I agree that you can usually not force someone to release modifications, unless you are willing to invest significant amounts of cash for a court case, but more often then not people just forget or can't be bothered to release their changes just because of lazyness, or because they are lacking webspace or some other insignificant reason.
By putting your artwork under a copyleft license, it gives those a nice but firm reminder that they should treat others the same as they where treated, even if that means some minor inconvenience to them.
Edit: my stance on copyright is actually that stuff should be CC0 by default unless otherwise stated (or preferrably registered), but since that is not the case, and anyone modifying CC-by/CC0 artwork automatically "takes over" the copyright and thus forbids any modifications unless specifically stated otherwise, CC-by-SA or another copyleft license seems like the best compromise.
Of course one can use CC-by-SA in other licensed OSS projects, and those also don't necessarily have to be non-commercial. CC-by-SA isn't a particulary strong copyleft, as it only covers direct integration (unlike the GPL).
So to my understanding (IANAL) a video or screenshots with CC-by-SA works in it has to be covered also, but all the other assets in that game, video, render etc. don't have to be cc-by-sa also, nor does the complete game have to be. You just need to release the assets directly based on the CC-by-SA artwork under the same license... in a sense it is similar to the LGPL.
IMHO there is only one problem, and that is direct mixing with GPL artwork, e.g. use a GPL rig to animate a CC-by-SA mesh, which isn't legal strictly speaking. I circumvent this by always duallicensing my work CC-by-SA and GPL, but that is of course only solving it partially.
A pity is that the CC-by-SA does not have any source requirements either (that's a big plus for the GPL), so one could make big modifications to a mesh, make a render out of it, and would only have to make the render available under the CC-by-SA but not release the modified source files of the mesh.
Of course if the aim of releasing your artwork is to have it used by as many people as possible, then CC0 or CC-by are the "better" licenses, but for me I actually like the idea of having games that are freely modifiable according to good and clear license requirements. I would rather hate some use of my artwork in a freeware or commercial title that does not allow any modding or reuse of the artwork (commercial is fine though, as long as I can use parts of it to make my own mods or games with it). Afterall I granted them the right to use my artwork freely, so the least requirement to them should be to do the same to someone else willing to re-use the modified artworks.
Edit: IMHO, while licensing artwork under the CC0 or CC-by is still better then puting it under a more restrictive freeware license, the end effect is quite similar to what we have with CG-textures for example. Lots of people use those, but there isn't really and additionally content produced by those users that would be fed back into cg-textures for other users to use.
So for me the defining difference between some freeware texture site (that allows modifications) and OpenGameArt, is that modified artworks are given back to the community. And while that is sometimes also the case with CC0 artwork, most of the time people just don't bother, except when the artworks are under a copyleft license.
Ahh it's not bad at all... I just don't see much use for it in most games ;)
I hope you motivation and health issues will work out for the good soon, as I really like the stuff you put up on OGA regulary and plan to use it for a game some-times soon for sure (when I find the time tm :( ).
If you are actually not employed right now... maybe some crowd funding project for some extra cash would be nice? I would for sure contribute and we could maybe do a topic selection and promotion drive on OGA ;) I am thinking of something similar to the Flare portrait crowd funded comission we did a while back.
Nice one, although I prefer the realistic style you did before ;)
If I was to nitpic I would say the mirrored wood at the front of the lid (e.g. the part that is most visible) is a bit too obvious, especially due to the circular part.
Maybe instead one could have an contest about art integration into a game? This is probably even more difficult since most FOSS game's art pipelines suck... but there is also a lot of nice artwork here on OGA that is totally unused and would just need some smaller adjustments to be suitable.
Maybe we can kill two flys with one hit by asking projects who want to participate to properly document their art pipeline and be open for Q&A for the duration of the contest. Thus we would also "force" projects to improve their art-pipeline/documentation ;)
Anatomy (yes stylizing is no excuse for bad anatomy :p ) and joint deformation skinning needs work, but other than that it looks quite nice already.
Looks quite nice indeed... try to get him to agree on a CC license for it that is compatible with OGA :)
I agree that you can usually not force someone to release modifications, unless you are willing to invest significant amounts of cash for a court case, but more often then not people just forget or can't be bothered to release their changes just because of lazyness, or because they are lacking webspace or some other insignificant reason.
