Published Artists - Game Development Idea
richardbmiller2
Posts: 13
Hello,
I'm Richard Miller of 1618 Studios. I've been watching Daz3D for a while, and I've used it. I"ve got an idea, and I'd like to get your feedback about it because I think it could increase exposure and revenue to a market currently untouched for daz3d and it's Published Artists.
The idea is this - I'm working on some games that could benefit from daz models and accessories. These games could, with the appropriate agreements, sell the items you've designed or will design to players of the games to use solely within the game itself. We would be interested in maintaining the same profit shares as outlined with daz according to the Published Artist's Agreement, with whatever share you, the published artists, Daz3D, and 1618 studios feels is appropriate for this alternate distribution.
The models / textures etc will be encoded within Unity3D build objects. These are not accessable with a 3d rendering program such as Daz, Blender, Maya, 3DS Max, etc. Would be similar to other games in which you purchase aesthetic style for in game use. The only right you give them is the right to put the item on their character in the games.
This video gives example of what I'm talking about (please note the game development itself started approximately two and a half weeks ago)
- I hope this video is ok here. I've read the EULA and I believe I'm following the guidelines.
In the video, you'll see items from Daz3D on the character (I'll give a list of the items without links)
1.Pix - Synx for Genesis 3 Female (with emissiom maps I created from the base textures)
2. Pure Hair: Bubblegum for Genesis
3. Dark Storm Pants (I've made them into a tranparency to accent the outfit)
4. Sci-Fi Siren Outfit for Genesis 2 Female(s) (I've modified this to fit to a genesis 3 model, which required turning off the feet of the model for the boots)
5. I'm not sure where I got the sports bra (modified with transparency to fit the outfit design). I might have gotten that from a third party site that has free daz meshes.
I can export a character from daz with multiple outfits attached to the character, and can turn on and off these outfits through code in Unity3D.
To explain how this would work - in game purchase of item, which would unlock the ability to change to the new outfit in game. The purchase cost would be disbursed according to the agreement we might reach. I've sent the idea to [email protected]. I feel it's important to share with the Published Artist community as well.
I look forward to feedback about this idea.
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Comments
https://www.morph3d.com/
Exactly, different communites, different uses.
So bascially you are pitching another marketplace for PAs to create for, namely the Unity store, correct? Problem is, unless you are a prop or environment creator, then any clothing or textures created are dependant on a DAZ figure being used in Unity which probably wouldn't fall under the use guidelines DAZ have set up with their current game use license. Curious to know what DAZ thinks of this..
Confused though, your first part of the post alludes to a specialized use of DAZ assets, yet the video just shows some of the DAZ assets used in the Unity engine
Funny, not sure how you can claim any assets in Unity can't be made accessable to a 3d rendering program such as Daz, Blender, Maya, 3DS Max, etc since there are quite a few apps that rip assets from most games and there are whole communities set up around sharing these.
to FSMCDesigns - I'm not pitching that Published Artists should create assets for the unity store. I'm not implying that the Published Artists would need to consider anything but creating assets as they do for daz, but these assets can be, if selected, sold through the game itself to be used on characters in the specific game that offers them.
I'm not aware of anything that "rips" models from a compiled Unity3D project. If a person decides to do illegal things with character models, there's nothing that stops them from grabbing daz3d, then exporting models for whatever non-licensed purpose their illegal minds choose.
I tried to be as clear as possible, and detailed, about the idea in my writing. I'll try to add here more detail:
1. PA creates as normal for daz
2. If items are selected for use in one or more of the games 1618 studios is working on, then that item, with proper agreements in place, would be exported from daz into .fbx, to be included for the model in the game to sell as a microtransaction / outfit purchase. These purchases would only give rights for the player to use the asset in the game.
3. 1618 studios would modify the clothing / textures from daz3d and the PA's as necessary to work within the compiled game, unless the PA's have interest to help in that regard.
