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I have begun work on a Futurama TC for EVN.. and it is progressing nicely. Basic premise is you play as Leela.. battling everything from the evil Omicronian menace to space banditos and the Robot Mafia! If you haven't watched the show, check it out Already it is well beyond the size I can post to my own web-space, and I was wondering if anyone had suggestions on where such a TC would be appreciated and could be posted? It contains a fairly large amount of (I'm assuming) copywrited material..
Um... futurama TC?
Not to put too fine a point on this, but how exactly were you planning on doing the graphics for such a plug in? That is the single biggest thing in your way at this point.
As for copyright... there have been a b5 plug, various small star trek plugs, a star wars plug and i believe a red dwarf plug (only the B5 and the Star Wars were ever TC's) and now there is a Star Trek TC in progress and a new Star Wars one as well... copyright can be avoided when it's fan made free stuff, they don't generally care.
BUT: This is Fox that we are talking about here, watch your ass. I remember when they sued some australian programmer for making a small freware app called "Homer" which was a little floating window with Homer Simpson's head in it, and he would randomly say things from the series while you did everything else. I used to put him on and play the mac wolfenstien years ago, and he'd always say something at the right time, for example when I took out a bunch of germans in this one room he suddenly pipes up and says "mmmmm, organised crime..."
Classic. Anyhow, you get my point, watch what you do with it if you ever go ahead. You better email Fox about it, you don't want to be sued eh?
~A~
------------------ "How can I make it go faster?" -Me-
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Originally posted by Azdara: **Um... futurama TC?
**
Some 3d programs have Cell-Shading options or plug-ins, which can give the desired cartoony effect of the ships. According to Admiral Zombat, 'The animators who make futurama use lightwave with a cell-shader for stuff like space ships, space stations, and vehicles.' Also, Strata 3D Pro has a cell shader, or 'toon render' as they call it.
As for landing pics, and all the other graphics, some could be taken from the program (DVD Screen capture maybe?) though this might seriously breach copyright laws, otherwise, Endren would have to be pretty good at drawing cartoons.
------------------ "Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover." - Mark Twain.
Originally posted by Azdara: **Classic. Anyhow, you get my point, watch what you do with it if you ever go ahead. You better email Fox about it, you don't want to be sued eh? **
I dunno.... If you draw attention to yourself, they might slap you down for doing things they otherwise wouldn't bother complaining about. They would have to worry that if they gave you explicit permission it would create a precedent for other people to do things that would have far greater financial impact upon them than your 'lil fan plug ever would.
I'd say: go forward with your plug, have fun, never ask for money for anything connected with it, and just be emotionally prepared to "cease and desist" if you get a threatening letter. The odds are against that ever happening, but it could.
Check out these threads re. how others have dealt with copyright & trademark issues: (url="http://"http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/webboard/Forum9/HTML/004797.html")http://www.AmbrosiaS...TML/004797.html(/url) (url="http://"http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/webboard/Forum9/HTML/004706.html")http://www.AmbrosiaS...TML/004706.html(/url)
If you really want to contact someone in authority involved with Futurama, I'd start by trying to learn about Matt Groenig, and see if you can reach him directly. He started out as an "underground" print cartoonist, so he might be more open and/or forgiving.
Best of Luck!!! I would love to see this plug work!!
(Hee. If you want to see my suggestion for how to make a cartoon-themed TC in the cheesiest way possible, check out my post at the very end of this topic: (url="http://"http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/webboard/Forum9/HTML/004643.html")http://www.AmbrosiaS...TML/004643.html(/url) . I think I more or less killed that thread.)
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Woot! Go Futurama!
In any case, how did you design the system layout? Futuram doesn't mention that many places or their relation to earth. Well, I suppose they go to a new planet every episode... so you do have a universe. Never mind.
You should make the other characters into outfits, kind of like the officers in SFA or a few select people in SS. In the outfit screen, you could see Fry and Bender et al, with short biographies. They'd each give you different powers and penalties... Oh man. Missions involving the smell-o-scope... Hell, you could redo the outfitters as the "Robot Arms" or some other apartment reference, the Bar as home base (Man, can't remember the name of the company!). The Mission Computer could simply be, hm.. not sure.
------------------ ~Charlie Sephil Saga Homepage: (url="http://"http://www.cwssoftware.com")www.cwssoftware.com(/url)
Originally posted by Masamune: **The Mission Computer could simply be, hm.. not sure.
