Hi all,
I'm setting up a scene of Guatemala. Does anyone know where I can find the trees described http://www.tikalpark.com/trees.htm
Ceiba or Yaaxché in Mayan
Ceiba pentandra
Familiy: Bombacaceae
Sapodilla Tree (Chico Zapote)
Manilkara zapota
Family: Sapotaceae
Mahogany
Swietenia macrophylla
Family: Meliaceae
Cedar
Cedrela odorata
Family: Meliaceae
Matilisguate
Tabebuia rosea
Family: Bignoniaceae
Ramon
Brosimium alicastrum
Family: Moraceae
Hormigo
Platymicium dimorphandrum
Family: Papilionaceae
Santa Maria
Callophylum brasilensis
Family: Guttiferae
Guarumo
Cecropia Peltata
Family: Moraceae
Copal
Cupania belizensis
Family: Sapindaceae
Cojon
Stemmadenia donnel smitii
Family: Apocynaceae
Escobo
Cryosophila argentea
Family: Barlett
All Spice
Pimenta dioica
Family: Myrtaceae
Short of XFROG having a zone specific package for this area I'm thinking you're gonna have to use an app like abaro[sp?] and build them yourself. I have done extensive searching of Veg online and these are types I have never seen. You might be able to adapt some Vue stuff[I use the PLE and it exports fine]and export as a .3ds file which allows for saving col/bump/alpha maps as well as geometry. If you need to fill an area densely with different trees you might be able to fake it this way. In Vue there's a button that allows the saving out of the image maps used [somewhere above the object tree I think] so you could also create new maps in line with the leaf/floral image references you have of the Guatemalan flora. Hope this has been some help.. ...
gregsandor,
I have the xfrog Tropical set and I'm sorry to say, none of the trees / plants you want are in it.
It does contain :-
Anacardium_occidentale_Cashew
Archontophoenix_alexandrae_King_Palm
Artocarpus_altilis_Breadfruit_Tree
Carica_papaya_Papaya
Chamaerops_humilis_Mediterranean_Fan_Palm
Citrus_sinensis_Sweet_Orange_Tree
Coffea_arabica_Coffee_Tree
Eucalyptus_globulus_Bluegum_Eucalyptus
Ficus_elastica_Rubber_Tree
Macadamia_integrifolia_Macadamia
Mangifera_indica_Mango_Tree
Musa_x_paradisiaca_Banana
Persea_americana_Avocado
Phoenix_canariensis_Canary_Date_Palm
Psidium_littorale_Strawberry_Guava
Sabal_palmetto_Palmetto
Saccharum_officinarum_Sugar_Cane
Syagrus_romanzoffiana_Queen_Palm
Trachycarpus_fortunei_Chinese_Windmill_Palm
If any of these are any use to you email or PM me and I'll TGO them for you (as long as te ones you want arent the ones where each leaf comes out as a separate material / group, leading to OBJs with hundreds of groups / materials)
Miles
Hi Mr Miley,
If these are from the Xfrog Plants DVDs, I should remind you that it would be against the terms of your Xfrog Plants license to redistribute them to another person.
Matt
Matt
Good point. 2 things... I quote from the usage.html file "The Contents of this Disk may not be resold, re-distributed, or reproduced in any format." Legally this means that you can't do anything with the contents of the disk that will be seen by anyone else but you, because if you incorporate any xfrog products in a render you are guilty of distributing the content of the disk "IN ANY FORMAT" which, I would hazard a guess, makes it not fit for purpose under the sale of goods act (here in the UK at least) and also means that half the renders posted on this site are shown illegally so I do hope you are on your way to the police station to hand yourself in, as I type this ;D
2ndly, having exported the model from xfrog as an OBJ, loaded it into poseray, applied MY OWN texture and transparency maps, exported it from poseray, imported it into Terragen, reassigned all the maps, added translucency specularity etc and the changed format to a TGO, I would be quite sure that it contains enough of my own work to be a "work based on", and therefore not covered by the xfrog agreement. Mind you, you are getting into a very grey legal area even for copyright specialists.
