Popkovs yellow 01

[Tilt]

If you  want to do it Greebo I will stop all work immediately. You will make a far better job of it than I will.

If you decide you wish to I will send you all my pathetic attempts todate.

If not then I would continue to use the base skin I have modified. You see I fundamentally disagree with the idea that material that is freely available should not be used.

I remember a post some time a go where a fellow asked if any one who had done all the rivit lines on some plane or other could copy them to him so he could make the skin he wanted.

He recieved the rather indignant reply that this had taken many hours work and was not going to be freely given out and that he too should do all this work too.

Well it was his work and I cant deny it his was his to withold.

I saw that at the time as a total lack of community spirit. Basically the attitude was I've done all this work, its mine and no one else can benefit from it but me.


Yet who was "benefitting"? and how were they "benefitting"?

All I could see is that the rivit layer was being witheld purely for jealously guarded Kudos. Whilst the  community benefited from the complete works of a few it would not get the combined works of many.

[Greebo]

I would say that anyone who wants to spend many tens of hours of their spare time producing skins for the community is already showing plenty of community spirit. The only payoff for all that work is the kudos you get from the community. There are only 15 slots per plane anyway and 1 or 2 skinners can fill those very quickly.

I'm happy to do the Popkov La-5FN for you Tilt. In fact I was going to anyway until you posted a while back that you were working on one.

[Fencer51]

If someone, like you Tilt, will not take the time to do the easiest thing, the panel lines and rivets, then they are not going to take the time to do a well researched complete job on the skin.

I have 50+ skins in game.  If you want, feel free to not use them.  My opinion still stands.

[TrueKill]

I have 50+ skins in game.  If you want, feel free to not use them.  My opinion still stands.

and they all look like poo. 

[Fencer51]

Yeah that brown color is rather catching!

[Tilt]

I'm happy to do the Popkov La-5FN for you Tilt. In fact I was going to anyway until you posted a while back that you were working on one.

Then I will await your skin Greebo with thanks and an assurance that any assistance I can give will be gladly given. 

The only request I would make is that it is yellow 01  and not a white 01 as some have recorded. My research ( and yes fencer even I would say it is considerable on this subject) indicates that the colour of the star surround is still open to debate either a "dirty" silver or a yellow but not the same as the  pair of white bands behind it. I leave this and all else to your judgement.

I work with an old version of paintshop pro 5 and have the layered skin saved in various 2048 x2048 .psp files upon which I have layers masking out some of the  default skin and adding the stars and bands. If this can be of help please advise. Obviously with the original layered work you will not have to modify background layers as I have.

My priority here is Yellow 01. My fear is that you are now less than motivated. My trust and hope is that you will produce to your usual superb standard.



PS even when I said I would work on 01.  I also said I would use your default. I have never represented my efforts otherwise.

http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/index.php/topic,244005.0.html

[Hwkeye]

Gee I never thought I would see such artistic hissy fits here!!!

None of your complaints have merit because none of you copyrighted your work.  When you put it out there free gratis it is in the public domain and available as such.

[Greebo]

I understood your comment in that thread to mean you would use the same colours I was using Tilt, not that you were using my skin. I am sorry about this misunderstanding and I will of course do the best job I can on the skin.

As for copyrighting skins Hwkeye, that is ridiculous. The only place to use them is in the Aces High arenas and they have to be approved by HTC to get in there. I would like to think that HTC would require that the skin is primarily the work of the person submitting the skin to be approved, but I could be wrong about that.

[Hwkeye]

"Ridiculous"? I thought the reaction to Tilt's use of the base skin came close to that description! I was personally dismayed at how he was treated particularly in light of the credit and praise he gave going into his post.

Honestly, having praised the skinners here in the past, and not wanting to take anything away from their contributions to the AHII community, my copyright comment was made more on a legal level and really meant to explode the idea that anyone is 'stealing' or somehow cheating but using non-copyrighted materiel (skins created by community members for the use of other members in this case).  I assume that HT holds the copyrights and any patents to Aces High II and therefore must assume that as long as skins are used within the context of the game there is no infringements.  I also suspect that when a skinner submits a skin for approval they also know that they are giving up their rights to their work and that HT and HiTechcreations have full use of that artwork should they deem it useful to do so. That would include the use of the skins as a basis for the work of other community members unless HT has a specific policy that prohibits that use. 

From Wikipedia: "Copyright is a legal concept, enacted by governments, giving the creator of an original work of authorship exclusive rights to control its distribution for a certain time period, after which the work enters the public domain. Generally, it is "the right to copy", but usually provides the author with other rights as well, such as the right to be credited for the work, to determine who may adapt the work to other forms, who may perform the work, who may financially benefit from it, and other, related rights. It is an intellectual property form (like the patent, the trademark, and the trade secret) applicable to any expressible form of an idea or information that is substantive and discrete. Copyright was initially conceived as a way for governments in Europe to restrict printing; the contemporary intent of copyright is to promote the creation of new works by giving authors control of and profit from them."

