efficient or the best for everyone, I can't say. And I think that's what Bighead is trying to say. He can link you to tutorials for you to see how stuff works, but everyone has their own style they develop, and patterns they see that help them get the work done.
Another point to make is that the environments are a totally different monster than weapons and armor. Not only do they have to look good and stay true to the original texture, but for the most part they have to be tiled perfectly so they all line up once they are tiled in game across a large area. Bighead himself did a lot of the environment stuff, but even he reached his limit with it. Bruno eventually came in and amazed us all with his talent and skill. I don't think we'll ever see anyone around here with the amount of talent he has doing those environments (although I'd be happy to be proven wrong ), and the dedication and care he takes with preserving the original aesthetics of the game environment. I don't know if he has been doing this stuff for a long time and has tons of experience or if he's just got some god given talent, or perhaps a combination of both. Either way, the work he does isn't going to be done by anyone else without whatever it is he has.
Basically this: what he does (and everyone else) can't simply be taught. If it could, everyone and their mom would be artists, graphics artists, etc. Paintings wouldn't be worth thousands to millions of dollars. It's a skill and a talent. People can't just show you how to do it. You need to have the vision, the experience, or just some sort of super power in order to pull this stuff off. People can show you how to use the tools and give you examples of how they work, but they can't show you how to make art.
The vast majority of my contribution to this pack has been dumping, testing various settings/textures/etc., and general slave driving . With dumps, either in the form of paletted textures (the 100,000 paletted textures in the now outdated Europe pack), or in the form of uploading what I now call "dump packs" back when there was tons of UI/misc. stuff left to do. Basically I would retexture simple UI stuff that was in the realm of my talent (which is almost non-existant compared to others around here), and then upload the dumped original game textures for people to take a crack at. Bighead and Echoes were the two guys that remade most of those textures. I was happy that the various parts of the game were coming together, and that I was able to help out in my own way. Basically posting stuff for other people that needed to be redone that I wasn't able to retexture myself. I was referred to a slave driver on numerous occasions. I don't know if they were serious, jokes, or half-jokes, but I kept posting what needed to be done and people kept making stuff. So I just rolled with it.
Eventually it came to a point when most of the UI was done, and then degasus fixed the paletted textures. People were having tons of problems loading in 100k textures so one of the devs (degasus) totally reworked the texture hash code (and is now permanently on my favorite people list) and got it so instead of 100,000 texture in a pack, we were down to around 3,000 and also eliminated the need for multiple region packs. With these fixes and with everyone else having their own special contributions: Narcku with his hair, eyes, faces, Echoes with his amazing UI and armor icons, Bighead with his very detailed maps and weapon icons, and both of them together creating Seven's speed armor set, I wanted to leave my mark.
A small sample of the type of stuff I mostly contributed the pack:
Spoiler:
Eventually I came up with the retextures of the official Monado I retexture, my optional Metal Monado, and I did about half the work for the official Monado II retexture (Bighead did the other half.) Bighead still had to shade the Metal Monado for me, and also worked on lightening up the official Monado I one for me since I made it a little too dark.
The end results:
Spoiler:
Another point to make is that the environments are a totally different monster than weapons and armor. Not only do they have to look good and stay true to the original texture, but for the most part they have to be tiled perfectly so they all line up once they are tiled in game across a large area. Bighead himself did a lot of the environment stuff, but even he reached his limit with it. Bruno eventually came in and amazed us all with his talent and skill. I don't think we'll ever see anyone around here with the amount of talent he has doing those environments (although I'd be happy to be proven wrong ), and the dedication and care he takes with preserving the original aesthetics of the game environment. I don't know if he has been doing this stuff for a long time and has tons of experience or if he's just got some god given talent, or perhaps a combination of both. Either way, the work he does isn't going to be done by anyone else without whatever it is he has.
Basically this: what he does (and everyone else) can't simply be taught. If it could, everyone and their mom would be artists, graphics artists, etc. Paintings wouldn't be worth thousands to millions of dollars. It's a skill and a talent. People can't just show you how to do it. You need to have the vision, the experience, or just some sort of super power in order to pull this stuff off. People can show you how to use the tools and give you examples of how they work, but they can't show you how to make art.