4. the funds from these transactions would be disbursed according to agreement
I've passed over Morph3d in the Unity asset store a few times while searching for characters. From the image, the result looks too cartoony. I own mixamo fuse (now adobe fuse), and I see no point getting another product that produces the same cartoonish looking characters. I'm researching further currently regarding morph3d.
I hope this helps.
Simple feedback here is that all Daz PAs are already invited to submit game ready assets to the daz3d sister store that is morph3d. Daz has an exclusivty agreement for PA brokered content that would not allow any assets sold on the daz3d site to be sold anywhere else other than morph3d (with very few negotiated exceptions), and to use anything sold in the daz3d store in any kind of game, you need a game developers license or licenses. It is good that you have contacted marketing, but expect them to say if they are interested in daz3d assets converted for the Unity market, they would want them sold at morph3d.
I think what you are suggesting is what would be done by morph3d, as that is the sister company of DAZ3D. If you feel that the content is too cartoony, that content comes from here so you would be in the same situation.
@ Male-M3dia - The key point of what I dislike about morph3d assets is that the base is genesis 2. I don't like that base. I like the genesis 3 base. To say that I'd experience the same issue of cartoony-ness can't apply. We're talking about art styles. Some of the art styles of the Content released here (such as Pixeluna's Synx) has a more solid / real feel to me. I will say that buying assets through the morph3d asset store is far cheaper for game development. The packs I saw from the glance I took showed me that. But still, the art offered through morph3d doesn't match what I'm looking for. That's the key factor.
@ DestinysGarden - I'll try to be as clear as possible. I'm not interested to have Published Artists begin creating assets for the Unity asset store. (if they do already, that's fine but that's off topic). What I am interested in is a potential way to offer artists who would like a chance at more money to have that opportunity. I'm thinking more along the line of possibly some kind of connect to the daz market from the game (or games) to enable a modified version of the Content to become wearable in the game (I'm thinking about one right now as I type this) like you'd see in many games where you can make an outfit purchase for your character. They call them microtransactions, but I'd say that's not the right word for it because there's nothing micro about the prices usually. Example: EA's Dead Space 3 offered packs that gave you a unique weapon and outfit. What I'm saying is that the Daz3d market would be the source (but wouldn't cover the entire market, just the items we select to enable for the in game characters IF the PA's are interested in profit sharing option, exactly like they do on the daz3d market) The prices could be exact same as the daz3d market if we can reach an agreement on profit sharing for that price of course)
I've done a lot of fine tuning to get non genesis 3 parts (Content) to work correctly with the genesis 3 base. Those sci-fi boots are for genesis 2 I believe (reference link: http://imgur.com/5rhWz5P ) the pants are highly modified Dark Storm pants, and the sports bra was created for genesis 1. To get the boots to work right, instead of having her feet stick out of the top, I had to have her in standard T-pose, apply the boots, setup collision smoothing, fine tune that against the pants, and disable the bones for the ankle, toes etc. Created the emission maps from the base textures by Pixeluna in the Synx item (Here's the video for the process i use to create emission maps: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XV0h_a9gMXQ ) I can make any map I need (Diffuse / normal / bump etc.) from the base textures, so if it's missing some depth / detail I want, I can make that happen. When I exported her to *.fbx, the body maps were only the texture (a few of the clothing items had bump maps and detail maps)
I mentioned on another thread that creating Tessa inspired the game design for Tessa_racT. Being able to bring her into the engine has been wonderful for me (as a story writer to be able to "touch" the character, shape, and move) is an amazing experience.
I plan to make a male character also from genesis 3 male. I'll have to create my own hair because what I have available currently isn't something that fits into the game aesthetic (the market might have a partial solution, but I'm not at that point yet).
I've gone into this detail to show some of the changes necessary to make it all fit together, into a cohesive personality of form. To further modify the content from what's available rom Daz3d Content store, we can downsize the textures to say 2048 instead of 4096. or further to 1024.
