1. is this specifically when you extract tags from maps and then use them in your own or is it using ones from halo maps that you did not make?

2. Who cares its a game that is over ten years old with a small community why bag people who do not have the skills yet to make there own assets

3. Also the only time it really matters in my opinion is when you use someone else BSP with out permission and fill it up with other peoples tags thats just a waste

I approve this message.

In my case( applies to some other people as well) my skills lie in another modeling program that isnt supported by the hek (minus an unfinished script written by cyborxmen). I can make custom guns and vehicles (minus physics, could never get the damn things to work) but I chose not to because I would rather not sink countless hours learning a program that I will rarely ever use. Mostly I port stuff (not rip there's a difference) in order to learn more about the hek and how it works. And in my adventures in porting I have learned a lot. Which gives me the knowledge to easily get my custom stuff ingame without a major headache.

Ripping is the process of simply extracting assets. RIPPING is being a bitch and using peoples unfinished tags without permission or a care as to who they damage (the community by releasing unfinished, cruddy work.)

ripping instills laziness in people and makes them refuse to use programs that could otherwise enhance their future careers rather than having to take a whole class for programs in the field. plus custom stuff generally tends to look better as people can go back an and modify pre-existing designs(good or bad) which the companies that made them could not do once the game released.

Hence the twenty or so different versions of zanzibar.map, which makes it near impossible to have a compatible server for it, and why it's easier to host zanzibar variants that already have crazy names.

But that's not the only reason. I think what Jesse is referring to is that, in those 20 or so versions of zanzibar.map, none of the BRs are even remotely pleasing, their textures are an eyesore, as well as their animations. And the BSPs use almost no detail maps, everything is often baked into the diffuse maps which gives them their ugly trademark tiling cliffs and grass.

Had stuff like this been made with care, there wouldn't be a zanzibar_update map with the same exact map name as the original
Edited by OrangeJuice on Apr 24, 2013 at 01:15 AM

still better than bloodgulch mods

As romantic as that justification is, tell me, how often do newbies attempt to create their own stuff only for it to be brutally shot down?

you guys are far from supportive.

Yeah like people bag newbies for their shaders and models but there just trying personally i believe half the trolls are newbies who just got raged

it doesn't help that there are some posts that offer valid criticism that are instantly shot down by the creator of the object and labeled as a troll post. not the fault of the poster.

A little late to add now but doesn't Blender allow exporting as .obj and .3ds? Wouldn't you be able to export it into max and just unwrap/texture it in max. I don't port my projects to ce so I wouldn't know.

Also ripping is fine if you use it to look at assets and see how they work or use them for testing purposes. Ripping is okay, filling Bloodgulch with random tags that were ripped and uncredited is bad.

Who are the owners of the tags? I know that the end user creates them in the software package, but doesn't Microsoft own your stuff during a certain step in the HEK process???

I'm not saying ripping is bad or good, I'm more curious of the ownership rights.

I'm pretty sure Microsoft owns it when you immediately put an asset in to ce (i.e. making a .max model a .gbx model). They also have the rules that anyone who makes content for or in halo have to go by. The content creator owns the .max model but the stuff in ce is all Microsoft's. Also they own any assets used in any halo game. Any extracted models from the games are by technicality Microsoft's, Bungie's, and/or 343i since they created them and it is still within the Halo i.p. which Microsoft owns. I could be wrong, I would ask Dennis because he knows it better.

The issue really boils down to 'using straight, ripped content is lazy'.

Alright, I'll admit - I'd like to see the H4 Battle Rifle or DMR put into CE. I think everyone here would appreciate H:CE being remastered with H3/H4/Reach's assets.

But read a little more closely into what I said - I said 'remastered'. It's not enough to simply extract a DMR and the texture, and then slap it into the game as-is. Alright, it's passable but it's certainly not as good as it could be if some work were done to bring the asset up to a more polished standard. If you want things to look good you're going to have to put some effort into it - but, unfortunately, a lot of people simply throw the assets in as-is and then want praise for five minutes of work.

