Topic: Moddelors Attention Please

[Kevin Arisa]

I am confused. I don't understand what the big fuss is about. You would think that the modelers would be pleased to see their work being enjoyed by someone, regardless of where and for what game it is being used. I mean, that is why they release stuff to begin with, right? I know that I have some of my own work floating around (for less well known games than the SFC series.) Whenever I see something familiar I'm like: "Hey look at that! Someone converted my starship into a starfighter! Never thought of that!" Sometimes people would use my stuff and not remember who made it. That's fine with me since I just release stuff for people to have fun with. The only thing that would bother me would be for someone else to claim credit for creating it. That is way wrong.

My point in all this being, I think a model converter is a great idea. It opens the door for so many great models to branch out into a much bigger world. I just never thought that it would cause so much of a fuss with people. Personally I would NOT want to know who is doing what with my stuff all the time. I guess it all comes down to one thing: Motivation. What is the modeler expecting from the community for his\her model? Is it something designed for the community to run off and have fun with? Or is it serious as if the model would somehow become tainted by any unauthorized change? The fact that someone would use your model for anything should be seen as the highest form of compliment and a source of pride. As long as your work is being enjoyed, what reason have you not to be happy?    

[Chris Jones]

I for one like the idea of the conversion tool, for my own use, but also see the potential for rip-offs. Example. I could take a newly created SFC ship, port it to BC, and release it myself in BC format.  That is just plain wrong. Having worked with models for SFC for about 3 years now I can tell you that if you do something like that, a good part of the community will come down on you, and your popularity will drop. This sort of thing will happen if you release this conversion tool. I have seen it happen without the conversion tool.

Captain Korah brings up a good point in his post. In theory, once a modeler releases something, it is then public domain. It is, however, common courtesy to ask the original modeler for permission to release something you have modified. If you don't release it, mod the hell out of it -- but if you do, and don't get the original author's blessing, you may find yourself without a lot of friends in the community.   There is another part of this. In some cases, modelers give permission to do anything you want to thier model, just so long as the original readme is included with the modified model -- and some give blanket permission to include their models in mods. I have permission from several modelers with regard to that.

In summary..

I would love to have a tool like this, and kudos to the people that have the talent to do it. If you convert something to another game and wish to release it in a mod or by itself, common courtesy and common sense dictates you contact the original author first. Chances are they will be honored you like thier ship so much to convert it in the 1st place, but you need to ask. If they say no, respect that and move on. Or make the ship yourself. I for one wish I had the time to sit down and learn max or lightwave.

There is potential for abuse of the tool, so I say any necessary precautions need to be taken. It is not a perfect world.

Chris Jones -- mod maker

[Bubba91873]

I for one am very new to sfc models.I've been working on converting sfc to a2 with max and milkshape and let me tell u it's not easy at all.
The biggest differences and the most difficulty is the there are alot more textures to work with in sfc as opposed to A2.
A2 model only have maybe 1-2 textures on average. Having alot of experiance in Armada 1 and 2 helps.And I have really gotten into Max only in the last month and a half.

Anything with more then 4 textures is very difficult to work with. I've treid all kinds of combinations from new textures from renders to combining all bitmaps into 1 or 2 tga's and remapping.

Hopefully with this tool, if they can do it, they may be able to place all textures into 1.That would be a Godsend.

I'm very pleased to see that in this debate cooler heads are prevailing.

Im the one responsible for taking it upon myself to go to every modding forum I could find and spread the word.

[Dizzy]

Hopefully, I can bring some perspective to the 'Modelers' who make them and the  'players' who play them and the 'kit bashers' who modify these fantastic models because I am a server designer/host.

These models are used in GSA and D2 for the enjoyment of those using them. However, in my case, I am using the models a few 'modelers' have made in order to enhance the game by offering new races and options for ships never before seen on D2. This adds a whole new elemt to playing the dynaverse...

