Topic: Your models are being ported to another game by others. Are you being credited?

[Dizzy]

A player by the name of Atrocities is the second person to come out with a ST mod (called shipsets) for the game Space Empires V using models by taldren and our community members here. I railed on Necromancer3 for not being accurate and detailed enough as he did the 1st ST port. Atrocities used a coped credit from Necromancer3's shipset for his own and further muddied up the credits... If this continues, as I'm sure it will, shipset designers steal from other's work, credits will get so confusing that either you guys will be omitted or credited for the wrong stuff.

It pissed me off how Necromancer3 did his credits and I mouthed off on that to seemingly no effect and there went Atrocities doing the same thing... Perhaps we should share ideas on what sort of response we should make if any on their forums. I mean... I dont have a problem with my stuff ported to another game and used as long as everyone knows that that particular model was done by me and the credits better damned be accurate. Who knows how you guys feel... but I felt I should bring it to your attention.

Edit here's the link to the Atrocities shipset: http://www.spaceempires5.com/en-US/node/2384

And here's the link where you can track down Necromancer3's shipset: http://www.spaceempires5.com/en-US/node/1729 There's another link in that thread somewhere in the 1st few posts that take you to the D/L at another space empires site.

[intermech]

I do NOT mind if people use my stuff in other games and NOT credit me. I DO mind if they skew my model up and DO use my name.

[Smiley]

I just had a look at the FedTNG file that he had uploaded. Some of the renders look a bit dodgy, but then he's just gone away and used some other guy's "ship set" as stated before - don't see why though as the renders are, as I said, very dodgy! (Half of them don't even have textures applied to the models... I hope that this is not normal for this game!)

You'd think if someone went to all that trouble of making some kind of modification, that they would want it to look as polished as possible, so as to reflect well on themselves and their abilities. This just looks like a half-assed job to me. Bleh.

[Kana]

In AT's defense, his main modeling knowledge is tied up in a program called DoGA.  Basically its a cookie cutter, lego like modelling program.   He currently has a copy of Ultimate Unwrap 3d, and I believe Milkshape.   He is currently learning how to import MOD files, and get them to export to a usable Direct X 7 file.   This is the format that the game Space Empires V uses.   There are some funky things that either DX7 or the game does to the textures, and also the display of engine glows and scale.   So it is taking some experimenting for the modders to get the whole process down.   

As for crediting and such, I'm sure that AT will have a text file crediting model authors if said model comes with a text file saying who is the author of the model.   That way he can give proper credit.   If you see a model he is using, I'm sure he wouldn't mind if you contact him, and tell that it is your model so that he can give you proper credit.

Other than this, I reserver the right for AT to be able to defend himself here in person.   And I beliveve that Dizzy has cross-board ambushed him on this issue.

[Smiley]

Even a screen shot from Ultimate Unwrap would look better than some of those images in the zip I downloaded. I hope that this does not come across as bashing the guy, I'm just surprised that he would release something so ... incomplete?

[Dizzy]

I havent talked to atrocities on this one. I have complimented his work on previous shipsets for SEIV, but it seems he was using screenshots of models made here for those and never mentioned that... irksome.

Anyways I just hope someone of atrocities stature in the SEV community does the right thing and give proper credit that is detailed and exact for each and every model included in the shipset. Anything less is an insult to modelers, no less than theft of intellectual property and grossly irresponsible for a leader of the shipset community as such he is.

As far as ambushing, things arnt there yet but readmes continue to be incomplete, dodgy and vague and you will see cross board flame threads that I'll make sure drown both boards. That's a promise.

[atheorhaven]

Make me the rabid dog on this one I guess..

I have problems when someone uses something I did work on and then claims that work as their own.  Downloaded the packages, and there is Redragon's Nova (it appears to be his) in there, that I'd ported over for him.

Pretty sure that if I check with Luan, he'd not have been talked to on it either.

And that's precisely why I had pulled out of modelling anything for a month a few years back.. stuff I'd worked on (including custom textures) was ported to Bridge Commander and then all credit was being taken by the Bridge Commander porter(s).

If I use previously existing textures, I credit the people whose work I use as a base.  If I use a ship in a kitbash, I credit those people as well.

And if someone is porting over stuff without credit to the original work, that just cheeses me off.  It's completely pre-pubescent and is disrespectful to the original effort used to credit the base textures and mesh.

If that is Redragon's Nova.. I certainly don't see his name anywhere on it, and if it was pulled from the SFC mesh, I don't see mine either..

