S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Stealing Art?

[Sazime]

From the "Not Sure if it's True" dept, some folks are claiming that S.T.A.L.K.E.R. has stolen light sourcing from Doom 3 and water textures from Half Life 2 (http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/46449). From Shacknews ("http://shacknews.com).
This week, threads have started showing up on various forums containing what appears to be evidence that GSC Game World's recently released shooter S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl makes use of a number of graphical assets taken directly from commercially released games such as Valve's Half-Life 2 and id Software's Doom 3. Many forum posters are speculating that the assets were used without authorization.It's a bit too vague to tell in my opinion, but I ain't no expert. Thoughts?

[Heretic Machine]

Saw the same thing. The art comparisons seem pretty damning to me. Particularity the HL2 stuff, they seems to be identical.

[alleycatsphinx]

I'm an expert; if this truly is in the game data as presented, the fact that they have the same file name AND graphic pretty much makes it case closed.

VERY unprofessional - people will easily be fired over this, and likely more. Repercussions are already written down in the employee and publisher contracts waiting to punish this very offense.

I expect the publisher is PISSED. A shame too, just a few textures - clearly something that could have been avoided. Another painful setback for a game that has(had?) great potential.

[oldschooldimo]

im definitly no expert, but the water picture looks identical. i stared at it for a good minute and found no difference between the two.

[Smoof]

You guys are assuming that they used them in game. It's quite possible they were placeholders that were forgotten about.

[Crono]

Whether they were forgotten or not, that is still extremely unprofessional.

[Royal Fool]

You guys are assuming that they used them in game. It's quite possible they were placeholders that were forgotten about.
This is sort of true. But only sort of.

Even if they're not used in the final game, they were still shipped on the discs and are part of the final retail product. As the Hot Coffee scandal has already proven, the content does not have to be directly accessible in-game to be deemed illegally acquired or in breach of ratings. So if a rogue developer would include lots of animated porn converted into textures, then hide them in a folder and burn them to the gold master just as it is sent to manufacturing... that might be a pretty damning thing for the publisher/developer.

[Spectre-7]

This seems a little more damning, assuming it's legit...

http://img78.imageshack.us/img78/267/flashlightsxh3.jpg

[Stooby]

Stealing light maps and water textures is pretty minor. How the hell did someone even discover this. Is there someone out there that masturbates to light maps?

I don't condone stealing other peoples stuff, but how the hell is it even possible to get caught for this.

[Heretic Machine]

Stealing light maps and water textures is pretty minor. How the hell did someone even discover this. Is there someone out there that masturbates to light maps?

I don't condone stealing other peoples stuff, but how the hell is it even possible to get caught for this.

Well, since a lot of the file names weren't changed, modders probably noticed it when going through the files.

[Lactose]

Stealing light maps and water textures is pretty minor. How the hell did someone even discover this. Is there someone out there that masturbates to light maps?

I don't condone stealing other peoples stuff, but how the hell is it even possible to get caught for this.

It's easy to get caught, if somebody looks through your files and is familiar enough with other games to notice that you're using the same textures.

This is much worse than using sounds from the same (licensed) library. It may seem like much ado about nothing to the end user, but to the dev team and publisher this will probably cause a lot of grief.

We put all "temp" assets in a special dev directory that the game can load but is never included on disc exactly for this reason (so its impossible for us to accidentally ship unintentional assets).

[Disgustipated]

I'm an expert; if this truly is in the game data as presented, the fact that they have the same file name AND graphic pretty much makes it case closed.

VERY unprofessional - people will easily be fired over this, and likely more. Repercussions are already written down in the employee and publisher contracts waiting to punish this very offense.

I expect the publisher is PISSED. A shame too, just a few textures - clearly something that could have been avoided. Another painful setback for a game that has(had?) great potential.

Hold on. As an ANALyst, I expect stock prices to soar!

[MrWonderstuff]

I'm sure this will blow over in due course. However my concern was if anything should happen to the developer over this. They released a very original game and on-going support, sequels etc could be put in jepardy if ID and Valve flex their muscle. Having said that THQ, whilst pissed, may be able to negotiate something.