Maybe if we could come up with a ruleset for these game asset versions to have enough variance from the quality of the original Content and general look variance (the Dark Storm pants look like plastic molded pants or some kind of bio organic transparent pants now, that's pretty huge difference from what they are in store) then we could come up with something acceptable for all involved. Example: all textures must be resized to 2048 or lower res. Meshes must be decimated to reduce definiton (but not below the aesthetic I'm looking for or that voids the purpose). I wouldn't put the burden of doing these tasks on the PAs. We'd do it as I've done with Tessa, the in game version.
So, to try to conjure up into your minds how it would work with more detail - Daz would have to add a variable in the system that could mark the purchase origin as coming from the in game outfit store. if that's part of the callback through the web api, that would resolve the tech side of things, and provide the PAs we select with the opportunity to profit in a similar way as they do from Daz3d market. For example, whoever deisnged the sci-fi boots, synx, darkstorm, bubblegum hair, etc. would be included in the profit stream.
It's fairly common in games to buy outfits for 15-25$, and the outfits in most games are far less detail and quality in my opinion.
I noticed I said "I can export the model from daz3d with multiple outfits attached, and turn them on and off with code inside Unity. I've not shown that in the video. I'll make a video that shows how I can turn off and on an alternate outfit to show example.
I hope this helps convey the idea further.
It seems like the simplest approach would just be to buy the game licenses for the PAs you're interested in including. Is there a reason you don't want to take that route?
The point is, that he wants to resell Daz 3D and PA items in the game - and this is strictly forbidden by Daz 3D EULA, even if one has purchased related game developer licenses.
By the way, Morph3D items are also not allowed to resell them in the game, as well.
Probably the easiest way to conform with the EULA, is to create all the items planned to resell in the game by game developer itself, if possible.
Based on the "tweaks" to the textures and mesh you mention, I assume you have this already http://www.daz3d.com/commercial-game-developer-license which leads me to another point. If PAs are creating content for the genesis 3 figure in the game, wouldn't they each have to have a license also since their content relies on the DAZ figure in the game. I also believe the DAZ license is for one game only, not multiple games
As a gamer and a developer/modder for games, I am well aware of the business model you speak of in game, I just don't see it logistically possible using DAZ assets and/or involving DAZ PAs based on the EULA involved and the work involved (hoops to jump thru) to get it working.
Huh. I would have assumed that the figures would have been covered under the base price for the game, since (obviously?) you can sell a game containing 3d models with Daz via the licenses. I mean, the idea is they can't be used outside of the game, right? Does it really qualify as 'reselling' then, or just 'unlocking' game content?
Also, to resell an item at another place that we have in the store would fall foul of our PA agreement as well. That's why I mentioned morph3D because I believe that issue is taken care of using that method. For figures, those would need to be made from scratch since I don't think custom figures are in morph3D. But then there would be a much larger pool as anyone, could make the morph, however you would probably need the DAZ license to use the base figure in a program then move it over. But suggesting it as a way for PAs to make money wouldn't work as we would have to build a unique product outside what is available in our stores so we don't fall foul of our agreements.
But the OP can always create a help ticket stating what he wants and that way he can get his question answered officially.
The OP should really learn more about Morph3D...they are expanding the flexibility of the DAZ Studio - various game engine pipelines according to a blog post that they have made on their site and just in the last week or two mentioned they have started a partnership to make 'bespoke VR game avatars' combining that 3rd party company's tech with DAZ technology.
Also, I think the OP underestimates the cost of technical and customer support and other needed resources for such ventures.
I have the DO Game Dev license and yes it is nice to use and if I were to want to use it to charge a player of a game for downloading a model that originated in the DAZ Store for use excusively in that game then I would have to ask DAZ. It's not ruled out in advance, they consider it on a case by case basis. You are free to implement the general framework to sell such models and use the set of DAZ models you licensed in that framework after you ask DAZ and they say yay or nay.If rejected there is nothing keeping you from creating your own models in Blender or elsewhere using that same framework. You'd just have to mod it a bit.