For me, the 'right' to use these models is greatly appreciated. I can't tell you how thankful I am for Brezgonne making the Tholian models so I can have them as a playabe race in my next server. He took quite a bit of his time to craft them and now they will be used in unison for quite a few people on a collaborative effort to improving this game.

Now for me to change the textures, much like kitbashing the mod, and then calling it my own is reprehensible. It is theft of all the hard work and effort that originaslly went into it and a great disservice to the modeler and his time spent on it.

That being said, if a modeler wants to insure his hard work isnt credited to someone else who happened to change where a warp engine goes and wants to 'encrypt' their work from being kit bashed or modified, then by all means I support them.

Remember, that all they really want is credit. Thats all I want for hosting my next server should my ideas show up in future campaigns. I dont want Mr. X comming by and taking my ideas, changing a cpl things and saying its now his creation/idea.

I just want recognition for the work.

I am quite honestly positive that should a kitbasher want to modify someone elses work, then the modeler would be happy to allow it if they give credit where it is due. Should the control factor be encription, so be it.

Encription is just a way of saying, "Hey! I did all the hard work, give me credit!".

Do I make any sense?

 

[Lord Schtupp]

Look, I dont know how much simpler I can put it but I will try: Im not argueing about permission or rights. I am not argueing about file encrypition or any of that. My ONLY problem is that, in the arguments used in the creation of this debate, gameRevolt/CrisofBorg really has defined two groups of Modelers: Those who are for their models being converted and/or kitbashed (the ProMods-myself included), and Those who are not (the NoMods). IN MY OPINION The NoMods have been vilified by the pro-con arguments as set up by gameRevolt in the frost works thread, and I beleive that gameRevolt purposefully spun his pro-con points in such a way that a NoMod's position seem petty and greedy. I know this not to be the case. I support the NoMods, as the two that I know of I respect their abilities, and had convincing arguments for their positions.

Furthermore, this debate was about to erupt into another flame war, I could see that happening a mile away, as a couple other forum members have pointed out. Well the model forum has seen many of these, and they have mostly been started by outsiders. We all know the damage this can cause, otherwise I wouldnt care one wit about this subject. GameRevolt already has overwealming support (including mine) for this tool, so why create a debate about it?  Review posts #2 and 3 to see the direction that I saw this going: modeler vs. modeler.

 

Quote:
 I can't believe this... I am completely neutral. I argued both sides of the argument as strongly as I possibly could (so that the argument would be exagerrated, and I'd get better debate out of it) and consulted everyone I knew on my contact list to try and strengthen the argument on both sides. If I wanted to disrespect modellers and release this tool without consultation, I could have done it a long time ago. Everything relating to modelling so far I have released is to help modellers, and can't be used to reverse engineer (except the SFC import plugin for milkshape, but I only released this knowing that it had always been possible to do the same thing). With my AssimView I have gone out of the way to make it impossible to reverse convert models for the general public: I have gone out of my way to protect modellers interests. The fact is, I have had a constant flow of requests to undo this and release a tool that could convert things back. Likewise I have had requests to maintain security: which is why I am trying to get the opinion of those who matter most... the people who actually make the models. You'll notice in the poll I particularly made sure it was clear which votes are from modellers (the votes I will respect more) and which are not: I expected a big skew showing me that people who want the ability aren't modellers and just want to be able to mess with your work.

I know that you have contributed greatly to the hobby. I have no doubt that you have labored long and hard on everything that you have achieved.  But like it or not, this is what your debate has stirred. Well intentioned or not, your two sides of the debate are both presumptive and inflammitory to the modeling community.

Quote:
 "The true community knows the truth" -- You have completely flipped this argument. It was meant to be understood as "people who rip modellers off won't get away with it because fellow modellers will know who originated the model". I don't see anything extreme there. The + points mean "plus to releasing the tool" and the - means "against releasing the tool". Nothing else. + does not mean me. - does not mean me. You will notice I made a particular post in the thread after what I saw as an extreme "pro release" post to get someone with the opposite opinion to express it as strongly  

The entire sentence reads "Why can't modellers realise that the point is the process, and not the holding of bounty? The true community knows the truth, and you had fun making the models, and learned from it". My read on this is that the "Truth" that the true community knows about is that modelers are greedily withholding the rights or control of their creations in spite of already gaining experience, having fun, and not seeing that this "process" is the real commodity as opposed to the actual model itself. There is no way that your explaination can be extrapolated from the sentence you wrote, in or out of context.