[bryan]

I didn't read the mainlink, just saw the flashlight comparison - and the first question that comes to mind is, why even copy something like that? Wouldn't it have taken like no time at all to cook up a flashlight texture?

[Deadend]

Next thing that will be discovered is that the software used to make the game was not licensed. This seems like it could be the work of an outsourced artist, but then again, it's all made in East Europe. I know Eastern Europe is big on piracy and stealing in software, so how much of a game made there has pirated assets involved in creating it?

[Murtaug]

With all this copying of assets, it is a wonder it took so long for this game to be completed.

Sorry, I had to.

[Ph00p]

I guess it woulda taken another 5-10 years to make their own light maps heh, pretty lame since the game had such a long delay before it was released.

[PIPBoy3000]

The closest I've heard of this in other studios is the use of photographs to "paint over" and create a portrait. It questionably legal enough so that they decided to release a patch with completely redone pictures.

I suspect they'll be frantically recreating textures for the next patch.

[Snarboo]

Saw this myself at another board. They will most likely issue a patch that replaces or removes the offending files, as PIPBoy suggested, and then create a new gold master with that patch. It's not uncommon for later shipments of a game to have revisions or patches applied. Seeing that STALKER has proven popular, I don't doubt that there will be expansions and possibly a GOTY edition down the pipeline.

[temmink]

possibly a GOTY edition down the pipeline.

Wouldn't that require it winning game of the year? I would spit on ANYONE that even considered giving GOTY honours to a game that arrived so thoroughly broken that half the people I know who bought the game had to crack it to even get it to run. While the game they were aiming to make may have been in contention, it's not Game Potential of the Year and I hardly think that a game that's been in development since the Middle Ages and plays like a well meaning student project developed on a pocket money budget on weekends should be applauded. That might be a bit harsh, but someone on here made the point that if a major publisher released a game that was as broken as STALKER they would have been ridiculed, but this has ended up just another example of why a company that may take gaming seriously but doesn't take money, budgets or deadlines seriously cannot work.

Wow, I didn't intend to go on and on about that.

[MrWonderstuff]

It's not as broken as you're making out. I've played it through to the end with my legit CE version and granted its got some weird *undocumented features* its still fun, playable and scary.

[H.Bogard]

Wouldn't that require it winning game of the year? I would spit on ANYONE that even considered giving GOTY honours to a game that arrived so thoroughly broken that half the people I know who bought the game had to crack it to even get it to run. While the game they were aiming to make may have been in contention, it's not Game Potential of the Year and I hardly think that a game that's been in development since the Middle Ages and plays like a well meaning student project developed on a pocket money budget on weekends should be applauded. That might be a bit harsh, but someone on here made the point that if a major publisher released a game that was as broken as STALKER they would have been ridiculed, but this has ended up just another example of why a company that may take gaming seriously but doesn't take money, budgets or deadlines seriously cannot work.

Wow, I didn't intend to go on and on about that.

I'd rather play a broken-but-fun game like this than one of those half-assed, tightly scripted console shooters.

Edit : Whoa... I'm past 1000 posts... :(

[MacD]

Temmink...I think you and your friends run fx5200 cards on spyware infested machines, then.

As for the stolen art...I was sceptical when I read the headline, but said !holy shit! when I saw the pics. Some of those assets probably still have the same md5 hash! It's pretty damning evidence, and I can definitely see one or two artists getting prosecuted over this...as they damn well should, the intelectual property infringing bastards.

[Sandman]

My first reaction :

So S.T.A.L.K.E.R. was made by k0taku?

[Gel214th]

What if they used the same model of flashlight to create the texture map from? Then it would be nearly identical if they try to match it exactly eh?
^_^

I'd rather they spent the time improving the game engine performance and optimising rather than on flashlight textures, but that's just me.

[Herald42]

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. stole textures from Doom 3?

I wasn't aware that the color black was copyrightable. Damn.

