Converting

[drow 0]

What do you all think of this?

The Unsung has the opportunity to import various object addons from games such as battlefield vietnam and others.

Im sure this would be illegal providing we were planning to sell our mod, but seeing how that wont happen I dont see any problem with it.

I think this is a fine idea as our mod doesnt yet have a strong enough addon team to create everything you would want on a nam island in a reasonable timeframe.

Utilizing static objects from other games to help produce our island will significantly decrease the production time on it and allow us to begin creating the campaign which is the heart of our mod, and create it right.

We plan to bring you into Vietnam for the most realistic experience possible, we're not paid game developers and have lives to live as well, I hope converting doesnt make us loose all credit in the community, so I thought I would ask.

(Incase u didnt know, many mods convert, only many mods take credit for the models rather than disclosing their origins.)

BIG

Temple

bigbunker

Sandbags

seperate

bunker

[Katerina 0]

Doubt the community will object, but EA might do.

If they charge people to buy these objects which are in BF:Nam, the might object to someone else giving them away for free.

[drow 0]

Valid point,

but I dont think EA even know what OFP is.

ha!

edit - besides, youre paying them for the game, not the models, the models are useless without a game to play them in.  We're not becoming a middle man to supply people with the battlefield vietnam experience.

ps. i dont think they were taking their ideas from 3 year old games like ofp, look at BF42, its got the same gameplay elements, take the base style... i guess thats CTI, but it was already there in previous Battlefield games.

[Katerina 0]

I think its safe to say they do lol, BF is like a arcade version of OFP cti.

[Nathanz 0]

AHA ... thats where i saw that temple thing before

EA allowed all addons from expansions to be converted to original battlefield, But I'm not to sure about converting to other games.

[Status_cz 0]

I don´t like it...

Addons/MODs are about your own work and not about work of someone else(right,inquisitor?).Addonmakeing is not about to be THE BEST,but it´s about presentation of your skills.

But if you´ll write into readme something like:

"This model&textures I converted from Vietcong,but model doesn´t had any LODs so I add some...I also convert textures from JPG to pac so it won´t lag on slowest PC´s." and done it...it´s OK converting.

Converted addons are "shadowing" the hardworking addonmakers.And that´s not fair...  

[Katerina 0]

Yeah but you forget some EA staff member gets paid to produce said models.

Look at it from the lowly model/texture artist view point.

Would you be happy that someone was taking your work (which you were paid for) and giving it out for free else where.

I personaly don't mind, but EA might.

Im sure theres that licence agreement when you installed a BF game about what you can do with contents, maybe worth checking it out.

[@cero 0]

I supose that it takes some hard work to convert some stuff, so there still some "skill" into converting.

I think it will do good to get them buildings and objects converted, it will accelerate the making of the mod.

BTW I like Inquisitor's conversions

@CERO.

[Katerina 0]

The thing about Inquisitor's conversions is that the source is from a non paid artist who did it for free and gave it out to the CS community. So there is no money involved.

Though on one point, people have converted weapons from SF2, and no fuss was kicked up.

[drow 0]

Im not an addon maker, im an artist, and I want to bring U the best vietnam campaign possible, in OFP or any game...

If we have to make static addons for a year just to get a proper island where does that leave us...

We will of course credit the proper games for their works included in our mod.

There are mods who make addons and thats it, thats not a mod if you ask me, and as for using other peoples addons and that shot about us using INQs m113 (i believe thats how u meant) well explain to me this,

why should we produce a perfect m113 over the next 6 months when we can improve the best one out and move on the next ingredient we need, im not out for addon glory, I just want to make a great campaign with all the necessary icing, our mod does make addons, but only the ones we need, if something has already been done, i see no shame in asking permission to use it rather than making another one from scratch.

(i see, INQ has converted, I thougth you were saying we were stealing from INQ sry)

[Status_cz 0]

I supose that it takes some hard work to convert some stuff, so there still some "skill" into converting.

I think it will do good to get them buildings and objects converted, it will accelerate the making of the mod.

BTW I like Inquisitor's conversions

@CERO.

Well...converting some weapon&textures takes 5-7 minutes...than only make cfg file.Really hard work.

[drow 0]

Regarding conversions,

i think taking from mods is a very bad thing, those people were not paid, that was their free time, if you take that it seems far worse than taking from a huge corporation where the modellors would nt give two shits if their models ended up where-ever, im sure many made models and such that never even made it into the game, but they were on the pay roll so they made models.

We wont pretend that we made the models, and if I were the public OFP community I would just be happy to have them in OFP, but thats just me i guess.

(noone said anything when SYCO converted stuff from VIETCONG and it was news on ofp.info - it was all "good job!")

---- "Would you be happy that someone was taking your work (which you were paid for) and giving it out for free else where."

thats not Your work, its the corporation, just like art/design the music biz everything... if u work for them, anything u do is theirs.

[@cero 0]

Nah, the coment about InQuisitor's work started ticling my finguers when I readed Status_cz post above.

I love InQuisitors M113, and I think that you guys have the right aproach, what's the point in expending hours and hours trying to make an addon that allready exist and that its good quality?

Go ahead, you doing the right thing, as long as you ask and give credits I think everybody will be OK, and if they don't like it they can make their own mod

Regards.

@CERO.

[scfan42 0]

Another thing to note is that BAS took the textures for the cockpit for their MH-6s from Microsoft Flight Simulator. Most likely a user-made addon as well. I don't know if they asked permission or not, but I don't see any credits for whoever made the cockpit in their readme...

