Published Artists! Why don't you have a game license?
Samarqhand
Posts: 0
I am a bit disappointed to see that there are only 2 games licenses in the store.
There are so many beautiful models out there that I drool over but am not allowed to use in 3D games, naturally people can sell their art in any manner they wish, but an extra $500 per artist per game seems like quite a good deal to me, especially when people are selling some amazing things for under $10.
I get that piracy is a concern, but in most games most models will have to be decimated to a shadow of their former glory; clothes & props will likely have to be fused into characters for performance reasons, and lightmaps baked or drawn onto low res textures for static items like furniture, environments and scenery, rendering them of limited use to anyone else I would have thought.
Seems to me anybody willing to rip such specialised / weak versions of the originals was never going to buy from you anyway, is that a naive position? People like that make me think of someone going around the bar collecting the dregs from nearly finished drinks to resell, a weird, slightly sad, nuisance rather than a direct threat to bottom line of the bar district.
I would really appreciate any feedback from people selling on Daz to help me understand their reasons for not selling game licenses, hopefully its just because y'all forgot ;-)
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Published Artists! Why don’t you have a game license? Yep, its a great question. One that I have posed here several times and never get a clear answer from a PA on why not. Lots of sales to game and real-time 3d media developers being left to Renderosity, RealLusion, YURDigital, Arteria3d, 3drt, FroGames, Unity, OpenGameArt, and the other game friendly 3d content sites, I believe there are a lot of misconceptions on risks and what is protected by the licenses. Nobody has yet quantified the risk of piracy nor attempted to quantity any realized loss perceived from piracy of 3d content.
Maybe they (PA's) think the game license gives permission to unlimited ability to distribute discrete, unprotected 3d content and textures using the master version's quality.
Its not unholy or overly challenging to implement: Seems to me the same risk and mitigation also applies from 3D printing. (A) If user wants to distribute DISCRETE tangible assets, it should be considered RE-SALE and include a license for the end user.. (B) If a developer publishes a body of work that is distributed as non-parsable, real time consumable media then the publisher must hold a broader mass-consumption license (like the game license augmentation to the standard EULA).
one thing I would consider buying if such a thing was ever offered is a clothing render "texture license"
I see no good reason to use Daz figures in games myself but textures are another matter,
Many skin artists could benefit from selling their assets I believe.
I am far from being able to ever make a game but with simple flatmapping on existing game assets one can easily render out posed tposed clothing for texturing but this is considered a derivative work at the moment.
Even skyboxes and backdrops tend to be iffy if of premade Daz scenes.
I would love some clearer guidelines on this sort of stuff.
I was just playing with Unreal game engine the other week modeling rigging stuff myself in carrara and using makehuman but textures were my area of main lacking
esp faces, tried unsuccessfully to use faceshop EZ6 on makehuman after it actually worked once!!! subsequent attempts failed to display the model in the viewport.
so back to GIMP and my lacklustre skills once again!
>>I see no good reason to use Daz figures in games myself but textures are another matter,
Many skin artists could benefit from selling their assets I believe.<<</p>
Why not? Just Petipets vehicles alone are so unique and sooo suited for games! I use decimated & animated genesis figures too and they animate great!
Even skyboxes and backdrops tend to be iffy if of premade Daz scenes. ?? Skyboxes issue?? Maybe its using the render engine thats off-putting, perhaps export the Scene to Vue or Carrara for expansive environmental shots.
If your someone who wants to use a character from one of the PA's you not only need to pay their $500 license for use of their character but you will also need to buy DAZ's license for $500 for use of their figure. Prop creators is a bit different because it isn't dependent on anything else so would only need 1 license.
That does not answer the question. Game developers may have the cash and find that a better use of their full resources so their creative side can keep coding.
WRT need for DAZ & PA augment licenses - I guess that's true here at DAZ. I would not put a price tag on the requirement though. Things tend to go on sale. Not sure why a DAZ license for a NON genesis based model, or even one that is based yet gets decimated out of genesis before publishing also requires a DAZ game license too - but I wont argue policy. No need as confusing policies always generate adverse results that self correct in time.
you missunderstood
props yes, I said figures
ok Genesis can be decimated, tried it myself but actually easier by far just to retexture existing game assets IMHO
retargetting bones and doing scripts to use existing game assets animations not needed then either
yes can see use for props esp vehicles.
and skyboxes I meant using a 360 render of a Daz scene unaltered can be a bit iffy copyright wise.