By putting your artwork under a copyleft license, it gives those a nice but firm reminder that they should treat others the same as they where treated, even if that means some minor inconvenience to them.
Edit: my stance on copyright is actually that stuff should be CC0 by default unless otherwise stated (or preferrably registered), but since that is not the case, and anyone modifying CC-by/CC0 artwork automatically "takes over" the copyright and thus forbids any modifications unless specifically stated otherwise, CC-by-SA or another copyleft license seems like the best compromise.
Naa, there is a lot of FUD in here :p
Of course one can use CC-by-SA in other licensed OSS projects, and those also don't necessarily have to be non-commercial. CC-by-SA isn't a particulary strong copyleft, as it only covers direct integration (unlike the GPL).
So to my understanding (IANAL) a video or screenshots with CC-by-SA works in it has to be covered also, but all the other assets in that game, video, render etc. don't have to be cc-by-sa also, nor does the complete game have to be. You just need to release the assets directly based on the CC-by-SA artwork under the same license... in a sense it is similar to the LGPL.
IMHO there is only one problem, and that is direct mixing with GPL artwork, e.g. use a GPL rig to animate a CC-by-SA mesh, which isn't legal strictly speaking. I circumvent this by always duallicensing my work CC-by-SA and GPL, but that is of course only solving it partially.
A pity is that the CC-by-SA does not have any source requirements either (that's a big plus for the GPL), so one could make big modifications to a mesh, make a render out of it, and would only have to make the render available under the CC-by-SA but not release the modified source files of the mesh.
Of course if the aim of releasing your artwork is to have it used by as many people as possible, then CC0 or CC-by are the "better" licenses, but for me I actually like the idea of having games that are freely modifiable according to good and clear license requirements. I would rather hate some use of my artwork in a freeware or commercial title that does not allow any modding or reuse of the artwork (commercial is fine though, as long as I can use parts of it to make my own mods or games with it). Afterall I granted them the right to use my artwork freely, so the least requirement to them should be to do the same to someone else willing to re-use the modified artworks.
Edit: IMHO, while licensing artwork under the CC0 or CC-by is still better then puting it under a more restrictive freeware license, the end effect is quite similar to what we have with CG-textures for example. Lots of people use those, but there isn't really and additionally content produced by those users that would be fed back into cg-textures for other users to use.
So for me the defining difference between some freeware texture site (that allows modifications) and OpenGameArt, is that modified artworks are given back to the community. And while that is sometimes also the case with CC0 artwork, most of the time people just don't bother, except when the artworks are under a copyleft license.
Ahh it's not bad at all... I just don't see much use for it in most games ;)
I hope you motivation and health issues will work out for the good soon, as I really like the stuff you put up on OGA regulary and plan to use it for a game some-times soon for sure (when I find the time tm :( ).
If you are actually not employed right now... maybe some crowd funding project for some extra cash would be nice? I would for sure contribute and we could maybe do a topic selection and promotion drive on OGA ;) I am thinking of something similar to the Flare portrait crowd funded comission we did a while back.
Usefull... what about a bigger version to build a bamboo forest? Especially yellow bamboo would be a nice variety ;)
Nice one, although I prefer the realistic style you did before ;)
If I was to nitpic I would say the mirrored wood at the front of the lid (e.g. the part that is most visible) is a bit too obvious, especially due to the circular part.
Maybe instead one could have an contest about art integration into a game? This is probably even more difficult since most FOSS game's art pipelines suck... but there is also a lot of nice artwork here on OGA that is totally unused and would just need some smaller adjustments to be suitable.
Maybe we can kill two flys with one hit by asking projects who want to participate to properly document their art pipeline and be open for Q&A for the duration of the contest. Thus we would also "force" projects to improve their art-pipeline/documentation ;)
I think it's a great idea in theory... but will probably not see much contributions. Something like this has been tried before btw.
Ryzom art assets are released under the CC-by-SA and NOT the GPL, thanks for uploading this nice set though. Edit: OK fixed
@geekd: maybe not the most elegant solution but this should work: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Blender_3D:_Noob_to_Pro/Build_a_skybox
Pages