You can tell by looking at the top left part of the panel, you'll see three little icons, one that looks like a radio tower, another that looks like a satellite dish, and a third that looks like a stick. Those are all buttons for use in the 2D cockpits on MSFS, the radio tower brings up your radio stack, the dish brings up your GPS, and the stick brings up your collective or something like that.

[baca85 0]

If i was an addon maker i would want to see my work used by others. And say they didn't give credits to the original person ie someone within the ofp they might be a bit annoyed about someone else nicking their work and claiming they made it. But think of it this way if someone claims it to be their's and its urs id guess thats means ud probable made quite a decent addon. If that makes sense. But i still think giving credit is the right thing todo.

[drow 0]

sry i didnt understand that at all baca,

but i mean, for vietnam there was alot of ww2 stuff still used, by the ARVN, and the vc and whoever.

on the same note, alot of the strictly vietnamera stuff have also already been made in ofp as well as the ww2 stuff, would U, the community rather have us make all those addons from scratch than ask permission to use and modify existing ones? if this is the case, then it shows that our community has grown out of playing ofp, and into making addons in this un-said competition for addon greatness,

but as Avon says,

what good is a great addon if noone make any missions for it.

The Unsung started as a campaign, but I was too disappointed by the only nam island (Ia Drang) to want to waste my time making a great campaign for it, so it occured to me to make a vietnam mod because at the time, there was little or no vietnam addons other than the sebnampack2.

Upon starting a mod I realized that it can actually do you more harm than good, you cant just use any addons anymore, now you have to ask permission to even use them in your mods missions let alone modifying them but on the other hand you will have people who also love this idea and are willing to help create it.  We started the mod late in ofps life and so many addon makers are already in mods, we're doing the best possible to bring the usung to life and bring u Vietnam...

edit -

if you coudlnt tell im a bit frustrated,

please excuse my ranting  

[gwg_viper 0]

@Drow sounds like a good idea, and like u said more mods should concentrate on gameplay and campaigns, so u using other people models and addons, imo, is great if it gives the ofp community, some nice islands, and even more important, some nice missions and campaigns, which is 1 thing the community lacks.

at the end of the day how many m249's or m113's do we needs to keep the game alive? then ask how many missions and campaigns do we need to keep the game alive?

The answer should be obvious!

So pls go ahead and use them models, if it saves u time, and enables the ofp community to get something new to play before ofp2.

[Status_cz 0]

but as Avon says,

what good is a great addon if noone make any missions for it.

Well...here is a problem...Players just put addon on desert island...play with it 2minutes and then they shut down OFP.

[-ZG-BUZZARD 0]

But then again without addons those we have would be quickly battered to boredom... especially those that were made over & over again although along the line there was one or the other that actually managed to please the majority...

As for converting stuff from other games, I remember having seen addonmakers being booed because they imported stuff from Counterstrike, but I think that aint too bad if the credits are there stating it's a converted model from the game of origin... Another time (quite recently) I remember having seen someone complain about a conversion from an addon for GTA3/Vice City to OFP, without credit-attribution nor authorization... now that sucks because one should at least have the decency to ask & give credit to the addonmaker, if it's not official stuff...

As for the "competition" between pure-OFP addonmakng vs imported stuff, I think there shouldn't be a problem... because we all thank OFP addonmakers for their originality, and as for the importers we thank them for their work as well, fully knowing there's a difference... IMHO, the more addons there are for OFP, the better!!! (as long as they're not the kind of addon which were already made to death...). More OFP addons = more diversity = richer pool of stuff missionmakers can make better missions of.  

Edit: And every once in a while OFP gets some TRULY groundbreaking addons which allow for some great gaming improvement... like the cargo carrying planes & choppers, the heavily armed aircraft carriers & ships, fully-working submarines, etc etc etc... but also the scenery is important, as well as the environment... next step: Kegetys magical reflecting water!!!

[NZXSHADOWS 0]

Well...here is a problem...Players just put addon on desert island...play with it 2minutes and then they shut down OFP.

I agree.I do it as well.even with my own created addons.

Anyways I dont think that it is a big deal to import something from another game.Just as long as its worth converting and done properly.

[GoOB 0]

I think addons get more use than people think, that's the beauty and at the same time the pit of OFP. When I play OFP at LAN-parties I make missions with the guys that are there, we hardly ever play missions that are floating about on the net. And not alot of these "private missions" get seen by the addoncreators.

As far as the converting goes, aslong as it is done nicely, with LOD's PAA/PAC textures I am fine with it. Aslong as the core of the mod does not exist of converted models and textures it's fine by me, but you shouldn't ask the community. You should ask yourselves.

[drow 0]

We have asked ourselves but i thougth maybe youre opinions would be good to hear being fellow mod makers etc.

1 2 3 4

with a bit of texture work

Edit: regarding only using addons on the desert island etc, well thats due to the fact that there is no awsome missions with those addons wouldnt you say? >>>my point exactly.

[Bobcatt666 0]

well have vehicles in the works that were uesed durrin the nam era.

As far as things being convert over from other games I had a few things which were never released, that I got permission for usage from other games. Like Quake, CS, and Return to Wolfenstien. And flight simulator, usually it only requires shooting out a email with the request and most of the time they say cool and yes. Even got the ok to get some of Valves stuff that never saw the light og pc games, doubt have a distant relation ot Gabe Newell matered but why the hell not abuse it.. ;)

[-ZG-BUZZARD 0]

Hey Bobcatt, could you post or PM-me a list of the converted stuff? I'm actually searching for converted stuff to make a cross-game video... OFP takes the prize of course but CounterStrike is not too far away (it's really great for instantaneous lip-synch recording, no scripting needed - wonder which other HL mods feature that, only know about CS).