Extracting Textures

I was wondering if any of you know how to Extract Textures from games. I have Texture files but they are in .aya format. Thanks in advance if u know.

Avion, do you have permission from the game creator to extract the textures? When you installed the game, and you clicked yes to the EULA, you made an agreement with the good folks who created the game, promising you wouldn't do certain things. Just about every EULA from every game I've ever seen allows you to make one copy of the game as a whole for archival purposes, but expressly formbids you to copy any portion of the game seperately from the whole. That includes textures. So, unless you've got written permission, don't do it.

Anyway, as far as I know, .aya files are only used by games made with the RPG Maker utility, which itself has a history of being illegally reverse engineered and distrubuted. .Aya is a proprietary format that can only be used by RPG-Maker. I'm not aware of any utility that can convert .aya files to other formats.

If you're interested in RPG Maker, you can get the latest version here. It's kind of cheezy, but it can be fun.

ok thnx there goes those plans

I agree with Chosen, but I would also ask him if Paramount gave permission to use the LCARS interface in his starship builds, the Starfleet insignia on his avatars, and other copyrighted Star Trek and other sci-fi stuff in his builds?

I'm not pointing that out to get on Chosen, because I love his stuff and own a bunch of it, but to point out that, hey, others are using "copyrighted" material. That's doesn't make it right, but you should know that Linden Labs will not remove content unless the original copyright holder files a DCMA claim against it, in writing.

In fact, most of the use of "copyrighted" material in SL would fall under "fair use" I believe, but that's my opinion.

Good question, Aaron. Let me explain what I do, and what I don't do. First, let me address the specific items you mentioned, and then I'll speak a little more generally.

LCARS
LCARS was first on your list, so let's get this out of the way right now. There are 3 possible considerations concerning its fair use. First, is it a patented system, in which case replicating it would constitute theft of proprietary technology? Second, does my replication of it include the use of any copyrighted material? Third, are there any trademarks I am using without permission in my LCARS displays?

The answer to the patent question is absolutely no. The LCARS system is entirely fictional, and therefore is not and cannot be patented as a computer system. That means copying its supposed functionality would be perfectly legitimate, theoretically, although it's actually impossible to do since there's no one on this planet (not even its creators) who really understands how it's supposed to work in the first place. Trek writers and set designers pretty much always made it up as they went along. You won't find any 2 episodes where pressing the same button performs the same operation.

As for the second question, am I using any copyrighted material in my LCARS style displays? Again, the answer is no. All the textures you see in my builds were 100% hand-painted by me, and they are not direct copies of anything. They are in the style of LCARS, sure, but they are absolutely not copyright violations.

For the record, I do not condone ripping textures from Star Trek video games or from any other source. In fact, I've gotten into many heated arguments with those who do, and I've even ended up removing certain members of my groups for it. Those textures ARE copyrighted, and I will never use them nor will I tolerate anyone who does. As I said, you will not find a texture in use on any of my builds, avatars, clothing, etc. that was not hand painted by me. I make sure they're stylistically acurate enough to be recognizable, but I do not breach copyright in any way. (The only acception to this, by the way, would be the poster gallery in the museum. I'll talk more about this later.)

As for trademark question, according to the US Patent and Trademark office, there has never been a trademark on the acronym "LCARS". Therefore, anyone is free to use that series of letters for any purpose.

In short, there's nothing even remotely illegal or immoral about creating computer screens in the style of LCARS.


Starfleet Insignia
By this, I assume you're talking about combadges. Again, I'll cover patent, copyright, and trademark.

As it was with LCARS, patent on the combadge is a non-issue. Again, it's a fictional item and it is not patented. Anyone in the world is free to make a little pin-on communication device and attach it to their shirt. Besides, the ones in SL don't actually do anything anyway.

As for copyright, this would apply if I were using pictures that are owned by Paramount (or anyone else). However, I painted the images myself, so I own them.

As for trademark, that's a bit of a gray area. I've looked, but I haven't found any tradmark info on that particular symbol. Its use is commonplace enough that I'm inclined to believe that if there ever had been a trademark on it, its long since been lost.

That's how it is with trademarks. If you own one and you don't defend it, you lose it, and the material becomes public domain. Now since everyone and their brother makes everything from coffee mugs to clothing in RL with that symbol on them, and since Paramount has historically been very supportive of Star Trek fanart, I can only assume it's okay, and that the combadge symbol is indeed public domain.

If Paramount were ever to say different, I'd of course comply with their wishes, but for the reasons stated, I'm 99.9% sure they couldn't/wouldn't.


"other copyrighted Star Trek and other sci-fi stuff in his builds"
To what "other cpyrighted stuff" are you referring, bercause I'm not aware of any. You can't copyright a starship, for example. Sure, the stories in which they are set are copyrighted, but the ships themselves are not and cannot be. Same with characters. You can copyright a story that a character participates in, but you can't copyright the character itself. Such things get trademarked, not copyrighted.

