$12256 / $11500
This is the 3 Tier Digital Studios Conifer Forest Pack v1.1 which was released by Ron Kapaun as CC0 - Public Domain. For more info check out the website here.
The models are in DAE format and should work "out of the box" with Torque 3D. The pack contains:
As well as all the textures required for them. I will be adding more previews later, just want to upload a few of the packs to OGA first. I have added all the packs into a collection which is available here: 3TD Studios Packs
This website's content is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Comments
Thanks for all the wonderful models.
Be aware that some of the textures used in these packs are from proprietary sources like cgtextures, shutterstock etc which do not allow use in open source works.
@Duion: well that sucks. Do you have any more details? Which textures are proprietary? How did you recognize them as such?
@hreikin: are you able to shed any light on the source of the textures for this pack? I'm sure we can remove/replace any non-PD textures with adequate alternatives, but until then I have to mark this as having a licensing issue.
@Duion do you have any evidence to show that these are not open-source textures rather than just an accusation ?
@MedicineStorm unfortunately as i didnt create these i am unable to shed any light on this issue, they were created by Ron Kapaun of 3TD Studios. The 3TDStudios website is currently not available as far as i can tell but he has a Facebook group available here if anyone would like to contact him to rectufy the issue.
Searching the internet archives, I've found the last known point in time at which Kapaun hosted these assets for download from his site. A post was made indicating all assets after that point in time would be unavailable on his site, but would still be available on https://www.cgtrader.com/3tdstudiosron (in this case specifically, https://www.cgtrader.com/free-3d-models/exterior/landscape/conifer-fores... )
I also found good indications that Ron Kapaun created textures using his own photo scans and custom photogammetry techniques. Nothing really indicates they came from cgtextures, shutterstock, etc. I can't say for sure, but I'm fairly confident the textures and models in this pack are genuinely CC0. Although the new "royalty-free" license on cgtrader.com does not supplant the previous PD status from Ron Kapaun's site, it also doesn't conflict with it either.
Until information to the contrary can be presented, I'm removing the licensing flag.
Thanks @MedicineStorm that is great news !
Hard evidence is on the skybox, skybox_1 has "copyright by cgtextures.com" written in the middle of it.
I also did reverse image searches on the textures and some showed up in stock images websites.
That is pretty irrefutable, if anyone would like to fix the files and replace the offending textures then please be my guest, i only uploaded them here as they came with a CC0 license and i didnt wish them to get lost if his site went offline like it has.
Well it is hard to prove which textures are offending except the obvious ones like the skybox. The pack was a regular paid package before and artists usually just buy stuff they do not have themselves. Yes he made some textures himself, but also used proprietary ones, problem is, it is hard to find out which is which.
Indeed. Thank you for the additional review and hunting those down. I don't have the means to swap out the textures myself, but I can make the package available to anyone who is willing to give it a shot. Otherwise, back into the licensing flag pile for now. :(
I knew that with the skyboxes for quite a while now and already wrote the author about it, but he just ignored it, so I ignored it as well, since I considered it a minor issue, but now where I found some of the textures on stock images websites I'm not sure anymore how much of the textures are proprietary, finding them somewhere else on the internet is not a direct proof, but it is very likely they are from somewhere else.
I don't know how to solve this, but I know that a large portion of free models on the internet use incompatible licensed textures etc, so I already stay away from using them alltogether.
PS: This issue probably applies to the other asset packs as well.
From my research so far it seems that the textures starting with "3td_" in their name are made by him and the others are from random textures websites. So maybe this helps in case anyone wants to sort it out, but I think it is not worth the efford.
The issue is still not resolved?
Nope. :(
I lack the skill and tools needed to swap out the offending textures with FOSS ones, and no one has volunteered to help out with it. I think these are great assets that just need a tweak to be viable, but unless anyone is willing to give it a try, I'll have to remove this submission soon.