Peace Out!

Hwkeye

"Imitation is the highest form of flattery”

[Shane]

I'm with Hwkeye on this, on all points.   

Fencer and Greebo - you both do excellent work, and you can be sure the community recognizes this.

Tilt... by all means, keep working on the LA skin(s) in whatsoever manner you choose... we need more 

[Fencer51]

I'm with Hwkeye on this, on all points.   

Fencer and Greebo - you both do excellent work, and you can be sure the community recognizes this.

Tilt... by all means, keep working on the LA skin(s) in whatsoever manner you choose... we need more 

I don't have to worry about it..     As my skins are not available in the format necessary for someone to plagiarize them.  Which is why I don't post them to AH-Skins.  I have seen several skins put up here represented as "new work" which were nothing more than colors thrown over someones upload to AH-Skins.

[Shane]

And HTC makes the determination as to which skins make it in-game, and once they are in-game, they're free for anyone to modify in whatever manner, and if submitted, up to HTC to accept or not.

"In the export directory, view the .bmp's and decide which ones you wish to modify.[/i]  Copy the files that you will be modifying from the export directory to the working directory you created in step 3.  IMPORTANT:  Copy ONLY those files that you will be changing."

[Fencer51]

And HTC makes the determination as to which skins make it in-game, and once they are in-game, they're free for anyone to modify in whatever manner, and if submitted, up to HTC to accept or not.

"In the export directory, view the .bmp's and decide which ones you wish to modify.[/i]  Copy the files that you will be modifying from the export directory to the working directory you created in step 3.  IMPORTANT:  Copy ONLY those files that you will be changing."

What it is refering too for the "ones you want to modify" are the plane, cockit, pilot, gauges, bullet hots, blood, oil, bent props, running props etc etc.. bitmaps which are exported and saved on your HD when you do that.  Only the default skins can be viewed this way.  And they cannot modify any skins other than those which are default, unless the person who submitted the skin has uploaded it to AH-Skins or given it to someone else.

So no, technically they are not free for anyone to modify.  And they are the property of HTC once they are submitted.  All they give is permission to modify the default skin.  Greebo is asking that his work, for HTC, not be used in the manner that Tilt started too.  That is what this boils down too.

[TrueKill]

What tilt was doing isn't breaking any laws but that doesn't make it right. Us skinners spend hours upon hours of work making our skins and for someone to do what hes doing makes it look like he has no respect for others work. If he was doing that to one of my skins I would be on the phone with HTC the second I found out about it demanding they did something about it.

[Shane]

isn't the skin base tilt is using the HTC default (made by Greebo?)?  I can see that bitmap when I "save default," so I'm sticking with HTC's published permission to modify as I see fit, so to speak. I'm unsure as to the validity of your claim that this particular bitmap is "unmodifiable."

i see two fairly comparable la5 skins in the "default" and greebo's 229IAD skin... only minor modifications in some of the camo areas and maybe a few scuffs tidied up here and there.  the most notable difference is...  the markings.

now disregarding the fact that greebo also did the 229IAD skin, anyone with a modicum of skill (still more than i possess) could have put the 229IAD markings on the Default and submitted it.  Sort of like what Tilt is doing, no? And exactly what Greebo apparently did.

I dunno where Tilt got the base skin to work with, but if it was from "HTC" then i see no plm with what he is doing. If Tilt got it from AH-Skins, then I guess Greebo needs to reconsider his modus operandi and bring it more into line with yours.

the point being, I think greebo (and to a lesser extent, initially, you) are getting your noses bent out of shape in regards to Tilt who was very forthright and upfront (unlike some of the others you've alluded to.)

Point remains, if Tilt is working from the HTC default skin, you have no valid claims.  If Tilt is working from something Greebo put up on AH-skins or something, he was never less than upfront about it, nor wanting to steal Greebo's thunder.

again.. anyone can modify whatever .bmps found in the default skin... *any* .bmp  and it's up to HTC to accept or not.

Tilt never did anything wrong in my opinion, and from a legal standpoint none of you skinners have any actionable claims.  if you're scared about someone "stealing" your work, don't share the actual files with anyone, this includes posting them on AH-skins (sure, post screenies, but not the actual files).  this way, as fencer says, skinners work is more protected from "abuse" since they'd be inaccessible. 

And bear in mind, if you post those files for off-line use, then someone just may plagarize your work. good luck proving it, tho'  it'd take little more than different markings, or a few camo line/color adjustments to make it "different" enough, if you even had the foresight and legal protection of copyrighting your "off-line" files.