@ FSMCDesigns I'm doing a breakdown in semi-mostly layman's terms of the EULA here - http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/147591/the-not-so-technical-translation-of-the-daz3d-licensing-agreement most of the answers related to the EULA you're looking for will come out from that. Daz3D created the EULA. they can make ammendments / agreements that bring in a partnering of sorts. They can re-write the entire EULA at any point, and we'd have to all agree to the new version. Regarding "Based on the "tweaks" to the textures and mesh you mention" I don't need to have a developer license to do the modifications I've done to the model, or to use the model in the way I have with the images I've created and posted, and with the videos I've posted. The EULA gives full permissions to make the modifications to content for making images and videos, and gives permission for a person to export and load the asset into the renderer the user wishes, in this case I'm Using Unity3D as the renderer / video maker.
You said, "If PAs are creating content for the genesis 3 figure in the game, wouldn't they each have to have a license also since their content relies on the DAZ figure in the game." I don't use just genesis 3 content. I've modified content from other bases to work with genesis 3. Yes, I'd of course have to get the appropriate licenses / permissions from the PAs who aren't Daz Originals when pursuing the game developer's license. That's not the route I'm talking about going, however, but it's an option.
and you said, " just don't see it logistically possible using DAZ assets and/or involving DAZ PAs based on the EULA involved and the work involved (hoops to jump thru) to get it working." I don't know what your logistical limitations are, but I'm operating on my logistics which say I have all the ability, energy, and effort necessary to work out this as a possible avenue for PAs if they want to take it, and if Daz3D finds it interesting enough to pursue. As I've said before, I already have software that I can use (mixamo) to generate as many plcaeholder characters as I want, so morph3d doesn't add enough value for me. I'm looking for production models according to the aesthetic I want in game, not placeholders, which is why I downloaded daz3D to begin with, as a possible quicker solution than paying a character artist a flat fee for a character, or creating the models I want myself (which I can do, but I'd rather stay focused on development since it seems there are fewer developers than artists.)
@dreamfarmer you said, "Huh. I would have assumed that the figures would have been covered under the base price for the game, since (obviously?) you can sell a game containing 3d models with Daz via the licenses. I mean, the idea is they can't be used outside of the game, right? Does it really qualify as 'reselling' then, or just 'unlocking' game content?" it's pay to unlock. And yes, as it stands, I could buy the game dev licenses, and whatever license fees the PAs I'm interested want, and be done with it. I'm trying to offer an alternative to that scenario. Why agree to a flat $100, $250, or $500 when market research shows that the interest for the game is there, and that the potential profits from the microtransactions would far exceed the flat licensing fee? we're talking share of profits here.
@Male-M3dia you said "Also, to resell an item at another place that we have in the store would fall foul of our PA agreement as well." "But suggesting it as a way for PAs to make money wouldn't work as we would have to build a unique product outside what is available in our stores so we don't fall foul of our agreements." "But the OP can always create a help ticket stating what he wants and that way he can get his question answered officially."
I'm not interested in the aesthetic of anything I've seen from morph3d. I can create a simlar aesthetic with another software I own, and I would only call them placeholders because they don't have the detail / solidity / realism I want. I didn't post this here to get Daz3D's feedback. I've already sent the idea to them via e-mail to the appropriate department. I posted this here to see how the PAs that read this react to the idea.
Curious to see where we go to from here :)
If it's going to be so amazingly profitable, I suggest buying the licenses as they go on sale, and reinvesting the profits in later improvements to your game. Do recall that the artists who work with Daz do it partially so they have a middleman. I believe very few of them frequent the forums.