I do note with interest that no one from Planetside has minded about the other 100 or so models that have come from xfrog, that have been distributed via this forum as TGO files????
Miles
mr-miley I appreciate the spirit in which you offer, but cannot accept. It doesn't matter how much you do to the models you cannot distribute them.
Since you're an expert with converting XFrog models, why not take the next step and learn to model them yourself, then you can do anything you like with them. You have the skills - For your first project you could model some of the jungle trees I listed in the first post!
gregsandor
No problem. ;D My offer still stands though. If you are interested in any of the listed above trees let me know and I'll rejig them in xfrog (eg. redistribute leaves and branches, change the trunk size etc) therefore making them NOT the model as distributed on the DVD and therefore NOT covered by the copyright agreement (as it only refers to the content of the DVD, not derivatives, they should have thought of that, as the agreement ONLY refers to the content of the disk) . I'll TGO them with my own textures etc. I have created my own trees before, but if you are looking for something specific that already exists why should I reinvent the wheel, just cause they have a copyright agreement that is rather stupid in that it means you can't use the content you paid for for anything that anyone else is going to see? I can also post the PDF documentation (that IS redistributable) so you can see that I have actually modified them from the original content.
Miles
It is theft. I'm not interested.
If anyone has links to jungle flora please post them.
it is still ilegal you are using the original meshes from the xfrog company even though you may change the textures and format as much as you want you still are essentially stealing from greenworks.
a lot and time and effort has gone into the xfrog stock models if you have used xfrog before not just for ripping xfrog models created by greenworks but to actually model trees from scratch you will realize how hard it is.
would you like someone if you had model for sale just converting your model you spent countless hours designing then applying a different texture then giving it away for free? i know i wouldn't :(
Quote from: mr-miley on July 16, 2008, 05:27:18 AM
I do note with interest that no one from Planetside has minded about the other 100 or so models that have come from xfrog, that have been distributed via this forum as TGO files????
Miles
As far as I have seen the models posted here are original works created by talented members of the forums like Lightning (or are freely available anyway, like the Xfrog free models). If you're aware of copyrighted works being posted illegally here please let us know.
- Oshyan
Lightning
I quote AGAIN from the usage.html file "The Contents of this Disk may not be resold, re-distributed, or reproduced in any format." The operative words are THE CONTENTS OF THE DISK. Once you have changed the models by editing the XFR files and exporting, the models cease to be THE CONTENTS OF THE DISK. If you ran the original and the new through a file comparison utility they would show up as different files. Its not my fault that Greenworks have a rather explicitly worded licence that does not mention models derived from their own models. Their legal department should get their act together. You read any non-royalty free resource licence agreement and it will state that you are not alowed to redistribute the content or dirrivatives thereof. You may say I am being picky, and maybe I am, but we are talking legal licencing agreements here.... letter of the law and all that!
Oshyan
The models maybe... though I would have to go through and compare preview renders to the xfrog renders to be sure, but what about the number of renders over the last few years that have the description containing the words "the trees are the xfrog ###### tree"
Again I quote from the usage.html file "The Contents of this Disk may not be resold, re-distributed, or reproduced in any format."
If you produce a render containing a model from one of the disks you are reproducing the content of the disk in a render. The fact that it is no longer a model but a 2d representation of it doesn't matter. With a good lawyer, Greenworks could sue anyone who has ever used any of their conten for anything.... ever. Again, maybe I am being picky, but huge court cases have been won or lost on a lot more ambiguous language than is used in the Greenworks licence agreements.
Anyway, I didn't wish to start an argument over this and I will most certainly not be making available any models from now on (well not umless I make my own from scratch) ;D
Miles
Miles, I think Greenworks would have a veeeery tough time winning that case, particularly considering one of the core purposes of their product is for the models to be used for rendering.
- Oshyan
I'm pretty sure xFrog is like any other person selling models - you can use them in your work, but to resell the model in any other form is against (common sense) copyright protection. The point of selling their models is for people to use them.
