Facegen

[Domarius]

150 male and 50 female - well as long as not too many varieties are generated at once in the same level - we'll have to consider the texture usage of this - it's probably better off that the textures stay low res and shitty.

 

Textures are what suck out all our Ram these days, so we can't go too crazy or everyone who happens to have less than 2 gig of ram is going to have a bad time.

[oDDity]

Lol, all 200 heads aren't going to be in the level at the same time.

I doubt there will be more than a dozen diffrent faces needed on the average map. A 512 texture is fine for a head.

[oDDity]

That program is amazing. I fed in a rather awful picture of myself from just the front, and the resulting model looked exactly like me from pretty much any angle. What's more, I aged myself to 80 years old and I looked exactly like my grandfather.

 

Good, send me the model. You can be the obligitory drunk guard that every level needs. I'm sure NH can do a drunken Welsh accent)

[Macsen]

Good, send me the model. You can be the obligitory drunk guard that every level needs. I'm sure NH can do a drunken Welsh accent)

 

Yeah, that's be great.

 

I've made a few faces now. Are they all to be white because its an European setting, or are we going to have a mix?

[sparhawk]

WHo cares, we're not making any money from this, and for all they know, we have a legit copy.

If you have a legit copy then the content you produce with it your own do do with as you please.

 

It's not. I read in the licence, that you can distribute the fg files, but I think you are not allowed to redistribute the generaetd models, which could make problems.

[oDDity]

It's not a problem. They could never prove we used te program to make the models.

[sparhawk]

You said you immediately recognize such a face. YOu think they don't? And you don't know if they have some watermakrs or other stuff in there, that is unique to the program. At least it would be good to put the models through some converters like converting it to OBJ, then to LWO or something like that.

[oDDity]

That's what I will have to do, we will also not be using their textures, and that's what gives tham away as facegen models.

Once I normal map them, put the model through lightwave, deep exploration, maya and the md5 format, they'll never be able to prove it is their model.

They'd have to use a puglin for converting md5meshes to maya binary files just to be abke to look at the models, and why would they want to do that in the first place?

[sparhawk]

They would want to do it, when they might get suspicion that it was their software that has been used but nobody registered it.

[oDDity]

Software companies don't go around bothering mods. It's not worth their while. They know their software is being used on a wide scale in mod making, but they realise no one is making a profit from it and they don't really care.

There is no way they could prove that I didn't model those heads, since I can prove that I have the ability to do so.

[sparhawk]

Software companies don't go around bothering mods.

 

LOL! *KNOCK KNOCK* Cinderella! Wake up!

[god_is_my_goldfish]

While that is true Spar, reaistically it doesn't matter, unless you think that this company is

 

A. Going to hear about the mod

 

B. Play it enough to realize we might have used Facegen

 

C. Write a special program/plugin to convert the files to something they can actually look at

 

D. Bother to spend the legal costs in a case where they would have a hard time proving that we used thier program.

 

E. Realize that we don't have a legit copy.

 

I've seen faces like these in other games, (Oblivion's look almost exactly like these) so there might not be an issue with distribution, this program would save Oddity (and us) bucketloads of time, I say we go ahead with it.

[sparhawk]

A. Going to hear about the mod

 

That would be truly unrealistic, would it?

 

B. Play it enough to realize we might have used Facegen

 

So Oddity is the only person in the world that can just look at a screenshot and immediately see that the faces were created using this program?

 

C. Write a special program/plugin to convert the files to something they can actually look at

 

Now that would be really hard. So they have to download the mod, put the model in lightwave or whatever they want to use and take a look at it. How long does it take to do that? Less then five minutes excluding the download.

 

D. Bother to spend the legal costs in a case where they would have a hard time proving that we used thier program.

 

Now this is REALLY a stupid argument. Did Electronic Arts bother to expand the legal costs, to take down a maod? Yes they did. What makes you think that other companies will NOT do the same to softwarepirates? Because that is what they will see in such a case.

 

E. Realize that we don't have a legit copy.

 

That would be the only legitimate point about it.

 

I've seen faces like these in other games, (Oblivion's look almost exactly like these) so there might not be an issue with distribution, this program would save Oddity (and us) bucketloads of time, I say we go ahead with it.

 

I didn't say you should not use it, that's up to you anyway. And I know it will be a big timesaver.But you shouldn't think about this as blue-eyed as some apparently do.