"Professor's ramblings", with almost every mission titled "Good News Everyone!" with the occasional "Bad News Everyone"
------------------ "Back in the day, when men were men, and women were also men..."
Ok.. thanks for the advice everyone! I guess I should answer a few more questions about the TC Currently, all graphics/snds/music are derived more or less directly from the shows.. and I think I'd better not say more to that end. Currently, I have not done any rendering of anything, and I'd prefer to keep it that way. Yes, photoshop and graphic converter are my favorite porgrams. Yes, outfits like the smell-o-scope are definitely in the works.. as is a "fuel scoop" by the name of Nibbler! Weapons include things like Neutron lasers and the Hyperdeath laser. More to the point, however.. no-one answered my actual question.. I don't have the web-space to put this TC when finished.. I expect it will be somewhere around 60mb. Does anyone know a site where such a TC would be appreciated (and could be uploaded to)? I'm also in the process of contacting a number of Futurama fan sites..
Thanks for your help everyone Oh, also if anyone has advice on things like system layout, intro screens, junks, etc. relating to Futurama, please let me know!
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Originally posted by Endren: More to the point, however.. no-one answered my actual question.. I don't have the web-space to put this TC when finished.. I expect it will be somewhere around 60mb. Does anyone know a site where such a TC would be appreciated (and could be uploaded to)? I'm also in the process of contacting a number of Futurama fan sites..
(url="http://"http://www.ambrosiasw.com/games/evn/addons.html")www.ambrosiasw.com/games/evn/addons.html(/url)
Matrix
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Originally posted by Endren: More to the point, however.. no-one answered my actual question.. I don't have the web-space to put this TC when finished.. I expect it will be somewhere around 60mb.
Compressed or not? If not, then assuming you manage to get it < 50 MB, you could always use 50megs.com, which offers, well, I think you can guess...
Otherwise, use StuffIt's feature to encode it in several files...can't remember the name...dammit! It's in the back of my mind somewhere, but I can't remember it...grr...bangs head on wall
It will appear as "filename.1", "filename.2", "filename.3", etc. This is especially useful when carrying a HUGE folder (as in, > 1.4 MB :p) to another computer via diskette because one or both do(es) not have internet access. I know, you're probably think "use a CD!" but CD-Rs are a bitch, and CD-RWs are screwy on Macs...
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(This message has been edited by orcaloverbri9 (edited 01-10-2004).)
Damn, wrong button...
Originally posted by TheRedeemer: **Some 3d programs have Cell-Shading options or plug-ins, which can give the desired cartoony effect of the ships. According to Admiral Zombat, 'The animators who make futurama use lightwave with a cell-shader for stuff like space ships, space stations, and vehicles.' Also, Strata 3D Pro has a cell shader, or 'toon render' as they call it.
As for landing pics, and all the other graphics, some could be taken from the program (DVD Screen capture maybe?) though this might seriously breach copyright laws, otherwise, Endren would have to be pretty good at drawing cartoons. **
You're perfectly right of course, I myself use Strata 3Dpro (the joys of access to university labs) for some of my stuff and Strata base for the rest, and I've played around with the toon renderer.
My point still stands though, as like he said, he would use graphics from the show or something, not a viable solution. He needs someone to do graphics for him, or to learn himself, which is really my point. Graphics are without a doubt the single biggest barrier in the way of plugmaking, and one of the main standards they are judged by. Photoshop and Graphic converter are frankly, not enough.
And the real problem is getting someone good enough who's willing to do the job. You see what I mean?
Still, I do wish him the best of luck in doing this, it could be very amusing and cool. I love futurama.
Originally posted by Endren: **More to the point, however.. no-one answered my actual question.. I don't have the web-space to put this TC when finished.. I expect it will be somewhere around 60mb. Does anyone know a site where such a TC would be appreciated (and could be uploaded to)? I'm also in the process of contacting a number of Futurama fan sites.. **
Well, if it is 60 MB uncompressed, it could pretty easily get down to 30MB or perhaps less. And if it is compressed, you could compress the files into different archives, and each of us can host a separate piece.
Another solution, if you could complete this within 2 months, would be to sign up for a .Mac free trial. You can't beat 100MB, on fast apple servers...
I look forward to hearing more about this! ~ SpacePirate
------------------ Eat blazing electric death!
Hmmm, I would think that the only time the creators would get all zoinked up is if he tried to make money out of his plug-in. But as you know, this is a form of fan art and therefore should have no reason at all to worry about any lawsuit.
