Solid State Alpha

Yes, absolutely. I'm glad you said that Desmond. I should have said it myself.

Everyone, the opinions I've expressed here are my own, and should not be construed as legal advice in any way. If you choose to create fan art for ANY franchise, realize you're doing so at your own risk. It's always best to seek permission from the owner first.



As for the injunction statement you quoted, Desmond, regarding the book, The Joy of Trek, it seems there was a period in the 90's (which I wasn't aware of until just now) during which Paramount got quite zealous about going after people for using the Star Trek name and other trademarks. There are several other examples from that same time, if anyone cares to Google for them. That period seems to be rather unique, at least from what I know of the history, but you're right that such things could happen again at any time. I find it unlikely that they would, but they certainly could.

And if CBS/Paramount were to decide to go that route, they wouldn't be wrong. Shortsighted perhaps, but not wrong. They own the property; they get to decide how it's used.




I wish I could talk about it, but I can't. It might still happen, for all I know, at least in some form. I wouldn't hold your breath waiting for it, though. I have a hard time imagining ESC is pursuing it right now.




Point taken.

hey Chosen,

This was maybe a year and a half or more ago in Whitestone, Ravenous Dingo's SL playground. Not remebering the name of the game and it wasn't the noise it was the amounts that were attributed to you winning,lol.

I was struggling to make tier then (much like now with almost 200 in sales in the last 5 days , down from a daily avr well over 1000/day),

I often thought it was just announcing a high winner to attract more players fueled by the fact you were always winning big pots . I hope you were and wish one day I would be that lucky but since I don't gamble (and I live within an hour of Tahoe ) guess I can't win if I dont play even though somewhat mute in sl at this point .

Anyway, I appreciate all you and I have benifited often and learned much by all the creators well known and obscure. I miss the old days of the big spenders and the gracious sharing and help that seemed more commonplace though it may be I don't notice it not needing the help as then and hope its my limited view these days that conceals the practice.

Now if SL would just cooperate lol btw, are ya sorry for all the times you pulled my ears?
-Roger Rabit

Well, that is the point I was making... we aren't BECAUSE these silly overzealous protections didn't exist back then. We had other issues to replace them, to be sure, like the Church, the Roman Empire, various zealots and despots and kings, but the IP laws as they are today are STIFLING creativity more and more, rather than encouraging it.



Well, I am not going to give away the keys to the kingdom for my stuff (ie, source code, exact methods, etc). I am not stupid. Nor has anyone here asked you, or even Aminom himself, to disclose anything, either.



..and if they do? Who should care more than me?

What if I never want to sell it? Should I be allowed to prevent others from using it just because I want to be a jerk about it?



They aren't going to *harm* me at all. To *harm* me, they would have to deprive me of something I already have. Opportunity and potential are not guarantees, so no one at all can lay claim to them, least of all myself.

Competition is good. Competition is healthy. They can copy my ideas, and I can copy their ideas. Whoever makes the better product from those ideas, and gives better service, and earns more loyalty from their customer base, etc. Those are the real litmus to success. Not some small idea that popped into my head while playing with the land tools one day.

Now, if I spent a year of time working on it and refining it (ie, I have done aught else but work on this item, which I have not, but just for argument's sake), then hells yeah, I would expect to have every opportunity to make back my time investment. But that isn't the case here.

That said, I hope it sells well, as with all my stuff I have made in the two years I have been here, but I am not going to get myself wrapped up into going gonzo over protecting it more than with just what is practical.

Anyway, I do understand what you are saying, and you holding that opinion on the morality of the subject is fine and dandy. I hope I may someday convince you to be one of my customers; you sound like the loyal kind I would enjoy having. However, I will have to just respectfully disagree on the ethicality of the concept, even if you believe it harms me, as I just don't share it. Maybe I have been swimming with the sharks for too long to really worry about whether they will bite me or not; I just assume they will, and prepare to leave them in my wingwash to minimize the "damage".

Final post commentary here as I'm going to be quite scarce for a few days.

A few quick points...

Chosen, yeah I hope you are right, I think the Star Trek franchise people realised the error of their ways and have come around. It's great news, I guess we'll just have to see where they will go with it.

* * * * *

Yumi, software "protections" are really touchy insofar as I think nobody's "got it right" yet with regard to what level of protection is right and good.

It's a multiheaded beast: copyright, method, functionality, look and feel, 'objects', trade secrets, you name it all rolled into one. And most of it not worth the trouble, in my personal opinion.

I've seen incredible abuse on both sides of the software protection issue. A couple of twisted examples: at one time I had the misfortune of working on Ford and GM subcontracts at the same time.

