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3D_vet

Making models for Arma 3, content for free, still monetizing, somehow (it's a question, ;) )

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Hum... was writing a very long post, but just now, reading some other stuff, I realize this might not be possible. Summarizing that long post a huge lot, this was the idea :

 

I'm a veteran artist of all profiles (2d/3d, modeler/texturer/animator/Ui and concept artist/even pixel artist (you get to that with many years in small companies where you have to do everything )) , and my issue in working inside mods -which imo, would benefit them quite, I prefer not to use false modesty here ;D - is it that it means many hours->no income, not easy at my age (let's say forty something ;)  ) and situation, sadly. (if I were rich or young would do this for fully free).

 

So... in matter of legalities and stuff... Is it possible to make models (ie, British militar Uniforms, human characters, zombies, structures, vehicles, plants/trees, whatever) , provide them fully free to the community -charging a little to mod teams or personal special requests, at least some minimum quantity- , BUT so to be able to take my models, without absolutely any inherited mesh from Bohemia, not even based in a model mesh from them, neither with any sort of text file or texture from it (even while in the mods would have all its configs and etc), and me selling later on, that model/texture/animation set(doubtfully this last one) to a commercial studio, a company ? This way I would be making content that I can later on monetize somehow instead of doing it as a hobby, as I don't really have free time for hobbies, much as I passionately would love to. Sounds to me that... in theory, this means absolutely no legal implication were Bohemia might have a problem with it, or that could damage them (I know little about it, but already quite like the company (indeed, would love to work external for a company like that...) and its focus on the editing folks, last thing I wish is something not of their liking) . I take it that if... absolutely no content from Bohemia is used, there should be no probs in repacking my own model in whatever the format and improvements / adaptations certain whatever company needs (even for architecture / previz / events / ads people / you name it ) . 

 

Maybe is not possible, as am reading some docs, and really, I don't know (well, that's why I'm asking !) , bit confused now with most info.

I make out of an illustration about 80$ minimum for a simple character illustration (realistic digital painting !), which takes me way way less time and effort than modeling a full character of today's specs. 30 $ only if is just an sketch or 40$ if is a comic like line art with plain colors only.  From 150 to 350 $ , aprox., for making a logo.. And so on. 3D has, IMO, quite a worse earn ratio. When young artists ask me, I tell them so, as otherwise I would be lying to them. That 3D is a harder field to make a living unless you get inside a company. Well, has bad ratio unless one can resell what you create several times, or make a pretty one-off sell to a company. I have some possible targets for specifically that... Still, pretty non secure, very risky for me (that I could end up not able to sell it as market for that is very difficult, even with great quality.  At least, hard for an individual without promoting resources). That's why trying to see about charging or not the mod teams. Not doing so means working waaay slower, meaning, taking months, as need to give priority even to small money making gigs. Getting at least a small pay, I can speed it up a lot. (I'm not slow, happily).

 

And... this post also ended up long, sorry. 

 

Well, if someone can point me to some legal document were I can check this, or simply, knows for sure, I can investigate further later. I do believe would be a nice combination. (if some big/mid company reads this, and needs this kind of graphic outsourcing in a permanent (or not, if that's not really possible) term (but paid) that'd be more than amazing ! hehe. ) 

 

And sorry if  this has been asked more times ! :)  (I don't know)

 

Cheers,

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It sounds like you make the original content, then take the time to port it to the game. It's still your work, so you can do whatever you want with it.

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It sounds like you make the original content, then take the time to port it to the game. It's still your work, so you can do whatever you want with it.

 

That sounds great! Still digging the license and docs, just in case...

Yet though, will be content very specific, as to be usable and adapted to the mod. Indeed, the exact models requested by the mod, just later on prepared and freed of any related content from Bohemia (and never based on their content) and finally sold.

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you own everything you do, so you can sell it later to whoever you see fit. You still own but you cannot sell content made with BI tools (which are marked non-commercial), but i doubt you would use that for anything else but injecting into the game

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Very interesting !... is looking good, then,  indeed... B)

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the question is wether potential buyers would agree to buying your models if they knew they exist for free in another medium. But thats not really related to arma modding per se.

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Indeed, I realized that was the real only main issue after posting it, lol. That and if would sales really happen if people would know they can get it for free just handling some utilities to extract from the game. I mean, one issue is people getting angry for it being somewhat free in a certain way while they purchased (indeed, knowing previously to purchase it, I'd warn it), and another, that people, knowing it, would just try to get the free non full version instead of purchase. For the latter, realizing is no problem, or not so much as I thought yesterday. Could manage to agree with whatever the mod team to let the models be non published for like 2 or 3 months, try to get the most sales in that time (anyway, is often the moment of posting when it gets its momentum, and also, in a direct one-off sale (much more interesting), this could benefit as well, and the client would be would be totally informed.). That short period passed anyway, professionals and business dealing with stuff seriously , do totally need a written valid license from the author, so, if there are any worthy sales, it wouldn't have to damage it too badly.

