Zec,
How do I find these similar 'replacement' trees on the DLS (eg kuid number of creator, or some names), or do you mean that they will be 'built-in' in T:ANE? Are they speedtrees?
Regards
Scottish
pofig's trees and assets
- Thread starter johnwhelan
- Start date
Zec,
How do I find these similar 'replacement' trees on the DLS (eg kuid number of creator, or some names), or do you mean that they will be 'built-in' in T:ANE? Are they speedtrees?
Regards
Scottish
Good question as I've just had a look and nothing sticks out as obvious under an N3V kuid or anyone else's.
But they are also using the same thumbnail as some of pofigs, even the same name abh.jpg ............... kind of obvious I would say that they are reskins based on pofigs meshes.
Well I've checked a few here using PSP and no sign of any watermark or any other form of branding, so if they are watermarked at all, it may be only items produced after the clones appeared, I got the majority of my pofig stuff before the problems started.
Personally I would like to have any asset of use in building a route available on the DLS, because it's convenient for everyone - although some creators seem to disagree (but this to the side).
On the other hand, I don't want to use illegitimate assets (even though I personally think the various copyright postures are sometimes crazy) since I prefer to be law-abiding and to defer to what creators want, even the seemingly illogical wants.
But trying to discover which, if any, assets on the DLS are illegal, illegitimate, cloned-without-permission and so forth .... well, this is quite difficult.
There are assets by cap1e that look identical to pofig's and with cap1e-awarded asset names that include the original pofig asset name. These must surely be clones .....? But why has pofig not listed them as such to n3v with a request to take them down?
There are cap1e assets that are seasonal speedtrees and appear not to be clones - the thumbnail claims "by cap1e". The line: 'author "Eugenie Lapaev aka Cap1e"' appears in the config file, which is not the case with his apparently-cloned pofig assets.
The RMM assets, mentioned in a post above, seem from the config file to be authored by RMM .... although some use the same generic thumbnail that pofig's assets use. Is this just a generic speedtree pic available to all creators employing speedtree software?
Presumably pofig will know which of these various assets are cloned versions of his and which are not. If it's an issue for him, why has he not reported the violations to N3V? If he hasn't so-reported them, presumably it isn't an issue.......?
As I say .... confusing for us would-be users of the various speedtrees.
Lataxe
PS Just to repeat ... I'm still bluddy grateful to all those creators for making these wonderful things available to us, even if sometimes the obtaining of them is a bit of a journey.
The last couple of posts show how difficult it is to determine if those by cap1e or RMM are clones or reskins of Pofig's trees. If they are, then they also will probably not work in T:ANE if Pofig's won't.
This is why I wanted Zec to identify what trees he was describing when he said that there were alternatives on the DLS which loked like Pofig's and presumably will work in T:ANE.
Scottish
This is why I wanted Zec to identify what trees he was describing when he said that there were alternatives on the DLS which loked like Pofig's and presumably will work in T:ANE.
Scottish
johnwhelan
Well-known member
Creating content is hassle enough, downloading every new asset put up on the DLS then checking to see if its one of yours submitted without permission then submitting a help desk report for each one is a substantial amount of work you're dumping on the content creator especially ones who first language is not English.
I understand Pofig has had quite a few assets removed from the DLS but there is more to life than submitting help desk reports, have you tried submitting one recently and seen just how quickly you get a response? and a sensible response takes longer.
There are requirements to upload to the DLS and some content does not meet those requirements. I have content on there that doesn't meet the current requirements but N3V have refused to remove it. It is liable to a DMCA notice from the copyright holder so could be removed in this way. Additionally some content creators simply choose not to use the N3V DLS, for example for TRS2004 versions of new assets which are still being produced even though N3V no longer supports them.
From a PR point of view N3V could do better at the moment with the community, especially with TANE coming up.
Cheerio John
I agree. TANE without Pofig's trees doesn't seem to get me too excited.
Yes. What happened to backwards compatibility? These are the best looking quality trees we've had to date. No comparison.
What was not clarified... Will pofig's trees work in TANE? If not this decreases the value in TANE tremendously. There's too many high quality routes available with a lot of hard work behind them that use pofig's trees.
ZecMurphy
Community Assistant
Good Morning All
Unfortunately, I don't have a list of the assets anymore. The user mentioned in John's post sounds familiar though. They followed similar naming conventions to Pofig's tress as well...
Do we do it when the asset upload is being processed? If so, do we compare every new upload/asset to every asset already available? How do we know we have every asset available for Trainz from every website? Or do we just check against the DLS?
This doesn't tell us if the author has given permission for a particular user to upload their content either... All it tells us is that the im file is the same. And keep in mind that if an asset has been reskinned by multiple people, it's likely they'd all need to be contacted as working on 'oldest is original' won't always work...
All that because some person some where thinks the asset may have been released without permission.
Or do we do the comparison when the asset is reported to us by the original author? Actually, this is what we do now when it is necessary (generally a visual confirmation is all that is necessary).
Regards
Unfortunately, I don't have a list of the assets anymore. The user mentioned in John's post sounds familiar though. They followed similar naming conventions to Pofig's tress as well...