I literally had dual NDA's against myself depending what contract hours I was billing. Even with conflicts disclosed, in some esoteric areas companies contract you anyway because there aren't too many companies available.

The utter irony was that the secrets they desperately wished to keep from each other were *identical* and had been long before I ever came along. I'm guessing they had contracted some other person or team in the past who had done both. (epilogue: nobody cared. Well, the only time anyone hit the roof was when GM execs noted a manufacturer-plated Ford I left in a GM-designated area, whilst coming back from lunch with a sandwich).

Another odd one: I did some code for a small startup company contracting to the US D.O.D. once. Then, one day, we get a call from some obscure governmental beaurocrat. He wants all the code we've ever done. His justification? That he *was* the US Department of Defence by virtue that his office was part of it, and thus he was their representative. We poked around, turns out his office was competing against our startup for multimillion dollar SBIR grant funds. We told him to sue us in the most uncivil language possible. Never heard back.

So I'm undecided on the software issue myself. Biggest can of worms I'd ever seen.


Talarus, yeah, usually the good guys win... but no guarantees. I wonder how many decent content creators were steamrolled under the tidal wave of copiers, cheats and scammers before they really even got started. Hard to say.

I remember when CopyBot came out. A huge number of decent content creators in Caledon shuttered their shops and said: "our tier is dependent upon our products not being ripped." and of course they were right. I went to bat for them in whatever way I could then; I'll not stop now.

Well, enough words out of me; I've said my piece and have to run. Happy discussing - I hope a lot of residents at least get an idea of the issues from all this.

Dunno, but as for me, I am not going to worry about it. I'll just do the best I can, and from what everyone keeps telling me, my bare minimum is better than most people's "best". I don't know that I agree with them, but I would hope they were somewhere in the ball park with that assessment. If someone catches a ride on my wingdrafts, well, more power to em.



Ugh. CopyBot. The biggest non-event ever. I'll say again what I said then: those that protested it by closing down and "fought" against it with those STUPID "copybot defeaters" did far more damage to their business than any CopyBot ever could. There are a lot of decent content creators out there who lost my business simply because I got so damn tired of "!quit" spam from some object in their stores. Those that shuttered their businesses in protest obviously didn't get money from me, even if I wanted to give it to them, all to protest something that really had little chance of EVER costing them a single L$ in sales.

Hmm. Thanks for the explanation, Ray. I still don't know what you're talking about, though. You sure it was me?



Unless I'm suffering from amnesia, perhaps it was picking names and random and matching them with big dollar amounts to entice people to play? The only games/contests I remember participating in in SL were years ago, and none involved shouting machines. I used to win avatar contests a lot, and I used to participate in trivia games fairly often, although I could never type fast enough to win a whole lot at those. I've never played any casino type games in SL, even when it was legal.

A year and a half ago would have been about the time I was just starting with ESC. I was way too busy then to do anything but work.



I miss those days too. What kept me going in SL in the beginning was the fact that people were so uncommonly friendly in it. They still are, compared with the rest of the Internet, but you're right that it's not the same now as it used to be.

There are still lots of generous souls all over the grid. They're just harder to spot between the griefers, scammers, and other bad apples we've managed to pick up over the last few years. But while the relative percentage has gone down, which is why it feels different now, the actual number has gone way up, because EVERYTHING has gone up, and that's a good thing.

As everyone else, I'm grateful for Aminom's clarification of the ToU. I was pretty sure from the start that he didn't mean what I read; whether that's in the words of the ToU or in the perception of the reader is... well, not terribly interesting, I suppose. At least subjectively, though, this is really just not what I see when I look at the Caledon trees. I'm certainly no expert in rendering, so maybe what I'm seeing isn't the same alpha-sorting problem but it sure looks the same to me. As I mentioned, what I see appears to be less pronounced than typical for plant alpha textures, but I can't honestly say that it's that much different, given the usual phenomenon's sensitivity to angles of the surfaces and cam. I just wonder if there's something my untrained eyes are missing.

I'm still trying to figure out what a "Solid State Alpha" is??

think he was wanting to make an alpha into a solid while still maintaining the transparent edges. funny... i'm always trying to do the opposite.

Heh, yes, the thread did get way off topic from that, didn't it?

I have no idea what "sold state alpha" might mean either. There are any number of ways that phrase could be interpreted, and it looks like just about everyone who responded to the original question had a different definition in mind. Chaos, if you're still reading, would you care to explain what you meant?

I'm just guessing here...but is it possible to create a sculpty,
apply alpha textures to the polygons, and then convolute
the sculpty?

Wicked nice trees, but they still have the same alpha-sorting problem. It's harder to see as a result of the geometry, but it's the same one my monster oaks (32-prims *but* flexi) have.

YMMV.