[Smiley]

The following is taken from the readme.txt file from the FedTNG.zip archive:

======================
Thanks Go to:
======================

Necromancer3

Race Portrait:      Unknown
Emblem:         Microprose (BOTF)

Flags:         David Gervais
Slot Lay Out:      President Elect Shang
SE V Models:      Malfador/SFI
Top Down Slot Images:   Atrocities - using DOGA L3 Modeler

Ship Models:
Akira        by:   Redragon
Galaxy        by:    Redragon
Intripid    by:    Redragon & DHomeworld/Ggogo
New Orleans     by:    Redragon
Nova Model    by:    Reddragon
Sovereign     by:    TheStressPuppy   

Also - Notes from Necromancer3's TMP set:
Interplay
Taldren
Chris Jones
Pneumonic81
JST Online and the SOA Homeworld Mod Team.

======================
Special Thanks To:
======================

Aaron Hall    for a wonderful game!!!
Necromancer3   for getting the ball rolling - and for the use of his TMP set files
David Gervais   for his wonderful art work - Flags.
shinigami    for his help
Suicide Junkie   for his help
PE Shang   for his help
Fyron      for his help
Kwok      for his help
Shrapnel Games   for allowing me to post this on their forum
SE.net      for supporting the SE V community (www.spaceempires.net)
SFI      for publishing the SE V.


======================
Revisions:
======================
1.0 - Original Release
1.1 - Fixed Mixing Slots / Replaced Race Portraits / Added AI General and Design Name files
1.2 - Fixed Slot layout / Replaced Flags / Reset firing points / replaced Inv. Top Down images.


======================
Disclaimers:
======================

I am in no way claiming ownership of any files located in this mod other than this readme file and any additional installation instructions (if provided).

I cannot be held responsible for any damage, loss of data, or corruption of files caused by the use of this mod. It is recommended that all files are scanned for viruses before use.

I wish to stress that this Ship Set was made by a 3rd party author and that I have played no role whatsoever in The construction of the ships included here in.

EDIT: I've just taken a look at the models, and boy - do these things actually work in-game??? Half of them are rotated 90 degrees on the X axis so that they are pointing up in the air, half of them are not - not to mention that several of the models appear to have doubled meshes with the clone's normals having the inverse properties of the original mesh... :-S

[Rod ONeal]

I dl'd one of the shipsets. (Rom) I could see that an honest attempt was made at crediting. As the above post shows as well. At least he made a real good effort at not taking credit others work. I see "absence of malice" here.
If you download models made by this community though you'll generally see a much more complete list of credits than is supplied with the "condensed" version above. What needs to be done, IMO, is to get a general acceptance that readmes already included with models stay with the models permenantly!!! Don't ever, ever, ever... remove a pre-existing readme. Slight renaming might be needed to keep all readmes with the model, but that's it. They don't take up much HD space or add to the download enough to matter.
As a general note, I hate the "Stuff it all in one folder because they share textures" approach that these model packs at least the one I DL'd) use. If they made a proper installer (even the one by clickteam, which requires no coding skill.) they could keep stuff in it's own folder and not have duplicate textures saved. The installer is smart enough to only save it once and write it as many times as needed. That's just me though, I guess.

[S31-Riptide]

I have problems when someone uses something I did work on and then claims that work as their own.

No offense, but how would Paramount/CBS feel about there work/concepts used in ST modeling.  Honest question.  The guy is trying to give proper acknowledgement to all.  Stop being so darn quick to jump down people throats... PLEASE!  Can't we all share the same sandbox?

[Dizzy]

The guy is trying to give proper acknowledgement to all.  Stop being so darn quick to jump down people throats... PLEASE!  Can't we all share the same sandbox?

The two guys screwed up the readmes. Like said above, the readmes on each model should just be copied and pasted into every new zip so no one's name gets left behind. Easy. And no, use your own sandbox.

[atheorhaven]

I have problems when someone uses something I did work on and then claims that work as their own.

No offense, but how would Paramount/CBS feel about there work/concepts used in ST modeling.  Honest question.  The guy is trying to give proper acknowledgement to all.  Stop being so darn quick to jump down people throats... PLEASE!  Can't we all share the same sandbox?

My mistake for not finding those credits on a cursory glance.. but I am sensitive to not being credited for custom work.  And on the SFC release of the Nova, I had reworked some of Redragon's textures to clean them up a bit.

