Troublesome Modeler & Software Piracy

#1 Relax. Have a drink. Have your concept artist do up a sketch of your ex-modeller to give to your new modeller to build an Evil Modeller character with. Then blow it up with a BFG-9000(a).

#2 Although I heavily frown upon the use of pirated software, since I have spent a lot of my hard earned money on buying much of the software that they are pirating, I pretty much accept that this happens and that it is inevitable due to the limited resources many people have access to in order to legally get this software.

Distributing or condoning the use of pirated software is another story. I have seen people on the IRC channel try to justify the theft of someone elses software, but these people are fools who will likely never get anything done (in my opinion).

In the case of Daniel's project, I would have serious doubts at the abilities, the professionalism, or the trust that his team's modeler offers the group based on the examples provided.

My hope/recommendation for those of you who are developing with pirated software is that the moment you make some cash that you invest it in buying a liscense for each piece of software that you use. It is the fair thing to do since you would at that point be profiting off of the something that you stole, which is not only legally wrong, but also morally wrong. Should you decide not to buy liscenses after raking in the cash from your game, I doubt anyone here would show any sympathy when the lawyers from these companies contact you.

To finish things up I just want to point out that some people might think that piracy is good now, but just remember this when some moron is distributing your game for free. Things are a lot different from the other side.

Logan

#3 well said.

#4 Yep, anyone who complains about another team-member without valid reason to is not the best choice for your project... if they offer warez then you should cut em out of your project and forget about them.

3d Studio Max is probably the most pirated piece of software on the net, and it's sad to see how people believe they can fool people that they are using legit software. "Uh I am uh just learning 3d Studio max 4! Uh, yeah uh I sold my car and son to buy it!".

If you're a newbie modeler, or not even a modeler and just fiddling with it... it's pretty clear you're using an illegal copy. I talked with Capn Rook (L Foster. I don't evne knonw what the "L" stands for, hehe) and he explained a bunch of ways to identify cheats, but I can really see why he'd be annoyed with cheats.

He payed a few thousand dollars for the software, and some punks find it for free. Sure, they don't get update patches, but that's a whole lotta cash stolen from the company and basically a slap in the face to legit owners of the software.

3d Studio Max really should get better copy protection. I mean... Half Life had better copy protection :P and it's over a 25th the price!

Gah enough about piracy... pisses me off. I just don't see how it goes on so easily.

Bust an isp if it hosts illegal software after being informed of it. Get the personal information of the larger sites and take their operators to court.

I mean, the fairly innocent folks behind Kazaa (well, it's taken a less honorable bent once it spread toward files instead of just music like Napster) are being taken to court over less (afterall, they don't actively support warezing games and software)

Why haven't the larger warez sites been shut down and taken to court? Why would that be so tough to do? It's not like the site's owners are trying to really hide their identity. Taking down the us-based folks shouldn't be hard either, I'd enjoy seeing them in prison.

Heh, they are basically asissting in theft of millions of dollars and they get away with it? I'd get busted for trying to steal a Slim Jim from 7-11!

#5 The FBI doesn't "really care" about petty software pirates. Little Johnny downloading $10,000 worth of software on IRC isn't a concern to them. Big Johnny importing counterfeit Microsoft software from Taiwan is. Almost everybody is a "casual" pirate. You'd be lying to me if you said that you've never taped a show off TV, taped a song off the radio, downloaded an MP3, music video, program, game...it's all illegal. The law is black or white, yes or no. Piracy is piracy. Have you heard of Operation Buccaneer? It's their attack on the warez scene. In a news report about it, they even stated that they don't care about individuals downloading software for themselves, they care about the larger groups which are doing it for profit or otherwise.

Piracy will never be stopped. The war on piracy is as efficient as the war on drugs. More of the taxpayer's money being pissed down the drain...it's not possible to stop it. It's always going to be there. Does that make it any more right? Not really, no. I'd really have a hard time believing that most of the indie game developers out there are using all legal software. Many indie developers are under 20. Do you really think they're spending $5,000 on software to make games?

#6 No, but that's partially why I'm a programmer. Software costs a lot less for programmers than modelers, which is nice for me :)

I just don't understand how easy taking down the warez sites would be. I mean, give me a job at the FBI and pay me $50,000 a year and I'll take down a vast majority of the sites myself! lol.

