Content Creators WANTED

With new versions of Trainz on the way, we're keen to enlist more content creators in the Trainz Content Creation Program (TCCP), where you can earn extra money for your Trainz creations.

We are looking for model, small and large routes as well as locos and rolling stock. We are especially interested in more British and Euro content creators.

If you are interested in becoming part of TCCP or know of a great content development individual or team out there who would be, please let us know.

If you guys hadn't ditched your Trainz Asset Creation Studio (Gmax) I'd be there right with you.

I have some UK sessions if they count - you have access to them through the program

While I as a german route and session creator am very interested on the topic, I'm concerned that if theres problems with DLS content their might fall back onto me.

To be more exact: the majority of all german assets on the DLS has logos and things that are okay to be used as they are freely downloadable and accessible (which they are through the DLS), but large license fees would apply if they were behind a paywall. I'm not enough of a legal expert to be sure wether the "content is available for free through the DLS, my sessions only reference the content and its offered to be bundled with the product" is enough or not. While it is unknown if anybody will ever have a problem with content being bundled with a payware product that is available for free anyways, I will only continue thinking about submitting anything to the TCCP if it's ensured that if problems with the referenced and bundled content occur in a legal way, I'm not responsible for it as I neither created or uploaded that referenced content to the DLS. Instead the people who did upload it agreed for it to become build in content, possibly making it part of payware (the game itself) while it is still freeware content.

I personally think that the best option would be to really just have the actual stuff you paid for in the payware download itself and a link to a new page saying "to play this you also need freeware content xyz which you can download here", as long as that page is accessible without purchasing the payware it should itself remain freeware without issues as the user could've downloaded the package without purchase of the payware assets (the route and/or the sessions).

I'm not alone with these concerns as of looking around the german trainz community where people would probably create payware content, but the unknown legal state of using freeware DLS content with trademarked logos on the routes or sessions holds them back from doing so.

I also heard rumours that passenger sessions are not able to make it onto the TCCP (I'm not talking of very cheap drive from A to B sessions, but Sessions with proper AI traffic and announcements) which I'm personally really missing from Trainz at this moment, is that true?


Greets, Mika

You are welcome to use any of my recent routes uploaded to the DLS, doctored as necessary.

Depending on timescales I might also be able to put together a route towards the project, though would need more information as regards the sort of thing being looked for. Being realistic I would probably be looking at doing an upscaled miniature or similar railway (similar to my Water Of Coate route), given my full time work commitments. Having been a critic of the content supplied by default in TANE it is only fair I offer to make a positive contribution.

Further discussion of the detail probably best via PM initially then email, so if you are interested drop me a line or in the meantime I'll take a look at the TCCP page.

Good points Laurinlaki. Just because an item is on the DLS and the attendant transfer of ownership does not necessarily remove any child copyright issues.

An example for the US creators might be anything with Union Pacific (or their predecessor companies) who I understand have once again become very strict about any use of their corporate logos or identities. I think we will need some guidance on this, possibly off the public forum. There is a wealth of material on the DLS but in addition to ensuring a route for "Next" only uses the very best items, we need to ensure it will not breach any copyright. There are also many items (the Ultra range from McGuirrel come to mind) where the licensing prohibits use as part of payware - which presumably also extends to a new version of the core product. This may be due to the use of textures etc. from a site which specifically precludes re-use for profit.

Well the issue is that assets which don't allow that shouldn't be on the DLS to begin with, as the author agreed to it being packaged as either build-in or with DLC when uploading.

Because of that I only see licenses like that as a "please be nice and don't package that as buildin/DLC" because really they have agreed to that usage. Knowingly, I won't add assets like that to a DLC route and make someone unhappy, but reading through licenses of all well over 1000 Assets can't and shouldn't be it. The content is on the DLS and the author should ensure its okay for the content to be there, and sure enough, some of that content has made it to be build in despite a license like that, because it really doesn't seem to matter.

However, enforcing content to be usable for these cases on the DLS would not only require removal of quite a lot of nice content, but also scare away new content creators and might get them to rather just have their content on their own weebly site because of "inhumane DLS terms", and off we go to a search for missing dependencies on a scale way larger than before.