I would want to significantly change it myself esp if the sky and terrain the main feature as it would otherwise be a derivative of their texture maps
for example a stonemason skydome would need carrara volumetric clouds (or vue ones) not to be a copy (I would not even feel right using his sky texture at all) with the 360 rendered forest scene as a backdrop enhanced by carrara trees and a proceedural mix for forest floor and other non Daz elements as the base or it would be reusing his texture as a render.
what could i use to test how my props would perform for game useage?
i usually use tiling jpgs. is that good or bad?
best way would be to try it in a game engine
you can download the UDK for Unreal for free and Unity too
hi wendy :) would yoo pm me a linkie? thanks!
https://www.unrealengine.com/products/udk
UDK 3 free,
http://unity3d.com/pages/what-is-unity
and free version of Unity
these are what I have
Well, a lot of my products are engine-native and won't make great raw mesh/texture assets. I've just asked about offering a license, but I'm pretty sure I'm not who you were hoping to hear from.
As for why - I've never, not once, seen a published game with DS/Poser assets in it. So either those games tend not to make it to publication even as indie or phone games, or the assets are so changed they're not recognizable. Either way, do I want my content associated with that scene? I'm dubious. A list of some games that have been published that use our kind of assets, or even one title in something like the Humble Indie Bundle, would go a long way toward easing my mind.
I'm not that worried about additional piracy. People already pirate everything I make, and there's no point in trying to swat them, it's like shoveling the ocean with a teaspoon. It's just a cost of doing business.
Hm maybe because it is still relatively new, all those game design related things. I have heard for Unity but i still don't know how to use it. But i was thinking about using DS/Poser models with Unity if i ever learn to use it :), and i found mentioned licences and added them to my wishlist (i stumbled upon it and just added it, that cheaper one :)). Also I am after free models that i could possibly use in games. 3d printing is for me totaly new and i have heard for it on this forum and i was thinking about that too, i hope i one day i might actualy do something more with both of this. For now my interest is mainly for personal use but i am hoping for something more, meaning to publish some of my work if i can make it which is a bit doubtful.
WRT Skyboxes If you are referring to license requirements to using DAZ to create SkyBoxes, that's a 2D render derivative from a scene made with procured 3d content product. Taking 6 2d renders and ASSEMBLING INTO A cube is not resale/redistro of 3d content IMO. Even if high quality textures are applied in the 3d scene because its rendered out flattened and in accordance to the render engine settings and post work enhancements so its not the same. Besides its applied in game backgrounds often as 2d - so the 3d publishing doe not really capply,
Taking it a bit further, commercial publishing use is another license attribute entirely but seems to be provisioned in most DAZ EULA's.
I'm more than willing to be corrected on this issue, but I think a lot of people who want to use Daz figures in their games tend to be fledgling developers or a one-man dev team. Unity has made development a lot more accessible to people who might otherwise have been turned away by the complexity of a wall of text like C#, giving them an interface to make light of much of the more difficult parts of game development. Especially given the number of pre-made physics modules available, which can be a nightmare even for experienced coders.
I haven't seen Daz assets used in video games so far. At least, none of them which could be considered popular titles by today's standards. . Perhaps they're out there but altered in such a way that they're no longer recognizable as such. If so, I'm happy to be corrected. The closest I ever came was seeing Sadie and Sam (the 3D Universe classics, not the Genesis versions) used on the box art of an old Gamecube sports game. Whether or not the characters appear in game is another matter thoug
There are hurdles to be jumped through when using Daz figures in your work, not least of all issues with getting the figures to look as good as possible while keeping polycounts low throughout the game so as to maintain framerate. Many of the textures will likely need to be redone either as DDS files or downsized to make up memory limitations.
By the time you've lept through all of those hoops, there's the logistics of redoing the rig and ensuring everything behaves properly. When all is said and done it's probably just as long winded to make your own 3D models from scratch, since most of those issues can be worked out from the ground up rather than the top-down approach needed when using pre-made figures not built for purpose.
