The Ethics of Paying for Models

[Didz]

Paying for a mod is just silly, but all freedom to anyone that wants to pay someone to make them a mod. Charging for mods is just silly too (especially on a ten year old game). Separate work and play, and get a real job. Modding is for fun not for funds! But still if you want to charge for a mod then all freedom to you too. What is unethical however is taking advantage of the language barrier of many Ukranian Star Wars fans and giving them a subscription-based mod with copied content from original content authors just because they didn't know that Jedi Academy can be played with all these content mods for free.

 

I myself would never charge to make mods for someone, but if a person really wanted to thank me for my effort after I complete their mod and without prior arrangements then they could donate if they wanted. I do charge people that want websites (cheap though!) because it really takes a big chunk of my time to develop it in-between university work and other projects.

 

Either way you swing it, "donating" for a "mod" to be "released" is still wrong.

 

This is one of the reasons I stopped working on Jedi Knight Galaxies. The "project leader" got his money from the Donate button to "cover expenses" for the website of a mod that was far from release state. The original project leader barely lifted a finger to contribute to the development of the mod, apart from being the "ideas guy" and sometimes opening photoshop and making some HUD graphics. The mod itself was broken, the team structure was broken, communication didn't exist, the project was failing. But PR was still pouring out optimistic "news" to keep the fans clinging on. Much of the content shown was heavily prototyped garbage or fakery that was made specifically for the dev diaries but had little significance to do with the gameplay of the mod itself (The horrible untested broken running animation even passed through to release). A large bulk of time in the development of the mod was spent making a fully-working fully-animated stargate system that allowed the developers of the mod to travel between servers instead of using the /connect command. I feel really sorry for people who clicked that Donate button and hoped something playable would come out of the project in good time.

[eezstreet]

Is it against the eula? Maybe. Regardless of whether or not it is, morally, it's a victimless crime - both parties receive something they're happy with, in exchange for something they're willing to sacrifice to get it.

 

I kinda have a different viewpoint on this (see what I did there?). It isn't a victimless crime if you think about it. The victim is the community itself, because if people are openly accepting money for mods and trading them for cash, at what point will the community start making mods simply for cash? Nobody would be able to simply request a mod or get help with anything without there being cash involved. Openly allowing people to pay for mods, directly or indirectly, only condones such behavior.

 

In the case of KotF, I don't think Tim's attempts to sell KotF are morally bad. I think what's bad is the fact that he's selling other people's work, and profiting off a lack of knowledge of all facts from the other party. He's also deceptive about what he's offering. Is that bad? Yes, because there's a lack of information on the buyer's side, but then again, the buyer should be keeping themselves as informed as possible. But I don't think the very principle of selling KotF is bad.

You have a fair point here. But when you're releasing such a large mod as kotf, and (not taking into account the obviously stolen content and simple scripting that the mod is) you're basing it off of the factors of both the Star Wars IP and the Jedi Academy code which lays the foundation, that's stealing from the game developers and George Lucas. So either way you swing it, you're still stealing. How would you like it if someone made a modification of JKHub, and then required pay for people to join, and it actually made a reputable profit? Pretty miffed, I would assume.

 

I don't think paying a modder to make a mod is morally bad, or making a mod for money is. What I do think it is is bad for the community: it sets a worrisome trend, where modders have less and less incentive to make things for free, and will instead more often than not resort to making paid mods. You see it happen with certain softwares - even the IP.Board software we use - a huge quantity of mods is paid, simply because it's completely accepted, everyone loves money, and there's little incentive to give someone away for free when you could get paid for it in an environment that considers that completely acceptable.

This.

 

I myself would never charge to make mods for someone, but if a person really wanted to thank me for my effort after I complete their mod and without prior arrangements then they could donate if they wanted. I do charge people that want websites (cheap though!) because it really takes a big chunk of my time to develop it in-between university work and other projects.

And resources, I presume

This is one of the reasons I stopped working on Jedi Knight Galaxies. The "project leader" got his money from the Donate button to "cover expenses" for the website of a mod that was far from release state. The original project leader barely lifted a finger to contribute to the development of the mod, apart from being the "ideas guy" and sometimes opening photoshop and making some HUD graphics. The mod itself was broken, the team structure was broken, communication didn't exist, the project was failing. But PR was still pouring out optimistic "news" to keep the fans clinging on. Much of the content shown was heavily prototyped garbage or fakery that was made specifically for the dev diaries but had little significance to do with the gameplay of the mod itself (The horrible untested broken running animation even passed through to release). A large bulk of time in the development of the mod was spent making a fully-working fully-animated stargate system that allowed the developers of the mod to travel between servers instead of using the /connect command. I feel really sorry for people who clicked that Donate button and hoped something playable would come out of the project in good time.

I wasn't actually aware of such a thing going on. But at least he's cleaned up a bit, I suppose.

However, the mod is developing now at a much more steady pace. Notable is that the running animation you've mentioned is gone already in the next patch

[minilogoguy18]

Morals to me are like an opinion or a point of view, what is morally wrong to one person someone else may not think so. You can't say someone paying for a model is wrong because of your moral standpoints.

 

I wasn't going to make a tutorial using an unfinished model.

