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Old 24-08-20, 19:08   #6681
Ashnod
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I suppose this makes sense...
Perhaps you are right. However, I remain unconvinced that TR:AE assets would have been mentioned specifically, to okay or to rule out this either way.
You're not looking at this in the same way most legal documents would be crafted.

TR:AE wouldn't have to be mentioned specifically. It would be something more general along the lines of all work developed by CORE relating to Tomb Raider, Lara Croft, remains the intellectual property of EIDOS blah blah blah and someone more experienced with contract law could write that better.

However, the point remains, blanket agreements exist for a reason, both on a personal level and an organizational level. Either the rights for TR:AE belonged to EIDOS from the outset, or from the moment EIDOS gave them the green light to continue development. In both cases, TR:AE doesn't need to be mentioned, specifically.
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Old 24-08-20, 19:10   #6682
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I suppose this makes sense...
Perhaps you are right. However, I remain unconvinced that TR:AE assets would have been mentioned specifically, to okay or to rule out this either way. Given their pitch to LucasArts, we can assume either it was explicitly allowed, or it wasn't mentioned either way, and I'd bet on the latter. I suppose it matters more to how different under law the game would have to be to not be a "Tomb Raider" game anymore.

There is no law in any jurisdiction specifically talking about level design, of course, but that sort of thing is copyrighted. It's someone's creative work that you can't just release as is without some sort of justification, i.e. parody or something. The game would have to be fairly unrecognisable. Mostly new level names, rebranded settings (e.g. "The Andes", "Nubia", or something) no Lara, no Natla, no Scion, probably no recognisable version of Atlantis, no Atlanteans, no Qualopec, etc.

Not to mention there are an exceedingly large amount of Legend textures in the game.

(Considering, there are next to no Legend textures in Anniversary or Underworld, and next to no AOD textures in TR:AE, there does seem to have been some sort of in house artist in one of these studios who made those textures- I don't buy the claim that both studios happened to sourced the same textures from the internet. It probably isn't wise to dismiss that sort of thing either, since what happened with Uncharted and Assassin's Creed artwork).
I agree that those assets are unlikely to have been mentioned by name but maybe whatever language they used was so vague that they were included anyway, who knows.

You'd be surprised how many things are not copyrightable, actually. Fashion designs, dance choreographies or recipes, for example, cannot be copyrighted. And with level design, I'd imagine that only the actual assets are copyrightable. Like, if you actually ripped a level from a game, you wouldn't be able to use that. But if you just reused a level layout (but built it from scratch), I wouldn't be so sure that, legally, there's anything the creators of the original level could do about it. I mean, I'm sure they'd threaten legal action but I don't know that they'd actually win a lawsuit in such a case. Of course, though, in Core's case they did start out with the original level meshes as a base so that'd probably be a bit of a grey area.

As for textures, I'm pretty sure I've seen people mention that they've found some of the sources for the Legend textures online on texture sites but I may be wrong. In any case, from everything we know, it seems pretty clear that there was no direct contact between Crystal and Core at the time. I'd be very surprised if they were exchanging textures. (It's also not surprising that Underworld didn't feature any Legend or Anniversary textures seeing as they used a completely different rendering engine which required a completely different texture workflow. And the only Anniversary location where it might've made sense to reuse Legend textures was Peru.)
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Old 24-08-20, 20:13   #6683
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As for textures, I'm pretty sure I've seen people mention that they've found some of the sources for the Legend textures online on texture sites but I may be wrong. In any case, from everything we know, it seems pretty clear that there was no direct contact between Crystal and Core at the time. I'd be very surprised if they were exchanging textures. (It's also not surprising that Underworld didn't feature any Legend or Anniversary textures seeing as they used a completely different rendering engine which required a completely different texture workflow. And the only Anniversary location where it might've made sense to reuse Legend textures was Peru.)
Well, that can’t be the case as they reused Lara and Croft Manor textures for both games.

