# Asset packs and attribution

The packs themselves are **not in git** (see
[`assetpacks/README.md`](../assetpacks/README.md)), which means their bundled
licence files are not either. This file is the record that survives. Keep it
current when a pack is added or removed.

## How assets get from a pack into the game

`assetpacks/` carries a `.gdignore`, so Godot skips it entirely — nothing there
can be referenced from a scene or script. Files are copied into `res://assets/`
in game-ready form, and only then imported. The tree is 3.9 GB and
`tools/check.sh` runs `--import`, which would otherwise walk all of it every run.

What is in the game today totals **548 KB** across seven files: three sprite
sheets and four sounds. Sprite rects and sound paths are all declared in one
place, [src/view/art.gd](../src/view/art.gd), and
`tests/unit/test_art.gd` asserts every rect lands inside its texture — a wrong
atlas coordinate does not error, it silently draws the wrong pixels.

## Licence findings

Checked against each pack's itch.io page. **Two of the four forbid
redistribution**, which is what publishing a repository containing them would
be — so they are not in the repository.

| Pack | Licence | Commercial | Credit | In this repo? |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| [0x72 DungeonTileset II](https://0x72.itch.io/dungeontileset-ii) | **CC0 1.0** (public domain) | Yes | Not required | **Yes** — `assets/sprites/dungeon_tileset.png` |
| [Helton Yan Pixel Combat](https://heltonyan.itch.io/pixelcombat) | **CC BY 4.0** | Yes | **Required** | **Yes** — `assets/audio/sfx/` |
| [Fire Pixel Bullet 16x16](https://bdragon1727.itch.io/fire-pixel-bullet-16x16) | Custom | Free tier non-commercial; **paid tier allows commercial** | Encouraged | **No, at any tier** — local only |
| [750+ Effect and FX Pixel All](https://bdragon1727.itch.io/750-effect-and-fx-pixel-all) | Custom | Free tier non-commercial; **paid tier allows commercial** | Encouraged | **No, at any tier** — local only |

### The blocking clause

Both bdragon1727 packs state, verbatim:

> **You cannot do:** Resell / redistribute this asset.

And the paid tier of the FX pack is no better for this purpose:

> You can NOT re-distribute the file, no matter how much you modify it you can
> use it but not share or re-sell it.

Putting those files in a public repository distributes them to everyone who
clones it, which is squarely what that forbids. Paying for the commercial tier
does **not** unlock it — the restriction survives payment and survives
modification.

So they live in `assets/local/`, which is gitignored. `Art.bullets_texture()`
and `Art.impact_texture()` load them at runtime if present and return null if
not; the bullet renderer falls back to a generated dot. Verified both ways: with
the files present the game uses them, and with them hidden the suite still
passes 156/156 and the game runs.

This is also why nothing there may be `preload()`ed — `preload` resolves at
compile time and would fail the build on every machine that lacks the files.

### Two obligations this creates

1. **Helton Yan's CC BY 4.0 requires attribution**, and it is not satisfied by
   a file in the source tree once the game ships. Players need to be able to
   see it. [CREDITS.md](../CREDITS.md) records it for now; an in-game credits
   screen is a todo.
2. **Both bdragon packs are non-commercial in their free tier.** Buying the
   full tier *does* fix that — confirmed verbatim from the FX pack's paid
   licence: "You may use these assets in personal, commercial or
   non-commercial projects."

   It does **not** fix the repository problem. The paid licence's very next
   sentence is: "You can NOT re-distribute the file, no matter how much you
   modify it you can use it but not share or re-sell it." Redistribution is
   forbidden at every tier, so paying moves these assets from
   *local-only-and-non-commercial* to *local-only-and-commercial*. They cannot
   be committed to a public repo at any price.

   The only route that puts bullet and FX art back into the repository is
   replacing it with something permissive (CC0, or CC BY with attribution),
   which would also remove the local-asset fallback machinery.

### Not in use

`assetpacks/considering_dont_use_yet/` is the "not chosen" marker and nothing
there is referenced. It contains RF Catacombs v1.0 (public domain per its
bundled `public-license.txt` — free for personal or commercial use, credit
appreciated, no reselling; artwork by Szadi art), plus Tiny RPG Character Pack
02 and neo_zero demos, whose terms are unrecorded.

## Converting audio before use

Helton Yan's pack is 24-bit / 96 kHz stereo — studio masters, averaging ~2 MB
per file and 5 MB at the largest. That is roughly a hundred times what a game
needs for a gunshot.

Downsample to 16-bit / 44.1 kHz mono before copying anything into
`res://assets/`. Godot imports `.wav` losslessly and keeps it in memory
uncompressed for low-latency playback, so the source format is what you pay for
in RAM and in export size.

## Where converted assets go

`res://assets/`, which is committed and imported. See
[`assets/README.md`](../assets/README.md). Art is Stage 2 in
[ROADMAP.md](ROADMAP.md); everything currently on screen is drawn from
primitives plus one runtime-generated dot texture.

## Placeholder art worth revisiting

- **Warden's Ration** draws as a gold flask (`Art.ITEM_ICONS[1]`). The 0x72
  tileset has no food sprite, and the item is deliberately useless flavour, so a
  recoloured flask stands in until the art pass. It reads as a potion, which is
  the wrong thing for it to read as.