 

 

On the other hand. How likely do you think is this szenario? Someone grabs a copy of a GPL'ed code, puts it in his own software, compiles it and distributes it along with his own binary violating the GPL by NOT opening the source accordingly. Then someone else takes a look at the BINARY code, that has been generated by the compiler and is redistributed, and recognizes it to come from this GPL code? Do you think THIS likely? If not then I can show you a few cases even with the last year where exactly this happened. And I would say it would be MUCH easier to recognize some models, than identifiying some compiler generated code.

[New Horizon]

Well, I think the point oDD is making is that we're not just going to be chucking these head models ingame 'as is' like others would to save time....not to mention...if we use 'real' pictures to create faces, they won't look as generic either. I'm going to start taking pictures of any voice actors I have in here and make head models of them.

[Macsen]

I'm happy anyway, despite my premature baldness.

[sparhawk]

Is this really you?

 

I was trying yesterday to create my head, but I think I should use a good photo to go by. To bad it doesn't support kids as well, then I could create my kids also.

[Fingernail]

And then if you put them ingame people could blackjack and kill your kids!

 

Perhaps not such a great idea...

[Macsen]

I modelled this one on Julius Caesar but it ended up looking more like his son. Possible guard?

[Ishtvan]

Assuming that Singular Inversions could find out we used it, which is not that difficult to imagine:

 

I'm not worried about whether they think we have legit vs/ illegit copy, but if you need a distribution license to publicly distribute models generated by even a legit copy, it wouldn't take them long to realise that they didn't grant us that license, and that's probably a larger offense in their eyes than just doing private stuff with an illegit copy.

 

From their legal info on the site:

Images, video and sculpture rendered using FaceGen models are yours to sell or distribute.

 

FaceGen '.fg' files are yours to sell or distribute.

 

If you want to sell or distribute the 3D models themselves - for instance as part of a software product - you need a Re-Distribution License.

 

Notice it says sell or distribute, so it's not okay just because we're not a commercial product.

 

Here's info about the redistribution license:

http://www.facegen.com/rd_license.htm

 

Similar to 3D content libraries, you may sell or distribute images, video or sculptures rendered using FaceGen models in any way you want. However if you wish to sell or distribute the 3D models themselves (for instance in a software product such as a game), you need to acquire ownership of them.

 

The "re-distribution" agreement transfers ownership (copyright) of FaceGen 3D models to you.

 

The agreement gives you ownership of all FaceGen model data that appears in your software title and its sequels on any number of hardware platforms.

 

...

 

Pricing

 

US$995 per software title, including all sequels and SKUs, and including any number of face models.

 

It's really no different from ripping off TDS assets and distributing them in our mod. Why would we be so careful about TDS assets, sound effects libraries, paintings, etc, with similar copyright agreements and then go and do this? It's silly to think they wouldn't come after us for this; owning the copyrights on the models is probably how they make a great deal of their money. The only way I'd see us doing it would be if we could get them to donate the license to us like RealTextures did.

[sparhawk]

Only problem I see with this. If we ask them, then we are in their radar. Don't know whats better. If we ask them and they deny it, and then we churn out hundreds of heads, then they most likely might get suspicious. I know I would.

[Ishtvan]

That's definitely true, but do we really want to risk doing it without asking them?

 

It seems like a bad idea to me, no better than, "Hey, lets rip sounds and music from T2 and hope no one notices" or "Lets get tons of props from this 3d content library and hope no one notices." We're being careful about this stuff for a reason, since any one infraction could get us shut down, so why suddenly stop being careful now?

[sparhawk]

Well, it all comes down to how likely it is that you are getting caught. Considering that Oddity immediately recognized a face as being created with that licence, it is absolutely easy for IS to shut us down. Just look up their records if our mod is registered with e model-give-away license, it is not. Check if the models have been created by their software. *BAMM*

[oDDity]

How many times so I have to say this - they can't fucking check if the models were made with their software. I could have took one of their models and copied the poly flow becasue I liked it and it worked well with morph targets, and then made all my faces using the same poly flow. There is no possible way they could prove that the model was made in facegen. As long as we use our own textures, we'll be fine.

[Ishtvan]

So are we going to start ripping off 3d content libraries for prop models too? Might as well since no one can prove we didn't make it from scratch and just happen to put all the vertices in the same place for hundreds of props.

 

I can see your argument maybe working for one face, but if we make 200 faces available in whatever format, that in itself is suspicious coming from a mod with a small modeling team. What if they can prove that all those face models share mathematical features that are specific to their algorithm?

[sparhawk]

The faces are certainly not free in their parameters. If you play with the sliders you can see that they are always moving according to what you did, to keep them in relation.