ok everyone, theres a crime of sorts going on...
ngon master
basically, some jerkoff decided it would be fun to rip a load of models from another mod, and call them his own. we found out. and decided to inform the public.
but now theres an argument going on, and they think we will say anything cos we are biased. so. im gonna post the shots we made to show the comparisons. i would like your expert oppinions, on how similar these models are. and if you believe or not, that they are the same.
thanks for your time friends.
http://members.rogers.com/optimusprime/shenron.jpg http://members.rogers.com/optimusprime/shenron2.jpg http://members.rogers.com/optimusprime/goku.jpg
http://members.rogers.com/optimusprime/vegeta.jpg http://members.rogers.com/optimusprime/gohan.jpg http://members.rogers.com/optimusprime/piccolo.jpg
feel free to comment how you wish. if you wish to comment on the forum we are debating this in. here is the link
http://www.wc3campaigns.com/showthread.php?t=58601&page=87&pp=25
but now theres an argument going on, and they think we will say anything cos we are biased. so. im gonna post the shots we made to show the comparisons. i would like your expert oppinions, on how similar these models are. and if you believe or not, that they are the same.
thanks for your time friends.
http://members.rogers.com/optimusprime/shenron.jpg http://members.rogers.com/optimusprime/shenron2.jpg http://members.rogers.com/optimusprime/goku.jpg
http://members.rogers.com/optimusprime/vegeta.jpg http://members.rogers.com/optimusprime/gohan.jpg http://members.rogers.com/optimusprime/piccolo.jpg
feel free to comment how you wish. if you wish to comment on the forum we are debating this in. here is the link
http://www.wc3campaigns.com/showthread.php?t=58601&page=87&pp=25
Replies
Goku = Blatant rip. Same texture seams and shading.
Vegeta = Fairly obvious rip. The texture is identical but the model proportions look different, like someone's tweaked them.
Gohan = Blatant rip. Identical texture and proportions.
Piccolo = Blatant rip. Same as above.
It's always annoying when this stuff happens. Just find out if any of your modellers have incremental saves of when they were working on the models, so you could post screenshots of "progress" of modelling in Max or Maya or whatever. They won't be able to provide the same, and the argument will be resolved.
They cannot argue that the models are the same because they are based on the same characters - these are IDENTICAL, right down to the shading style and UV seams. Different modellers do UV's in different ways, so even if the mesh was identical I'd expect to see distortion/seams in different places, and slightly different shading.
MoP
i dont know. it sucks ass. those whores need to be punished!
but i think a big discussion doesnt do a thing. as weve seen in the past. however sorry for it
i totally agree with mop i think a kid can see the similarity
one more thought. i cannot understand how people can do this. as weve seen before it all gets uncovered
i have not the sleightest understanding for this.
One thing id suggest though - be consistent in which side you put your work, and which side the accused "work" is on. I got confused part way through - but then i started looking for the lower res-crappier models as the rip
instead of turning it into a flame war, id suggest emailing the guy/people involved with this mod, and suggest to help them rather than piss them off. Maybe even provide them with non crappy War3 imports (im guessing this is a War3 mod, the UI is the NE UI.. and i remember the War3 exporters to do fucked up things).
//edit
nm, read some of the war3 mods site - heh, the 88 fucking pages of it....
Shenron and Goku are MY models and textures....I built them for ESF a few years ago.
What a weiner
I'm on your side on this one. They are blatant rips... You're right he should be punished, but untill there are art police for free mods I really don't think thats going to happen hehe. You've given him alot of torment already anyway. Just keep on doing what your doing... eventualy he'll crack. even if he dosn't you've done the damage anyway, his community knows he's in the wrong. If the team didn't know before they know now. It'll rot from the inside out and the outside in. Even if it dosn't you're modeler has proof that he made them. They are in his portfolio probobly and that's all that really matters.
Good luck...
so when your modeling something that you maybe shouldn't be modeling in the first place, which probably breaks some kind of copyright somewhere, do you even have a shred of legal protection if someone wants to steel your mesh?
hopefuly the dragon ball communities won't tollerate this.
although, if you're getting even a shred of argument from anyone as to weither these models are a rip, you're dealing with fucking idiots.