Almost everything that you are suggesting is totally forbidden by the terms of the Daz 3d EULA. As has been said, even if you buy the various Game dev licenses from the PAs, plus the DAZ 3d Game dev license to cover thheir Base figures and Daz Originals, yu then have to agree to a separatee EULA in which you guarantee to make every effort to use this content in such a way that it is not possible to extract it from within the game. Selling anything from within a game is not allowed, as this would be derivative content at the very least, if not simple clone copies of DAZ 3d meshes. Redistibution of any of Daz 3d mesh is simply not allowed. Most of this is spelled out in the standard EULA and is made clearer in the game dev EULA.
Plus of course there are some PAs who simply do not want their content included in games, you can only use content made by PAs who have Game Dev licenses.
Also, the content of a game can only grow so large before the OS hosting the game and the game engine choke on the potential cumulative size of all past DAZ Store models purchased.
Games and game topics and therefore the models needed in those games are very niche; so some sort of middleman that would serve as gateway between a game devoid of models and DAZ and expect that the game player would puchase those models to play the game isn't good game design but designing a game around making money off of DAZ models. Well, that's what DAZ does for themselves already.
And have you seen the size of some of the lone models for sale in the DAZ Store?
@ Chohole - the point of the post is to get feedback about the idea. Daz3D has the right to modify the EULA, and make agreements with game developers in accordance with the interests of Daz. The PAs, of course, would have to make their own agreements with us after having signed an addendum to the current PA agreement That's the level I'm going for, on the level of partnership with Daz3D.
I hope that makes it clearer how the mechanics of what I'm talking about could happen.
I suggest then that you wait until you have had some feed back from Daz, nothing is going to be able to go anywhere until DAZ 3d has reviewed the situation. I believe that you did say that you had approached DAZ? If I read that wrong, then the first thing that you need to do is approach daz with your detailed plans and see what their response is.
By posting in the forums you are basically talking to forum members and maybe one or 2 PAs, the forums are not here for detailed analysis of game plans or anything like that. THat sort of stuff is always sorted out behind closed doors, and usually under NDA agreements.
Probably the best thing would have been to address this suggestion to Daz3d and/or Morph3d, rather than directly to the PAs. If Daz were to decide it was ok to do this, given our agreements with Daz, then you might be getting diiferent, less guarded responses to your inquiry. To ask us now if it sounds like something we would be interested in is probably a futile effort, as most of us automatically think about our exclusivity agreements as well as EULA. Selling through Daz is not something most of us want to jeapordize with even speculative conversations.
If you approach Daz3D with this idea, and they think it sounds like something PAs could do without violating any agreements or EULA, then maybe you will get more feedback from the Published Artists. Personally, I barely have the time to create products for my store, and trying to create in-game merchandise does not sound like it will pay the bills like Daz Store does. Best of luck to you, though.
@ nonesuch00 - yes, I've seen the size. I thought I was clear about this in previous writings, but maybe not. So, I'll try again here. For the game I'm working on, I'm interested in providing certain clothing options for the gamer to buy for their character in game, which does not transfer ownership in any way, but is a purchase of the right to display the clothing on the character in the game. I'm not talking about adding the entire Daz3D market to to the game. I'm talking about which ever PAs have produced Content (i'm using the legal word there from the EULA) that I'm interested in offering through the game. The one thing that the gamer would be buying is the right to display in game. to unlock an outfit.
I'm further not talking about designing the game around having the main profit source being the accessories / clothing / model textures etc from the Daz store. hmm. let me try to give a better concrete example (if this is a business idea that Daz3D and the selected PAs agree to):
tessa character has 5 clothing options, 5 skin options, 5 eye options
only one of these is unlocked as the base game
the player can purchase the remaining 4 clothing, skin, and eye options seperately
the money from that purchase gets a split between Daz3D, the PAs involved, and 1618 studios. The profit Split could be 42.5% to Daz3D, 42.5% to the PAs, and 15% to 1618 studios.
The in game microtransactions will not be exact duplicates of items from the Daz3D market, they will be derrived works conducted by 1618 studios, if all parties agrees to the idea.
