Watermarking professionally...

Menstruosity

Ok well I'm as newbie as it gets in the professional 3D department as all the 'pro' graphic art I've ever done in the past was logos and websites, where watermarking by adding a simple layer may or may not have been looked down upon depending on the situation/client.

For the past year or so I've immersed myself in doing texture work and practicing digital painting in the hopes of getting enough experience while in school to pursue texture art professionally.

Some places where I practice is in IMVU and SecondLife that encouraged watermarking everywhere (all over the image) to avoid theft within said community. On the other side of this coin is you have a lot of texture theft going on (as well as display/profile picture art) by people who use an extractor to hack into the client and just pick out and resell whatever texture they want.

The problem with filing DMCA's is that there have been incidents where many thieves just file a false counter DMCA and IMVU for example says go and get a cease and desist letter without even bothering to accept layerable PSDs as proof. IMVU up until now does not do any actions for permanent bans. You are more likely to get disabled for 2 weeks for having a profile picture showing boob tape than you are having multiple DMCAs filed against you. In Second Life they get MAC address bans but it doesn't change that it's a long tedious process when a false counter DMCA is filed.

As I was browsing through here today I see a lot of work - some without even a single corner watermark, so I had a few questions in order to gain a better understanding of best practices:

#1 Do you always watermark your images visibly and how obviously, and if not, why not?

#2 Do you care or have you given up on thieves coming in here and snatching a few things especially the seamless textures?

#3 Have you guys ever tried the digital encryption in your personal work and is it something practical, per your experience, to use for metaverses such as IMVU and Second Life Sims etc.?

Here is an example of the extractor, which is pretty much making me reconsider texture artist as a career path:

http://youtu.be/wgZloxoOwWQ

http://youtu.be/jzeDx77IFaQ

Andreas

White middle class problems. You've painted the texture, you don't own it anyway, it'll belong to the studio, some teenager rips it from the game, uses it for something wholly inconsequential, the world keeps turning.

Watermarking your work if you are looking for work isn't a great idea, nobody does it, it just makes you look like you aren't savvy to how the games industry rolls at the moment.

Interesting to know a little about the tech though, thanks for posting the vid.

EarthQuake

I don't bother. Anyone who is so lazy as to steal my work isn't going to get far in life, its not really worth my time to worry about such people. Unless someone is selling full assets I've made or something, its just not a concern for me.

If I found someone had some of my art on thier site or something, I would send them an email, but thats about it.

Watermarks just serve to annoy the people viewing your work, and the last thing you want to do is put someone off who may potentially give you work because you've got a cheesy watermark on all of your images.

Instead simply add your website URL to the bottom of your images, so interested parties can easily save your work and refer back to your later. Plus an email address if you like.

Now, as far as IMVU and Secondlife is considered, I honestly wouldn't look at these at long term career paths. Want to make money as a texture artist? Get a job in a game studio. =D

IMVU's main goal is to sell as much shit as possible, they really don't care who made it, being diligent about taking down content just hurts their bottom line.

TortillaChips

Nah, firstly my work isn't good enough to steal and secondly it's purpose is to get a job not to sell, and basically what EQ said.

ZacD

EarthQuake wrote: »

Instead simply add your website URL to the bottom of your images, so interested parties can easily save your work and refer back to your later. Plus an email address if you like.

Also name your images properly on your website, if I download a cool picture from your site, and its called udklevel2.png, I'll have a hard time figuring out where I found it from.

Wells

i have never watermarked my art.

a quote on the topic i've always liked:

"Watermarks prove you care enough about your work to ruin it on your own oddly impotent terms."

Menstruosity

Yes.. now I properly feel like a newb but thanks for the advice! I shall go remake my portfolio now >_>;

One more question, would gaming studios even consider the work on IMVU or SL even noteworthy?

Bigjohn

Menstruosity wrote: »

Yes.. now I properly feel like a newb but thanks for the advice! I shall go remake my portfolio now >_>;

One more question, would gaming studios even consider the work on IMVU or SL even noteworthy?

Seriously doubt anyone would care.

Quality of work comes first. Then an added bonus if it's an actual shipped title.

Something being for a mod or one of those sites is pretty much the same as just personal work.

And yeah, I also think that watermarking your work makes no sense. Can even hurt you, as it feels a bit presumptuous.

greevar

This is a good reason to hold on to your original PSD files. If you have the actual textures in their non-flattened state, you can prove to anyone that you are the original creator. Anyone else will only have the files they extracted. That's the best you can do.

hawken

Watermarking always looks ugly and will not win you any fans, it's mostly performed by overzealous artists and photographers that people don't give two shits about anyway.

The best way is to have a small black bar no more than 10px tall at the bottom of your image with the url or your name on it, in an 8px pixel font in light grey. No fucker is going to mind that and it won't destroy any - if any - impact from the artwork.

Isaiah Sherman

If you steal someone's art and you're asked to do a commission / contract, you won't be able to accept the work because you could never do that quality of work in the first place.

Don't worry about people stealin' shiz. It won't get them anywhere. Don't watermark because it just looks cheesy. I only see it on professional photography, not on game art.

