Cerez

minilogoguy, I quoted relevant sections from the original (PC) game EULA for you there as well. Aspyr owns a license from the original developer/publisher to commercially distribute the game and all its assets, so yes, they do "own" the game in a way. And I seriously doubt that the copyright to the original assets is gone, otherwise we would be able to include all the original assets under a CC license with OpenJK.

Actually no, minilogoguy. Since you're modifying copyrighted assets, you'd be most likely violating both your game EULAs, and that would likely legally require you to delete your games: Note that the term "Software" here covers the in-game art as well. Legally you are not allowed to edit or re-use the original assets in any way. Create a PayPal account. We will donate. I think we should seriously help each other out like this. It will allow us to spend more time doing what we love. It really doesn't have to be much. Everyone chips in a couple of bucks (if they can, of course), and donations can add up to a nice sum. Depending on how important a project is to the community, this can really help support the people working on it, and speed up or improve the quality of the project. So give up your sugar or coffee addiction and help support a fellow artist/engineer!

Thanks Mrwonko. That means I need to create a Github account first, right? What are the "changes" that I upload? This "pull request", does that generate the difference between the two sources? I'm sorry, I'm totally clueless about Git(hub). >.<'

I am looking for a skilled model-maker to make and texture a new model of the character Ahsoka Tano from the Star Wars universe, possibly with two variations (her two outfits throughout her years at the Coruscant Jedi Academy), for Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy, the game: Initiate Outfit (optional): Padawan Outfit: General Reference: The model needs to be appropriately rigged/weighted for in-game use, and the face needs to be set up properly for all vertex facial expressions that the game supports. The latter is of special importance to me personally because I will be using the model in cinematics. Any model-maker interested in seriously taking this creative challenge on, please feel free to either contact me through PM, or to discuss the project here. You can also post samples/screenshots of your previous work if you like. I will do all I can to help things along and even donate some money to assist with your time and level of detail spent on the model, and to show my appreciation for your work and effort. Ahsoka is an important character in the Star Wars universe, and a worthy addition to Anakin, Obi-Wan and the rest of the gang, especially since she was Anakin's first Padawan/apprentice and her fate left Anakin wounded for the events that turned him to the dark side. She is spunky, fun, a fighter, and has Anakin's bold and rash characteristics, and she has gathered quite a large fan-base following (and I don't just mean the boys).

Thanks @@CrimsonStrife, and thanks to everyone who contributed so far with their research and thoughts.