Conversely, everybody has to start somewhere. I'll admit, I know nothing about how to get models into H:CE - that's not my area of expertise. I'm a modeller, I make the assets. If I managed to get a DMR into the game, I'd feel pretty accomplished, and I'm sure that a lot of less-skilled people feel the same way. Simply getting the stuff into the game can be a challenge, and when new content gets into the public domain, you're inevitably going to see a lot of these types of people skin up the assets and throw them in for a bit of praise.

When it comes down to it, there's nothing wrong with ripping content and putting it into other games. I've seen plenty of mods for Fallout and Skyrim where weapons and armours have been replaced with stuff from other games - creativity keeps the game alive long after everyone else has gotten bored of it and moved on. And, if it does look like arse, there's likewise nothing wrong with criticism. That's how things get improved.

However, the line comes down to being constructive and sensible in all cases. If the work could have been done better, or if you can point out some ways to improve it, then feel free to offer some helpful advice. If the content was leaked against somebody's wishes, then point that out and ask Dennis to lock the thread.

Be reasonable and sensible, folks. If you want the community to be more pleasant, then knock back the bitching a little.

^
Ripping saves time, i'm not talking about ripping from other people maps, i mean reach, H4 etc...
If i had to choose, model myself(painful, it could be very painful) or just ripping, id better rip, would save my time and my nerves, if other people don't like rips from H4, reach, let them be, if you don't like it, don't say anything and start a war in here, i cant model even if id wanted to, i'm an animator and designer and that is what i want to develop more, same with any other, maybe someone is just good at one thing, why is there teams?
Because everyone could do one job at the time, not learn every thing what is needed to make a mod or a game.
I'm making a mod almost alone, and its a pain, making it alone and it takes almost 3 years now, if i had to model everything, 6years+ or even more.

Just relax, and teach how do to it right, not tell your an morone, that way people will never learn.

Have a nice day!

Depends on your definition of ripping. What most people call ripping is very wrong.

Yes. Ripping in this context is extracting some portion, tags, model, sound...etc from a game or game map to be used in some manner you desire.


This gets into a number of confusing answers. Copyright law is designed to prevent people from using other people's intellectual property in total or in part in their own "creation". It confers to the owner of the copyright the right to determine how, when and who can and can not utilize their IP in total or in part. (With some exceptions like fair use and satire) It is there to protect the financial and/or material benefit of the originator or copyright owner. Copyrights are good.

Now this is were it gets confusing to most people. If you make something from or for a copyrighted video game you cannot in 99.9% of the cases obtain a copyright for it. The reason is because the game and it's assets (maps, models software...etc) are already copyrighted. Therefore, in the case of Halo, only Microsoft has the legal right to control what can and cannot be distributed and how. Even if you made it.

Now Microsoft has publicly allowed the use of game assets in its game usage guidelines for use in other of it's games but still retains the copyright and the right to decide what, how and who can use their game IP (Intellectual Property). They can at any time tell you to stop distributing your user made "thing" (map, model....etc) So Microsoft doesn't physically own your map or the tags but they do get to determine, by the nature of the copyright, if you can distribute it and sue you if you do.

Now this is the part that gets people all riled up: If you make a map, model, tag...etc for the Halo game, or any copyrighted game, you have no legal right to determine what someone does with it once you have given it to them. None. You cannot obtain a copyright for it so you have no control over it once you give it away. You can scream and complain, troll and curse, you can stomp and cry and rage at the moon over the injustice of it all but you have no legal recourse to enforce your will on it's use. That is just the fact of it.

So the take away here is; if you make something for the game you can only control it while you are in sole possession of it and once you give it away it can and most likely will be be dissected and ripped, distributed and handed around at will with or without attribution. That is just the nature of creating stuff for video games. Like it or not.

Living in your own reality again or have you not been paying attention? The above is exactly what I have been saying since I first entered this "debate". You have no legal recourse to enforce your will on anything you make for or from a copyrighted video game once you give it to someone. Since most of the people in the industrial world particularly the western ones lives and conducts their affairs by the rule of law it is just the way of it regardless of your objections or belief to the contrary.

Somewhere around $68 billion/year to be exact.

Dennis was being exact.