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Graphics update: looking to help...


Trekker

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Ok. I've been playing the emulator for a few months (since the start of ST3), and it's been an awesome blast from the past. I'm loving it, even the bugs :)

After sunset announcement I picked up EVE, and had played that for 5 years til about 6 months ago, and I loved that game too, particularly the scenery.

I'm a VFX artist for movies, commercials, and TV shows in the real world. I end up doing lots of explosions, dust and fire simulations, that sort of thing, but I also do 3D modeling, texturing, lighting...Basically a generalist, as a hobby.

E&B's graphics were acceptable 8-10 years ago, when they were developing the game. That's not the case anymore...Things need a major overhaul, and I'm sure there's an entire section of the DEV team (probably the graphical DEVs) who'd agree with me.

I'd like to help in my spare time if I could. I've uploaded a few examples I did last night and this morning of what I had in mind.

If y'all like what ya see, and the DEV team would like a bit of help, I can be contacted here on the forums, or ingame on either of my characters Trekker, or Silentkilla.

If anyone's interested, I've got an online demo reel and more examples of my work available as well: Demo Reel

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These are some really nice skills man.

Hopefully the Dev's will agree and we can revamp some of the graphics :3

Although I'm sure that the main focus is getting everything working first before moving to EnB 2.0

cheers!

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What we have to remember here, is EnB is a copywritten game.

Major changes to the client could make EA's ears prick up and go 'What the hell'

There has always a risk of EA finding this and saying stop, but the more we change, the greater the risk of copyright infringment (Im no lawyer, this is just a guess - LOL)

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I was always under the impression that if you took a copy-written or patented product, and changed it enough, it becomes your own, you can re-copyright/re-patent it. I'm no lawyer either though, so I could be completely wrong.

It's just some of the textures (take the suns in AP or Primus, or the distant sun in VT for example) are so pixilated, it drives me nuts every time I run through the systems :lol: they must have used a 256x256px texture for something that takes up 1/4 - 1/2 of the screen when looking directly at it, it's terrible.

I was told I should redo a station interior like I did the kitchen scene on my website. I told the guy that scene takes 40 minutes to render a single frame on my quad core 8 gigs ram machine :) However...I'd like to play with it a little bit, and see if I can bake the textures and lighting, and that should make things look very close to that real, but everything would just be texture over the top of simple geometry that the game can handle. would be fun to try none-the-less...

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I was always under the impression that if you took a copy-written or patented product, and changed it enough, it becomes your own, you can re-copyright/re-patent it. I'm no lawyer either though, so I could be completely wrong.

Well, this is strictly copyright and trade mark issues (not patent), but yes if it's 100% changed, including art assets, game client (new), dialogs and names, it could be submitted for copyright. Basically 5 years worth of work... if it's a large group working fast. 99.999% change will get ya a special prize :lol:

And yes, it would probably be a bad idea to change it so much over time, being in public eye as it gradually changes, so that EA might decide to jump for the chance to make up for some lost money from their failure; as it's being developed with that intention in mind. So to aim for that goal, it would probably be best to toss it all out on day one, being left I guess with only but the server app.

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I would have thought changing the graphics would be ok - after all it's like us adding in new characters or whatnot. But I have no concept of legality or anything here, other people are more on the ball with this one, particularly Imp.

Besides, even if it isn't allowed there will be a call for new items at some point, and it'd be great to have someone with your graphic skills help out with those...

cheers,

TB

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Wow that looks great nice job Trekker. Personally I would LOVE to see a wider variety of icons for items, I mean look at how many components and ore's share the same dozen or so icons. Maybe you could start someone like Trekker off designing a whole new slew of icons from the ground up or something like that see how that goes and move up from there.

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To clarify (I was trying to make it short as usual) I was meaning a total conversion, not so much a moderate mod conversion. I meant that if the plan was to modify such a game client until it was a completely new game (in context of my previous post) and thus could be copyrighted (a form of prototyping), then that could be risky. And when I mean “plan” I mean open and well known to everyone, being of no secret, while the mod version is up and running as it’s being converted. Legally, that could spell vulture bait. Could, but still in this case unlikely.

Now I’ve never come across any legal actions that have happened in such a case, but it could be possible if the copyright and trademark holder chose to take action, which they could at any point as it stands anyway. There was one legal action that took place a couple years ago but on a mod level, the mod dev team was not in the process of using it to prototype and sell it at some point, and the case was thrown out. Heavy criticism was directed towards the company that filed the lawsuit of course, as it was simply a mod which many companies actually encourage. It was an obscure title, not an mmo or multi-player, I don’t recall the name of it atm.