If you don't think so, ask them. Send an email to xFrog and tell them your interpretation to see whether they agree or not. Heck, even send an email to someone who has created an object on Renderosity and ask about their policy. These are all pretty clear that you can use their objects (or even some of their UV work) in artwork, but can't resell their work in any form whatsoever.
Quote from: mr-miley on July 16, 2008, 05:27:18 AM
...Mind you, you are getting into a very grey legal area even for copyright specialists.
seems to be the nut of the issue here. i don't know about the uk, but over here there exists an area of law known as "fair use", which is also just as grey but very useful as well. life, reality and technology's tools are getting way! ahead of the lawyers' ability to describe and codify it, so we all have to make our decisions on-the-fly.
in that respect, @ lightning may i say that i personally have no problem with someone distributing a mesh of mine.....for free....i cannot! stop it so i might as well look at this from a different angle. the other side of the coin is someone else selling my mesh, and that's unacceptable.
and with all due respect to gregsandor, it is not theft. copyright has nothing! to do with property rights. furthermore, if i sell a mesh to mr. miley and he shares a copy with his office-mate, what exactly has been stolen from me? my point is: nothing :) it's a lost sales opportunity, yes certainly, but a free marketing opportunity!
anyhoo, good luck with the the flora search. that's an impressive project so far!
(if you need modeling assistance with these obscure trees (there's alot! of them there), i'd be glad to help)
There is no grey area here. Whether you feel it is fair or not has no bearing. You are stealing if you buy a license to use my model then distribute it. If you don't like the terms, don't use the model.
Quote from: gregsandor on July 23, 2008, 02:54:11 AM
There is no grey area here. Whether you feel it is fair or not has no bearing. You are stealing if you buy a license to use my model then distribute it. If you don't like the terms, don't use the model.
If gregsandor enterprises is selling me a
license to use some of your fantastic meshes,
you are absolutely and 100% correct, if I don't like the terms, I shouldn't buy the license! If I do buy the license though and turn around and violate the terms of the license either through sharing or selling or whatever, I have committed a civil violation, not a criminal one. Still illegal, but differently.
Stealing and theft are criminal violations based on an enormous body of property rights laws. Civil laws have their own body of work as well, and in this case it is your civil rights that have been violated, not your property rights. Still illegal, but differently.
But saying "you thief you" is easier and more satisfying than saying "you license violator you". ;D
The difficulty for gregsandor enterprises, indeed every! company dealing with digital goods (X-Frog, Marlin Studios, UMG, Capital Records, Disney, etc etc), is that the tools for violating our lets assume very explicit terms of sale already exists on what....1,000,000,000 computers. What level of control can one exert over this body of activity? Licenses? DRM? RootKits? Surveillance? Police? DPI?
That's a touchy and difficult subject. It's in the headlines every day, as people and companies slug it out in court to refine and change old laws that don't, and cannot, reflect the rapid change in tools and technology.
My thanks and apologies to the members here for their patience, and continued success for gregsandor enterprises ;D
In the spirit of friendly debate lets continue. I hadn't considered whether it is a civil or criminal act. For my purpose it doesn't matter as the effect is the same.
The economy that we enjoy now depends on the honor system. The only reason I can charge $20 for a model house (of which I only see $10 anyway) instead of the $2000 it costs me to produce is that I am betting that more folks willl pay the small amount than there are those who will steal it. If you steal a model or email it to your friend so he doesn't have to pay his small share of its cost, then I eventually have to stop producing. By ripping off models or other software you push the economy to only permit giant companies to survive; independent producers are out.
gregandor's point is exact.