I certainly wouldn't want to discourage developers from trying to use Daz content in their games, but as someone who does programming I've yet to be tempted to do so myself. That said, I've always enjoyed being a modeler, artist, programmer, and sound engineer all in one package. Still, the old saying rings true for me. Jack of all trades, master of none.
I really like the Rigged Water concept and would use that in a game in a pinch. I use DAZ animation to edit custom motions for props and figures and export as FBX and or BHV. From there use Ultimate UnWrap to transfer motion and UV to the game version of the asset. I made buckets pour for water, bows shoot arrows, doors on cars close, and also make the "happy happy*" dance for game characters. UUW converts fbx & .dae to .x and zillions of other animated game formats. I can do an acceptable DAZ figure reduction from clothed Genesis in the 500k poly range and use Texture Atlas to merge UV's (single layer, single map) and reduce all textures to a single 512mb and if lucky get the figure polys down less than 50K in about 30 min. Clothes is most difficult. I will try to merge w/ figure and eliminate geometry often if I need the model n the sub 10K range. Otherwise note that clothes cant be decimated more than 10% and remain unholy. Key to success is to be a master with decimation and texture atlas "weighting" tools. Getting a great game figure takes some time but can be done with excellent results using DAZ Studio and UUW alone.
"AAA" Game Titles are akin to big budget hollywood blockbusters and they do most of their work in-house labs. LucasArts made its Industrial Light and Magic... the pinacal of mega success. Indy game developers are the bottom of the media pyramid . Lots of us, but were low budget like the most wannabe movie producers that have thier own youtube channel.
Being a pro or AAA developer is not the point, the fact there is great demand for the 3d publishable content that is being ignored by many PA's is the concern.
If I have all the (geometry, texture and motion) assets in my library, Using DS 4.6 with Decimator, Textureatlas and Animate 2 + Graph, I can convert a animated DAZ figure to game in under an hour via FBX > .x I can also do it in Poser maybe even faster using DAE + BHV and use UUW poly reduction feature instead. I need output in Tris, and I dont have to worry anout topology much. UV's are critical to good results. QUALITY HINT : DONT SET LOD OR SAVE TEXTURE ATLAS after gening merged map., first try use existing UV with the new image map. LOD will overstretch the uv's. Since you are going high to low, they are fine already (if single layer).
Game figures are often animals and other complex rigs. I cant make a new figure from scratch near as fast. I can make a modeled prop quick, but for me ironing out the jv's and/or weightmaps is the time consuming part, Then you need to animate from scratch or or tediously assign BHV verticies... that takes a weekend min for me.
But that's not the only reason - making provisions for 3d real time publishing use guarantees the user more value down the road and will not limit their investment when the required technology becomes ubiquitous and the norm. I procure from DAZ DO and Raw Art 10:1 due to the fact that I dont want to be (more) limited in how I use products I purchase and to keep my library (EULA) simple.
Gee - who purchased Occulus Rift????
I do have one.... well two, actually. Theyre releasing very soon.
Exciting. I want....
- The W.A.S.P. ! ( He would go great with my bee hive play set .)
- Post Apocalypse Shrieker! Would be a great game asset.
and I think I may already have your Cold Blooded Snakes in mind for some game projects too.
Thanks Dream Cutter, great to see someone feels the same as, but speaks more eloquently than me :) (ps also thanks for the list of other sites, a couple of those I hadn't heard of)
I am a little unsure what you are dubious of, if you could clarify that would be appreciated. Do you mean that you don't want to be associated with failed projects? I don't know much about the behind the scenes of the daz store, but I would have thought lots of bought assets never make it into finished commercial projects.
Wooo! :) I hope you have a great experience, and it will encourage more to come forward to try it.
With regards whether or not content from the Daz store is suitable, Dream Cutter seems to have everything in hand. :) I am earlier in my journey than DC, but I have seen tutorials on youtube that make it look easy to import into the Unity engine which I am using.
Is part of the Artist concern that they would be held responsible for tech support for an area they have no experience/interest in? If so would Daz add a disclaimer if enough people asked? "the artist that created this product has no technical knowledge of video games, if things don't work as expected please ask in our community forums, consult your development team, or the provider of your engine/middleware" I'm no lawyer, but would that help anyone?