Does that help clarify?
I have to ask. Do you have any actual games to show? All I found was a post in the Unity forum from 2014 with a link to your company web site that leads to one wicked designer named Jessica.
@ Chohole - what I've discussed here isn't anything that I'd need to discuss under an nda agreement. I posted here with the belief that PAs read these forums. Now, if Daz3D and I had come to an agreement, and I wanted to inquire from you (if you're a PA, I'm not sure) about the topic, but you didn't want to make a decision without first knowing the story and full gameplay design, then I'd send over an NDA to you. :) I posted in this area because the definition was "Discuss anything Daz 3D related not covered by any other forum here." and I didn't see a section that mentioned anything about published artists.
If this isn't the appropriate forum for the discussion, I encourage the mods to move to the appropriate forum or remove this post. Is this type of business creativity unwelcome in this area of the forums?
As one of the PAs, it doesn't sound like you're offering anything above transferring our content through Morph3D, especially in light of current agreements and EULA. You also had the same reaction from other PAs that have chimed in. The conversation won't go anywhere until you work the particulars out with DAZ3D; if the PAs were making items game ready there's already a path available to do that. If you want genesis 3 characters, you would need to buy the license and have someone custom sculpt a character for your games, but it does not need to be a PA, but it can't be a product already in the store because of current licensing. (Except for those PAs that have game licenses for their stores)
Sometimes, I wonder what rights the Daz GDL actually offer you as a developer especially when it comes at that hefty price - The right to "request" Daz for their permission to use their content in your game and to "hope" they approve? Because, even if you meet the all the criteria of the GDL you are still at the mercy of that approval. Though Daz claims that they do not charge royalty for their content in GDL, yet there is nothing in the EULA that prevents them from charging an equivalent amount or putting any arbitrary restrictions while granting that approval.
Coming back to Morph3D, its EULA specifies only the initial set of usage restrictions such as - "the total number of different pieces of Content situationally available from User is greater than twenty" and "the total number of unique users of the application allowed to interact with each other in any given instance of the application is greater than fifty". Of course, you need to negotiate those "additional rights" if you cross that limit (Hint: read above). Again, not a very transparent pricing structure when you are planning to scale. Wouldn't it been helpful if they simply specified that developers need to buy/pay for each additional copy of assets for every N users of those assets?
I think any question about the licenses should still go to DAZ3D, speaking with them you can make deals on a case by case basis as well. Nothing is really settled in the forum. Also a the possibility is there to make a game license for a character when the PA doesn't have a game license in place. I know someone wanted to use one of our characteers and DAZ3D helped make the deal for us so we didn't have to go through the legal mumbo jumbo. So really contacting them is the best option. (NOTE: The PA would still need to agree to having the character be licensed for a game)
Again, I am not trying to settle anything here. Also, I was referring to the Daz GDL not the PA GDLs.
An alternate approach could have been to sell assets through an in-game store using Steam workshop which is easily accessible within the game. Games like Skyrim already tried that approach with commercial mods which allowed mod developers to sell their mods in-game i.e. without leaving the game. Though Valve did not pursue that concept further but it showed the potential of the Steam workshop to cater to such a business model. The advantage of Steam workshop is that its not limited to any particular game engine or platform. An advice to OP would be to explore that option with Steam.
@ Male-M3dia - I've already got the PA's approval for the idea, which of course hinges on if Daz3D likes the idea. I posted here thinking other PAs might respond about wether or not they'd like to have a similar option available should I pick an item from the Daz market that they made. I've sent message again to Daz3D to wrap things up to see if i'm going to use Tessa in the game or not. I've already acquired an alternative non Daz character model if it doesn't work out with Daz3D.
As this is a discussion for Daz 3D rather than for the Forum Members or Published Artists, we have locked this thread.
Please wait to hear back from Daz 3D Personnel on this matter. Thank You.