On the other hand, this is part of the reason why we don't have a lot of DLC content compared to *cough* another sim *cough*. I'm not suggesting that I want Trainz to become another DLC sim where every DLC itself requires 3 others to work and while they only cost 5€ each you'll end up paying 50€ just to play one route in a fun way. But really no one can be good at route construction, texturing, making trains and objects all at once while also keeping all brand holders happy and still make revenue. And working in teams is also an issue because it would require prices to be rather high for the DLC content to pay off everyone who worked on it, thus we need to rely on referencing freeware content for sessions and routes and we need to be able to rely on that we are not responsible if issues occur with a piece of content, because we just referenced the objects kuid in our work but never made the object itself payware. I can replace objects which needed to be removed from the DLS due to legal issues as fast as possible considering I also have a real life. But can I afford paying off everything caused by the legal issues? Can I afford a lawyer to defend my position of not having the object itself made payware? No.

So yea, we need some clear guidelines on what content to include and what not and how we are liable for content we just reference but not really have to do anything with (as the content creators program terms last time I checked only make you liable for the content you submit to the program, so the things I made myself, which makes sense, since those are effectively the payware the users buy and not the referenced objects)


Greets, Mika

The problem is that a lot of assets that are free will become payware so we're unable then to modify em

One solution if we get enough people in a pool to create Next/TRS2018 content and enough of them are 3D modellers, to create a selection of items for inclusion in the new routes.

As regards referencing I would suggest as this is aimed at inclusion in the base product all the assets and routes will be packaged with the distributable, whether DVD, N3V direct purchase or from Steam. It would not be realistic to expect people buying a complete product - possibly without DLS FCT access, to then spend time and effort obtaining separately the assets needed to run the product they purchased.

That also raises the issue that our content offerings will need to be optimised both in terms of file size (no 800Mb gnd files) and the size of the assets used - the distributable would become massive if across (say) the 6 or 7 routes there were 100 different tree types all coming in at 70Mb each. Which again is where dedicated asset production might help in controlling this aspect in addition to introducing content not seen before.

Past has shown that, sadly, teamwork is always a problem, because obviously, everybody wants "their thing" to be in focus.
The results of that were that a lot of routes ended up being fictional compromises, trying to fit as much diversity for every team member into a fictional route as possible. The most prominent example is the Schwäninger Land route, which is an amazing teamwork route, but it is fictional and shows the compromise very well, since it contains a old mainline, a high speed line, large yards, lots of industries, a short and unfinished tram line and a single track diesel line, which while its nice and interesting to play, is still fictional and might also feel like "a bit too much" to some players.

I feel like if we were to make a teamwork route, a lot of coordination would be needed, it should be a realistic route, and that brings us to another problem, what country should it be based in? It will be hard to find a good team to work on that.

And to the question of downloading some required content seperately, well, its not good practice but quite a few large games have done that in the past, that besides the actual game you also need a multiple gigabytes "update" before you can even play at all, so I mean it could be done, but it wouldn't be a really good solution.

Greets, Mika

Summary of why Content Creators are leaving Trainz: N3V's policy on "Rights" and "Ownership".

You can not spend YEARS profiting from people's free labor, and not expect a backlash effect, just as you can not have a business model that reflects a clear message of "Profits over Loyalty".

Patch your existing products to completion, before creating a new profit generator, or you'll keep losing Customers, as well as Creators.

TS2010 - Unfinished.
TS12 - Unfinished.
TANE - Unfinished.
What can be heard at an N3V board meeting? "But hey, lets just abandon all those Customers and create a new product that we'll never finish, that will generate new income."

I wasn't necessarily suggesting "group" projects per se, been there done that years ago with MSTS and it doesn't usually play or end well. What I meant was more the loose association of interested parties that N3V can put together. Makes sense if you have a foliage guy, he does a set of trees, bushes and grasses which can be made available to the route builders. Ditto a terrain texture guy. I'm a route builder, not a lead kind of guy and tend to work at my own funky pace.

The other big unknown here and Mr. Olsen (is it Paul?) didn't really elaborate on what tools we will be working from to achieve the new content. Previous new releases of Trainz have always suffered to some extent that the content has been made in the previous or even earlier version. So are we building routes in the final or latest version of TANE or will we get (under NDA if necessary) advance working copy of the enhanced route building which may be in TRS2018. Lots of questions which need to be clarified.