[Tentaro]

Wouldn't that require it winning game of the year? I would spit on ANYONE that even considered giving GOTY honours to a game that arrived so thoroughly broken that half the people I know who bought the game had to crack it to even get it to run. While the game they were aiming to make may have been in contention, it's not Game Potential of the Year and I hardly think that a game that's been in development since the Middle Ages and plays like a well meaning student project developed on a pocket money budget on weekends should be applauded. That might be a bit harsh, but someone on here made the point that if a major publisher released a game that was as broken as STALKER they would have been ridiculed, but this has ended up just another example of why a company that may take gaming seriously but doesn't take money, budgets or deadlines seriously cannot work.

Wow, I didn't intend to go on and on about that.


I'd like to go on the record as saying that STALKER crashed on me twice when I was overclocked, but other than that, I have had no problems with it. However, I do understand that apparently this is not always the case.

[Tentaro]

How the hell did someone even discover this. Is there someone out there that masturbates to light maps?

Never tried light maps, but have been known to use a .jpg or a .gif in my day.

[Shjinta]

id has muscle valve doesn't, i mean if anyone knows about helping hands to accomplish a goal it's valve. Valve borrowed id's technology for half life 1, now they make source on their own, and I have yet to see a company that licensed the technology make success. Troika bombed Dark Messiah bombed. Episode 2.. with all the delays, will bomb thats why they are packing it with TF2 so people have a reason to buy it. For the last few years I've been very anti-valve. So if anything id rather see id do something.

[Disgustipated]

My first reaction :

So S.T.A.L.K.E.R. was made by k0taku?

Sandman goes for the anti-****** karma boost... shoots for the higher-up's attention and approval...

OH, HE MISSES AND HITS THE OUTER WALL. SANDMAN HAS FAILED. His season is over!!

[Disgustipated]

id has muscle valve doesn't, i mean if anyone knows about helping hands to accomplish a goal it's valve. Valve borrowed id's technology for half life 1, now they make source on their own, and I have yet to see a company that licensed the technology make success. Troika bombed Dark Messiah bombed. Episode 2.. with all the delays, will bomb thats why they are packing it with TF2 so people have a reason to buy it. For the last few years I've been very anti-valve. So if anything id rather see id do something.

Hold on, you're wrong about Episode 2. Millions will buy that regardless, Team Fortress 2 is a delicious bonus.

[DingBat]

id has muscle valve doesn't, i mean if anyone knows about helping hands to accomplish a goal it's valve. Valve borrowed id's technology for half life 1, now they make source on their own, and I have yet to see a company that licensed the technology make success. Troika bombed Dark Messiah bombed. Episode 2.. with all the delays, will bomb thats why they are packing it with TF2 so people have a reason to buy it. For the last few years I've been very anti-valve. So if anything id rather see id do something.

You may be anti-valve, but it's coloring your judgement. Valve has way more muscle than id and, what's more important, a strong anti-theft mentality.

Either way, it doesn't matter. I wouldn't want either id or Valve on my ass for using their property. There's probably not a lot they can do to the developer, but the publisher ain't going to be so lucky and shit rolls downhill.

[Amalor]

You guys are assuming that they used them in game. It's quite possible they were placeholders that were forgotten about.

Agreed , They probably threw those in there until their artist could create in-house assets and during the mad rush to release they got forgotten. Its not a malicious theft, its not a conspiracy and all it deserves is a patch to fix the problem and a simple apology.No big deal.

-Cheers
-Amalor

[alleycatsphinx]

I'm pretty sure that someone getting fired and some small payoffs between publishers is what counts as "a simple apology" in publisher terms.

Not a huge deal (but good gossip) - this was probably the "work" of a single guy - its an annoying and unprofessional mar, is all.

I know if I were caught doing this, I'd be SO fired. So...! ;)

[Mantooth]

id has muscle valve doesn't, i mean if anyone knows about helping hands to accomplish a goal it's valve. Valve borrowed id's technology for half life 1, now they make source on their own, and I have yet to see a company that licensed the technology make success. Troika bombed Dark Messiah bombed. Episode 2.. with all the delays, will bomb thats why they are packing it with TF2 so people have a reason to buy it. For the last few years I've been very anti-valve. So if anything id rather see id do something.

Anti-Valve and delusional. They licensed the technology from ID and added a whole hell of a lot to it to make Half-life. Quite a bit difference than stealing assets. I don't think that any of the problems with Bloodlines or Dark Messiah had to do with the engine.

