OpenJK licencing question

[CrazyJedi]

Hello, I'm new to forum. I love playing Jedi Knight games. I'm also 3d artist, I have my own story ideas and I want to create own game and release on Steam. But I'm not programmer so I was looking for ready engine with good fight system.

If OpenJK is open-source, can I use engine for my game (replace models, textures, sounds etc.)?

I read that engine was open-sourced by Lucasfilm, but I read also that they deleted code, and engine is available because fans save it.

PS. Sorry for bad English.

[Raz0r]

The only real answer is: talk to your lawyer if/when you're serious about releasing anything, especially commercially. No one on the internet can really give you the legal advice you need.
That being said, my advice is steer clear.

My other advice is start with ioquake3 (same engine JK2+JKA are built on) and work from there, to avoid "Star Wars" (read: Disney and their infinite financial + legal resources) coming to bite you. I'd also steer clear of "laser swords" and "magic" which could be reasonably argued by lawyers to no end.
You'll need a lot of coding experience either way you go.

JKA is specifically a legal grey area, given the source was pulled and a gag order given by Our Great Overlords specifically over licensing/legality concerns.

There are a few other threads discussing this and similar ideas. Quick search showed these will be of interest:

https://jkhub.org/forums/topic/1974-openjk-general-topic/?tab=comments#comment-23405

https://jkhub.org/forums/topic/1986-why-cant-you-use-assets-in-non-commercial-standalone-games-exactly/

 

[kiririnshi01]

from my understanding the engine is open source but part of the code wasn't i don't know which part since i'm no coder and that was the reason of the tookdown since the coder complained,the problematic code was the bink video decoder from rad game tools which was on the source.

Just remember one thing even if open sourced problem is textures and models aren't and since most mods are derivative works you see the problem.

Normally accepted making everything from scratch from maps to player models not using something as base and changing it accordign to what you want sadly most mods start with a derivative of X model and use the skeleton as base and animations.

[Droidy365]

I was also wondering about the same thing. I've started work on a project to make an original game based on JKA's framework, using assets made by me and some royalty free models. However, I'm unsure on the legality of this whole thing.

[kiririnshi01]

10 hours ago, Droidy365 said:

I was also wondering about the same thing. I've started work on a project to make an original game based on JKA's framework, using assets made by me and some royalty free models. However, I'm unsure on the legality of this whole thing.

you would need to remove everything from video decoding to anything that uses rad game tools in the source of OpenJK sadly requires coding and isn't as simple

Well to know more about this read the reason of why was removed https://www.kotaku.com.au/2013/04/just-like-that-jedi-knight-code-has-been-removed-from-sourceforge/

Also lucasfilm don't exist anyomore so there is no worry about them.

[Circa]

8 hours ago, Droidy365 said:

I was also wondering about the same thing. I've started work on a project to make an original game based on JKA's framework, using assets made by me and some royalty free models. However, I'm unsure on the legality of this whole thing.

The answer @Raz0r gave is the only answer, really. Even though OpenJK is open source, it was a result of the source code being released without Lucasfilm's approval, so it's risky.

You're better off making it a mod of JKA, use OpenJK as a base, and doing as much work as you can to make it seem like a new game while still requiring JKA's assets to be installed/purchased. The game is cheap nowadays anyway, and anyone interested in your game will probably already have it in their Steam library anyway.

Nobody here can stop you though, if you want to risk it, go for it. But the moment your game gets any traction and articles are written on it, the moment Lucasfilm will catch wind and possibly do something about it.

[Asgarath83]

On 6/28/2020 at 10:31 AM, CrazyJedi said:

Hello, I'm new to forum. I love playing Jedi Knight games. I'm also 3d artist, I have my own story ideas and I want to create own game and release on Steam. But I'm not programmer so I was looking for ready engine with good fight system.

If OpenJK is open-source, can I use engine for my game (replace models, textures, sounds etc.)?

I read that engine was open-sourced by Lucasfilm, but I read also that they deleted code, and engine is available because fans save it.

PS. Sorry for bad English.

i have the same your dreams and i am into the same situation. also most trigged cause i need to make some kind of action RPG , so i need to add a lot of code for adding RPG stuff features.

You need to replace ALL Star Wars Asset and not sure that something can be really replaced.

on Openjk source code, (not original JK source code realesed into 2013), the copyrighted stuff chunk of code shoul be removed, and it's on GPL. if you want do that, you can do at your risk, but guys are right, be careful about disney.

rename and remove from code ALL star wars calling, all Star Wars referecens about lightsaber, weapons, force powers, etc for be more safe.

(so for example, calle WP_SABER inrto another way, and FP_DRAIN into another way, and rename the AI stuff related to star wars creatures.

only for this you need to rename and search a TONS of networked functions and this require a lot of preliminar job, there also a lot of limitations of gameplay and engine that avoid you to make HD stuff. (npc limit, vertex limits of models, Shader limits, weapon number limitation, force power limitation). you need AT LEAST to write new libs like .SAB files that allow you to customize weapons and spells stuff, so you can add new weaposn and force power as you wish. the more close things in that way that nicely improve the engine is the JKG jedi knight galaxy project, but it's only for multiplayer arena deathmatch.

 

 

PS: however, if you change in code all star wars referecenes and replace all SW assets you should be relatevely safe if you not use that for do cash or money. so some kind of free game.

at least this is about how to works copyright here on Italy, but on UK and USA country things can be much more restrictive and complicated.

on my country depend. in the north region copyright have a lot of importance. on south regions is "no one look no one care". consider that latin countries laws about author rights are a lot different respect to UK \ USA laws . latin countries should be little more open about these things, but not sure. talk with a lawyer of your place or a trusted lawyer of your family before do anything.

i already got 3 legal opinions for my own, and i should be okay, but, as i told, on my country things works little different.

[Asgarath83]

June 2020??? i did necroposting. d'oh.