E&E copyright discussion

Guessmyname · Post by **Guessmyname** » 10 Apr 2006, 22:36

TA3D is a clone of Total Annihilation but in real 3D using OpenGl. TA3D is currently developped under linux and there will be no Windows port until TA3D become something playable. Therefore TA3D is optimised for linux and requires(version 0.1.0):

There exact words. In other words, Not done yet.

Dizzy 125 wrote:Well, this project now appears to be at v0.11, and now has Winows binaries to go with the Linux ones.

Drone_Fragger · Post by **Drone_Fragger** » 10 Apr 2006, 22:48

They said it themselves. Not playable.

Guessmyname · Post by **Guessmyname** » 10 Apr 2006, 23:06

It doesn't matter if its playable. You were saying that Spring is the only New TA engine made. It isn't: TA:3D is another.

zwzsg · Post by **zwzsg** » 11 Apr 2006, 02:34

Zaphod wrote:If someone has the intention of providing a set of new textures, I could extend by 3do util to change a list of texture names to another list of texture names...

OMG, I need that! (but if it is in UpSpring, you'll have to fix the bug with UpSpring turning half of the faces into groundplate first.)

Argh · Post by **Argh** » 11 Apr 2006, 03:30

... just because I feel like being annoying... don't take this as a flame, please- I like that E&E is trying to bring us a new game design, and I appreciate the work being put into the mod.

1. Making a new set of textures would not be herculean. They're just 64/64 bitmaps, for the most part, not really hard to do, and Spring can use 24-bit color, reflections, and glowmaps- I dunno why people aren't jumping all over that opportunity, myself. All somebody needs to do is make them, use a Photoshop Action to dither them all down to OTA's palette and make a big GAF file so that the team could work with them. The hard part is making the textures in the first place, really- after that, it'd be a piece of cake. I built some enormous GAFs (I am afraid these files are probably not available any more, but do a search on TAU for the topic "TA: Colors" to see if you can find it- I don't think I archived this experiment on my machine, and I'm not sure it's on my website any more, though, as nobody bothered to look at what I was doing at the time), and it's really not hard to make big GAFs.

I am really surprised nobody is bothering, when we could have reworked textures pretty easily. Not only that, but... since we don't need the "shades" for the fake-shadow effects... that could free up about 200 of the squares. Really, guys, it's about damn time. Get somebody working on this. And no, I'm not volunteering, because aside from explosions being borked and a few other un-optimized areas, S3O is already superior to 3DO.

2. NanoBlobs will be 100% totally legal on the next release. The only dependent files left were the sounds, which I am in the process of replacing

Decimator · Post by **Decimator** » 11 Apr 2006, 05:17

Ripped this out of Fang's thread since it was cluttering it up.

Drone_Fragger · Post by **Drone_Fragger** » 11 Apr 2006, 10:48

The decimator knows all.

Warlord Zsinj · Post by **Warlord Zsinj** » 11 Apr 2006, 17:00

SWS has all new textures, and we are working on making soundfiles independent too.

Only legal issues we have are with the Star Wars universe, which in my opinion is a non-issue, given the not-for-profit nature, the relative obscurity, the numerous other Star Wars modifications, and Lucasarts track record regarding benevolence towards Star Wars mods.

Post by **jcnossen** » 11 Apr 2006, 17:28

Hey I didn't know I started this thread! :D

OMG, I need that! (but if it is in UpSpring, you'll have to fix the bug with UpSpring turning half of the faces into groundplate first.)

Ok I'll add it. I don't think the 3do util actually has that problem, and if it has it I'll fix that (though Im still not sure what groundplates actually are, there are no specific tags for them in the 3DO file format).

upspring needs to match the texture names of polygons with texture file that can have "00" appended to their name, so that currently caused it to screw up the texture name when it saves again. I have a feeling that is the bug you describe.

Nemo · Post by **Nemo** » 11 Apr 2006, 20:35

A&A:S will have new textures (and no copyright issues) once its finished. The demo should be in the clear as well, once we redo the infantry and a few vehicles.