Again, I'd been burned in the past with people taking credit for my work.. and if you check out the gallery I have up on Picassa, I've done a lot of work.  :p

[S31-Riptide]

The guy is trying to give proper acknowledgement to all.  Stop being so darn quick to jump down people throats... PLEASE!  Can't we all share the same sandbox?

The two guys screwed up the readmes. Like said above, the readmes on each model should just be copied and pasted into every new zip so no one's name gets left behind. Easy. And no, use your own sandbox.

Such a loving bunch.  WE NEED ABSOLUTE PERFECTION EVERY TIME!!!  wait... not all your models are perfect... not all my mods are perfect... they screw up... we screw up...  Blah blah blah... fell on deaf ears again with a little compasion and common sense.

[Smiley]

The guy is trying to give proper acknowledgement to all.  Stop being so darn quick to jump down people throats... PLEASE!  Can't we all share the same sandbox?

The two guys screwed up the readmes. Like said above, the readmes on each model should just be copied and pasted into every new zip so no one's name gets left behind. Easy. And no, use your own sandbox.

Such a loving bunch.  WE NEED ABSOLUTE PERFECTION EVERY TIME!!!  wait... not all your models are perfect... not all my mods are perfect... they screw up... we screw up...  Blah blah blah... fell on deaf ears again with a little compasion and common sense.

The difference being that they are our models to screw up. "Such a loving bunch" - that's generalisation.

[Dizzy]

WE NEED ABSOLUTE PERFECTION EVERY TIME!!!

What'd be perfect would be to have the readme from each model used included in the new D/Led shipset so everyone knows precisely who did what.

You have a flair for the dramatic and arnt helping things... You are about to get a STFU.

[Magnum357]

I'm curious Dizzy, what is "STFU"?  I've heard of it before, but don't know what it is.

BTW, I have played the Demo of SE5.  I plan to get the game aswell once some of the major bugs are fixed.

[GotAFarmYet?]

STFU = Shut the fu*k up

[Dizzy]

  I plan to get the game aswell once some of the major bugs are fixed.

You can get it now. The 1.25 patch squashes all the game stoppers. Not much left to patch., Most serious issue I see is the combat ground simulator wont allow you to add enemy units for simulations testing. Pretty minor stuff left to patch now.

[Star Dragon]

I hope you smoothed things with Atrocities. If roles were reversed it would be akin to someone comming here asking about ATOLM, Yourself, or Chris Jones...

I've delt with him once in regards to SE4 modding and he seems up and up.


I did try the SE5 demo in the beginning and God it sucked... I haven't looked into modding it cause I wanted to someday finish by SE4 mods before learning yet another game (se4 only uses IMAGES of models, not the models themselves)...


As for porters... Credit for making format B from fomat A??? That's nice, BUT credit must always go the the people who did the REAL work, namely the mesh artist and or additional people like texturers (if it wasn't the artist themself)...

One final comment. Would it kill people to use the ship's title instead or in addtion to "read me"? I find myself now going back and doing just that!!!! In fact I devised a system (for example only) like instead of having 3 soverigns with just read me, they are listed by name AND sorce, ie:

Soverign-BC-Read Me
Soverign-A2-Read Me
Soverign-SFC-Read me

or hell you could use the artist's NAME instead of Read ME.

Ktinga-SFC-Red Dragon... Soulwolf-BC-ATOLM... It's STILL the same Read Me, just makes it easier for people to track or store if they do the mass Read Me thing (like myself)... Now that I have access to my old HD again I am recompiling two drives libraries onto one...

Just a suggestion... Please take it with a grain of salt.

[Dizzy]

I hope you smoothed things with Atrocities.
Just a suggestion... Please take it with a grain of salt.

Let me tell you something about Atrocities. I am a total fan of the shipsets he has done. He is a major contributor to the game. His SEIV shipsets were stellar. I critiqued him on his source for the photos, but that's about it... His jobs are 1st class all the way. Now about him personally, he's nice, humble and puts most to shame in the character department. He's an up and up dude. In fact, I have not heard of anyone ever saying anything bad, only good stuff about him.

Now you can easily get the wrong impression of him from my 1st post. Seems I come out swinging. I do. Cuz he and necromancer3 figure into this as the 1st two I know of to do it. Since this credit issue with models is just starting, it's good to go tackle the issue NOW than later for obvious reasons. I hope all who do shipsets in the future simply start including the readmes that happen to come with the models they are using. If their shipset ends up with 20 readmes, hey that's great, they'll be no doubt who did what. So DONT get the wrong impression from my opening. It's about shipsets and credits, not atrocities. Read the post title. And thanks for the comments, Star Dragon.