Never mind that a society that lives without thinking of itself as a whole, or refuses to consider the individual, will perish.
gregsandor is 100% correct even though there are all these loop holes in the system it is still illegal and WRONG to redistribute someones work especially if it is on sale >:(
greg i will have a go at modeling a few of these plants when i have a bit of time it would be good to add them to my topical collections
Quote from: lightning on July 24, 2008, 03:42:20 AM
gregsandor is 100% correct even though there are all these loop holes in the system it is still illegal and WRONG to redistribute someones work especially if it is on sale >:(
greg i will have a go at modeling a few of these plants when i have a bit of time it would be good to add them to my topical collections
Thanks lightning. I look forward to them -- I'm modeling the temples at Tikal accurately as possible so having site-specific flora too will improve my result.
In the spirit of friendly debate.... ;D
gregsandor, I wouldn't be ripping off anyones models etc anyway (sorry if I offended anyone with my offer of providing any xfrog models, must admit, didn't think about it first), BUT if I were to, I would be far less inclined to rip off models from an independent producer than a large company, for exactly the reasons you state. The fact that it would be a civil rather than a criminal matter makes no difference to the producer (or the re-distributor for that matter). Believe me, I develop a geotechnical database for a living, and if I charged what it cost me to do the work I would never get any business at all, the client would be looking at paying £30000 rather than £3000 so I fully appreciate what you are saying.
On a slightly different area, I would hope that your (gregsandors) license would include the words "or derrivatives thereof" After my initial post where I offered gregsandor the xfrog models (again, didn't think) I did offer to rejigg the models, therefore making them not affected by their license agreement. In gregsandors own words "there is no grey area here". Going by xfrogs own license wording (legally binding) you are not allowed to redistribute or resell in any format the contents of the disk. Now I fully appreciate that just changing textures and changing the format of the model would still leave the 3D model the same as the one on the disk. You could open both versions up in their respective programs, examine them, and come to the conclusion that the underlying geometery is the same, regardless of texturing etc. However, open the xfr file in xfrog and change the distribution of the branches, leaves, alter the gravitropism, corkscrewing etc and then export, open the file on the disk and the tree you have rejigged and they would be, to any observer, different models, therefore NOT the contents of the disk. There are no grey areas... unfortunately, because of their wording, it works BOTH ways, for and against them. Its not my fault! Take my work for example. If I put together an imput format and various report formats for a client (either for money or not, it doesn't make any difference) and I subsequently found out that the client had changed the logo on the reports and sold them on to someone else, I would have them in court faster than you could shake the proverbial stick. If, however they had spent the time going in and changing the way the reports worked (under the hood so to speak) by applying different equations, expressions, filters etc and then passed them on, thats fair enough, and I wouldn't have a leg to stand on in court, even if the reports LOOKED the same, because, upon analysis, the reports would be fundamentally different in operation.
Anyway, just playing devils advocate here. The modelers here may not like what I have said above, but by xfrogs own wording, by changing the base models, I wouldn NOT be doing anything illegal, by xfrogs OWN definition!! Again, there are no grey areas. ;D
Miles
well in the spirit of debate... ;)
http://www.xfrogdownloads.com/greenwebNew/news/newStart.htm
"FEATURED IMAGES - XFROGPLANTS in THE INCREDIBLES"
xfrogs models where admitedly used in a movie
and money was made from people watching the movie.
wouldn't this count as using their models "or derrivatives thereof"
and therefore be illegial, according to previous arguement? ???
No.
This is so-o-o-o-o-o-o easy.
A person makes something and sells it to you. You can then use what you bought. Can you sell the entire package again to someone else? Logic says yes, but that means you can't keep it any longer. You sold it. Can you sell pieces of it or give it away and still keep the package? No. Try that with a car, for example.
A person makes something and sells it to you. You use it. No crime is committed, unless you use it to kill someone.
Software is no different. Someone has made something. It's not different. It's the same for music. It's the same for movies. A product is sold and you buy it. If you don't buy it, but take it without paying, then it's stealing. Giving it to someone else, while still keeping it, is contributing to stealing.
Common logic. Any of you guys programmers or work with ones and zeros? Logic. It's simple and if you want to make it difficult, it's likely I don't want you buying my software unless there's a way to track your [edit - uneducated soul].
Anyone have tropical forest trees links?