I develop addons for simulation and first person shooters and while I have a ton of DS/poser content, have never thought of using any of it because i was always taught to make your own content, which i also do for DS and poser. as pointed out, the beginning game developers in the past had to be smart and talented enough to code the game which also meant they also had the ability to develop their own assets for the game, not the case these days With plug and play game engines, you have wannabe game developers looking for the easy way out and looking for plug and play game assets also instead of developing their own.
I used to think that there was a market for selling rigged game models, but the more things i see pirated (that I have collaborated on), the more i think it isn't worth the hassle. Thing is, there are sites like turbo squid and fallingpixel that sell quality 3d models with game licenses, but wannabe game developers don't want to pay the market price. Humster3D also sells some quality models that they will even optimize the mesh for you for game use.
Wooo! :) I hope you have a great experience, and it will encourage more to come forward to try it.
With regards whether or not content from the Daz store is suitable, Dream Cutter seems to have everything in hand. :) I am earlier in my journey than DC, but I have seen tutorials on youtube that make it look easy to import into the Unity engine which I am using.
Is part of the Artist concern that they would be held responsible for tech support for an area they have no experience/interest in? If so would Daz add a disclaimer if enough people asked? "the artist that created this product has no technical knowledge of video games, if things don't work as expected please ask in our community forums, consult your development team, or the provider of your engine/middleware" I'm no lawyer, but would that help anyone?
Thanks... I hope so too :) I wouldn't mind getting my feet wet in the gaming asset industry. I just don't know how much will come of it as of now. We will see.
On the other.... well, I cannot speak for DAZ (naye would I even try) but I think its more a legal thing with contracts, and hammering out the details. I suppose there are lots of things to consider, esp where, most of the content here is not purposed for gaming. So there is a bit of end user implementation that needs to take place, at least in certain cases. Since we're dealing with copyright content by the PA's, how do you go about allowing for that re-purposing without breaking EULA's already in place? I imagine its probably a bit sticky (but keep in mind, that is just my assumption there, not going off anything I know for certain)
Also, other PA's may be sketchy about doing it (or maybe they don't know they can, or just haven't done so) hence why there probably isn't a lot of them. Mine came about coz, I had a request for gaming licenses, so I set them up so people could do it.
It saddens me that piracy is bad enough to chase people out of a market altogether. Since I may be opening myself up to similar risks one day, I am curious, where/how did you spot the piracy? Are your things being resold in other projects? What response did you get from the store where things were being resold, am I naive in thinking that the appstores would take claims of piracy seriously?
An interesting thing to say as Daz's Mad March sale continues into April.... ;)
Thanks for the tip for Humster3D - some beautiful cars on there
With regard to SickleYields concern about control of how assets are employed by users - "content associated with that (game) scene? " - How is that different (3d media publishing risk) than seeing your licensed asset in a 2d render, disturbing topic or otherwise?
Furthermore, no one has explained how piracy risk is increased by publishing in 3d (like games) vs 2d renders, since content license for 2d use is sold as 3d. You think people are ripping assets from published games? What for - to use them to make 2d renders of low poly figures? I don't think viewers and players of 3d published work are doing that. Pirates are a breed of their own, exploiting the internet in any avenue within their greedy reach. They have lots of tools at their disposal and will find the easiest ways to exploit. Users downloading unauthorized content are leaches, looking for cheap low hanging fruit. Neither population is obtaining 3d published content by stripping from 3d apps and games. They are mis-using EULA's period. They should be identified and prosecuted if at all possible. Its possible. profitable and done frequently with copyright, trademark and patent infringement.
2D or 3D publishing, the PA and thier distributor rely on EULA terms to protect content and the mitigate risk of how derivative work is published. Therefore they have the same risk. Only if products were repackaged and distributed as discrete or bundled content (as a pirate would do) would it even be enticing to share. That prating may be happening - but its not the published work of user artists that's promoting or facilitating the phenomenon. Its evil pirates that are exploiting hard working developers costing us all more money and inconvenience the long run. Its what ushered in the era of DRM.
Nice statement, a bit naive, but nice to see you passionate against pirates, in my experience, many pirates are simple users that have no sense of right or wrong and want their 5 minutes of fame on the internet from their peers by uploading someone elses work to a torrent or web site and because legit users can't/won't be inconvenienced since it doesn't directly affect them, this behavior continues..