[Sazime]

I have yet to see a company that licensed the technology make success.
Wha? Prey? I could name multipe games that used the UT engine, or point out that Raven started making games based on the Doom engine.

[DingBat]

I'm pretty sure that someone getting fired and some small payoffs between publishers is what counts as "a simple apology" in publisher terms.

Not a huge deal (but good gossip) - this was probably the "work" of a single guy - its an annoying and unprofessional mar, is all.

I know if I were caught doing this, I'd be SO fired. So...! ;)

At the very least.

I'm not really getting why people are so blase about this. This has potentially HUGE legal liabilities for the maker and publisher of Stalker.

[Wasson_]

...does it really?

[randir14]

There's only one area in Stalker that has water and it looks nothing like HL2's water, I don't know about the Doom 3 textures though.

[mneosyne]

Shjinta is right. Valve is one of those developers that only ever makes one game. id is similar, but they make cutting edge rendering engines too. Source is great, but its very limited and Valve doesn't really know how to sell it. The best thing about source is the mod community. In fact I'd say the mod community (80% CS) has given Valve more success than half-life ever did.

This whole STALKER scandal is pretty unfortunate but I have to say that it doesn't bother me at all. Intellectual property is not long for this world.

[Varsity]

The irony about that is that Source is only limited when it comes to mods. It's biggest USP is the fact that it's modular and has no hard limits: a licensed developer could do anything at all. They'd need to write the code unless Valve had already done so, but anything they made would slot into place without needing any architectural changes elsewhere (which is why and how Valve keep releasing incremental updates instead of making some sort of Source Engine 2).

[drakkarim]

dunno, last time i checked, no developer makes EVERY texture in house. they do BUY some of them from 3rd parties folks.

it could've also been a part of the engine source code samples or something like that.

in any case, its a fucking water texture, why don't you go analyze the grass blades and see if they match as well.

experts my ass.

[GigaFuzz]

Wha? Prey? I could name multipe games that used the UT engine, or point out that Raven started making games based on the Doom engine.

I think he was talking specifically about compaines using the Source engine.

Vampire: Bloodlines had some decent graphics in parts, but overall looked a little underwhelming, compared to what Valve did with the engine for HL2.

All I've played of DMoMM was the demo, which might not have been the best showcase, but from what I understand, that game had problems as well.

The engine is obviously capable, but it either needs some skills that Troika didn't have to make it work, or Troika just messed up.

[SynapseLapse]

It's happened before. People get behind on their schedule, they need graphics fast. It's well known the Duke Nukem II lifted a lot of it's graphics from Turrican.

http://turrican.nemmelheim.de/news/duke/duke_rips.png
http://turrican.nemmelheim.de/news/duke/

[GigaFuzz]

It's happened before. People get behind on their schedule, they need graphics fast. It's well known the Duke Nukem II lifted a lot of it's graphics from Turrican.

[pics - oh snap!]



I'm sure there's a Duke Nukem Forever joke in there somewhere. Does someone who isn't knackered want to step up?

[Xavi]

Man I sure hope I don't name any texture tree_01.tga on the next game I work on....

[Herald42]

It's happened before. People get behind on their schedule, they need graphics fast. It's well known the Duke Nukem II lifted a lot of it's graphics from Turrican.

If they went ahead and stole a few textures, they might actually finish.

Maybe they should go ahead and take a page out of GSC's book.

[alienchild]

I think it was Kreed that got caught stealing a TON of Doom 3 textures... also a GDC title if Im not mistaken.

[bryan]

Did Dark Messiah really bomb? I didn't see anything to that effect here, so could someone point me to something to substantiate? I really liked the game actually, almost purely for the melee combat gameplay.

[kickmybum]

Doesn't anyone who licenses the Doom or Source engines have free rights to water and lighting textures therein? Maybe stalker has these licenses.

[CptTripps]

dunno, last time i checked, no developer makes EVERY texture in house. they do BUY some of them from 3rd parties folks.

I was wondering if someone would mention that.

[Venkman]

Yeah, 3rd party textures are pretty common. If they can show they pulled them from some collection they bought, then it's fine.