That depends on when we do it.
Do we do it when the asset upload is being processed? If so, do we compare every new upload/asset to every asset already available? How do we know we have every asset available for Trainz from every website? Or do we just check against the DLS?
This doesn't tell us if the author has given permission for a particular user to upload their content either... All it tells us is that the im file is the same. And keep in mind that if an asset has been reskinned by multiple people, it's likely they'd all need to be contacted as working on 'oldest is original' won't always work...
All that because some person some where thinks the asset may have been released without permission.
Or do we do the comparison when the asset is reported to us by the original author? Actually, this is what we do now when it is necessary (generally a visual confirmation is all that is necessary).
Regards
johnwhelan
Well-known member
A suggestion since TANE would be better with recompiled pofig's trees why not get a reference set of his trees and an automated script that checks DLS uploads against them and ask him nicely to recompile his trees and shrubs for TANE. You don't need them to be on the DLS and TANE would get better acceptance.
Asking the original author to submit a helpdesk report might sound nice but there have been many clones of his work on the DLS and just checking each and every upload is a task in itself. I think the PR side of it would be worth it alone, there are too many references to N3V being pirates in the forum and with the recent DRM server problems N3V isn't looking as wonderful as it could do.
Cheerio John
In a perfect World, however not that simple. He would need to purchase an extremely expensive SpeedTree 6 modeller licence, cheaper options such as the 3dsMax plugin are no longer available, actually discontinued about the time we first saw Speedtrees in Trainz and Pofig seems to be quite set in his decision to no longer create any SpeedTrees anyway. We have a stalemate that is probably never going to get resolved.
Dricketts, read below;
I am not at liberty to divulge who the others are. These lics have been provided by N3V. That's all I can say.
For many years now Trainzers have been complaining, quite rightly, that the engine behind their favourite game/simulation/pass-time/way-of-life has been badly in need of a major upgrade. T:ANE is promising to be that much needed upgrade. It seems that pofig's trees may not work on T:ANE unless he is prepared to recompile them with the new SpeedTrees compiler. It also seems that he has no further interest in using SpeedTrees. Hence this thread.
I am sure that some of you will still remember those brilliant animated junctions created by mike10 many years ago for Trainz2004 or 2006. When the next version of Trainz was released they no longer worked. I remember that the forums were "on fire" with complaints of a "bug" in the new version and demands that Auran/N3V "fix the problem". It turned out that Mike had relied on a flaw or an undocumented feature of Trainz for his animated junctions. I would expect that a new update or version of a software package would fix any known bugs in previous versions. I also take note of the complaints that flood these forums when a known bug is still present in a new release or update - it seems that some people want it both ways.
I am not arguing that pofig has used an undocumented feature in his trees (which I have never used). Far from it. It seems that he has followed all the rules for content creation for the versions of Trainz that his trees were design for. But should those rules be set in concrete for all future versions of Trainz? Should TS10 have sacrificed performance to continue its support for the much loved and hated "compatibility mode" of TS09 that allowed "lower quality" assets from Trainz 2006/2004 to continue to be used?
I understand that some Trainzers have complained that they have major projects underway that rely on Pofig's trees. While this MAY be unfortunate for the future of those projects on T:ANE, Pofig's trees will continue to work on TS12. The IT industry is full of examples where updates, in both hardware and software, have introduced "forced incompatibilities". Should Apple have ever abandoned the Motorola CPU? I still miss the Zilog Z80 CPU but I would not have any use for it today.
I look forward to the flames.
(PS: This is a cut down version of my original posting but I ran foul of the forums "time out feature" and lost it all. Such is technology)
I am sure that some of you will still remember those brilliant animated junctions created by mike10 many years ago for Trainz2004 or 2006. When the next version of Trainz was released they no longer worked. I remember that the forums were "on fire" with complaints of a "bug" in the new version and demands that Auran/N3V "fix the problem". It turned out that Mike had relied on a flaw or an undocumented feature of Trainz for his animated junctions. I would expect that a new update or version of a software package would fix any known bugs in previous versions. I also take note of the complaints that flood these forums when a known bug is still present in a new release or update - it seems that some people want it both ways.
I am not arguing that pofig has used an undocumented feature in his trees (which I have never used). Far from it. It seems that he has followed all the rules for content creation for the versions of Trainz that his trees were design for. But should those rules be set in concrete for all future versions of Trainz? Should TS10 have sacrificed performance to continue its support for the much loved and hated "compatibility mode" of TS09 that allowed "lower quality" assets from Trainz 2006/2004 to continue to be used?
I understand that some Trainzers have complained that they have major projects underway that rely on Pofig's trees. While this MAY be unfortunate for the future of those projects on T:ANE, Pofig's trees will continue to work on TS12. The IT industry is full of examples where updates, in both hardware and software, have introduced "forced incompatibilities". Should Apple have ever abandoned the Motorola CPU? I still miss the Zilog Z80 CPU but I would not have any use for it today.
I look forward to the flames.
(PS: This is a cut down version of my original posting but I ran foul of the forums "time out feature" and lost it all. Such is technology)
ZecMurphy
Community Assistant
Good Morning all
Not sure how, but I missed the posts on this page. My apologies for this!