"Dear [isp company],

You are hosting [site name here] which is distributing unlicensed software that [legal jargon here explaining why they can get their ass kicked if they don't shut down the site]

You have [period of time to shut down site] to act, or we shall take legal action against your company pursuant to [legal info on why we'll kick their ass if they don't act asap]

Thank you, and have a nice day

Matt Webster
FBI Hex-Files (heh, my department's name)"

Now really, how hard would that be? Am I just thinking unrealistically, or are things really that incompetient in the government? 100 pieces of paper to document one minor event... 50 employees to ensure that the other employees are doing a good job with filing their 100s of sheets of paper.

Screw jail time, I'm not gonna pay taxes to give them room and board. Make them pay fines, screw over their credit ratings, make them do community service.

Well there we go... damn piracy pissing me off again.

#7 Actually 3D Studio Max has some of the best copy protection schemes around. The problem is you don't have to verify it with a central database. I liken it to bank robbing. Imagine bank robbers around the world trying to break into a safe (3D Studio Max), but doing it from the comfort of their own homes and with complete anonynimity. Not only that but once one breaks in, they all do. (Borrowed the analogy from wired). I actually don't think that Indie developers have to stoop to pirating software with all the indie software created for indie developers. Buy Milkshape, it does the job. (I'm not a modeler so maybe it doesn't). Rick touched on this point, there is a serious niche for indie development tools, and I think that developers should turn to those before piracy.

#8 Again, there has to be good reasoning behind it. There are thousands and thousands of sites out there...push one down, a new one pops up. You have to remember these government agents are getting paid for what they do...they don't work for free. Now, do you think they're more interested in paying someone to surf the net all day and shutdown warez sites, or investigating terrorist activities, etc. Although, I'm surprised they're not linking piracy with terrorism (have you seen the "where do terrorists get their money? if you buy drugs, that's where some of it comes from." what a bunch of crap; *that* pisses me off). There's just not enough hours in a day and money to fund a war against piracy. They'll probably end up spending more money trying to stop it than the entire software industry is losing to piracy.

#9 Matt:

I find it funny that you come down so hard on Software piracy, but you don't seem to have any problems with downloading mp3s.

The fact is the big companies are starting to get pissed about all this piracy. Several organizations have been formed to attack websites and groups pirating and releasing pirated software. I believe one organization is BSA (business software alliance - www.bas.org).

You are right about Max having crappy copy protection. I read once that some software, which cost several thousands of dollars per license actually required to install some sort of PCI card, and the software wouldn't function unless that card was in your computer.

Isps do get shut down. Warez groups just jump from websites to websites. How are you gonna stop all the pirating on irc? And what are you gonna do with a bunch of 15 year olds? You can't seriously think of sending them to prison. So you fine them. The problem is, there are so many of them. You can't take each and every single one to court.

#10 Due to changes made at the request of the music industy, making mp3 of music for personal use is not illeagal.

#11 Heh, I don't think I ever said for them to crack down on the punk-asses warezing on IRC.

Just destroy the popular sites. Most people who warez aren't "hardcore" enough to scour around the warez-friendly irc rooms. They pop over to google and search for "Maya 3d Warez" or something.

Take down the main sites, and you take down a good deal of the activity. ISPs are already required to take down illegal material if reported, but many are slow to act.

Give someone an official title and back up their actions with legal support of the isp is unwilling to act. Nope, you can't get them all but you have to pick your battles. Take down the major ones, and the "newbie" piraters (which I think would be safe to assume make up the majority of them) will be lost. "uh-oh, yahoo won't find me a hacked copy of Half-Life nooo!!!!1".

As for music, please.

Ever listen to the radio? I could hook a recorder up to it and record the music. 110% legal unless I try to sell it.

So let's not try to compare apples to oranges. I know they lose some cash, but boo fricking hoo. Don't give out the music for free on the radio and ill stop downloading mp3s. It's the same way it's legal to record television or movies on TV.

Software isn't handed out like that, so it's the reason I feel that downloading media that is freely available (and supported by the producers themselves) is perfectly acceptable.