Not what you're looking for, likely, but...http://www.marlinstudios.com/products/tropical/tropical.htm
Then, there's always - http://www.turbosquid.com/FullPreview/index.cfm/ID/303693
http://mgonline.com/trees.html
some good reference pics, some not so good reference pics ;D
QuoteThis is so-o-o-o-o-o-o easy.
A person makes something and sells it to you. You can then use what you bought. Can you sell the entire package again to someone else? Logic says yes, but that means you can't keep it any longer. You sold it. Can you sell pieces of it or give it away and still keep the package? No. Try that with a car, for example.
A person makes something and sells it to you. You use it. No crime is committed, unless you use it to kill someone.
Software is no different. Someone has made something. It's not different. It's the same for music. It's the same for movies. A product is sold and you buy it. If you don't buy it, but take it without paying, then it's stealing. Giving it to someone else, while still keeping it, is contributing to stealing.
Common logic. Any of you guys programmers or work with ones and zeros? Logic. It's simple and if you want to make it difficult, it's likely I don't want you buying my software unless there's a way to track your [edit - uneducated soul].
??? ??? ??? ??? ???
First Sale Doctrine:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-sale_doctrine
it's not easy really.
"So, for example, if the copyright owner licenses someone to make a copy (such as by downloading), then that copy .... may lawfully be sold, lent, traded, or given away."
"The case law is conflicting, however, and the legality of allowing first-sale doctrine rights to be abrogated by contract has been questioned."
"The first-sale doctrine as it relates to computer software is an area of legal confusion."
as far as tracking someone down, apart from the police state implications such nonsense carries, such efforts have already been widely tested.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_rights_management
and found wanting. no not wanting, but ineffective and useless, bordering on illegal.
the whole point of which is not to expose or wish upon gregsandor enterprises a life of penury and slavery, but to try and understand how digital goods are different from hard goods. the latter are scarce, thus more expensive. the former can be infinetly copied and thus are neither scarce nor expensive. that reality and capability exists on every single computer that rolls off the factory floor. and greg's exquisite models can be instantaneously copied an almost infinite number of times. how do you fight that?
greg rightly points out that it costs him $2k to create a $20 model. how come? because his time is scarce, his skills are scarce, indeed greg is scarce and thus greg has value, lots of it!, and sees the cost of producung his models. so a very clever gregsandor enterprises will leverage what's not scarce (digital goods) to increase the value of what is. which is my very scarce $.02 ;D
It is simple. If people want to steal stuff, the people who make it will stop.
in a community based entirely on digital goods and services, this very civil, friendly and important conversation has been enjoyable.
interesting aspect, in the larger world out there, on what happens when you try to control people's purchases of digital goods:
http://techdirt.com/articles/20080728/1455551813.shtml
This is a service. I don't see any 'control'.
I think the problem I am seeing are people who are accustomed to the easy access to digital items without paying versus those in the industry who work their butts off making this content. Sounds like slavery to me.
Quote from: MooseDog on July 29, 2008, 10:10:12 AM
in a community based entirely on digital goods and services, this very civil, friendly and important conversation has been enjoyable.
interesting aspect, in the larger world out there, on what happens when you try to control people's purchases of digital goods:
http://techdirt.com/articles/20080728/1455551813.shtml
I was delighted to engage in a conversation, providing links, examining all sides of the coin, from a content producer who needs to earn a living to a computer owner who paid for tools off the factory floor that can copy, especially in a community dedicated to digital goods and services.
But you know what, Calico, seeing as yer a loudmouth closed-minded a$$-clown, and a one trick pony to boot means you win.
Peace, I'm out.
Huh ..?? ::)
Rattle ... Pram ... Thrown ... Out
:)
Richard
Quote from: MooseDog on July 30, 2008, 12:10:04 AM
... But you know what, Calico, seeing as yer a loudmouth closed-minded a$$-clown, and a one trick pony to boot means you win. ...
Seems something of an overreaction to me, I don't see Calico's comments as close-minded or in any way in competition with you, so how can he "win"