Stargate SG-1/Atlantis Models
The BlenderGalactica.com team has been working on a new project: BlenderGates. Their aim is to provide freely downloadable Stargate SG-1/Atlantis models for Blender.
From the same team as BlenderGalactica.com, BlenderGates comes from a suggestion from the comments here at BlenderNation. We are doing the same thing for Stargate SG-1/Atlantis materials as for Battlestar.
Currently we only have 6 models as we wait for approval to post 3 more conversions from the model’s original creators.
Also we have plenty of bandwidth (2TB) so no site crashes this time. This site is much simpler to use than the Joomla based BlenderGalactica based site.
Unlike BlenderGalactica, registered users can add their own models. They have to be approved by us the moderators.
I am just curious… is this legal or is it just that the producers don’t care? I have my Prometheus model from my spacescape:
http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?t=93189
I would love to submit it, but I don’t know if that would qualify as an infringement on the show’s copyrighted material (spaceship designs, artwork, etc…).
As I recall, the Blender model repository (or one of them anyways) was taken down because of this. I just don’t want the same thing to happen here.
—
Kevin
i don’t know a lot about the legalities, it seems to be hit or miss depending on whose design is being reproduced, also on whether or not anyone is making money off of it.
There is an interesting topic at cgtalk about Lockhead Martin sending a cease-and-desist order to a website that was selling images of an F-16 that an artist made.
You can see it here http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=2&t=494572
woot! stargate
Yeah! I can upload my gate model, also.
wolfmanyoda: And the people who were suing the Blender foundation for Project Orange, and they themselves had “Orange Project.”
I think it be a good idea to learn from the past and not to upload anything that might be illegal.
Weird. Wasn’t there a post about this a month ago about BMR being sued and to help raise money for the cause? Oh yeah, here it is: http://www.blendernation.com/2007/04/17/blender-model-repository-trouble/ . So, whats up with this? I hope I don’t see a “BlenderGates Trouble” post in a week or so and I hope they don’t make the same mistakes as the old BMR. It’s always good to have nice models for fanfilms, but it’s not good when the people who try to make these things happen end up with a nice hole in their pocket from lawsuits.
IIRC, the BMR issue was caused by the uploading of someone else’s 3D model. I really wonder if this kind of fan-art would be illegal as well..
Well, I hope this site will not encounter any problems, as I absolutely LOVE stargate, and haven’t been abled to model something from stargate yet.
Great!
Knowing US legals, I smell troubles.
Not now because the site is mostly harmless.
Just wait until fame reaches it.
But there is a good way to go around this problem. Just do something original :p
Nice to see they used my mesh of the Death Glider and Hatak, i just don’t recall if they asked me if they can :P
And who ever exported it to Blender didn’t even untriangulate the mesh. :(
Either way i have not grips about them using it, hope they will actualy credit me for them.
I so need to finish the Aurora, Ori, f302, bc303, redo bc304. and a few others ;)
The folks at BMR got into trouble with people posting models others had created and not giving credit or the folks who uploaded the models didn’t have permission of the original authors of the models. So far all the conversions are from other models already available elsewhere on the net AND their creators have not specified any limitations on redistribution. Hence there are some other models out there that I have in my personal collection, but they are to only be redistributed via certain sites.
I think one of the best new Cylon Raider models that I have converted (complete with moving glowing red eye) has such restrictions. There are several others on the battlestar side of things like that too. I am free to use it in non-commerical content, but I can’t redistribute the models. Each of these files should contain specfics from their original creator’s README files (if they had one with the original model) and packed into the .blends so people can give credit where due.
One thing that we are trying to be proactive about is that models have to be accepted and from registered users (or via contacting one of us first through email) so that should help prevent having people’s models who don’t want others using them (and provide a method for easy removal and traceback where we got it from). I think the limit is 8MB for browser uploads. Any larger than that and it has to be via http://FTP…which reminds me I need to download an FTP program.
As far as the producers go, Sci-Fi learned a lesson I think from the early days of the Internet and trek: don’t tick off the fans. So long as people are doing creative things that is not deriving income from it, it’s hard to file infringement. Just look at the “Create your own video” contests currently being sponsored. Now it is much more frustrating for those who create models and then want credit later on. For instance, I have textures from Scifi-Meshes from before one of their spectacular crashes…they were never reuploaded to the new site and I have no idea whom to give credit to now. That readme is long gone.
Again, if you were offering the models for sale…that would be another issue. And there is a lot of merky legal areas out there too. Such as, where is the server located and how local laws regaurding copyright and such handled.
Unforunately the computer that had all the models and such had a nice Hard Drive melt down (or something requiring a complete erase and clean install of Mac OS 10.4) and with it being towards the end of the semester, I just got around to trying to bring the system back to life today when finals were over. Now I should have everything on a back up DVD around here, but given my hap-hazard labeling practices….could take a day or two to find. Plus I have to reinstal Final Cut Studio and a bunch of other apps…even Blender…
The only good thing is a clean 160GB where I can be far more organized…maybe…
And no, I am not a lawyer, but I will be in 2 more years.
If you have original models you have created yourself, we’d be happy to host them. I forget the exact amounts, but something like 15GB of space and 2100 GB of montly allowance, so we should have plenty of webspace and bandwidth. Frankly I’m working on about 4 projects at 4 different websites that someday I should combine and maybe will, but for now trying to keep it simple.
We also have to get used to the download script. It was the easist I could find to get up and running, but the administration end gets confusing.
The original models are in Cinema4D format.
I haven’t had the time to cleanly convert them yet, but i’m still working on the fleet at scifi-meshes. Nice to know that such a resource exist. Hope this site builds up to something more the just forums.
Will keep my blender eye on it for sure.
This is excellent. Happy to see other sites distributing models. It would be easier with some images to view though.
Speaking of model repository…
From KatorLegaz :
3D Models Now Creative Commons
May 8, 2007 All of our 3D models and related web pages have been updated to reflect the new licensing. Special thanks to all who donated to cover legal expenses from when we hosted the BMR.
Does it means their legal problems are solved now?
I have a model of the entire gateroom and briefing room. I can’t offer the gateroom itself or the stargate itself as it is someone else’s work, but I can offer the breifing room and the ramp leading up to the stargate/clamps holding the stargate. I will have to see about cleaning it up and offering it to the community.
the web site wont work every time i click on it it said
Error!
Could not locate remote server
You tried to access the address http://www.blendergates.com/, which is currently unavailable. Please make sure that the Web address (URL) is correctly spelled and punctuated, then try reloading the page.
Make sure your Internet connection is active and check whether other applications that rely on the same connection are working.
why???
this site does not load(blendergates or blendergalactica) i get something about a dns error.