#12 I myself am trying to keep everything as legal as possible. Max is way out of our budget, so I bought a license to milkshape (and so on)... but what do you get to hear when you tell that to people? "what? are you working with those cheap, pieces of crap software???"... when I reverse the question, and point out that at least I'm doing something legal, and that I'm 90% sure their copy of max is pirated, I get flamed like hell. So, I wonder.... how many of you modellers out there actually have a legal version of max?
One reason I would understand you are using max from time to time is to export models with transparency... so can someone please get that into the milkshape exporter so this excuse is no longer valid ;)

#13 Something to keep in mind is that the company behind 3d Max isn't loosing as much money on warez as the actual amount of many all the warez-copies of 3dMax are worth.
For example, there are many people who don't have enough money to buy 3D Max, and if they would get it from Warez they wouldn't get it all. The people who do have money for 3d max often buy it too (as these are often company's who are likely to get law-suits if they use warez). Many indie-game developers never get their product released, the ones who are more serious buy
3d Max. In other words the creators of 3d Max don't really care much about the piracy, it costs them a negligible amount of money but in return there are more people discovering bugs, writing tutorials & stuff, perhaps developing plug-ins...
And this is not just my opinion.

#14 Yawn. Back to the same piracy issues that have been beaten to death in so many threads.

I'm not condoning piracy, and in order to release a game and have a legitimate company, you better make sure that you come clean on your tools ownership at some point. As an indie community, we need to support and develop as many low cost and free tools as possible, and that is why I keep banging the 3D editor drum.

What if the game development community got together and developed a viable alternative to 3DS Max for low poly work that was open source but required a $50 fee in order to release commercially? Now, this product may only deliver 90% of the functionality of 3DS Max, but it would be enough. And, at some point, new game developers would not even remeber the days of being over charged by Discreet.

3DS Max is too expensive, I don't care how you cut it. I don't condone stealing it. I suggest making it obsolete.

Jeff Tunnell GG

#15 Ward, when people scoff at the software that you are using, they are doing so because they have the foolish mentality that the application makes the work look great. They do not understand that an application is a tool and that it is the users ability to do the work that makes it stand out and look great.

Yancine, you are talking about a hardware lock (as opposed to the ever so popular softare lock). Hardware locks are good but they are not great, especially if your hardware lock fails and you have to wait 2+ weeks for a replacement part; plus hardware locks are still cracked and bypassed.

Back onto the piracy issue (sorry), I know that there is nothing that you can do about end-user piracy, but in the example of Daniel's story, his team's artist was distributing pirated software, which is a crime. Not only that but the artist could get his whole team in a lot of crap for his stupid actions.

Logan

#16 I don't want to hijack this thread, but Jeff's right about the piracy discussion going round and round and round and..

But here's the thing. max gets pirated by people wanting to get into game development because it's pretty much the de facto standard. Usually a game will have a max exporter written by the developer, and it will be more full featured than anything anyone can come up with for another package. Until game developers stop supporting max, it will continue to be pirated as a "necessity" for cheapskate game developers.

Before I continue, I want to clarify that I don't think it IS necessary for game development, but it makes life so much easier to have access to it, and let's face it, many people are allergic to hard work, so using max is definitely perceived as being mandatory for those people.

So, getting back to Jeff's pushing for a low-cost 3D tool. First, you have to look at why the game development community embraced 3ds max, a combination of programmer and artist needs:

.Many of the artists came from 3DS (Dos) backgrounds. Even though max was a complete paradigm shift, they probably felt comfortable sticking with the same company.

.max has an extensive SDK which makes it very easy to create exporters for your own format. This is something that's bizarrely convoluted to do in Lightwave, for example.

.Decent, solid, mesh editing tools. This means a good foundation - you will get reliable results from operations, an undo feature that will always undo, etc. - as well as a good feature set (split edges, turn edges, etc.)

.Decent animation tools. Although it wasn't until recent versions that bones were a built-in feature, the foundation has always been there for a good animation system, with the controllers and function curves and just about everything being keyframable.

My use of the word "decent" in the above is an attempt to prevent any possible flamewar from any artists reading who prefer another tool *grin* Personally I would have said "good".

I do not believe you could make a comparable low-cost tool. You can make a great modeler, sure, but I've yet to see a free or low-cost (<$100) 3D application that has anything close to adequate animation features for game development. Why not? Because it's bloody hard to get right, and anybody who did would more than likely want to be paid properly for it. I'm not talking lightly; my day job has been 3D graphics application development for nigh on 6 years. I watch all the new projects very closely, and while you see some great modelers come and go (Nendo, its free clone Wings3D, Milkshape, etc.), and great renderers (VirtuaLight, POV-RAY, BMRT, etc.), you don't see great animation tools. CharacterFX looks interesting, but way too early. There's a character animation library in Sourceforge with some cool results, but it's more for displaying something setup in your 3D app than a full animation system. (Guess what 3D app is the best supported with an exporter?).

