Porting content from other games

[james234]

one strange case: why seems most ripped-off content are from halo or mass effect? weird, huh? while CoD and battlefield seems rarely ripped..... despite it's popularity.......

[Deleted2547005User]

Both are ripped just as often as Halo or Mass Effect (which I've never seen before).

[DrakeTheDragon]

If it's really a matter of the business of porting being marginally less work than creating assets from scratch, I could imagine it strongly depends on the file type those games store their assets in and how easily it can be accessed/converted at all to begin with also.

 

Just remember the difficulty some beginning modders still have with figuring out you need to extract the GameBryo assets from their BSA files first to be able to edit them! Now imagine a game they don't even know what those files are stored in or how to extract them, if at all possible!

 

Can You tell how to open and edit a mesh or texture file from, say, CoD or Battlefield? If you can't, that's probably the answer to your question.

[Brigand231]

Hello, I have a couple questions and they seem to belong here for lack of a better place to ask them as they deal with "questionable assets" and permission to edit works by other modders.

 

I was handed responsibility for a mod while the original author dealt with personal issues and, after two years and no response to emails, I'm not sure he's coming back so I'm stepping up and taking responsibility for updating and upgrading it. The reason I needed to have access to the administrative functions of the mod in the first place was, at the time, due to the unwitting use of assets without permission of the REAL owner (someone who did not own them gave us permission to use their unauthorized edits of them and the true owner rightly claimed them, thus the the mod was closed). After being granted access I verified the cited assets. The first case was the legitimate property of the author who gave permission to use it - I verified by contacting the owner and they affirmed they owned the assets. I even posted a link to the author's mod using those assets to the moderator I was working with when I petitioned to have our mod reopened. The other assets I contacted the legitimate owner for and they also gave permission, but I felt (I could have been wrong) that they might have felt pressured or obliged to grant permission to make others happy so I replaced them with vanilla assets and stated that in my report. The mod was allowed to reopen.

 

I sit poised to start work on a major update for the mod, but after a conversation with a moderator about assets and ownership (I made my first attempt at sharing screenshots which included material I was informed was ported and given the opportunity to gracefully remove the image, which I HUGELY appreciate!) I wanted to be safe and ensure that we weren't using any other textures, meshes, models, etc that we'd been given unlawful permission to use. I visited our credits and recognized some of the names as former members of the Nexus community who were since banned for asset theft or porting. I simply do not wish to to repeat the experience I had in years before of having the mod closed, it was (and still is to me as a member of the team responsible for the mod) embarrassing. Is there any way to voluntarily request a mod to audited for assets so I can smoothly and silently remove anything legally offensive when I roll out my update and avoid that kind of embarrassment again? I asked the question of the moderator I was conversing with, but after almost a week with no response I figure he has other matters to attend to and the potential for a bad situation exists until I know for sure. I hesitate to start work on something if it will be undone when it is finished, so I'm sitting on my hands doing nothing until I know for sure. Even if 100% of the "material" assets (models, meshes, textures, whatever) are found to be unlawful I will remove them and still go forward with an esm/esp update for the mod.

 

The second part of the question is also regarding my intended update. The mod that I am responsible for was left to me by (let's call him) Modder A. Modder A gave Modder B permission to use part of our mod to establish as a community resource. When Modder B left the Nexus, ownership of that community resource (the main part of the mod that I will be changing) was handed to Modder A. Normally it wouldn't really matter, I could simply keep the updates on the "parent" mod page or even as a separate mod of my own, but the "child" mod, the one recognized as the community resource has an immensely larger following. Is there any way I could be given access to the "child" mod's file area and description so that I could update both and all users would have access to the same updated community resource? Modder B does include his own assets and assets which he was granted permission for (to the best of my knowledge, which is limited and the reason I'm posting in the first place!) use in that mod and I do NOT intend to touch them or distribute them - my update would only be to the esm and esp's of the mod to overwrite some of those in Modder B's archive. I can say with certainty that Modder B would be fine with it too, but I know that that means nothing unless it comes from his mouth/hands and, since he is no longer a member of the Nexus community, it cannot truly be verified.

 

I ask these with the intent of total cooperation and coordination and thank all involved regardless of what any of the eventual answers might be. Thank you for your time and use of the facilities being offered to us as users, it's very much appreciated!

 

Edit: Added an omitted word.

Edited January 15, 2013 by Brigand231

[Hickory]

I asked the question of the moderator I was conversing with, but after almost a week with no response I figure he has other matters to attend to and the potential for a bad situation exists until I know for sure.

 

Or he considers the matter closed? You really need *not* to pass this around, so to speak -- stick with the moderator who knows the history. Given the story, moderation sounds essential in this.

[Brigand231]

Or he considers the matter closed? You really need *not* to pass this around, so to speak -- stick with the moderator who knows the history. Given the story, moderation sounds essential in this.

 

I seriously doubt that, the questions I asked were a complete change of subject to a previous (and unrelated) conversation - What you describe would be rather rude. I could be misunderstanding what you're saying or perhaps I royally miscommunicated the situation. I describe a few separate events, some happening within a week and some happening over two years ago. The stuff from two years ago I mention to explain circumstances and give background on the situation, that matter is very much closed, yes. The way you say "You really need *not* pass this around" confuses the living daylights out of me, I have nothing to hide and have done nothing wrong as far as I know. To simply rephrase my main question, is there a way to voluntarily request assets be verified for legitimacy? Just because something hasn't been reported or brought to light does mean mean it's ok to assume all is well.

[Thandal]

Rule #1 for keeping out of trouble over permissions/credits in mods: "Only include material you create yourself."

 

Rule #2 (for those instances you decide not to apply Rule #1): "When relying on the assertions of others regarding the source/authorship/authorization/permissions for materials, you become responsible for their mistakes in your mods."

 

There is simply no way to have material "screened" in order to indemnify the uploader. Ensuring the legitimacy of the material is the uploader's responsibility

 

Here's the statement you must acknowledge and agree to with every upload:

I testify that all the content in the files I am going to upload are my own or are used with the express permission of the original creators of the files I have used and I have properly credited the original creators in my ReadMe, and in the mod description or in the "Credits" text area of the "Distribution permission" section of this page. I understand and accept that I will be banned from this site if I am found to be lying about this.

 

Will we work after-the-fact with authors who acted in good faith and included materials they should not have based on erroneous information? Of course we will. :thumbsup:

[Dark0ne]

I'll second the necessary rule of thumb that if you're not sure of what's in your mod (in it's entirety) you shouldn't upload it here.

[Brigand231]

There is simply no way to have material "screened" in order to indemnify the uploader. Ensuring the legitimacy of the material is the uploader's responsibility

 

Thank you for the response, reading that makes it much easier to imagine the mountains of work and stress having such a process could create. With that in mind a smarter approach to the situation will be to update the mod itself first (esp and esm) as a stand alone update and release that, then re-bundle the distribution package. The added assets are merely "icing".

[blackninja50]

I have a question about uploading screen shots with riped content in them. If I carelessly upload a screen shot with riped content in it (ie I had no clue the content was riped) will I get banned on sight or just get a warning?

 

The resin I ask is because, for one, you don't actually say what will happen on the main post. For another I met a user on another forum that said he was given a seven day ban without warning for posting a screen shot with riped content in it. I also know of other users that only got a warning, of course they where popular mod up loaders.

Edited March 16, 2013 by blackninja50