Anyways, I thought that using Swift 3D would be the choice for making cartoon 3D sprites and stuff.
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Just in case Endren is trying to research him: the cartoonist who created Futurama is Matt Groening ("rhymes with 'moaning,'" as he's been known to say), not "Goenig" as I wrote earlier. Sorry if that caused any confusion.
Let me relate a story real quick.
As some of you know I come from Car Race Sim editing. One of the editors built a car that had a particular sponsor, Tommy Bahama, on it. The car was faithfully and tastefully done. Just shortly after he released the car to the public and he did it as a fan for free, he recieved a letter from Tommy Bahama's lawyers. It told him to cease and desist. He pulled the car and responded that he had to the lawyers. He also explained that it was a not for profit tribute to the car and team. The Lawyers promptly told him that did not matter. They were protecting the rights of their client to make sure that the name and logo was not used in any way not approved by the company.
The bottom line is that had he proceeded to rerelease the car then he could have gotten in hot water. However in this case the cease and desist was all that was needed. Of course the car editor posted all this corrispondance and it is likely that the resulting bad publisity hurt sales of Tommy Bahama's products but that aside the car editor did as he should have.
If they find out either through channels or through someone asking permission then they may ask you to stop. That is their right as they hold any copywrites or tradmarks.
You can take from this story what you will. I only relate it so that you know one possible circumstance that could come up.
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I think Tiresmoke's point is a valid one. Despite all the claims that it would be good to 'fly under the radar' and possibly avoid the issue by not being noticed, I myself would certainly prefer to find out if they were going to stop be through legal chanels BEFORE I spent ages in effort and time to make a plug that can't be released.
Ask them, you never know... maybe you could get an explicit, highly limited licence to use the futurama graphics etcetera for strictly non profitable means once off and never to be repeated.
Or maybe you should just give it up... either way is good...
I think that infact the graphics would be quite simple to produce, the basic ship designs that I have seen are far from complex, and with a cell shader, and the overall look of the shis, no texturing would be necessary. If anything I would say that this would be far more simple grafficly than many other proposed plugs. Joe
------------------ "Life is tough, but it's even tougher when you're stupid." -John Wayne
Well the courier ship they use in the show is simple, but many of the other things are not.
The hardest thing is actually finding someone who is willing to do the graphics, no matter how simple they are. Seriously, you are a very, very lucky person if you can get someone to commit to a project with no proof it will be finished with dedication. You are doubly lucky if you can keep them going until everything is done, and triply lucky if you can keep yourself on the project as well.
People say they will definately not stop halfway through, but the fact of the matter is that it seems a whole lot different three months later. By that time you've either integrated the work on your plug into your life, and bit by bit you chip away and finish, or life takes over and it dies.
I have worked on three TC's doing graphics. The first one failed because I realised I sucked, and the storyline sucked, and all the other people sucked. The second was going really well untill I found out (and the board found out, and Andrew found out) that he was pirating EVN. This kinda put a hole in the project, considering I didn't want to do it anymore and evryone quit and he was banned and no one would have played a TC made by a pirate. The third I'm currently in, and it has succesfully integrated with my life, I like the plot and background, and the only other person on the case is UE Reasearch and Development, who as many of you know is a talented writer, so I'm very happy with how it's all looking. This is a plug that will likely finish.
Heh, it's time for a bitch though: I have too much workload to do! First I signed on for the ships only, but since it has been very hard to find someone who can do decent planets/landing scenes it's looking like I may have to do them too, and I don't know if I can.
Anyone good enough to help? We'll probably ask later though, when there's 'proof' of substantial completion. Should be easier that way, people more prepared to hitch on when there's stuff for them to be shown.
sigh
It'll be okay.
/RANT
Thanks for reading all that if you did...
Originally posted by Dr. Trowel: (B Matt (b)Groening(/b) ("rhymes with 'moaning,'" as he's been known to say), not "Goenig" as I wrote earlier. (/B)
Bzzt! Sorry, wrong answer, thank you for playing. It rhymes with (as Matt is often quoted as saying) "Complaining," not "moaning." Groening, sounds like "gray-ning," rhymes with "complaining."
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Originally posted by UncleTwitchy: **Bzzt! Sorry, wrong answer, thank you for playing. It rhymes with (as Matt is often quoted as saying) "Complaining," not "moaning." Groening, sounds like "gray-ning," rhymes with "complaining."
Damn beat me to it.
------------------ skeptic