 

No one needed a tutorial and they still don't, myself, AshuraDX, Chalklyne, Inyri and Crimson Strife are proof of this. I'm making the tutorial because I know the community wont grow without it because people are naturally lazy.

[eezstreet]

Morals to me are like an opinion or a point of view, what is morally wrong to one person someone else may not think so. You can't say someone paying for a model is wrong because of your moral standpoints.

 

Hm. This kinda reminds me of the whole debate over abortion. Taking a stance like this one says to me that you don't really care. I can respect that.

I can respect paying for a model. I can't respect paying for a mod.

 

I wasn't going to make a tutorial using an unfinished model.

 

No one needed a tutorial and they still don't, myself, AshuraDX, Chalklyne, Inyri and Crimson Strife are proof of this. I'm making the tutorial because I know the community wont grow without it because people are naturally lazy.

Fair enough. But I believe that people need tutorials because they aren't naturally lazy, they need some way to learn. JKH doesn't have any real tutorials on the matter and I doubt that tool tutorials are going to be enough when it comes to rigging, as it's a complicated process.

[Inyri]

Rigging is really not that complicated. It's mostly boring.

[eezstreet]

Regardless, there aren't a great deal of tutorials on JKH regarding it, and it's pretty necessary really.

[minilogoguy18]

The only real part a tutorial may be necessary for is what to do after the model is weighed like proper hierarchy and setting up assimilate, learning how to use envelope weights can be seen all over youtube in every program.

[Inyri]

Regardless, there aren't a great deal of tutorials on JKH regarding it, and it's pretty necessary really.

It's unnecessary. Rigging a model is not something that is specific to Jedi Academy. It's like how we don't have tutorials on how to use every piece of modeling software. People are too lazy to actually read the documentation that comes with their software, or read/watch one of the thousands of tutorials already out there. Pretty sure this is what minilogoguy18 has been getting at.

[eezstreet]

It's unnecessary. Rigging a model is not something that is specific to Jedi Academy. It's like how we don't have tutorials on how to use every piece of modeling software. People are too lazy to actually read the documentation that comes with their software, or read/watch one of the thousands of tutorials already out there. Pretty sure this is what minilogoguy18 has been getting at.

Last I checked, Assimilate was definitely part of the Jedi Academy SDK.

[minilogoguy18]

The tutorial by Tim Appleby shows how to set assimilate up, comes with the SDK and can also be seen here.

 

http://psyko3d.50webs.com/tuts.html

 

The tutorial there by duncan was the one I used to learn vehicles, it also tells you how to set up assimilate.

[Inyri]

Last I checked, Assimilate was definitely part of the Jedi Academy SDK.

Last I checked, conversion of the XSI to GLM was not part of the rigging process.

[eezstreet]

Last I checked, conversion of the XSI to GLM was not part of the rigging process.

It's part of models being put into the game.

[Inyri]

Do you actually know what rigging is, or are you just throwing words around willy nilly?

[eezstreet]

Do you actually know what rigging is, or are you just throwing words around willy nilly?

Regardless of whether it's rigging, it's still important information that needs to be known.

 

We're getting off topic here though.

[minilogoguy18]

Either way, I'm still going to make a video tutorial, just because I want to but it will be on my time. It will not record me weighing the model from start to finish when I get to the part on envelopes I will just give some advice on how to do it fast and neat, after I show some good tricks and tips I'll skip to a finished enveloped model and continue on with the video.

 

Parts:

 

1=fitting to skeleton

2=enveloping

3=segmentation/hierarchy
4=caps/lods

5=export/compile/packing

[Jango40]

What does "probably" mean though? Means you're considering making models for mods for cash? Or that you would be intrigued by doing it?

 

Would you make models for cash if you had the skill to do it, the time to do it, and you made more money than your day job?

Hell yeah, why not? What is wrong with it?

[Milamber]

Just a quick question: You guys are using the words rigging and weighting a bit back and forth here.

 

The way I know them:

 

Rigging - the process of making the actual skeleton for the model to be weighted to.

 

Weighting - the process of attaching the model to said skeleton so that it will follow it during animations.

 

 

I'm kind of assuming you guys are only talking about weighting? Since you don't need to make new skeletons for jka character models.

 

 

 

And on the topic of modeling tutorials for jka. No it's not needed, people have been able to figure it out on their own for a long time, however. A good tutorial gathering the entire process in 1 place would make it a lot easier for new people to learn it. So it would be very HELPFUL, but not a requirement for success ^^

[minilogoguy18]

Yes they're referring to weighing, rigging a skeleton involves setting up a series of controllers using constraints to help with animation.

[Kualan]

Full disclosure - up until now I also took 'rigging' to mean the same thing as 'weighing'.

 

I've learned my lesson for the day.

[eezstreet]

Hell yeah, why not? What is wrong with it?

I probably meant "mods", not "models". The problem with making mods for cash is that you're ripping off of the game itself. Especially in the case of code mods and level design, and even more so when there's highly proprietary formats involved like those involved with ICARUS and GLM. Since neither of those two formats have been explained in depth to us by Raven, it's pretty safe to say that the format isn't open, and likewise, the use of those formats wouldn't exactly be ethical.

Then there's the concern of moral integrity, respect, things like that involved.

[Pande]

There's nothing unethical about paying for work done in anything. There is however something unethical abut *asking* for payment since that goes against the license.