I haven't been commenting on these threads, but my take is basically this:
IDK if it would be considered "fair use" or not, but I still don't think it qualifies as copyright infringement. Its basically like an artist looking up a reference and using that to create something inspired by it. It would only infringe on the copyright if the asset is too similar to the original asset. I know the argument is "they're taking existing art, editing it, and mixing it with other things", but I don't think that's actually what's happening, nor did the existing court cases that came out make that argument.
The courts basically said AI art "prompts" are like making a commission from an artist. Its the artist's interpretation of what information you give them, and by default, the artist in question owns the copyright. However, only humans can own copyrights. For AI generated art, the "artist" in this case is the algorithm, not a person. As such, AI generated art without much human input cannot be copyrighted.
By starting with the assumption that this is like a commissioned work, they're already somewhat setting the narrative of where their thinking lies here.
Even though that is my stance on AI art, we will see how the courts decide this, and I do have one more comment...
I have no sympathy for any companies claiming "yeah we're not using copyrighted assets" and they actually are. That is blatantly lying and is a potential criminal offense. In such a case they'd be better off not saying anything than outright lying about it.
Oh, one other thing:
"evolving" an image I think _would_ qualify as being derivative. Because you're using that image as the starting point. The algorithms are created by scanning existing art and putting that into the algorithm, but its starting from scratch normally. It starts with a blank canvas and simply follows the algorithm. Evolving art, however, starts from an existing artwork and applies the algorithm over it. That is a much different situation.
Yeah recreating them might be an option, but I'm still hesitant to make modifications to base animations. Even though it probably wouldn't be THAT hard to do.
Also, I double-checked. The Grab animation is by Daneeklu. To my knowledge Daneeklu is not one of the users who has added support for OGA-BY, so that's a problem in using Grab.
Another consideration I had as well: it might be better to recreate these anyway. The only one that might be viable to keep on its own is Carry. The reason I'm bringing this up is because the legs could be a problem--the walk frame for a push, ideally, should have the push ACTUALLY pushing the legs back along the ground. Now, its possible Evert's animations did do this, I still have to download and check the whole sheet.
"Also, an animation for holding an object in front of the character as well would be amazing, so we can choose between carrying smaller objects in front of us and then for a larger crate an animation above the head. Also, a palms up facing out push would be nice like you're really leaning into the push with effort. Everts only does a kind of gripped on sides push."
That sounds pretty similar to how thrust might look or slash. Just tweak the arms in those positions a bit and add the walk frames. That would probably be fairly easy to do honestly.
"I'm not really a pixel artist myself, I code."
Same lol! I've always been more of a coder than an artist.
Well, I guess I can call myself a pixel artist now, but I'm still a bit of an amateur. Its not like I've been doing pixel art for 15 years or anything. Its more like I dabbled in it a bit 11-15 years ago, and occasionally came back here and there to do more stuff.
I'd have to argue I didn't REALLY get into a lot more pixel art until this past year again. I think my stuff now is a huge improvement but I still have to work from a base. That's why I came back to LPC in the first place.
And yeah, carrying objects on top of the head is a common thing. Its not like... as common as you might think, but it is somewhat common.
However, that's actually really easy to do anyway. The only real issue is cleaning up the base walk frames where you cut the arms out and flip them to being above the head. More difficult, I think, is having a "pick up" and "put down" animation. That IMO is far more interesting (and harder).
Ah, thanks for sharing that link. I can bookmark it. Evert is willing to support OGA-BY as long as the original assets are, but wasn't aware that they actually were.
Redshrike, Wulax, and Makrohn are among the ones who added universal OGA-BY support. We should be good there, but I'd rather wait for a response from Evert on that one assuming Evert is even still active here.
"About licensing: I'd love to make this OGA-BY, but to the best of my knowledge the originals these are derived from do not include that licence. Do let me know if that is incorrect."
Heh, okay. I was just forwarded to these assets. I have dug into all of this and yes, the base assets are in OGA-BY. MedicineStorm reached out to a lot of people asking for confirmation on this. That being said, MANY creators early on supported the ability for their assets to be usable in DRM environments (basically Steam / Mobile) long before OGA-BY existed anyway. Including Redshrike and Wulax.
It'd be great if this did have OGA-BY support, then I could add them to the Expanded ULPC and start filling out animation frames for various assets:
Keep in mind, only the body model itself is OGA-BY. I'm not aware of the rest of the assets, we'd have to check them on a case-by-case basis.
As far as I am aware, Redshrike, Wulax, and Makrohn added support for OGA-BY, as have I. Daneeklu I haven't seen any evidence did, while Joe White I don't know. But IMO the most important thing is the body models anyway.
EDIT: I see, so Grab is by Daneeklu. Yeah, that's where the blocker is for that one.
As for the body models:
I -think- Pregnant and Muscular do not support OGA-BY. Male, Female, and "Teen" all do.