What it comes down to even if the character is a representation of a character undersomeone else's copyright... its still your work that went into doing the model. You should credit the artist that came up with the original character. The people who then copy your work should credit you and the original artist... sort of a chain. Don't you think? We're talking about mods here. Not real world game development.
either way.. legal shit aside, it's a question of respect and decency..
Well sure, it's not copyright infringement. You don't really have copyright on anything you create, unless you get a copyright license on it. These people still should have given me credit, as well as the other modelers and artists on the ESF team. I think it's rather funny though, that they stole crappy models from us, that are over 3 years old. In any case, it's a matter of giving credit where credit is due.
[/ QUOTE ]
Actually i think you get copyright automatically. Thats why you can put commercial art (you did) in your portofilio (after the NDA expires ofcourse).
Well ripping and copying is basicly where the whole dbz mod scene is all about. Same characters, same people everywhere. And a lot of very young kids who want to get a status of top dbz mod artist asap. I wouldn't take this too serious. The characters arn't the idea and copyright of ESF even.
[/ QUOTE ]
Yeah JB, I remember back like 4 years ago at the BFP editing boards, it got the extent were people wouldn't even post SDKs for fear of their work being stolen. I even remember I decided to help a mod out and about 80% of there models were rips from the models here, all I remember was a Magdalena model with some tweaking to resemble one of the monsters from DBZ. I quit that team of course...
My work has been stolen before(and it was a DBZ model), I don't care too much, seeing how when I look back at it, the model was crap anyway...haha
1) ARGH THEY RIPPED ME OFF!
2) well... they liked it enough to use it.
3) UHG... they could have credited me thats irritating.
4) whatever, that was a long time ago and it sucks. I've grown since then.
Vassago: I guess then thing to is just let it roll off your back. If they stole your models that means they won't have any new content because they couldn't match the quality of your work. They will fizzle out soon enough.
but gir joo! i dont think really needed 2 be posted here
theirs
mr.smo's
edit: it's also so obvious that they changed the polies around before presenting it to you. some of the shadows will be different when smoothed then how they look ingame.
also ask the guy to show it with the skin on, and the wireframe overlay on it, then you'll see how he changed it.
The angle of the head is very different, the general body proportions and pose are fairly different too.
TBH I think with that example, it'd probably be just as easy to make a new mesh as grab one of yours and weld about half the verts (the polygon count on theirs is MUCH lower, and I can't really see what you mean by the "polyflow is identical" - it looks fairly different to me).
That said, the example screenshot with the textures you posted earlier does look very similar indeed - maybe they used their own models but copy + pasted someone else's skin?
That wireframe shot there is definitely not "proof", though. Any modeller working from the same references will usually produce a pretty similar result, if they're sticking closely to the reference material.
I remember when Hawkprey posted his "Tweaky" and "Tweaky Mom" character sheets, and a load of modellers all made meshes based on those - the different meshes all had identical proportions and styles, but the mesh construction was slightly different in each case. I would definitely not be 100% sure if this was a stolen mesh or merely one created with the same references (or the other mesh used as reference).
Ask to see the UV layout and texture flats, that should prove it. Seems to me the textures are the most obviously stolen things in the case of Gohan here.
MoP
edit: which was also made by smo.
edit2: not made by smo, but by azn
lol found it. Now we know what an idiot they really are. I've finally gained the wisdom to recognize models without their skins. yay!!
now we know they really did rip it.
I built and textured Goku, Cell1, Cell2, Freiza and Shenron for ESF. I'll try to dig up the 20-some-odd files of Goku I have.
ok well...they are still denying it. so, weve started comparing wireframes. now, the wireframes show (from what i can see) that the polyflow is identical. just some verts have been welded here and there. but ill leave it to you guys.
theirs
[/ QUOTE ]
i might be blind, but the two pictures presented to me look like totally different models build from the same concept....
reading this whole tread, i'm just temped to make some LOWpoly torayama models for free use myself, with a bit of practice, it could take a modeler about 4 hours to model a dragon ball character, and with a bit of talent, you could get the hair as well...
i don't think there is a crime here, just people failing to learn/improve...
/wisdom
There's a difference between outright theft, and basing a design on an existing character. Are you suggesting that if I make a clay model of Gollum based on reference pictures from the LotR movies, then I'm stealing?
It's not just the copyright that's being stolen in this case, it's the digital (or physical) work itself.
MoP