Billboards are specifically images that are always oriented facing the eye. Billboard rendering is used for rendering plants, crops, corn, grass, clouds, particles and impostors from a side-view. (impostors = pre-rendered image of geometry replacing the actual geometry for lower level of detail)
But that kind of "side-view" textures are useful for plant rendering even when not using that very technique.
Previously it was a popular technique for rendering pre-rendered 3d models (sprites) in 3d space like in the old days of wolfenstein, doom I&II and Duke Nukem 3D.
There could be more grass billboard textures. There are grass textures everywhere but clearly licensed grass billboard textures are seldom. A whole "Billboard" texture category would be even nicer.
To the extend of my understanding CC-0 and CC-BY both allow relicensing (as least when including into a larger work !) CC-BY says the original author still has to be credited accordingly.
CC-BY-SA says it needs to be share alike, which is of course fullfilled by CC-BY-SA relicensing - I've got no certain opinion on relicensing as something else copyleft but it seems near valid.
As for GPL on the other hand: Once GPL, always GPL, don't relicense or reuse with other licenses besides those cases allowed by the FSF.
The GPL was never meant for sharing and using art - only it is that some GPL projects demand GPL art. (understatement)
So no legal threat to you or OGA but still a threat to OGA and projects filling with doubtful content and no way to check or to trust. And possibly I should have said "no way to trace back the origins of the art" than "nobody responsible for the art".
I just consider this case doubtful: Anonymous submitter, author name stated, CC0, no link (+no description of origin-ator).
Sounds strange...but still may be really all ok(!).
Of course there may be cases where there really isn't any link possible but in those cases I possibly would expect a description like: "I found these on an old cd with public domain art".
A related issue is that it's dangerous in my opinion to accept anonymous art submissions (even or especially for CC0) without suficient artist contact information. Just the blank name isn't enough. Who can tell that it isn't ripped art? With nobody responsible for the submission? This may even fall back to OGA being held responsible for distribution.
So there is a (as I would call it) copyright injection vulnerability similar to the problem the linux kernel had before they built a chain of trust.
Could imagine that there could be a warning message regarding favorites which have been banned - this may be logistically straight forward. Besides there could be some mechanism like subscribing to submissions like: "Inform me about submission changes".
In my opinion the current mechanism of news only about new submissions inhibits updating art anyway and promotes posting updates as completely new submissions without connections to the prior submission.
@riidom: If the texture may not be redistributed unchanged and it could be extracted then one isn't permitted even (or especially) when it's only a source in a baking process. Compare it to a license that says you may not redistribute unchanged source code: Adding the source code to your project doesn't change the source code itself. You would have to change the source before adding it to the project.
On the other hand those licenses are usually meant to prevent mass re-distribution of textures (for a profit). The artist may be ok with that use. But strictly speaking he/she needs to license the texture to you under a different license that allows this kind of redistribution.
Or you may choose to customize the original texture to some extend beforehand.
EDIT: riidom, sorry, of course if the offending texture itself isn't included in the uploaded asset then it should be ok in your case - with only the derived assets.
Some time ago I made some experiments with post-processing images, a result with a simple howto contained can be found here:
http://opengameart.org/content/pixelated-carnivorous-plant
And I made some tests with proprietary images of rendered game characters that turned out quite well, too.
The process itself could be automated.
My fault.
Billboards are specifically images that are always oriented facing the eye. Billboard rendering is used for rendering plants, crops, corn, grass, clouds, particles and impostors from a side-view. (impostors = pre-rendered image of geometry replacing the actual geometry for lower level of detail)
But that kind of "side-view" textures are useful for plant rendering even when not using that very technique.
Previously it was a popular technique for rendering pre-rendered 3d models (sprites) in 3d space like in the old days of wolfenstein, doom I&II and Duke Nukem 3D.
Best try image-googling: grass billboard texture
Or: grass rendering
OGA has some by yughues
http://opengameart.org/content/grass-pack-02 (and 01)
Extracting them and putting them up could be a start.
There could be more grass billboard textures. There are grass textures everywhere but clearly licensed grass billboard textures are seldom. A whole "Billboard" texture category would be even nicer.
@bart:
Maybe better than nothing for now: Just a textbox, and a validation that the link(s) exists. :)
To the extend of my understanding CC-0 and CC-BY both allow relicensing (as least when including into a larger work !) CC-BY says the original author still has to be credited accordingly.
CC-BY-SA says it needs to be share alike, which is of course fullfilled by CC-BY-SA relicensing - I've got no certain opinion on relicensing as something else copyleft but it seems near valid.
As for GPL on the other hand: Once GPL, always GPL, don't relicense or reuse with other licenses besides those cases allowed by the FSF.
The GPL was never meant for sharing and using art - only it is that some GPL projects demand GPL art. (understatement)
So no legal threat to you or OGA but still a threat to OGA and projects filling with doubtful content and no way to check or to trust. And possibly I should have said "no way to trace back the origins of the art" than "nobody responsible for the art".
I just consider this case doubtful: Anonymous submitter, author name stated, CC0, no link (+no description of origin-ator).
Sounds strange...but still may be really all ok(!).
Of course there may be cases where there really isn't any link possible but in those cases I possibly would expect a description like: "I found these on an old cd with public domain art".
A related issue is that it's dangerous in my opinion to accept anonymous art submissions (even or especially for CC0) without suficient artist contact information. Just the blank name isn't enough. Who can tell that it isn't ripped art? With nobody responsible for the submission? This may even fall back to OGA being held responsible for distribution.
So there is a (as I would call it) copyright injection vulnerability similar to the problem the linux kernel had before they built a chain of trust.
Could imagine that there could be a warning message regarding favorites which have been banned - this may be logistically straight forward. Besides there could be some mechanism like subscribing to submissions like: "Inform me about submission changes".
In my opinion the current mechanism of news only about new submissions inhibits updating art anyway and promotes posting updates as completely new submissions without connections to the prior submission.
@riidom: If the texture may not be redistributed unchanged and it could be extracted then one isn't permitted even (or especially) when it's only a source in a baking process. Compare it to a license that says you may not redistribute unchanged source code: Adding the source code to your project doesn't change the source code itself. You would have to change the source before adding it to the project.
On the other hand those licenses are usually meant to prevent mass re-distribution of textures (for a profit). The artist may be ok with that use. But strictly speaking he/she needs to license the texture to you under a different license that allows this kind of redistribution.
Or you may choose to customize the original texture to some extend beforehand.
EDIT: riidom, sorry, of course if the offending texture itself isn't included in the uploaded asset then it should be ok in your case - with only the derived assets.
Great, thanks.
I'll keep my fingers crossed. :)
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