Mostly because I couldn't find them, they weren't in any of the common places. Eliza didn't have them and they weren't in the repo either (in the ULPC repo, idle/sit/jump/run were in there, they just weren't in the spritesheet yet).
Plus, those assets appear to all be in CC-BY-SA 3.0. So we'd have to make the entire base body model set CC-BY-SA 3.0 as well when they're all currently OGA-BY 3.0, CC-BY 3.0, and CC-BY-SA 3.0.
Its possible push/grab/carry wouldn't be that hard to animate. Its based on the standard walk cycle, so we might be able to start from the same walk animations. However, there is a bit of a problem--the arms do move around. So that would require more effort.
Maybe there's a way I can still include them and just say Push/Carry/Grab are (for now) only CC-BY-SA 3.0 even though the rest of the assets are OGA-BY and CC-BY / CC-BY-SA.
Either way, though, I do intend on eventually adding more animations as they are available. However, I don't intend on adding new ones on a whim. I'd prefer to just drop them in when there's a good chunk available to add. Also, push/pull isn't _that_ necessary. We can just have a basic push just by walking into an object.
One of these days I'll finish my new hairstyles. The only reason I haven't added them yet is because the animation is such a pain. Its also why I've been nervous about porting other hairstyles to run/jump/etc. Eliza's hairstyles were already done. That being said, maybe for most hairstyles, just a few skews on run and jump is fine...
I don't like these attribution lists very much. It loses all formatting. I tried uploading a credits.rtf file which is a lot cleaner, but the file was denied. Boo.
I left some comments in the OGA discord, but I'll drop them here, too.
There's no overall guidelines to my knowledge. Just add what you like. You don't even have to add the assets to the generators yourself, as long as the licensing is correct someone actively working on it may/will eventually add it. You do as much to create new assets as you are comfortable with.
I will note one thing, though:
While there are no guidelines, there is a general rule that has happened over time. If you check out the ULPC, a lot of assets follow a preset list of existing palettes. I have gone ahead and catalogued these palettes to make it easier to track, you can find them here:
If you stick to this palette list, keeping the number of colors you use relatively low (typically six), it'll make it a lot easier to create a bunch of recolors. I use bluecarrot's lpctools to handle the recolors quickly, and the .json files in that directory above are designed to work in lpctools. This can greatly expand the utility of a single asset, adding way more options.
I haven't been commenting on these threads, but my take is basically this:
IDK if it would be considered "fair use" or not, but I still don't think it qualifies as copyright infringement. Its basically like an artist looking up a reference and using that to create something inspired by it. It would only infringe on the copyright if the asset is too similar to the original asset. I know the argument is "they're taking existing art, editing it, and mixing it with other things", but I don't think that's actually what's happening, nor did the existing court cases that came out make that argument.
The courts basically said AI art "prompts" are like making a commission from an artist. Its the artist's interpretation of what information you give them, and by default, the artist in question owns the copyright. However, only humans can own copyrights. For AI generated art, the "artist" in this case is the algorithm, not a person. As such, AI generated art without much human input cannot be copyrighted.
By starting with the assumption that this is like a commissioned work, they're already somewhat setting the narrative of where their thinking lies here.
Even though that is my stance on AI art, we will see how the courts decide this, and I do have one more comment...
I have no sympathy for any companies claiming "yeah we're not using copyrighted assets" and they actually are. That is blatantly lying and is a potential criminal offense. In such a case they'd be better off not saying anything than outright lying about it.
Oh, one other thing:
"evolving" an image I think _would_ qualify as being derivative. Because you're using that image as the starting point. The algorithms are created by scanning existing art and putting that into the algorithm, but its starting from scratch normally. It starts with a blank canvas and simply follows the algorithm. Evolving art, however, starts from an existing artwork and applies the algorithm over it. That is a much different situation.
Yeah recreating them might be an option, but I'm still hesitant to make modifications to base animations. Even though it probably wouldn't be THAT hard to do.
Also, I double-checked. The Grab animation is by Daneeklu. To my knowledge Daneeklu is not one of the users who has added support for OGA-BY, so that's a problem in using Grab.
Another consideration I had as well: it might be better to recreate these anyway. The only one that might be viable to keep on its own is Carry. The reason I'm bringing this up is because the legs could be a problem--the walk frame for a push, ideally, should have the push ACTUALLY pushing the legs back along the ground. Now, its possible Evert's animations did do this, I still have to download and check the whole sheet.
"Also, an animation for holding an object in front of the character as well would be amazing, so we can choose between carrying smaller objects in front of us and then for a larger crate an animation above the head. Also, a palms up facing out push would be nice like you're really leaning into the push with effort. Everts only does a kind of gripped on sides push."
That sounds pretty similar to how thrust might look or slash. Just tweak the arms in those positions a bit and add the walk frames. That would probably be fairly easy to do honestly.
"I'm not really a pixel artist myself, I code."
Same lol! I've always been more of a coder than an artist.