 

Quote:
 -- if you (Lord Schtupp) were to concentrate on this rather than insulting me as a communist I would have a lot more respect for you.
 

Say what? I didnt call you a communist. I plainly labeled a statement as bordeline communistic, not the author as a communist.

 It is totally useless to argue if my position is not understood.
     

[Lord Schtupp]

 

Quote:
 I'm very pleased to see that in this debate cooler heads are prevailing.

 

I am so sorry to dissapoint you by my reappearence, but I fail to see anybody prevailing over anybody.  

[chrisofborg]

Quote:
I beleive that gameRevolt purposefully spun his pro-con points in such a way that a NoMod's position seem petty and greedy.

I did not, what more can I say?

Quote:

The entire sentence reads "Why can't modellers realise that the point is the process, and not the holding of bounty? The true community knows the truth, and you had fun making the models, and learned from it". My read on this is that the "Truth" that the true community knows about is that modelers are greedily withholding the rights or control of their creations in spite of already gaining experience, having fun, and not seeing that this "process" is the real commodity as opposed to the actual model itself. There is no way that your explaination can be extrapolated from the sentence you wrote, in or out of context.

It definitely can because what I wrote was two independant sentences (arguments) making up a whole counterpoint. I was being terse, and I did not mean for them, and did not conceive they would, be put together into a single point like you have understood them.

"Why can't modellers realise that the point is the process, and not the holding of bounty?" -- Argument A (purely isolated point about motivation)

"The true community knows the truth, and you had fun making the models, and learned from it" -- Argument B (about knowing the community [of modellers] knowing originator of the model, and other motivational points, showing that motivarion isn't lost)

They are not the same argument, and I apologise that in hindsight it could look that they go go together and cause offence. Even so, they are not arguments I agree with. At risk of showing some personal opinion, I will say that I do not believe it is anyones place to question the motivations of the authors of whose work you are interested in using.
 

[Cleeve]

Hmmm. The age-old topic.
A couple points:

1. PARAMOUNT OWNS STAR TREK, NOT OUR MODELS
If I make a perfect reproduction of the Enterprise, Paramount has no rights to it and can NOT use it without the modeller's permission. Nor would they try to without permission.
As for our use, it is considered "Art". There is some grey area there, but from what I've researched Paramount has no grounds to launch lawsuits against modeller's. That doesn't mean they CAN'T... I mean,  our legal system says we can launch a civil suit against anyone for anything. But to be successful in a civil suit, Paramount has to do a few things:

 - Prove our model is a copy of their intellectual property
 - Prove it has lost them revenue or damaged their reputation
 - Convince a judge that they have grounds for getting that revenue/damages from the modeller

Good luck convincing a judge of these 3 points when a modeller is handing out his models for free, or even charging a couple hundred bucks for them.
If you start making a TV show around your versions of stsr trek models, of course the judge is going to rule in favor of Paramount though. It's common sense.
And if I make a "star Trek" type ship, that doesn't look like any other star trek ship out there... do you think Paramount is going to successfully convince a judge that there are damages? Good luck! Not to mention that Paramount has learned what a PR nightmare messing with devoted fans can be, when they tried to enforce fan removal of trek materials in the early days of the internet...