Of course I’m not a lawyer, I don’t pretend to be, I just have followed legal cases regarding games and have taken considerable time to study copyright and trademark laws regarding videogame development.

With that said, imho I still think EA does not give a rats behind about this (apart from anyone making serious profits) and I‘m sure they know of this effort to create an EMU. If they took any action, it would smear their name as they have shut down their servers years ago. In light of that, lawyer fees to take an EnB EMU down would require a sizable investment with uncertainty for a real win, and a no win scenario in comparison to the lost revenue they would suffer by dragging their corporate name through the mud (like that company did that filed a lawsuit against a mod team). People that bought the game want to play it, and EA no longer provides that service, so any lawsuit or even a cease and desist order would simply make them out to be the unethical bad guy and hurt sales of their other games. So modding graphics etc.. no big deal. Of course then the debate is does it really need it? EnB does have a look and feel, and some people play for that fact.

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Those graphics are really nice. Would love to see a full overhaul to bring the game up to modern standards. I wonder if it would be possible to impelment a low-res or "Classic" mode patch if people wanted to keep the original look of the game.

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The graphics improvement there looks so great that i can only think one thing:

Given the variation of professions here it's unlikely there are no lawyers or other legality oriented people here. Perhaps it's time for a "legal team" to draw the line, or help us find the line, or find ways in which we draw our own line.

After all these graphics, as well as other client-side things are not going to last forever if this game is going to be better than the original.

PS: Since we're all saying what graphics we would all like to see improved I go for DeWinter's sillicones, they need to be rounder and since time has passed they need to sag a slight bit.

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Updating graphics for small things like icons for items would be nice but not a priority.

I don't think anyone is around this emu effort for the graphics.

Once the game reaches some much more stable and functional state, then we could push for some improvements.

Also the idea for some legaly educated people, that might lurk here, to consider possible legal complications arising from this has merit.

Nice job there trekker.

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Aye, I agree...the graphics aren't necessarily a priority, and some enjoy the originals. EVE used to offer (back just after they released their new graphics engine with new models, normal-mapping, HDRI support) a classic client, which a player could use, mainly if their system couldn't handle the new graphics package. I'd imagine something like that may one day be possible here.

However, even if it's not a priority right now, it's not like their pulling programmers from another team to do these updates. It can take a very long time to do these things, and there's thousands and thousands of items/mobs/stations/planets/backgrounds/characters in the game. Better to start early if possible :)

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Given the variation of professions here it's unlikely there are no lawyers or other legality oriented people here. Perhaps it's time for a "legal team" to draw the line, or help us find the line, or find ways in which we draw our own line.

hehe good luck with that. Being a lawyer in the field of video games is a specialty profession, and rather rare. It's very hard to find a lawyer that deals with video games, so generally small or independent developers self-educate and then seek counsel when necessary.
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However, even if it's not a priority right now, it's not like their pulling programmers from another team to do these updates. It can take a very long time to do these things, and there's thousands and thousands of items/mobs/stations/planets/backgrounds/characters in the game. Better to start early if possible :)

I think this is the key point with any aspect of the project. Having someone work on graphics doesn't detract from anything else that's currently being done due to differing skillsets, and the more help the better. There are likely thousands of images that would need to be redone, mobs/ships/avatars being some of the more complex that would take a lot of time to get right.

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Considering the age of the game I don't think it's all that bad looking though I'm sure a lot of us play it for different reasons than others might if they just started playing today. Back when I use to run it at 1024x768 it looked pretty good but a few things didn't scale quite as well moving up to something like 1920x1080. The only ones that i find to look really bad are things like the arrows for adjusting the chat windows and the X's to close various windows in game.

I do like the idea of upgrading some of these things if someone is so willing. It can help add a bit more polish to the game, though like others have mentioned as well, it's probably most important for everyone to see everything working first.

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i dont mind the graphics.. what i would really like is differnet "updated" splash screens while gating. Get tired of seeing the same map over and over. But that's just my two cents. Graphic work looks great.. keep up the great work, it looks terrific!