Trainz: A New Era will need all SpeedTrees to be re-exported/recompliled in SpeedTree V6. This is, unfortunately, an issue with SpeedTree rather than Trainz. We either upgrade to V6, and need trees to be recompiled, or remain at V5. We feel that V6 will suit our needs better, being the most current version of SpeedTree that we could use. This was noted previously, earlier this year, but not sure when/where. We have been in contact with several SpeedTree creators to assist with upgrading their SpeedTree assets, however this will be up to them to explain their plans if any (as Gawpo50 has done above ).
As to what will happen with this, we really need to wait and see, as it does in part depend on what creators decide to do.
As to the issue with the DLS uploads. As noted by a few people, there are trees that are (or at least may be) legitimate, that appear to not be so, whilst there are others that go the other way. At one point, we did have legitimate trees requested to be removed because it was believed that they may have been pofig's, it was only when we looked properly at them that we found that they were not the same trees (note, this is why we need comparison assets to be provided to us). I'm not sure the community would like us to ban all SpeedTree assets from the DLS because they may look like Pofig's (and in turn may not be legitimate), as this is the only viable option if we want to go to an extreme (we can't have someone manually checking every upload against EVERY asset from EVERY creator of SpeedTree assets just in case).
As noted previously, the only people who know with 100% certainty that an asset was uploaded without permission is the original author, and the uploader. Everyone else is just guessing...
If you as a creator wishes to ensure that your artwork is not being redistributed, then you will need to put in the work to check it. This is the case with any artwork (or copyrighted item), not just Trainz content... Otherwise I could walk up to an art gallery, and demand all the artwork be taken down, because I think they may be breaching copyright... If you, as a 3rd party, wishes to help, then report any possible cases to the creator (this applies to any copyrighted items).
Same goes with the DLS. Imagine someone reporting, say, all of clam1952's uploads (as an example here) as illegal, and having them removed. Or at least making N3V spend several days checking them (1200 assets, that's a lot of assets to go through and look at, and then go searching for the 'original' assets to compare them too), then contacting the supposed author (or original author, if we're talking reskins/etc), then the author having to go through them all and outline their origins (we would need a per-asset explanation, so as to cover it properly). Gets very messy very quickly if you try to go the other way...
Or we just ask the authors to report them to us as they find them (and as above, if you as a fellow community member thinks an asset may not be legitimate, contact the original creator! - note, made this 'bold' as it seems to be missed every time this topic comes up), with the relevant information. And for the author to actually check that it IS their content that has been uploaded...
Regards
Not sure how, but I missed the posts on this page. My apologies for this!
Trainz: A New Era will need all SpeedTrees to be re-exported/recompliled in SpeedTree V6. This is, unfortunately, an issue with SpeedTree rather than Trainz. We either upgrade to V6, and need trees to be recompiled, or remain at V5. We feel that V6 will suit our needs better, being the most current version of SpeedTree that we could use. This was noted previously, earlier this year, but not sure when/where. We have been in contact with several SpeedTree creators to assist with upgrading their SpeedTree assets, however this will be up to them to explain their plans if any (as Gawpo50 has done above
).As to what will happen with this, we really need to wait and see, as it does in part depend on what creators decide to do.
As to the issue with the DLS uploads. As noted by a few people, there are trees that are (or at least may be) legitimate, that appear to not be so, whilst there are others that go the other way. At one point, we did have legitimate trees requested to be removed because it was believed that they may have been pofig's, it was only when we looked properly at them that we found that they were not the same trees (note, this is why we need comparison assets to be provided to us). I'm not sure the community would like us to ban all SpeedTree assets from the DLS because they may look like Pofig's (and in turn may not be legitimate), as this is the only viable option if we want to go to an extreme (we can't have someone manually checking every upload against EVERY asset from EVERY creator of SpeedTree assets just in case).
As noted previously, the only people who know with 100% certainty that an asset was uploaded without permission is the original author, and the uploader. Everyone else is just guessing...
If you as a creator wishes to ensure that your artwork is not being redistributed, then you will need to put in the work to check it. This is the case with any artwork (or copyrighted item), not just Trainz content... Otherwise I could walk up to an art gallery, and demand all the artwork be taken down, because I think they may be breaching copyright... If you, as a 3rd party, wishes to help, then report any possible cases to the creator (this applies to any copyrighted items).
Same goes with the DLS. Imagine someone reporting, say, all of clam1952's uploads (as an example here) as illegal, and having them removed. Or at least making N3V spend several days checking them (1200 assets, that's a lot of assets to go through and look at, and then go searching for the 'original' assets to compare them too), then contacting the supposed author (or original author, if we're talking reskins/etc), then the author having to go through them all and outline their origins (we would need a per-asset explanation, so as to cover it properly). Gets very messy very quickly if you try to go the other way...
Or we just ask the authors to report them to us as they find them (and as above, if you as a fellow community member thinks an asset may not be legitimate, contact the original creator! - note, made this 'bold' as it seems to be missed every time this topic comes up), with the relevant information. And for the author to actually check that it IS their content that has been uploaded...
Regards