So, the question now (rightly) becomes am I unfairly using trademarked material? Well, the answer again is a bit of a gray area. Take my Spawn avatar, for example. Yes, Spawn is a trademarked character so if his creator, Todd McFarlane, were to disaprove of my using him in SL, I'd stop, as I've said repeatedly since the day I first made the av. However, since the web and other places are cawling with Spawn fanart and fan-fiction, and I have yet to hear of a single complaint about any of it from McFarlane, I can only assume he appreciates fan art for what it is, and he's got no problem with (which makes perfect sense since he himself started out as a Batman fan artist before becoming a professional comic book artist).

That IS what we are talking about, by the way, fanart, which is not to be confused with the original topic of this thread which was texture theft. Fanart is arguable as fair use, and for my part I make efforts to limit mine to those companies/authors that have been supportive of it historicallly. Paramount, for example, tends to be very supportive Trekkie fanart. Go to any convention, local art show, county fair, etc, and you'll find tons and tons of fan-created Star Trek materials on sale, ranging from uniforms to portraits to props. The voices of Star Trek officialdom never seem to have a problem with this, so neither do I.

I try to stay away from subjects whose IP owners have been less than supportive. Marvel, for example is one. When Neuralcolne first made his X-Men movie uniforms, I had big plans to follow them by making avatars of all the X-Men comic book characters. The Marvel went sick on City of Heroes, and I scrapped the project. Clearly Marvel does not appreciate fanart. While I STRONGLY disagree with that philosophy, I do respect it, and so I won't do any Marvel stuff (unfortunately).

As I said though, fanart is a far cry from what this thread was originally talking about. There's a huge difference between faithfully recreating or stylisitically interpreting someting you love as a tribute to it, and outright stealing what does not belong to you. Extracting textures from video games is stealing, no question about it, and it's to Avion's credit that he decided not to do it once he realized that. It's not something that should ever be done by anyone. As a texture artist, it never ceases to sicken me when people in SL grab textures from wherever they can find them and then go "look what I made." If you want to know how seriously I take that, without going into details, I'll just say that I've ended several SL friendships over it. I will not have myself associated with people who think it's okay to just take whatever they want and call it their own. That disgusts me.


The Poster Gallery in the Sci Fi Museum
The poster gallery is the one and only area of my property and my activities that could be a potential copyright issue since clealy the gallery displays actual source material, not fan interpretations. Neuralclone and I try hard to make sure we only use images that are public domain, but I have to admit it's possible something could slip through the cracks since we're talking about a lot of images. All I can say if that turns out to be the case for any picture is that it wasn't intentional.

That having been said, the purpose of the museum is to pay tribute to and educate people about sci fi. With that being the case, I do believe everything we're using is fair use, copyrighted or not. Our effort to use public domain images is far more a of a cautious courtesy than a perceived legal requirement. We're not here to fight with anyone, and we'll certainly always comply with the wishes of the owners/subjects of any of the pictures in the gallery should they wish to contact us. We're just a couple of rediculously devoted fans of the genere who enjoy surrounding ourselves with it in SL.


One last thing I wanted to talk about was your statement that you believe "most of the use of "copyrighted" material in SL would fall under 'fair use'". Sadly, I must disagree with that pretty strongly. My experience has been that about 90% of the copyright infringement I've encountered inworld is texture theft, which can never be fair use. That's why I took an interest in this thread in the first place.

I've used RMXP since it was first "ported" in English, and I've never seen them use .AYA format, just .PNG...

(Bunch of crooks, those Enterbrain folk, never bothering to translate their RPG Makers to English despite the obvious demand. Illegal or not, it serves them right for not doing anything to rectify their xenophobia and lack of simultaneous releases.)

(Oh, BTW, there is a legal way of getting it in English. You have to legally pay for the Japanese version and download the English patch. Enterbrain says the patch is illegal, I say it is not.)

So let me get this straight. You downloaded software you knew was illegal, but they're the crooks? Please.

Anyway, details for .aya files are here.

The dictionary entry for crook is here. There are many defenitions of the word, but "Japanese company who got robbed because they didn't speak English" is not one of them.

ok then here would be a good question

Can someone make me some Textures that "REPLECATE" the textures used in Battle Engine Aquila, I dont see the harm in ripping them neway considering i dont even see Lost Toys still open nemore, nor the game being sold for more then 99cents.

Not that i will now considering it seems to be illigale even though then technically all the apriters of the world are doing illigale things then with them, god help all the sprite comic creators when they get "sued" by money hungry companys

1. No, I downloaded software which is legal, but which Enterbrain says is illegal. The patch contains no copyrighted content.
2. And I still say they're the crooks. They haven't translated anything in years. They used to be laughed at for their poor efforts in translation to the SNES so they seem to have developed a xenophobic attitude.
3. And even if the patch were somehow illegal, tell me exactly what is being robbed here. Potential sales? Show me the English product that I'm ripping off. They aren't making it, even though they promised us they were going to make it.

Trademarks are not lost via lack of defense by the owner. US trademarks arose under the common law, so (in most states) they do not have to be registered to exist, they just have to be in use. Even if they are registered, they might be registered at a state or federal level and so might be hard to find. In the US, trademarks are unique among the IP (patents, copyrights, etc.) forms in that they arrise not to protect the property interests of the owner, but the interests of the consumer (to stop confusion as to source of goods). Therefore, trademarks are only lost through abandonment and "genericide" (meaning the public begins to use the mark to describe even competor's goods). Examples of marks (among many) that went generic include asprin and lanolin. Kleenex(tm) and Xerox(tm) are still fighting the genericide battle.