Also, if it was the case, how’s they get the textures in TR:AE if they were built around the Legend engine?

You argue that Legend textures are only suited for Peru, but Core found use for them heavily in all four areas of the game (Atlantis the least).

There probably are a few Legend textures floating around online, however I’ve always been fascinated by the sheer amount that TR:AE has, at least half the textures, even down to things like plants and cobwebs. I didn’t go hunting for these however, I just instantly recognise them from having spent hours poring Legend’s textures for my own TRLE assets. I’ve always wondered about the origin of Lara’s face, and the backpack she wears is a direct recolour of Legend’s (the backpack texture in Legend is hand painted in photoshop, you can still see the brush strokes). How these textures came in to the game, is anyone’s guess. If they were sourced on the internet I guess there is no issue. However I just can’t get myself to take that as the explanation. Perhaps they were given an early build of Legend by Eidos and told to match the art direction. It’s really a mystery, but like I said, it’s possible it could present a legal issue.

Edit: reference the backpack, you can see the exact same textures on Lara’s straps as you can in Legend in this post. The exact same.

Last edited by Niveus; 24-08-20 at 20:21.
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Old 24-08-20, 20:39   #6684
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Huh? No. What I meant was that Underworld used different rendering tech than Legend/Anniversary/TRAE. (I never claimed that there was a technological reason for why they wouldn't have used Legend textures in Anniversary.) And, of course, they could've used Legend textures in Underworld but it would not have made much sense because those textures were made with a different renderer in mind.

So, for example, if I were to make a texture for a game developed in UE4, I'd go to great lengths to try and make sure that the diffuse/albedo/colour texture does not have any lighting information in it (like shadows, highlights, etc.) because that sort of thing will be calculated by the engine based on the lighting in any given environment. However, if I were to make a texture for a TRLE project, I would want lighting information in my textures and will probably even paint in shadows, highlights, etc. to make sure the texture reads right and looks good when displayed with TR4's limited rendering tech.

If I used the texture I made for the UE4 game in my TRLE project, it would look weird and flat and if I used the texture I made for the TRLE project in my UE4 game, it would look cartoony and out-of-place.

Fair enough, I'm sure a lot of Legend's textures were generic enough that they could've been reused for other locations. I guess Crystal just didn't feel like they were a good fit or wanted to create bespoke textures for Anniversary for artistic reasons.

As for the backpack textures, I always assumed that Core either "stole" those from early Legend screenshots or handpainted them to look as similar to Crystal's as possible. But hey, maybe Eidos did hand them a bunch of Legend textures and said "here, make it look similar to what Crystal are doing". I just, I don't know, I have a hard time picturing that.
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Old 19-10-20, 16:29   #6685
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Has anyone got any links to the leaked Lara's home pictures?
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Old 19-10-20, 20:15   #6686
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Has anyone got any links to the leaked Lara's home pictures?
I guess you mean these? https://www.tomb-of-ash.com/unifinis...rsary-edition/

I wouldn't trust their assessment that those models placed outside the room meshes actually mean there was going to be an outside assault course, though. Pretty sure that those are just models for the indoor gym. Also keep in mind that these are not in-game screenshots, they are very unfinished and there's no lighting.
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Old 19-11-20, 08:47   #6687
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Talking here

I hated the computer version after realizing the difference

No one mentioned the differences previously
The differences may seem minor, but they completely change the course of the game
I feel angry because the computer version is incomplete
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Old 19-11-20, 09:54   #6688
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That's not relevant to Core's TRAE.
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Old 19-11-20, 20:44   #6689
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So how is the public release of Core's assets with the permission of Square Enix going?
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Old 19-11-20, 21:08   #6690
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The same way it was when it first started, ignored, in limbo and nothing's happening, and nothing will happen.

I can't believe after almost 15 years we've missed the chance of this getting a public release because of a very silly decision that was obviously going to result in this.
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