A non-technical issue that comes up is that it's also hard to create good animation. Many 3D applications fail to get adequate animation tools because they don't have good animators using them and providing useful feedback on what is needed. The animators don't use this software because it doesn't have good animation tools. And so the vicious cycle continues.

Another real issue that can come up if you did actually manage to make a kickass animation system and were willing to sell it for 50 bucks is that of software patents. The Big Boys hold a lot of software patents, and they WILL use them if they think their market share is going to be eroded by some punk upstart. Think you have a great idea for footstep-driven animation? Patented. Got a good modeling tool using freeform deformation lattices? Patented. Metaballs using marching cube algo? Patented. These are just what I can think of.

This is why I was really hopeful (and really disappointed with GGs findings) with gMax. If we could use it with Torque, it'd be just about perfect. How much did you say the license would be again? 10 grand? Hmmm.. maybe if there were 20 serious teams with GG now, and they put up 500 bucks.. Ah, wishful thinking =*)

I'm not trying to be doom and gloom. I would LOVE to see someone read this and think I'm full of crap, and go out and prove me wrong.

#17 Well, there IS that way around the GMAX limitations by creating an export script... or, by creating an md3 to dts converter. Probably wont be legal for long if someone tries it, but you never know...

And it seems like there really arent any other options.

Would GG frown on a dts export script for GMAX? How about on an md3 to dts converter? Just throwing out some options, I am not saying that I support either.

#18 Matt, in all the time I've pirated software (to protect my uninnocense, I'm not giving out numbers), I used the web probably 1% of the time. Very unuseful. For cracks it's useful. Actual programs, no. That's where IRC, newsgroups, and friends come in.

And you say that downloading songs that are freely available elsewhere (radio) isn't a problem? OK, fine. So by that logic, if there were a legal copy of, let's say, RTCW on a computer at Best Buy up for demonstration, it would be OK for me to pirate the game because it's "freely available elsewhere".

There used to be this saying back in the 80s, something along the lines of "Home Taping is Killing the Music Industry," referring to those people taping songs off the radio instead of buying albums. That same phrase works today, just switch "home taping" with "downloading mp3s." I don't believe in it, but it's still the same concept. You're just as wrong for downloading MP3s as you are for taping the radio.

And as for shutting down warez sites, I already said...push one down, another pops up. Piracy will never end. There are only certain actions that are worthwhile...these would be attacking those groups who massively distribute warez and who sell them (counterfeit or whatever). Going after little websites isn't going to do much harm...going after large operations is the effective thing to do.

#19 Heh nope.

Best buy won't let you burn a copy of it for use on your own time.

That's my whole line of reasoning on why music is okay to download but games or software isn't.

Until software developers openly allow people to download full versions of their software for home use then software should be illegal to download full versions of.

#20 " Best buy won't let you burn a copy of it for use on your own time. "

And HMV will let you burn a copy of a CD? Look, your point is invalid. Yes, you are allowed to record songs off the radio. That's because of fair use. The copyrigt holder of the song gives certain radio stations (for a fee) the right to publicly play their songs. So you can record the songs, and listen to them later. You can't sell the song (just like you said), but you also can't give it away to anyone else. The copyright owner hasn't give you permission to.

And the copyright owner certainly did not give you permission to distribute his songs in the form of mp3s. I doubt that every mp3 you have on your computer are songs that you yourself recorded off the radio. Each time you download a song off someone else, without the permission of the copyright holder, you are effectively stealing.

That's why you can't say that stealing games and software is bad, but stealing music is ok.

Your argument that since it's played (freely) on the radio, then it's ok to download mp3s is absolutely ludicrous. Even if downloading mp3s of songs that are played on the radio was legal, you know very well that not all artists are played on the radio, and only singles are played anyways. So why would it be ok to steal all music?

Hey, you know what? RtCW offered a _free_ demo of their game, right? Both the multiplayer and the single player. So not only did they give away their technology for free, but also one online map, and 2 single player missions. By your logic it is ok to download a pirated version of the game. It's just absurd.

Think about it.