Well, I guess I can call myself a pixel artist now, but I'm still a bit of an amateur. Its not like I've been doing pixel art for 15 years or anything. Its more like I dabbled in it a bit 11-15 years ago, and occasionally came back here and there to do more stuff.
I'd have to argue I didn't REALLY get into a lot more pixel art until this past year again. I think my stuff now is a huge improvement but I still have to work from a base. That's why I came back to LPC in the first place.
And yeah, carrying objects on top of the head is a common thing. Its not like... as common as you might think, but it is somewhat common.
However, that's actually really easy to do anyway. The only real issue is cleaning up the base walk frames where you cut the arms out and flip them to being above the head. More difficult, I think, is having a "pick up" and "put down" animation. That IMO is far more interesting (and harder).
I'll bookmark this for later. I thought I saw Push/Carry/Pull a while back, but I couldn't find it earlier.
Ah, thanks for sharing that link. I can bookmark it. Evert is willing to support OGA-BY as long as the original assets are, but wasn't aware that they actually were.
Redshrike, Wulax, and Makrohn are among the ones who added universal OGA-BY support. We should be good there, but I'd rather wait for a response from Evert on that one assuming Evert is even still active here.
"About licensing: I'd love to make this OGA-BY, but to the best of my knowledge the originals these are derived from do not include that licence. Do let me know if that is incorrect."
Heh, okay. I was just forwarded to these assets. I have dug into all of this and yes, the base assets are in OGA-BY. MedicineStorm reached out to a lot of people asking for confirmation on this. That being said, MANY creators early on supported the ability for their assets to be usable in DRM environments (basically Steam / Mobile) long before OGA-BY existed anyway. Including Redshrike and Wulax.
It'd be great if this did have OGA-BY support, then I could add them to the Expanded ULPC and start filling out animation frames for various assets:
https://opengameart.org/content/expanded-universal-lpc-spritesheet-idle-...
Keep in mind, only the body model itself is OGA-BY. I'm not aware of the rest of the assets, we'd have to check them on a case-by-case basis.
As far as I am aware, Redshrike, Wulax, and Makrohn added support for OGA-BY, as have I. Daneeklu I haven't seen any evidence did, while Joe White I don't know. But IMO the most important thing is the body models anyway.
EDIT: I see, so Grab is by Daneeklu. Yeah, that's where the blocker is for that one.
As for the body models:
I -think- Pregnant and Muscular do not support OGA-BY. Male, Female, and "Teen" all do.
Mostly because I couldn't find them, they weren't in any of the common places. Eliza didn't have them and they weren't in the repo either (in the ULPC repo, idle/sit/jump/run were in there, they just weren't in the spritesheet yet).
Plus, those assets appear to all be in CC-BY-SA 3.0. So we'd have to make the entire base body model set CC-BY-SA 3.0 as well when they're all currently OGA-BY 3.0, CC-BY 3.0, and CC-BY-SA 3.0.
Its possible push/grab/carry wouldn't be that hard to animate. Its based on the standard walk cycle, so we might be able to start from the same walk animations. However, there is a bit of a problem--the arms do move around. So that would require more effort.
Maybe there's a way I can still include them and just say Push/Carry/Grab are (for now) only CC-BY-SA 3.0 even though the rest of the assets are OGA-BY and CC-BY / CC-BY-SA.
Either way, though, I do intend on eventually adding more animations as they are available. However, I don't intend on adding new ones on a whim. I'd prefer to just drop them in when there's a good chunk available to add. Also, push/pull isn't _that_ necessary. We can just have a basic push just by walking into an object.
One of these days I'll finish my new hairstyles. The only reason I haven't added them yet is because the animation is such a pain. Its also why I've been nervous about porting other hairstyles to run/jump/etc. Eliza's hairstyles were already done. That being said, maybe for most hairstyles, just a few skews on run and jump is fine...
Next time I'll include the file in the zip, but I don't want to reupload the whole zip file just for a credits. Instead I'll try a .txt file.
Saving the .rtf as a .txt works pretty well, that's added now.
I don't like these attribution lists very much. It loses all formatting. I tried uploading a credits.rtf file which is a lot cleaner, but the file was denied. Boo.
I left some comments in the OGA discord, but I'll drop them here, too.
There's no overall guidelines to my knowledge. Just add what you like. You don't even have to add the assets to the generators yourself, as long as the licensing is correct someone actively working on it may/will eventually add it. You do as much to create new assets as you are comfortable with.
I will note one thing, though:
While there are no guidelines, there is a general rule that has happened over time. If you check out the ULPC, a lot of assets follow a preset list of existing palettes. I have gone ahead and catalogued these palettes to make it easier to track, you can find them here:
https://github.com/sanderfrenken/Universal-LPC-Spritesheet-Character-Gen...
If you stick to this palette list, keeping the number of colors you use relatively low (typically six), it'll make it a lot easier to create a bunch of recolors. I use bluecarrot's lpctools to handle the recolors quickly, and the .json files in that directory above are designed to work in lpctools. This can greatly expand the utility of a single asset, adding way more options.
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