Another factor will be locomotive and rolling stock and there is an element of chicken and egg here. Until the likely route manifest is known, the train builders won't have an idea what to actually build. Little point me doing a short LMS style branch line or expanded miniature railway if there aren't going to be any up to date LMS locomotives and coaches to run on it.

And one more thing (starting to sound like Lt. Columbo here), probably worth N3V setting up a private area where rational and practical discussion by those taking part can ensue, free from excessive "salt".

Vern said:

And one more thing (starting to sound like Lt. Columbo here), probably worth N3V setting up a private area where rational and practical discussion by those taking part can ensue, free from excessive "salt".

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I find that comment highly offensive, bordering on a CoC violation for disparaging another user's relevant opinion.

If having a conversation involving facts of the matter, is considered "being salty"... Well, you're entitled to your opinion, but you have no right to belittle others because you disagree.

KingConrail76 said:

Well, you're entitled to your opinion, but you have no right to belittle others because you disagree.

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But belittling the opinion of another is exactly what you just did by calling his opinion "offensive".

Lets leave this thread for a discussion about new content for the NEXT generation of Trainz, not a rehash of old arguments about perceived past failings. There are plenty of other threads where you can post on that issue. While you are perfectly entitled to your opinions, others are perfectly entitled to have opposing opinions.

Good Afternoon All
All content on the Download Station requires that the uploader give N3V a license to use the uploaded content in commercial products ( new releases of Trainz, DLC packs, and similar). This requirement has been in the DLS upload agreement since at least 2003 (around when I first read it). As such, there shouldn't be an issue with using any DLS content in submissions.

Any licenses in config files are overridden by the EULA for the DLS, as any uploader MUST agree to this to upload the content. As such it would still be permissible for content where the license 'prohibits' payware to be used in a DLC package or built-in content released by N3V.


In regards to concerns about DLS content becoming 'payware', content included in DLC packs that is from the DLS still remains on the Download Station. The copy of the asset included in the DLC pack will be handled the same as other assets in the DLC pack, however the original can still be downloaded as a cdp file from the DLS if required. An alternative is simply to have a second install of TANE that you can use to obtain the DLS asset, and then clone and import into your main TANE installation to then modify. Such an install is also useful for checking content you intend to release to see what assets may not be on the DLS (particularly if you are creating your own content that is used by that asset!).

Regards

davesnow said:

If you guys hadn't ditched your Trainz Asset Creation Studio (Gmax) I'd be there right with you.

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Correcton, Discreet abandoned gmax.
We chose not to support an unsupported modelling tool in future Trainz.
We now support fbx which allows most modelling tools to be used.

davesnow said:

If you guys hadn't ditched your Trainz Asset Creation Studio (Gmax) I'd be there right with you.

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Hi Dave, would you consider using (learning?) blender if a compilation of tutorials and useful links were on offer for the free 3D modelling software?

Laurinlaki said:

I also heard rumours that passenger sessions are not able to make it onto the TCCP (I'm not talking of very cheap drive from A to B sessions, but Sessions with proper AI traffic and announcements) which I'm personally really missing from Trainz at this moment, is that true?

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Certainly not the case. Any sessions can be submitted to TCCP. If you create a session for a route, we simply advise the user that they must own the route the session(s) are made for.

Vern said:

You are welcome to use any of my recent routes uploaded to the DLS, doctored as necessary.

Depending on timescales I might also be able to put together a route towards the project, though would need more information as regards the sort of thing being looked for. Being realistic I would probably be looking at doing an upscaled miniature or similar railway (similar to my Water Of Coate route), given my full time work commitments. Having been a critic of the content supplied by default in TANE it is only fair I offer to make a positive contribution.

Further discussion of the detail probably best via PM initially then email, so if you are interested drop me a line or in the meantime I'll take a look at the TCCP page.

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Definitely interested to talk more. Email contentcreators[AT]n3vgames[DOT]com with more info. Currently we have our builtin content sorted for the next release but DLC for both TANE and the next release is always open.

MF01 said:

The problem is that a lot of assets that are free will become payware so we're unable then to modify em

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Any assets from the DLS are not marked as payware in DLC packages.