2. DISTRIBUTING MODELS ON THE NET FOR DOWNLOAD DOES NOT INDICATE SURRENDER OF RIGHTS
Why do people think everything on the net is freeware? I can download a shareware program, does that make it free? I can download pictures of Anna Kournicova, does that mean I have the rights to reprint that photograph? Of course not.
All it means is that the creator has chosen to distribute their work for free. They still own it. And if someone uses it without their permission, they can be held accountable in civil court.
As with Paramount however, the onus is on the copyright holder (the modeller) to prove:

 - Prove the model is a copy of their intellectual property
 - Prove it has lost them revenue or damaged their reputation
 - Convince a judge that they have grounds for getting that revenue/damages from the content theif

Once again, probably not worth the legal costs to the modeller, especially since they weren't charging for their work in the first place.
They can easily prove that their reputation has been harmed if the kitbasher or converter did not mention thet they used their model in the first place. It's possible that a court might force the defendant to pay damages and a public admission that they stole the work. But what modeller is going to bother paying the legal costs for that? It's not going to happen.


So what can we conclude?
- no-one is going to enforce any copyright for star trek modelling unless it's brutally abused. Like featuring the model in a TV show.
- Modellers own their own work and can sell or distribute it without fear of legal repurcussion, while retaining rights
- People cannot legally kitbash without permission, but that's not going to stop them from doing so because it's pretty much uninforcable

But I've gotta say, a jackass who figures he can redistribute someone else's work without the simple courtesy of asking them should be drawn and quartered, or at least ostracized by the community.

[/end of rant]
 

[chrisofborg]

I think all that Cleeve said is correct and very well put. The grey area thing is a bit dodgy (what exactly counts as fair use), but its true that unless people really get under Paramounts nose that we are just fine (it applies to my work on the assimsoft game trilogy too).

[Captain KoraH]

I had written a long post about some recent replies, but I just can't condone even more pointless debate on this topic.

I will say that Cleeve is wrong about modelers owning their product. If you release the model in .mod format, then it belongs to the owner of that proprietary format, not you. A very similar war was waged in the courts over the .jpg image format a number of years ago, resulting in the creation of several alternative image formats. I will also say that Cleeve was right about surrender of rights. I must have been smoking something when I wrote that.

As for Anduril, I really hope you aren't part of the crowd that says nobody can modify their models. That would be a real shame.  

[anduril]

I'm sorry to say Cleeve, but thinking you have rights after releasing your model qualifies you as hypocritical too.

[chrisofborg]

This is getting very close to another level of explosion. This was never a legal argument and I urge that no law remarks follow. I only suggest that you all make up your own minds in private by studying the wordings on copyright law rather than speculating.

[Lord Schtupp]

 

Quote:
 "Why can't modellers realise that the point is the process, and not the holding of bounty?" -- Argument A (purely isolated point about motivation)

"The true community knows the truth, and you had fun making the models, and learned from it" -- Argument B (about knowing the community [of modellers] knowing originator of the model, and other motivational points, showing that motivarion isn't lost)

Fine. They should have been put into seperate points then, because it really seems that you had created 2 exclusive groups: modelers and the true community. You really should have not created a debate about it, only solicited opinions. But you specifically said you did not want "loose opinions" but a debate. In doing so, you have split modelers into two groups and set them against each other here. I will take everything that you have said at face value chris and retract any accustaions that I have made about you doing this on purpose, for that I'll offer an apology. Just try to realize that I am for modelers that have reasons to keep their models from being spead all over the universe and this debate, and this program, weigh in against them. I will not stand for another flame war here, espeacially one caused by any outside influences.

Ok now I would like to participate constructively on the real topic at hand  and would like to add this:  

The modelers are ultimately responsible for the policeing of their own material. Why should Assimsoft take it upon themselves to add encryption/decryption or watermarks when it can be subverted by somebody with a program like 3d MAX or lightwave? I can see it working if the potential thief only has milkshape or Assimview, but if he has a program that can import/export these model formats no protection will work, because the import plugin has not been written to recognize these features. One could save as 3ds and open up the file again, reexport and thus loose any watermark that might be embedded with the original file. I think that there would be ways to circumvent such protections. It may work some or even most of the time, but if isnt 100% solid, then modelers will still have to police their own material. Besides that, there is texture theft too, somthing that I cant see anybody doing anything to protect against.