Joseph Silverman

You're not selling art, anyway, you're selling your ability to produce art. That can't really be stolen.

Amsterdam Hilton Hotel

Watermarking most things doesn't make much sense anyway, stealing a render won't make anybody any money and stealing a texture is useless without a corresponding model and UVs. The only thing it even makes sense to watermark would be the flats for a full-size tiling texture.

sprunghunt

if you're really concerned about it you could try using something like this:
http://www.garykessler.net/library/steganography.html

to hide a second message within the actual image itself.

I sometimes will put my name in the corner of a texture I've made but I doubt that would seriously stop someone from copying it.

ZacD

There are people that like to creatively embed a signature into their work where it cant be cropped out or easily covered up, I think that's a decent option if done tastefully.

kat

Haiasi wrote: »

If you steal someone's art and you're asked to do a commission / contract, you won't be able to accept the work because you could never do that quality of work in the first place.

Don't worry about people stealin' shiz. It won't get them anywhere. Don't watermark because it just looks cheesy. I only see it on professional photography, not on game art.

The people generally being referred to by the OP and their comments aren't in it to be better artists, it's about money, they *sell* other peoples work - it's an 'industry' in social media in the same way farming is for MMO's.

So on one hand, yes, water mark your work if it's being used in those mediums to at least minimise the amount of thievery and republishing. On the other, one can always present 'clean' artwork in portfolios.. there's nothing really stopping an artist from doing either/or/both as circumstance dictate.

I would say one thing here though, the industry is 'blind' to the work some people do in social media, and that's to their (the industries) detriment, particularly where texture artists are concerned

Mcejn

EarthQuake wrote: »

I don't bother. Anyone who is so lazy as to steal my work isn't going to get far in life, its not really worth my time to worry about such people. Unless someone is selling full assets I've made or something, its just not a concern for me.

Exactly how I feel.

Menstruosity

Amsterdam Hilton Hotel wrote: »

Watermarking most things doesn't make much sense anyway, stealing a render won't make anybody any money and stealing a texture is useless without a corresponding model and UVs. The only thing it even makes sense to watermark would be the flats for a full-size tiling texture.

Actually, I do make a small humble part time income from IMVU so when my boyfriend and my textures are extracted and resold.. by thieves who now run a credit<->USD exchange reseller, financially they make multiples of what we make... in USD

..but I digress, when false counter DMCA's are filed and IMVU doesn't care to look at facts like layerable PSDs, that's where I am at now with frustration and hence this post.

Vailias

Its cool that you are making cash off those programs. The trouble of course is that the texture goes with existing model content so the rips and resells can cost you money.

There is zero way around this if your adversaries are tech savvy enough.
Best initial suggestion is to not display your full textures for those communities in any form. Just show screenshots of them on the model.
Even watermarking isn't foolproof. A savvy photoshop user can de-watermark it enough to make a derivitave unless your marking is SO obtuse that it renders your original texture unusable anyway.
Plus there are programs out there to directly rip gpu memory for models and or textures.

You're dealing with a poorly run and vetted business model, and your solutions may be on the order of "steal better"; deal with the rats; or just find a new forum for your talents.

If you are actually getting some cash out of it then keep at it and keep on filing your copyright claims.

Ghostscape

Menstruosity wrote: »

so when my boyfriend and my textures are extracted and resold

Stealing textures is one thing, but the fact that they're stealing your boyfriend too is really sad

greevar

You're not going to win this, I'm afraid. It's too easy to get access to digital art and you can't stop it because any arguably effective measures run afoul of violating people's inalienable rights (i.e. free speech). The only thing you really can do is just change the way your art gets you paid. Create a new revenue stream for your art that bypasses the issue. Basically, if you're selling copies, you're going to lose. You can sell your services as a texture artist (like in a studio, like EQ said) and get paid to make art, rather than try to get paid for art you've already made. The difference is between selling a scarce good (labor) and an abundant good (copies). The abundant good is impossible to restrict, but labor is completely under your at-will control. So, in short, just change your strategy so that their copying and selling doesn't really impact you.

leilei

Menstruosity wrote: »

One more question, would gaming studios even consider the work on IMVU or SL even noteworthy?

Doubt it, as the base model has some of the worst UV maps ever and the market is driven by impulse materialism and the uncanny valley. It'd probably hurt your portfolio more than benefit it. It'd be like having a modified Hatsune Miku MMD model in your portfolio as your own work.

I'd say scrap all this 3D social crap and focus as a contributing artist for game mods or standalone games instead, that way you're not involved in some shady materialism filled market to get ripped off of. Criminals WILL be persistent and create alts after suspension though, there was this one Lineage 2 ripoffing guy on IMVU that was discussed on Polycount years ago. It's going to be a never-ending cycle with that. Not to mention there's mods that rip off other mods that are often noticed and fingerwaved immediately by the public (Assuming if they know better).

I wish some sites cared about things like this. Copyright lenience to the backseat is quite embarrassing from a corporate standpoint. Ignorance is bliss?