Need help / clearance with my submission
Hi guys
I am working on a mod for a very old isometric RPG named "Siege of Avalon". That game had a very cool inventory system that made characters very customizable for the time. Basically, every piece of clothing / armor was put on a separate layer.
More info about the game: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Avalon
The last few months I've been working on remodeling and rendering the whole item arsenal and the character bases in my spare time (from scratch). I just released the first version of the mod a few days ago. Never expected a hype because the game has been dead for a long time, I'm mostly doing this for myself.
But I also want to share the sprites for the 521 animations I've created because I put a lot of love and time into making them.
P.S. For reference, the pictures in the attachment all use the same basehumanmale animation, but the variable hair, clothing or gear makes them look different. There are 8 actions: Idle, Walk, Run, Attack, Bow, Casting, Pain and Death.
The problem is that they were specifically made for that game in mind and mostly look like the items from the game.
Here come my questions:
OGA cannot accept content that the owner has not explicitly released under one of the available licenses.
I released the work as a mod, but never cared about licensing. How does this work?
OGA cannot accept derivative works of content that has not been explicitly released under one of the available licenses, with the exception that you can create a derivative of a work with a CC 2.0 license and release it under the equivalent 3.0 license, provided you maintain the author's credit.
Can I release these resources? Many of them are as generic as it gets, but others are recognizable from the game.
Thanks for any hints or help,
Cheers,
Skyzor
Sorry for the double post, I also want to show how characters are put together with these images in the attachment. The amount of possibilities with 400+ Items is staggering. Basically every NPC is unique in that game.
Hmm... Acording to Wikipedia, at least the source code was released under a free license. However, the page is not clear if the LGPL license extends to the textures and models. Either way, submitting them here would require adding the Lesser General Public License to OGA, and you would have to take that up with @MedicineStorm. How did you obtain the original models and textures, were they part of the mentioned GitHub page, or did you rip them from the original game? If they were released under LGPL, then you're required to release them somewhere under that license, same with any modifications to the coding.
-Sincerely
FiveBrosStopMosYT
Thanks for the reply, FiveBros.
The models and textures I created from scratch, they're all my work. I really started from 0, because therr were no 3D models from the game to work with. So I had to remake everything. The new item sprites only have the same design like the original items, but no game assets were used. Here's a before and after image of the "Sha'ahoul" race from the game:
Before:
https://soamigos.de/wbb5/index.php?attachment/2932-before-png/
After:
https://soamigos.de/wbb5/index.php?attachment/2931-after-png/
Cheers,
Skyzor
FiveBrosStopMosYT has the gist of it. Can (either of) you provide links to where it says the game is released LGPL or other license information?
Specifically made for that game by whom? What sort of things does this mod involve. Just new items? New characters? New character parts (hair, eyes, toenails) but not new base human? What did you base each one off of? You said "remodeling". Does this mean you took the original models and heavily reworked them? Walk me through the process you took as you crafted these new items and/or player models as if you were training me up to help you contribute to the mod.
--Medicine StormLooks like you answered several of the questions as I was typing them. Haha!
If you started from zero, the copyrights all belong to you. You may license them however you wish, including "explictly releasing them under one of the available licenses"
The trademark of the characters themselves, however, may be a different matter. The character designs may come with specific trademarked features. A generic human is not trademarkable, but a bald Sha'ahoul guy with blue tattoos on his chest who is named Corvus is not something you can share here. A specific story character and a specificly named race with associated features is trademark material. Kind of like how "short humanoids that love to eat and have huge feet" is not a trademarked race, but "hobbits" are, because of the specific name in association with the features.
As far as I can tell, that doesn't seem to be the case here, but I'll need you to tell me more about the underlying story-elements of the character that these models represent.
--Medicine Storm@MedicineStorm, thank you for the replies and the clarifications. :)
Most of the items are as generic as they can get.
But there are a few characters that are kind of unique and not seen in the other games, for example the leader of the mentioned "Sha'ahoul" race who is called "Mithras" (or rather his items that can be combined with the basehuman sprites to look like him), which I will not release. Attached you will find the journal entry from the game with concept art of the said character, also the original game sprite of him and the new sprite that I created.
Otherwise, the invading "Sha'ahoul" can't really be trademarked I guess except their race name, since they are a mixed race of generic barbarians and orcs.
Also, there are a few tabards and shields with the flags / coat of arms of the native kingdoms from the game, which I will not release either. 2 examples attached (Avalon, Eleythea).
But the generic steel breastplate or tunic and whatnot can't be trademarked I guess, and that's what I will release.
Sorry for the silly question, but how do I license them?
haha! Not a silly question. To license your work, you say to yourself "I've decided to release my assets under the terms of the CC0 / OGA-BY / whatever license." Then upload the assets to the submission page here on OGA. :)
I believe you've correctly identified the components with potential trademark issues. So long as those parts are not included, I look forward to seeing your submission. These look very cool. Clearly a lot of effort and love went into them. :) Let me know if you have additional questions.
--Medicine StormMedicineStorm, I wanted to thank you for the help. :)
I just created the submission. Hopefully someone can use them: https://opengameart.org/content/isometric-basehumanmale-with-400-items
Cheers,
Skyz0r
I'll bet many people will be able to use them. If these are based off of 3D models, and you have those models still, I'd bet they could be adapted to the FLARE specs as well. These would add a lot of diversity to an already impressive game engine!
--Medicine StormBack in 2019 when I started this project with 0 knowledge I stumbled upon some 3D files from Flare. Those helped me a lot to understand the basics.
Yes, I do have all the 3D files still, they even use a very similar setup as the Flare assets and it should be easy to render them for Flare (just time consuming).
Now I just found the Flare github with the Blender files. Do you know who I could work with to try out some items? I'd like to see how these models do in Flare, then maybe take it further.
Dorkster and/or Danimal for sure. They're quite responsive to any posts or comments in the FLARE forum as well.
--Medicine StormIt works, but I'm not sure about the sprite sheet settings that were used, so I improvised.
This looks really nice. Would you also be willing and able to release the 3D models this was rendered from? That way others could maybe further expand the set or do new renders themselves. Did you by any chance use Blender3D for making these?
--
http://freegamedev.net
SKYZ0R testing your new models in Flare is easier than you expect, just replace an existing one with your own!; but you need to have something in account, the male and female versions have different animations which mean you need an unique render for both.
The easiest way to go its to download one of the existing weapon/armor models, replace with your own and parent to existing bones. Also check before if the script is to date.
https://github.com/flareteam/flare-game/tree/master/art_src/characters/hero
https://github.com/flareteam/flare-game/tree/master/art_src/characters/h...
I tried your sword, but its not working well, the sword hilt is touching the elbow instead of being hand paralel making the swing down weird, the upper and right directions are badly aligned, the sword go backwards.
Im uploading a male/female sample of one of the new weapons i added, another simpler way to do it would be to join both weapon models (control+J), align the new one perfectly with old, and erase old. Its the one i use the most, its easier, less error prone and bone free.
Anyways, pretty decent first try, mine was a real disaster :) and your collection is pretty awesome.
Hey Danimal, thank you again for the help. I'll try it out as soon as I can. :)
@Julius: I still have the Blender files of course, but I don't feel comfortable releasing them.