What about a texture exchange server?

[teedyo]

The problem I see with scaling is that you lose opportunity to use subsections of an image to create textures. The primary focus of an image might be a rock wall but somebody might look at the ivy hanging down in one section of the scene and be drooling over that instead. With only a handfull of graphic artists; I think the new age of writers will be relying heavily on photographic images and will need the broadest of options. Of course, the issues of storing hundreds(thousands ?) of high megapixel images is readily apparent. sigh

[Carterhawk]

Ultra-high resolution will be useless if not each pixel in the photo is sharp and crisp when viewed at 100%.

I don't recall having ever seen a fuzzy pixel.

LOL

===================

Some quick snapshots of the fence in the back yard.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/carterhawk ... 51/detail/

Im pushing the limits of the kit lens with those, but for plasma I don't think it's an issue since the final texture will never approach the full detail of the photo. like i said though, these are raw photos to be turned into textures, which is why i assume having the full photo available to take sections from would be a good thing. Anyways, what I ment with DNG and TIFF is images with more than 8-bits per pixel of data. Many DSLR cameras save RAW files in 12 or 14 bits, allowing much more control over the final exposure of the texture. Someone might want to darken or lighten part of an image for a texture, and having a 14-bit image to work with instead of 8-bit would let them do that without blowing out the highlights and such.

[tachzusamm]

Development is still in progress folks, and it looks well.
(Who wants to be in the list of beta testers? Hehe. )

I took your suggestion into account, carterhawk, so maybe we could integrate external servers as well. Later, if really needed. If we are really getting 6MB per picture like in your example, our 40GB (server already rented but not configured) would be good for about 6000 files. That's not too low.
Regarding the "cheap" Amazon D3 service, I'm not wondering about the costs for the space, but for the traffic.
There is an online calculator on Amazon D3 for the expected costs, I filled in a traffic about 2/3 of the example for a server Tsar Hoikas gave, and it calculated me about $260 per month. I'm not happy with this, or did I something wrong?

Oh, and I have a please. Could somebody think about the licensing subject (do we need "GPL", "none", whatever? I'm not familiar even with the abbreviations or possible models). And could somebody develop a legal disclaimer (or how this may called) to be put onto the server for reading and to be accepted by members when registering, in other words, before they upload anything? I can't, because I don't know about, especially about the U.S. law.
I don't want to put the server online without this, because in this case we will have files stored which are not related to the aggreement and need to be erased again.

Let the discussion begin.

[Lontahv]

I think that by clicking the "Upload" button (to upload your textures) you are agreeing 1: This is completely original texture and has no licensing past, and 2: That you are giving this texture to the public to do whatever they want with it without crediting you.

The first agreement will get rid of people (like CG textures say) getting angry at people for redistributing.
The second will make life easier for everyone because they won't have to worry about what kind of license it's under--it belongs to them once they download it.

[dtierce]

If anyone didn't know: GPL == Gnu Public License; A self-perpetuating legal statement of rights making a work free for use. By its wording it is legally inherited by derivative works of various kinds as indicated below. Having a GPL inherited by your work means that neither you nor anyone else can claim any rights to it.

You can use a work produced under GPL 2.0 freely without invoking the inheritance clause. That includes using things like compilers, link-libraries, utilities, and other pre-compiled works.

Inclusion of GPL 2.0 source materials in your work means that your work is now subject to GPL 2.0. This scenario most commonly applies to source code... I'm not sure which category texture files would fall into. If you could sift through the binary files produced for an Age and pick out the original texture data in its entirety, then maybe it could be treated like a pre-compiled work and would be safe to use. Can anyone answer that?

I hear that GPL 3.0 makes this inheritance more intrusive. Some believe that GPL 3.0 is worded such that it is inherited by anything it touches. This includes whatever is compiled by a GPL 3.0 compiler even though the source code being compiled is 100% yours.

David Tierce

[Trylon]

I agree with Lontahv on both points.

I don't want to see GPL used for models, textures and stuff that's on the TEX server.
My reason is simple: Free textures should be what they are called: "free textures" - free to use or distribute in any way you see fit, without any other implications
The GPL has phrasing specific for software, and when it is applied to textures and artwork, the simplest interpretation of them is that you force everyone who is using your textures or models to make their entire age GPL.
I think 1) that that's inappropriate for a free texture database, and 2) that you can't expect the artists that use the database to understand the GPL and its interpretations when used on artwork.

My explicit preference goes towards simply placing the work in the public domain. That way, the textures on the server are as free as possible, without any unexpected implications to the casual user.

A draft phrasing for the two points Lontahv mentioned above.
"
By clicking 'I agree', you agree to the following terms:
1) All artwork you upload is either original artwork on which you are the only copyright holder or for which are legally allowed to act on behalf of all copyright holders, or it is work already placed in the public domain.
1a) If the artwork work you upload does not fall under the above categories, your uploaded work will be removed from the database, and you will be contacted on this by a representative. On multiple occurrances, you can be banned from access to the server for an unspecified time.

2) You agree that by uploading the artwork, you place it in the public domain, essentially allowing the public to use or redistribute your work in any way they see fit, without the need to give either explicit or implicit credits.
2a) You will receive proper credits for the artwork you upload while it is listed on this site.
"

[Marcello]

Maybe add something that when there are legal actions by third parties the user that uploaded the textures will take full responsibility. Maybe even something saying that if third parties as for contact information of such user, the GoW will provide it. Not sure about that last one. Might be a bridge too far, but it does make this serious business.

[diafero]

What about Creative Commons? I don't know about the details, but there are several "switches" you can use to change the licence like non-commercial (which I'd suggest for this one) and also if credit is necessary or not. There's actually much artwork being licensed under CC as it is not "specialized" on software.

[Nadnerb]

I'm going with trylon here for the public domain option. Any restriction could end up being the wrong one at some point in this situation, because we don't know all the variables. (ie, how cyan will handle the legal aspect of using our work, etc) Non-commercial isn't really acceptable, because if we're letting cyan host our work, and then charge others for access to their servers, then it IS commercial.

[Trylon]

Non-commercial isn't really acceptable, because if we're letting cyan host our work, and then charge others for access to their servers, then it IS commercial.

That's what I was thinking too.