In specific regards to the StarTrek insignia symbol (you know, the triangular one), I'd say that it has not been abandoned and it has not gone generic. It is an arbitrary/fanciful symbol and even if it was not, definately has secondary meaning. The issue of consumer confusion as to source of goods is in favor of the trademark owner. Therefore, I'd say it is protected.

The entire Star Trek "look" is also probably afforded Trade Dress protection, but that is a whole 'nother post.

I won't argue whether or not the authors of RPG Maker have demonstrated poor judgment in not translating their software, but either way, that doesn't make them crooks. "Crook" is synonymous with "criminal" or, more specifically, "thief". For them to be "crooks" would mean they would have to be benefitting by illegally or immorally taking things that rightly belong to other people. So, what exactly have they taken, and how exactly are they benefitting from it?

Call them lazy, call them xenophobic, or any other adjective you can think of that might describe a possible motivation for not bothering to translate, but don't call them crooks. They're not doing anything illegal or immoral. So they only write in one language; so what?

As for the legality of the current third party patch, if you agreed to an EULA that forbids tinkering with the software, then they're right; it's illegal since you (and the patch maker) are doing things you legally agreed not to do. If there was no such provision in the EULA, then it's all good.

However, I believe my comment about the "software you knew was illegal" still holds either way since it was a responce to your specific statement that you've been using RPG Maker "since it was first ported to English." The first English versions were not just Japanese to English translation buffer patches; they were full versions of the program that had been illegally cracked, copied, and distributed. If you indeed have been using it since that time, then it is you who have been illegally and immorally taking what does not belong to you, and that makes you the crook, not them.

Just because you want something doesn't mean you automatically get to aquire it by any means necessary. If someone else owns it, and they don't want to give it to you, that's their call, not yours. It doesn't make them a crook.


I think we'll have to agree to disagree on this one. As I said earlier, items with that symbol are everywhere in RL, on the web, in VR worlds like SL, and even on other TV shows from time to time. I have yet to hear of a single instance of Paramount asking anyone not to use it. I take that as evidence that it has been genericized.

If they had wanted it to be protected, they would by now had to have sent cease and decist letters to literally millions of fanclubs around the world, almost all of whom manufacture stylized items for their members with that and other Trek universe symbols all over them.

Hi RT. Just wanted to mention that trademarks can, indeed, be lost. That's why "asprin" is a generic term now.

Copyrights can also be lost if the material is used with the artist's knowledge, but not their permission. According to the law, if the artist finds out about such a use and "takes no action" it's assumed that he/she intends the image to become part of the Public Domain, and the copyright is gone.

Which is what makes all the copyright violation so bad, from the point of view of an artist. We have to hunt them down, all the time, and "take action", or we lose the copyright.

Most people who violate copyright have no idea that they are doing so. Many people think that if there's no monetary gain it's "fair use;" but that's simply not true. Monetary gain has nothing to do with copyright at all.

Anyway, just wanted to mention that. Cheers!

They went back on their word that they would release it in English. They did this with RPG Maker 2000, 2003, XP and now the isometric one whose name I forgot.
You can't expect me to read and agree with a Japanese EULA. Legally it has to be in a language I can read or else any "signature" or other form of acknowledgement is rendered meaningless (like being coerced into signing a confession of criminal guilt). (And clicking on it does not mean that I automatically accept it either regardless of understanding.)
OK, so it wasn't since it was FIRST released, but it wasn't long after that, maybe two weeks or so. I remember there was a full version on one forum but nobody I knew was able to download it so we had to wait for someone to make the patch.

Anyway, we called Nixon a crook before it was shown he was; many of us today call Bush a crook not knowing exactly what he's done; I will call Enterbrain a bunch of crooks knowing full well that they've broken AT LEAST four promises and refused to display the least modicum of non-Japanese customer service. Also they've never done anything about the people who "rip them off"-- like releasing an English version or patch of their own.

I have no further interest in pursuing this slightly off-topic discussion. Enterbrain is a pathetic company and I don't want to spend any more of my time saying bad things about it. They simply don't care, and now neither do I.

RT, hon, I luv ya, but this is wrong:



Go back and reread the Lanham Act section 1127 and 3rd Restatement of Unfair Competition section 33. A mark can be abandoned by "naked licensing", meaning that the mark holder fails to maintain licensing control over the mark. Has that happend to the Star Trek insignia? Chosen seems to think so, and he might be right.

Now your trade dress argument... that is interesting... I'll think about it...

Kaya, you're too cute...
But your cuteness won't save you this time... naked licensing is abandonment, yes, but I didn't want to get that deep into the subject here. Naked licensing is a much different situation than this (anyone who cares, which I doubt, IM for explanation). Anyway, since you're digging around in the UNCOM restatement, see section 30, which backs up what I said earlier.

Enough of this off topic weariness... I'm sorry I brought it up... I came here to get away from IP.