Sprite-Ripping Fairness

[Iconoclast]

What do y'all think about ripping sprites from video games? I have read it is illegal; I want to see some text for that. I wouldn't dare to question posting dumped textures.

I should think it is illegal; I just want to know details. Not often is the hard work of ripping sprites and animations match for the work in designing their geometry in the 3-D video games.

I spent a lot of time on this example animation.

This was extremely easy since the background could be retextured to solid black...whereas I always use pixel-by-pixel background removal for joy.

If there's any potential offense I will remove these immediately (avatar from 40 Winks included).

 

[Lillymon]

I guess it's technically illegal, but then so is ripping and redistributing game music. We still do it. Why would you think textures would be any more of a legal risk? The game music could potentially impact OST sales and we see nothing, what sales would be harmed by illegal posting of game textures?

I'm also looking at these animations and seeing within the limits of the GIF format. I think these would be excellent candidates for the new animated PNG format. With the latest versions of Firefox and Opera supporting it, I think these are great candidates for the new format. Of course, new tools are needed for this, and I'm not sure what's out there yet...

 

[Iconoclast]

I had thought there is little respect earned for posting game textures. Assembling them can be difficult if the tiles are small, but it's mostly pirating without work. Turning a screenshot of a game into a sprite rip is somehow less daring? That was my instinct.

Soushkin posted about the APNG specifications somewhere else, but I cannot reach the cached utility link. I remember trying the actual utility. This is very nice. Even now that MS IE 7 fixed the PNG canvas transparency support they still neglected to play animated GIF files faster than 10 jiffies (You people call them "ticks" = 0.01 s.) per frame. I used to despise FireFox in early times for a few reasons.

The GIF quality is the best I could do. I spent much time on optimizing these files and learning the best ways. Octree works well for pixel groups, but Windows' ordered dithering method is generally best for these ones of huge pixel color amounts.

Here's some more I've done in the past.

I'd be glad to show off 10 times that but we're limited to 4

 

[Iconoclast]

 

[Iconoclast]

 

[Haoie]

It's so widespread as it is.

Flash movies/games just love reusing sprites. And it usually looks pretty good too, if applied right.

 

[Reaper man]

I like these... they look nice, and as said before they are done to such an extent it doesn't matter.

Also, this is more a console/gaming thread so I'm moving it there.

 

[Umiliphus]

What are they for?

 

[Iconoclast]

Yeah...they're just part of screenshots but not modeling code.

I rip Nintendo 64 sprites. Correspondingly they are: Bowser's awesome dance in Mario Party, Mario's shiny head flying around in Mario 64, Jiggywiggy from Banjo-Tooie, green rupee in the N64 Zelda games, basic star in Mario 64, "wink" from 40 Winks, classic vampire in Castlevania N64, Cheato from the Banjo games, Banjo riding the Saucer of Peril in the targets mini-game, Flat and Sharp the composer brothers, Charlie Vincent the vampire hunter, (He's got damn written all over him...scared me gray.) and the guardian of Dracula's spirit.

Widespread? I've looked in some places but I've never seen this discussion. Remotely I've seen retexture questions compared to something like this. As for reusing textures in Flash the only times I've seen someone try to do that is me and some not really publicized cases; I've got a few Flash SWF imitations of N64 parts.

more sprites

Gannondorf's out of pose.

Later two are the grayscale filtered Malus from CV intro and Funky Kong from the Donkey Kong 64 credits, wigging out on his rocket launcher (or some other thing).

 

[Umiliphus]

Eh, well, I'll assume there is some reason for having those around.
However, technically speaking, I don't think they are sprites at all. I've seen things like this used as sprites, but they are not rips of sprites. I probably shouldn't worry about this.

 

[Iconoclast]

I like to think of them as rips.
bitmaps of models without background interference

Symbols or artwork I found them worth spending my time on. Now reproduction again I haven't seen much of, but it's not too hard to find emulation fans who rip sprites quickly for their avatar or something. Any such symbolic use is against Nintendo's wish, but they are memories.

I'm glad to see anyone else show off or take any requests. Requesting is unusual since outside of memory the treasurer finds the job to rip the sprite that one's self. Ripping for other people to use is different.

 

[hcs]

 

[Iconoclast]

That would suck ..

It was funny levitating Link during that whole cutscene so it'd look like he was talking to the grass.

Duh and they actually let you do that.

I also had a bit of fun with Mario levitating.

My I've neglected this area.

 

[The 9th Sage]

Hey, nice work. It must take more patience to rip a 'sprite' from a 3-D game like that and make it actually look nice.

 

[AkaneJones]

Topic is a bit odd here, but really those aren't technically sprites at all. They are polygon models converted into short gif/2-D animations. In reality all sprite, polygon models, and textures would technically be illegal, but since typically they are used in non-commercial works no company is really going to waist their time on pursuing any legal action on it. And of course, most time it falls under fare use anyway. In fact in some cases they won't even bother if it is commercial. At leased Square-Enix hasn't gone after 8bit Theater for example, even though you can by products like shirts. However using unedited sprites and polygon models in commercial games, even just screens shots can lead to this...
http://www.gameplasma.com/limbo_of_the_lost_or_oblivion/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limbo_of_the_Lost#cite_note-9
Yes, Sue city on that. But other wise they could care less.

 

[Iconoclast]

Any of you ever heard of sprite sheets? They're called those for a reason. Just like there are [images of] ROMs there are [images of] sprites.

But no--I never called these sprites. I only called them sprite rips...not took pride in converting geometry to pixelmaps thought strictly my work. Did I need this little reminder? Did Umiliphus not already say this? How many of us reply to threads without reading beyond post one?

Those articles were along the lines of what I wanted. It's still not much information, and there's plenty social discussion. But I can't really expect law texts after the replies in here.

 

[Rattlehead]

Topic is a bit odd here, but really those aren't technically sprites at all. They are polygon models converted into short gif/2-D animations. In reality all sprite, polygon models, and textures would technically be illegal, but since typically they are used in non-commercial works no company is really going to waist their time on pursuing any legal action on it. And of course, most time it falls under fare use anyway. In fact in some cases they won't even bother if it is commercial. At leased Square-Enix hasn't gone after 8bit Theater for example, even though you can by products like shirts. However using unedited sprites and polygon models in commercial games, even just screens shots can lead to this...
http://www.gameplasma.com/limbo_of_the_lost_or_oblivion/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limbo_of_the_Lost#cite_note-9
Yes, Sue city on that. But other wise they could care less.

Damn it! Beat me to the punch.

Any of you ever heard of sprite sheets? They're called those for a reason. Just like there are [images of] ROMs there are [images of] sprites.

But no--I never called these sprites. I only called them sprite rips...not took pride in converting geometry to pixelmaps thought strictly my work. Did I need this little reminder? Did Umiliphus not already say this? How many of us reply to threads without reading beyond post one?

Those articles were along the lines of what I wanted. It's still not much information, and there's plenty social discussion. But I can't really expect law texts after the replies in here.

Easy there, Iconoclast. Let's just all calm down.

I think that if it were illegalized that it would quickly go the route that music piracy has...it's ignored so much that not a whole lot is done about it. I'm fine either way, illegal or not.

 

[Iconoclast]

sounds good thanks
And again I kind of thought the care would be pretty predictable; I wanted to know more into the law behind it and am glad to see it's not socially unacceptable.

I ripped some sprites from the Legacy of Darkness retexture.

divided logo from Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine

VRML simulation of omni cube from Bomberman 64