Edit: heh, no new cursors yet, but that's not a huge deal.

Guessmyname · Post by **Guessmyname** » 11 Apr 2006, 20:38

AAS has new cursors now?

Fanger · Post by **Fanger** » 11 Apr 2006, 20:42

HOLD THE PHONE GUYS..... HOLD THE PHONE....

Seriously I cannot continue my mod at all because well lets see I think a picture says a thousand words.. so here is my picture..

OMG THEY LOOK THE SAME EXACTLY, ALMOST, SORTA....

so it doesnt matter if my textures are orginal my models are exact copies of models clearly copied from starwars exactly thus the whole thing is moot...

Forboding Angel · Post by **Forboding Angel** » 11 Apr 2006, 20:46

? that's kinda random... I assume you're making a pointed joke

Drone_Fragger · Post by **Drone_Fragger** » 11 Apr 2006, 20:58

Hes taking my joke a little too seriously :/

FLOZi · Post by **FLOZi** » 12 Apr 2006, 04:36

Nemo wrote:A&A:S will have new textures (and no copyright issues) once its finished. The demo should be in the clear as well, once we redo the infantry and a few vehicles.

Edit: heh, no new cursors yet, but that's not a huge deal.

Currently A&A uses *some* OTA textures and possibly *some* OTA sounds, although the Demo won't use the sounds.

edit:

not to mention the fact that 'Axis and Allies' is copyright.

Argh · Post by **Argh** » 12 Apr 2006, 05:18

@Zaphod: whoever's saying "groundplate" is confusing you. All OTA units (not weapon models, mind you, but that's fix-able by modders, since Spring doesn't care) have a piece called "base" that is the root of the model's hierarchy. Everything else is a child of "base". Check out a unit in 3DO Builder, you'll see what I'm talking about. The "base" part was also usually the "sweetspot" - i.e., the point that weapons aimed for, however that was optional. I really wish Spring didn't use the same point for the sweetspot that it seems to use as the fulcrum of rotation when moving S3Os around, but meh, that's a fairly minor thing.

GrOuNd_ZeRo · Post by **GrOuNd_ZeRo** » 12 Apr 2006, 07:57

Well, I always encourage to be a 100% original.

But techincally there is ALOT of mods infringing on copyright...in all technicallity...

AA:TA, name, probably textures.
SW:TA, obvious.
TA:FF, sounds, content and possibly names and inspired design.
TA:WD, sounds, possibly some textures and pictures, names of weapons.

So either a complete redesign of the E&E units so they are completely original and not based on anything, maybe loosely on the ballance of OTA.

I am in for the challenge, just give me a reasonable story line to work with.

Zenka · Post by **Zenka** » 12 Apr 2006, 08:00

Are the disignes of the units made by cavedog also copyrighted?
If we made a flea, with own sounds, and textures, but looks quite simmilar, free of use?
Also the scipting spring uses, isn't that invented by cavedog too?

SwiftSpear · Post by **SwiftSpear** » 12 Apr 2006, 09:41

GrOuNd_ZeRo wrote:Well, I always encourage to be a 100% original.

But techincally there is ALOT of mods infringing on copyright...in all technicallity...

AA:TA, name, probably textures.
SW:TA, obvious.
TA:FF, sounds, content and possibly names and inspired design.
TA:WD, sounds, possibly some textures and pictures, names of weapons.

So either a complete redesign of the E&E units so they are completely original and not based on anything, maybe loosely on the ballance of OTA.

I am in for the challenge, just give me a reasonable story line to work with.

Copywrites don't cover a design style. Models can be very similar to someone elses but if they are notably different as fangs very clearly are then they don't fall under copywrite. For instance, if the evolva models were to be retextured they would be free of cavedog copywrites.

Azu · Post by **Azu** » 12 Apr 2006, 10:45

Cavedog went belly up a long time ago so why do the copyrights even matter anymore?

Spring RTS Engine

E&E copyright discussion