DO NOT BUY MODELS FROM THIS SITE!

[NeonsStyle]

[EDIT] This matter has been resolved, and no fault of the website. 

 

I wanted to add a different look to my Venice map by buying a street of models to use. I found this and bought it. It's a lie. 

What you get is a set of OUR (Dark Mod Arcturus Rocks and assorted .ASE models from the Grass Demo; packaged up with random textures and images. This has given me

a complete head fuck as now I can't trust this bastard with my credit card details so I have to cancel my card and notifiy everyone I do business with

in direct debits of the new card which I won't get for 10 days. 

Edited December 8, 2021 by NeonsStyle

[Zerg Rush]

You don't need to pay for this, there are enough sites with free models

https://polyhaven.com

https://www.turbosquid.com/Search/3D-Models/free

https://opengameart.org/art-search-advanced?keys=&field_art_type_tid[]=10&sort_by=count&sort_order=DESC

https://www.blendswap.com

https://3dtextures.me

etc.

To create 3d persons or monsters, you can use Makehuman, there are a lot of plug-ins and it's a great complement for Blender and others.

 

For 2d HD images, the best is Pixabay, there are more than 1 millon of HD images Public Domain, free to use include for commercial media. There are also Vectors, videos, soundeffects and Music.

https://pixabay.com

[OrbWeaver]

You are panicking unnecessarily, and have cancelled your credit card for nothing.

That is a site which allows anyone to create an account and sell assets, much like Etsy or Ebay. The individual who uploaded those models does not own the site, and does not have access to your credit card details. The site charges your credit card and then sends the money to him, just like when you sell something on Ebay with PayPal.

If you have evidence that somebody is selling stolen assets, there ought to be a way to contact the site and report them, although I can't see an obvious link from the main page.

[NeonsStyle]

I didn't panic Orbweaver lol. My bank advised me to cancel the card and it made sense

to do so. I've been talking with the company, and they say the files I got were correct, however

I can't verify that because I got the wrong type. Their site has an option to request conversion of the model,

yet their support team say they tried to convert it but it didn't work, and it wouldn't work with any of

the formats they offer to convert to. I think the whole thing is a scam! They offer to give me rewards

to the value of the model, but that's no good to me if all their models can't be converted to a useable format

for TDM. 

[Zerg Rush]

1 hour ago, NeonsStyle said:

I didn't panic Orbweaver lol. My bank advised me to cancel the card and it made sense

to do so. I've been talking with the company, and they say the files I got were correct, however

I can't verify that because I got the wrong type. Their site has an option to request conversion of the model,

yet their support team say they tried to convert it but it didn't work, and it wouldn't work with any of

the formats they offer to convert to. I think the whole thing is a scam! They offer to give me rewards

to the value of the model, but that's no good to me if all their models can't be converted to a useable format

for TDM. 

Because of this it's never recommended to pay for someting in the web, when there are good free alternatives. In these don't exist trouble, if they don't work as espected. Use another and that's it.

Edited December 3, 2021 by Zerg Rush

[HMart]

That is really fup I hope you guys talk with a lawyer and see what can be done, because I imagine this can open a really bad can of worms and perhaps prevent others from making models for TDM, afraid their models get sold on such sites.

Btw NeonsStyle the banks on my country have a phone app, where you can create single use "fake" credit card for buying online, don't your bank have that as well? I never used my real credit or debit card number on online transactions.

[OrbWeaver]

3 hours ago, NeonsStyle said:

I didn't panic Orbweaver lol. My bank advised me to cancel the card and it made sense to do so.

It still seems like an overreaction to me. As far as I can see CGTrader is a legitimate online marketplace, and your credit card is not at risk just because a single individual uploaded some models in violation of their license. If you order something from EBay which turns out to be junk, you might seek a refund through EBay but I can't imagine anyone would advise you to cancel your credit card.

Nevertheless, you must do whatever you feel comfortable with.

[datiswous]

On 12/3/2021 at 4:13 PM, Zerg Rush said:

Because of this it's never recommended to pay for something in the web, when there are good free alternatives.

Usually free alternatives to assets aren't that good. This is different with software.

Best to just get a refund.

[Zerg Rush]

Not all free alternatives are worse than paid ones, TDM itself is a good example. Jokes apart, Blender or the improved version Bforartists are free and among the best resource 3D, also the assets they have, created by their community. Better example is the film Avatar, created with FLOSS.

It's true that not all free sites have good quality, but  this is also valid for paid ones.

But there are a lot of them where you can search for the best, without risk and creditcard

https://www.hongkiat.com/blog/60-excellent-free-3d-model-websites/

Edited December 4, 2021 by Zerg Rush

[peter_spy]

On 12/3/2021 at 4:40 PM, HMart said:

That is really fup I hope you guys talk with a lawyer and see what can be done, because I imagine this can open a really bad can of worms and perhaps prevent others from making models for TDM, afraid their models get sold on such sites.

To be honest, I've been thinking about resuming my modeling and map work, but this is a total showstopper for me

I like neither the idea of my hard work being modified by anyone, but selling it is much much worse. Technically, I could release my stuff with low quality textures e.g. 512px to deter asset flippers, but it kinda undermines the whole effort of making high quality environments. Until there is some kind of asset package protection, a or way to binarize assets a la RBDoom3BFG, I don't see the point in continuing work that can't be safely released

[demagogue]

I've been getting a lot of assets for a project recently. A lot of it is free, but during the Black Friday sale I did grab a good number of paid ones. I like the massive & kitbash kind of sets (like the Kitbash 3D ones) that give you basically an entire ecosystem, where you can drop entire city blocks in whole, but you can also take the modular parts and do your own thing with them.

And once you have some big pieces laid out, it's much easier to do detail work around that than trying to do detail work from the ground up. That's the main lesson from the "stepwise refinement" method that's always been my go-to ever since I read it in Dromed's first tutorial that came on the Thief2 CD. I recommend that method to everyone, BTW.

The thing with paid assets though is sometimes you do get a dud, something that just doesn't look good except in the one precise context the seller made a screenshot of, or at a distance but not up close. Sometimes you don't know the value of an asset until you're actually playing with it in a map, especially if you're mapping kitbash style (mixing & matching modular pieces). So that's the risk of paid assets. But like I said, sometimes they're just so good & you get so much that it's worth it.