So I say to Chris and assimsoft: Let the modelers police there own stuff and just have a disclaimer at program startup. If modelers want to retain rights to their models then its our responsibilty to police our creations. Public denouncement in the forums is a pretty good weapon against such abuse.
   

[Cleeve]

Quote:
I will say that Cleeve is wrong about modelers owning their product. If you release the model in .mod format, then it belongs to the owner of that proprietary format, not you. A very similar war was waged in the courts over the .jpg image format a number of years ago, resulting in the creation of several alternative image formats. I will also say that Cleeve was right about surrender of rights. I must have been smoking something when I wrote that.

Aha, but there's the difference.
Were talking about two separate things here: format, and intellectual property

Modeller's do not claim to own the MOD format. They own the 3d model stored in that format.

Taldren has every right to ask me not to release any more MODs. But they have absolutely no right themselves to use any MOD I have made, without my permission. Nor would they try to do so.

Nor do they have any intrinsic rights to the 3d studio MAX file I used to create it.

Similarly, the owners of the JPG format do not own every picture ever created in JPG format. They do have the right to stop someone from using the format, but they have no ownership right to the content created in that format.

Format and Intellectual property are very differerent things, you see...

But I'd like to add I respect you fellowes' opinions, but I simply have to disagree with them. I'm not trying to start a war, just offer some information I have researched along the way.    

[anduril]

It's not exploding Chris.  Cleeve has not doubt read through the thread and he knows where I'm coming from even without me putting a smiley after my last post.

[Cleeve]

Quote:
I'm sorry to say Cleeve, but thinking you have rights after releasing your model qualifies you as hypocritical too.  

Well, then I am no more hypocritical than any company that offers shareware and expects to retain the rights to the software, any recording artist that offers soundbytes on their website and assumes they still have rights to their song, and any photographer that offers samples on their website and assumes that the pictures are theirs.

I'm going to have to disagree with you on this one old friend... As a 3d artist, I am no different from a painter who allows their picture to be photographed and put in the newspaper. And if I see a photograph of an artist's picture in the newspaper, do I have the right to reprint it and devalue that artist's work? I don't think so.

No offence is taken, we are all adults here and can live with the idea of other people having different opinions than our own I think. Debate is healthy. But once again, I will add a smiley to the end of my post to denote goodwill:  

[Lord Schtupp]

Its not "exploding", not even close, there havnt been any four letter words yet. Thats when primary ignition commences...

[Captain KoraH]

Not sure why anyone would bother getting so upset over my opinion, but maybe my opinion matters more to people than I think it does

And Cleeve, even though we disagree on some issues, you are an awesome guy to debate with


I hope that Anduril doesn't get too pissed off at me the next time I ask his permission to use a model in something. Hehe!


No primary ignition yet, thank goodness.

Chris, just release the damn thing. It won't enable anything that isn't already possible. Just tell users to make sure to ask the author before they release to the public anything they convert with it. That should be plenty.  

[chrisofborg]

Quote:
 Fine. They should have been put into seperate points then, because it really seems that you had created 2 exclusive groups: modelers and the true community.

Modellers were always the "true community" (that is literally what I meant), and I am sorry my words were misunderstood. I will now edit this in, although it is of course rather late.

Quote:

You really should have not created a debate about it, only solicited opinions. But you specifically said you did not want "loose opinions" but a debate. In doing so, you have split modelers into two groups and set them against each other here.

I did not want to inadvertently cause a lot of trouble, so I decided to get a wide review. I still believe that I have a responsibilty not to create havoc with my programming, although I have been getting the impression from some that this is arrogant. I can't win really, at most abstain.

Quote:

Why should Assimsoft take it upon themselves to add encryption/decryption or watermarks when it can be subverted by somebody with a program like 3d MAX or lightwave?

A valid point I think.
 

[anduril]

Cleevey!  I'm shocked.

The "hypocritical" reference isn't mine.  You should know by now I love to lock in on someones words that happen to catch my attention and keep pinging on them.