Incredible! This effectively means that every map/level mod ever created by a fan is automatically licensed to Lucasfilm Entertainment Company Ltd. with full commercial and distribution rights to the content. They could sell your maps if they wanted to. I haven't seen anything like this in a EULA before. I don't think this is technically accurate. Even if LucasArts is no more, the copyright will likely have been transferred to another entity who can still enforce their rights on the content. The line is actually quite distinct. If the new artwork is clearly recognisable as containing elements from copyrighted material, you are essentially infringing on copyright. This a guideline excerpt from Elfwood, a creative community that accepts commissioned work from their members: "Beware of copyright infringements! If you do work based on copyrighted material (Pern, Final Fantasy, Dragonlance, etc) be very wary about drawing things that are specific enough to be unique. For example, drawing a person with cybernetic implants isn't a problem, because those have shown up in plenty of movies and books, but using Geordie LaForge's visor from Star Trek is treading on dangerous ground. Likewise, drawing dragons exactly like the ones described in Anne McCaffrey's Pern books is very risky business (McCaffrey being notorious for siccing her lawyers on anyone using her creative material, even people not trying to make money off of it). Usually, a private exchange between two people regarding work with copyright-fringing materials will not be a problem, but beware of advertising your services with any images that may be on the edge of legality, and you may want to brush up on your copyright knowledge so that you know exactly what is acceptable and what isn't." Source: http://www.elfwood.com/farp/guides/comissions.html This actually means that pretty much all that the JK community has created based on characters/locations from the Star Wars universe legally constitutes as copyright infringement, but it is not likely that Disney or Lucasfilm Entertainment will go after this fan content and force it to be removed. Every work of art created by an artist has a copyright of its own associated with it, but in the grand scheme if it is based on other copyrighted material, the owner of that content has the right to revoke the artist's content from circulation. Source: http://www.artslaw.com.au/info-sheets/info-sheet/copyright/#headingh37 As for a donation, it has to be made clear that the donated sum is not provided in exchange for the artwork, but as a gift to the artist. And the artist can choose to share their work with the donator if they so choose -- independent of the act of donation. That said, I highly doubt someone is going to chase you for a reasonable amount of money you have given to your friend online for whatever reason. It would be nice to adopt a policy of supporting each other's time and work with donations, but this cannot be done in exchange for services or products! Now that we've dived further into the legal circumstances, I find that my initial statement is unfortunately inaccurate. Fan labour is indeed still considered a grey area in law, and as a community we don't really have any rights that protect our fan-based creative work and most of the content on this website (except entirely original content). We are not really allowed to send/accept payments for commissions on fan art, as we are not in full ownership of the content, and any commercial benefit may draw attention from the affected copyright owners of the content our work is based on. An interesting read (very relevant): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fan_labor After this careful assessment, my views related to paid commissions and creative work here have changed. We need to be mindful at all times that the content we create is primarily for our own use, and that public distribution may be withdrawn at any time by a third party with the necessary copyright. I agree now that fan made mods, maps, and models made that include or represent copyrighted material should not be paid for under any circumstance on this site. However, completely original content may still be sold, so mods/assets that are entirely based on original work technically could be legally sold coupled with the open source engine, I think.

I'd like to submit this code/patch/update to OpenJK. Can anyone explain me what to do? I'm not really familiar with Git… Do I just create a DIFF file and upload it somewhere, or is the procedure more difficult than that?

Windows build up! ^ ♥ On a side note: you can also "simulate" sadness by having the character look solemn and tilt their head towards the floor. And don't forget SET_ANIM_BOTH BOTH_HEADNOD, BOTH_HEADSHAKE, BOTH_HEADTILTRSTART/STOP and BOTH_HEADTILTLSTART/STOP. You can combine these with the new/old SET_FACE animations for more variety.

This is the only EULA that I've received with my purchased version of the game. It was purchased on the App Store.

Let's hope we're all reasonable and it doesn't. Good point. That's a good start. Here:

The issue of paid commissions and legal ownership of commissioned content needs to be further discussed, so I'm opening this topic here to post your ideas and legal research material, so that the community can get to the bottom of its fears from legal prosecution, reach an understanding of the risks, and find a method for the artists to receive payments for their work if they so choose. I'll start the discussion with this statement, which I believe to be representing the fundamental moral and legal essence of a commissioned creative work and both the commissioner's and the artist's interests: Feel free to post your ideas, points of view, and researched material/evidence, but I ask that everyone be respectful to each other's wishes and opinions.

Ambitious, ambitious... I'll look forward to that!

In contrast: You can see what I mean about the circus...

You're gonna hate me, but shameless plug: http://jkhub.org/topic/4340-paid-commission-new-model-request/ I know a lot of people would be really happy to see this get made, and I would certainly be willing to sponsor it. He will have hated it. No-one likes to see a replica of themselves. Only Narcissus.

Thanks guys, I hope you will put it to good use. I would love to see more JKA stories with emotional content and humour.

(Okay, it looks like my Internet was kind to me this time.) I'm uploading only one, optimised image because of my current unfortunate 64k predicament… :/ But these are the models/skins: I'm not sure if any of them are already available here at JKHub. You'll know that better than I do.

LOL, okay… So "kenoi, do all the work and we'll let you know if we care" is your answer? (I'll try to take and upload a couple of screenies tomorrow, when my Internet is faster.)