 

The other issue you mention might be more complex. And warning about it in a negotiation, or in a stock depot entry (for per copy sales) would be very much damaging possible sales, and at  the same time, unavoidable. Anyway, is not the exact same thing which would be available, but sort of lite version.  The community file not being in the native package scene file format (to have more flexibility to use the files in a professional project), and also, having worked in a bunch of game companies, application developing ones, and design studios, anything without a license (be it creative commons or other license that allows usage, and very specified, usually by purchase) is worth absolutely nothing to a company or one-person professional business (freelance actually purchasing content). Even public domain is frowned upon, as some countries' laws have issues with that, and often, the people in charge is not very versed about image rights usage laws and/or the pd term is somehow mentally related with low quality and low variety (like free stuff, in general, among companies). So, still digging the matter. Thanks a lot for all the contributions. :). To me, it seems doable. Probably not much than as a hobby/current gen skills updating, that pays a little bit itself.   :)

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I think it's a matter of usage rights. You're granting people the right to use your content in ArmA, but not granting permission to use your content outside of ArmA/the release's intended purpose.

I'm not a legal expert by any means, but I'd be shocked if this wasn't the case.

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Yes, that looks like is exactly just that. And the world of content is so... It seems just a matter of making a good licence (or license in US English, I guess.) document and be very sure on not using any BI tool (neither BI mesh, design or texture) to produce the model(/s)  till certain stage, were it will be branched in two paths: One for selling my own the model, another for including the model in the game (from that point, all sort of tools will be used with that "branch"). After all, any person or company wanting to make a commercial use of any content, actually needs a license where rights are very clearly established. Files without one are not free by default, as some people could think, and so, unusable for serious purposes.

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Obviously there's nothing stopping you building models that would be suitable for use in a game engine. Those could be sold, as they're your property. That's between you and who ever buys a copy. What they do after that, could be up to them.

 

As Pufu mentioned, once they pass through the tools they are subject to any EULA BI set out. It might be a bit tricky doing anything specifically targetted to Arma without involving official assets. But I think it should be possible to get close enough that a modder could take it the rest of the way. Otherwise you're probably getting into murky legal waters.

 

I don't know what the specifics are in cases like these. Would payment for creating an asset be seen as payment for work done, as in time and skill? But the end product can be shared according to the author's chosen license.

 

Or would it be seen as payment for a "product" restricted by BI's EULA?

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Here's how I think this works:

You make a model in Blender (for example) -> Your property

You run the model through BI's tools to -> Partially belongs to BI now

 

With that pipeline, you own your model, but whatever gets spit out of BI's tools is no longer under your full ownership.

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Yes, Zooloo75, that's the only way around I can see it, for now. Probably characters have less possibilities for my idea than any other in-game objects. (a pity as I'm specialized in characters, but for the main idea, anything can do (weapons, items, etc )). Plus, a character here is like divided in parts, and as I have seen, mounted and mixed with vests, uniform, then re-weighted, etc... even have read is recommended not to create custom hands (surely due to the complexity of attaching the weapon and its animations, etc) .

 

Anyway, a not so bad idea is that an artist with certain experience can do assets, models, and the people which are good at encoding for this specific game, just because a certain mesh would be of their particular interest, they could modify it as needed to fit their needs and get it into the game. That said, I'll have to make whatever the mesh and texture much following the specs, or would be a pain for whoever to adapt that.

 

@Macser As the idea would be wether selling it in depots later on (be it a vehicle, weapon, building,(a character seems less possible to make it independent from the game tools/sample meshes) etc), which indeed is close to impossible as depots are overcrowded of meshes, and/or sell as a direct one-off sale to certain specific developer, I guess is mostly then  "product" license. The per hours payment as a service I believe would not make ok to do any commercial use of a mesh (you gain money thanks to that publication or distribution, that's included in the "commercial use") that for example has started from a BIS human sample mesh.  IMHO, a published content, in whatever the way, if being against an Eula, it cannot be distributed in anyway against terms. From all what I am reading and videos am watching to (for example) make a custom character from scratch, is not very doable without the BIS meshes. At the very least, they must serve as a reference for scale, maybe even for position (for skinning weights and joints positions matching), and this would totally imply at least modeling wth the mesh underneath to follow a very close scale and parts position. That's too much in the edge of legal barriers for my taste, and too much work to get later on a letter for retiring the product :). Plus, having never experienced that, must be embarrassing. Probably is best to keep the commercial (slightly possible) small income for static objects, and do whatever character and animation related stuff only for the updating the skills part. Or that's what I can see now, bit with the brain dense after too many docs reading ;)

 

Obviously there's nothing stopping you building models that would be suitable for use in a game engine

 

 

Yep, I think that's the key.

 

Thanks for your comments.   :)

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if you use armake, you should be able to get a new assets ingame without any BI tools used.

only for missions and terrains (to a small extent) you have to use BI tools. everything else should be doable without

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