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FYI to the folks who don't have a legal background, adding to the client itself does not get us in any gray area or legal trouble. Adding it and distributing it as ours DOES. We would NEVER be able to change it enough that we could re-patent it (doubt it's patented in the first place, software patents are notoriously difficult to come by, as that which is to be patented has to be a novel idea and something that's not common. In other words, you can't patent a function to do simple addition, no matter how complex you made it look, because in the end its still simple addition)

It's the same reason EA couldn't place a copyright on "Net 7" but they could on "Net 7 News". It's much more distinct and was a concept from the game. I hope that grants an idea.

So, with the legal junk out of the way, yes we can add to it, that's a non-issue. We just can't alter the client and provide it in a different form then say its ours. The days of Atari and Tengen put that to an end. :D

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That almost cleared things up Kyp :D

So we can change things around, we just can't claim it to be our own? (EA always owns the game)

Or we can only add, and could never alter what's currently there? (IE, couldn't actually change the graphics, only add new ones as items are added)

I guess this is why I decided to be an FX artist and not a lawyer :lol:

Anywho. Yea, the galaxy map on the loading screen is another one I'd love to tackle (although they're adding a ton of new systems, any one that I might make right now would have to be changed when they open em all up anyhow) I'd also love to change the galaxy map that the player can open with the blotches and boxes representing systems and sectors. That one could potentially look really cool...

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Well, that’s more about opinion, Kyp. I know other EMU projects that won’t touch that position with a 10ft pole. Of course they are dealing with having the original live servers in operation as EnB doesn’t. It doesn’t take much for them to get shut down as some player EMU servers have. But with EnB? Well they may still retain all rights for their client, but it’s an abandoned franchise (that much is true), so intervention is very unlikely imo. Yes, I agree though, enough with the legal garbage, it’s a talked to death topic. *Stops beating dead horse with a:)ft pole* ^_^

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Well, that’s more about opinion, Kyp. I know other EMU projects that won’t touch that position with a 10ft pole. Of course they are dealing with having the original live servers in operation as EnB doesn’t. It doesn’t take much for them to get shut down as some player EMU servers have. But with EnB? Well they may still retain all rights for their client, but it’s an abandoned franchise (that much is true), so intervention is very unlikely imo. Yes, I agree though, enough with the legal garbage, it’s a talked to death topic. *Stops beating dead horse with a:)ft pole* ^_^

Oh I'm simply going for the legal standpoint. I've had classes in Intellectual Property Law for my game design degr;) afterall ;)

We can add whatever we wish, and the other emus could too, they don't because of perceived issues and a lack of lawyers. All these companies usually care about is that you're not selling their creation, and that you're not charging a subscription fee that must be paid to play the game, at least insofar as the MMO emulators are concerned. Abandonment does not apply to the game client, they could leave it for 20 years and it will still be theirs because it will qualify under copyright as a work for hire for I believe it's 75 or 85 years. I'd have to take a look in my book to be sure on the number, I just know that it's different when a private individual creates a work because their copyright is good for their lifetime plus 70 years.

So we can change things around, we just can't claim it to be our own? (EA always owns the game)

Or we can only add, and could never alter what's currently there? (IE, couldn't actually change the graphics, only add new ones as items are added)

Yes to number 1, number 2 is not really relevant. The key is that we can't distributed it in an initially changed format, where this is concerned. So in other words, we couldn't modify the client then provide the client to you guys, it's precisely the reason we don't distribute the game client:)urselves. :)

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While the samples look great, I have to say I'm personally not a fan of using the 3d rendering approach to things like cargo icons. In the .mix files, items contained in your cargo are basically 2d icons (as well as, say, buffs)...which gives us tons of room to implement more stylized icons to represent their respective items, with a little more personality than a flattened 3d rendering can offer.

I think I take this position because after EnB's sunset, I moved to WoW...and I have to say that whoever does WoW's icons does it brilliantly. So many of them are a pleasure to look at, and contain an enormous amount of personality, depth, and detail for such a tiny little square of art (even if the art for wow is a little too "bright" compared to what EnB should be).

The 2d painting method of creating distinct visual items just seems to have more personality to me, and *I* find that it's a much greater pleasure to look at than a cargo full of items that are trying so hard to look realistic.

That said, there is certainly room for both worlds in the game here, and while most in-game models are "passable", they could definitely use some love in the poly-count department. In terms of 2d, buff icons and cargo icons have tons of room for work...the resolution on certain textures for sure (as someone mentioned, some suns look like they took a little 64x64 px image and enlarged it to the point that its blockiness could poke an eye out), maybe some enterprising soul would even want to tackle things like skyboxes and planet textures.

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