You know what I've always missed from Jedi Knight? To see Kyle, Jaden, or Luke smile just even once throughout the SP campaigns! Is that really so hard? We smile with our friends nearly every day… I've always felt that the characters' facial animations were lacking in the game, and that took away from the life-likeness of the story. Now that I've started working with SP cinematics in JKA, I felt that gaping void even more, so I decided to dig into the game and see what I could do about it. It turns out that the Raven team had included more animations for the face than what appear in the story, but somehow no-one ever thought of making these animations scriptable for the cutscenes. With some generous help from the community (thanks @@Asgarath83), I ended up adding my own simple bit of code to the engine, and without compromising the original, "vanilla" engine and its code/setup, I've found a way to expand on the scriptable facial animations to include the following expressions: Surprised, Angry, Smiling, Happy, Glad I've put together a simple demo mod here that cycles through four characters and their facial expressions: https://www.dropbox.com/s/evv91nfgcmafksr/expressions.pk3 You will need to bring up the console and type "devmap test" to run the demo, and type "quit" to exit it -- but you won't be able to see the new expressions unless you download and run the updated binary/DLL for your platform. Mac: https://www.dropbox.com/s/nyctk3vqpxz3i66/expressions_bin_mac.zip Windows: --> Thanks so much @@eezstreet! For Windows what you need to do is actually place the following DLL into your SP mod's folder: https://www.dropbox.com/s/yjs5zzo1budwam3/jagamex86.dll The new facial expressions are accessible with the following commands in Icarus: SET_FACESMILE SET_FACEGLAD SET_FACEHAPPY SET_FACESHOCKED ...and of course there's SET_FACEFROWN and the rest. I sincerely hope that official releases of open source JK will adopt this code to provide the possibility for a slightly more lifelike cinematic experience. In the meantime, anyone working on an SP mod can use these expressions by including the custom binary file with their mod as a launcher (Mac), or including the updated DLL in their SP mod folder (Windows). The binary (launcher) needs to be placed in the GameData folder (above "base").

Sorry, what I meant is that the effect is what you described: that you're able to set different levels of expression for a character. This code doesn't modify the original game, either -- it just adds a few extra facial expression options into the code from the original assets. I think the original code is very basic with the vertex animation options, and only has programming to switch between different, basic facial animation frames. To do different levels, you would have to change the original programming. But you guys are working on something better, so I'll leave my solution in tune with the base programming (vanilla code). Hopefully that explains my reasoning.

Yep, that's what I've used here, too. I've only expanded on the amount of expressions available. But the source engine doesn't really support levels/percentages in an expression, does it? I couldn't find anything that would indicate this.

Great idea, but that's kind of what you guys are working on with the advanced facial expressions system. My solution is just a simple expansion of the original game code with a few lines that fixes something the Raven team missed. It is a transitional/fallback solution until we develop something more advanced. Almost all base facial expressions are covered: anger, joy, shock/surprise, and disgust/disapprovement. There is no animation for fear created by Raven, and no animations for sadness either, but the latter can be emulated with the character looking solemn and looking down.

Asgarath unfortunately wasn't able to compile it with the latest OpenJK code due to some unusual error in his configuration. I still need help with this one. Can someone assist, please? Everything's ready, you just need to hit compile and upload the binary. I would really appreciate it. I'm not keen on having to move all my files and revamp my Windows partition just for this… (that would take a lifetime…) >.<'

A special, early developer release of Windows 8 and the "Windows" version (stupid name) of Visual Studio 2013. We won't be able to get it to work, if that's what you're trying. I'll probably have to re-install the whole Windows OS in order to get it to work… :/

I have to say OpenJK performs wonderfully on Mac OS X! (Much better than the retail release that I've purchased.) Nice work, guys. And now I can play my SP mods! Yay!!!

It just compiled successfully on Mac OS X, so you should have no issues with the Windows build, Asgarath. Thanks for tuning in Eezstreet. It's got to do with my version of Windows… Microsoft and their bloody licensing system…