There are quite a few apps that rip meshes from games, some fully rigged and textured. There are many sites i have come across that openly distribute and allow requests also, so yes, it is happening and is a huge problem. i can go online right now and d/l the models from 50+ games and load them into several apps and export into other formats for use in many different PC games i design for, same goes for most models in the poser daz community. these are things you cannot do with a 2D render. unfortunately a EULA is only words if the company doesn't have the power and will to back it up and the person accepting it has no morals.
I almost gave up modeling because of piracy, but i get some consolation selling my assets straight out to the studio, because i know they usually have more resources to fight the losers of the world than I do.
I was under the impression that games tended to prefer lower poly counts and texture resolution than the sort of thing generally expected by most of the customers in this market place to be honest. And perhaps because of that perception many PA's just don't see their products as viable for games. Then there are also all the products that are driven by surface settings that are unique to Studio or poser and so on that simply are not going to convert worth poo so those are not really applicable either. When you winnow away all of those products and all the products that have smoothing standard to make them look right and so on I strongly suspect that most PA's don't have anything suitable for game creators to use to begin with.
To be fair, gaming engines do allow for the meshes to be extracted. And its nearly impossible to identify all instances of extractions taking place. Esp where decimation is occurring.
It depends on the game, really. I know of ppl using my stuff for making sprites (which is basically a 2D image, made billboardy) as well as ppl printing in 3D and making a tangible game figure. Some smaller games could also handle higher meshes.... its only when games become this grandiose, sprawling world that ppl need to employ lower poly meshes and resolutions.
Nice statement, a bit naive, but nice to see you passionate against pirates, in my experience, many pirates are simple users that have no sense of right or wrong and want their 5 minutes of fame on the internet from their peers by uploading someone elses work to a torrent or web site and because legit users can't/won't be inconvenienced since it doesn't directly affect them, this behavior continues..
There are quite a few apps that rip meshes from games, some fully rigged and textured. There are many sites i have come across that openly distribute and allow requests also, so yes, it is happening and is a huge problem. i can go online right now and d/l the models from 50+ games and load them into several apps and export into other formats for use in many different PC games i design for, same goes for most models in the poser daz community. these are things you cannot do with a 2D render. unfortunately a EULA is only words if the company doesn't have the power and will to back it up and the person accepting it has no morals.
I almost gave up modeling because of piracy, but i get some consolation selling my assets straight out to the studio, because i know they usually have more resources to fight the losers of the world than I do.
I stand corrected - I googled it and ugh.. idiots developed rip tools to do just that. Some peeps have way too much time on their hands. Still I can only imagine that if a game takes off using pirated content that the developer will regret the decision most!
Maybe indy game developers could be issued license NUMBER that can be verified on an ONLINE REGISTRY...so game developers can assign licenses to titles published by the house. That way when someone spots content in a game, one can check if its authentic by seeing if the game is registry and the asset licensed. For content developers and distributes it would give many more options on how game assets are sold, used and accounted for. For indy game developers a platform for acquiring legitimacy, publicity and inspiration. Hmmm should I make it???
Daz brought out the decimator a while ago http://www.daz3d.com/decimator-for-daz-studio which does mention game use, so someone over there thinks it'll work. And this guy : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-4YFnejA6w has had good results with a similar program - The unusual colour scheme for the textures is by choice rather than an import error
There used to be a dedicated Daz developers portal that was short lived, never knew what happened to it and why Daz seemed to stop championing that side of things. Maybe a lot of stuff doesn't convert as well as they first thought?
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If anybody reading this is on friendly terms with any other Published Artists, it would be great if you could ask them to participate here; I don't feel I am involved enough here to pester strangers directly, thanks :)
I've been asked about this a few times and have sold a couple products for game use when DAZ arranged it so I'm open to having a game license if there's interest. But I'm still not convinced that decimating high-poly models for games is a good idea, as opposed to making low-poly models from scratch. My gaming knowledge is dated since I haven't delved into it since Unreal Engine 2 and I'm sure games can handle much higher polycounts now. But the basics of keeping models as low-poly as possible probably hasn't changed, framerate still has to be the most important thing. Building the models from scratch will always do a better job of it.