Stargate: The Journey

[Darthman]

I say more. If it have no commercial part it can be a great ad for title. i.e. For my noncommercial game Void Story I easily get rights from owners to use their songs in my game. But with 2 limitations: I must mention that it is not my music, give link to their site, their band name etc. Second - I must pack music. Music cannot be listenet not from game. That's all.
I really do not believe that all the Stargate fans all over the world ask permission to draw art, render a model or write music that created as fan art.

So, if it is problem for this website, this is very sad. When I use resources that not really mine, I mention it. Look my IGDC 69 Intro. I mention that demo was made by inspiration of TRON movie by Walt Disney. I mention that is Daft Pung music played in intro. And nobody dont ask me to remove it.

So what the problem with it? Problem that i will make some ads to stargate? Or you just that i draw different glyphs on gates, change name? But the game will be still the same. Nothing changes with it. It's ridiculous.

Tell me your decision as fast as you can, WILL. So I will not loose my time more (with that 3 nights that I already passed) and make my game for competition. I really dissapointed by this kind of restrictions.

[Ingemar]

I say more. If it have no commercial part it can be a great ad for title. i.e. For my noncommercial game Void Story I easily get rights from owners to use their songs in my game. But with 2 limitations: I must mention that it is not my music, give link to their site, their band name etc. Second - I must pack music. Music cannot be listenet not from game. That's all.
I really do not believe that all the Stargate fans all over the world ask permission to draw art, render a model or write music that created as fan art.

So, if it is problem for this website, this is very sad. When I use resources that not really mine, I mention it. Look my IGDC 69 Intro. I mention that demo was made by inspiration of TRON movie by Walt Disney. I mention that is Daft Pung music played in intro. And nobody dont ask me to remove it.

So what the problem with it? Problem that i will make some ads to stargate? Or you just that i draw different glyphs on gates, change name? But the game will be still the same. Nothing changes with it. It's ridiculous.

Tell me your decision as fast as you can, WILL. So I will not loose my time more (with that 3 nights that I already passed) and make my game for competition. I really dissapointed by this kind of restrictions.

Concerning music, I hardly expect a big record company to say much. Either they don't reply (very likely) or they say no. Well, that is my experience.

But let's discuss your game ideas instead. I don't think you need to worry about names or art. Names can be slightly altered for the final version (like Fans Of Stargate, would clearly state both inspiration and that it is not part of the original) and the graphics can be redrawn a bit if it seems vital.

[Darthman]

Problem that my game with rules disclamer cannot be accepted to #2 PGD challenge.

[Ingemar]

Problem that my game with rules disclamer cannot be accepted to #2 PGD challenge.

Do you mean the following?

"No entry can use any copyright or registered trademark of an intellectual property other than your own without given permission from it's originators. "

But why would you need to?

First, you can ask for permission. With some luck, you might get it and then you are clear, right?

And if not, what's wrong with making some twists to stay clear from infringements? That isn't hard. Tweak names, make your own graphics (even if it isn't as good), change the rules a bit. And those changes will improve your "innovation & creativity" score. So I say you can turn the worries to your favor.

[igmac]

So, if it is problem for this website, this is very sad.

Hi Darthman.

These kinds of rules are very very common. Because they have to be. You will find exceptions all over the place, but they will be individual exceptions, not bulk exceptions (excluding deliberately illegal ones).

Consider that this competition wants to get as large an audience as possible. It wants a high profile, to stick out of the crowd. The only way to stick out of the crowd is to 'stick your neck out'.

Now, the more successful you are with this, the more visible you become, the more you have to be on your toes. Let's just assume for example, PGD does something that Sony Music doesn't like. Now, if they are some 15 year old kid, at home, playing some Sony copyrighted music in the background as they dance in front of the camera in a Batman suit (PS: I believe Batman is also a Sony Copyright :-). What happens? Sony will ignore it unless there is like 20 million hits and the kid starts making sequels all with Sony copyright issues. Soon, they will call and the kid will have problems.

But what if you are a business, or an organisation, like PGD? The legal world (ie, the Judge) expects a different standard from you. He might warn the kid in the batman suit and tell him to write a letter of apology to Sony. If you're a business, he'll tell you to take out your chequebook and write a letter of apology on that.

It is not what PGD wants to do. It's what they *have* to do. If they allow you to submit copyright material, they are "aiding and abetting" or "promoting" or "inciting" others to break the law.

Then, a short while later, somebody confiscates this server, and you suddenly have no competition, Will is writing apologies with his chequebook and PGD is gone.

PGD didn't write the laws, they don't even have to like the laws, but they still have to play by them.

:-)

Now - I wrote a program some years back that generates music, based on Microsoft's DirectMusic API, and it will generate very passable music from quite a lot of genres of music. I'll see if I can dig it up tonight, get it to work on one of my XP computers (I think DirectMusic's full API isn't available on Windows 7 - but I'll check) and make you a few tracks.

If it works well and simply enough, I'll post the code and you can generate very specific, very timed, sequences of music with a high degree of control - and best of all, it's all free to use. (I'll quote the licence agreement from Microsoft if/when I post).

Hopefully, that will help not just you, but also some others with the same problem.

Regards,

Ian.

[Darthman]

>But why would you need to?
Maybe it was my dream to make a game in this universe. And PGD2 if my little chance to do this.

>First, you can ask for permission.
And wait for ethernity...

igmac you speak a right words (for a perfect world) but how the God I broke IP when I do content by myself? My drawings are copyrighted by Sony or someone else? Nonsense.
About servers confiscation it is funny, but if following your thoughts they can do this just because there written Stargete (it is trademark and copyrighted isnt it?)

Web server admin do not responsible for content that users upload to it. So why the hell he will have problems? Are you all mad here?

[Ingemar]

>But why would you need to?
Maybe it was my dream to make a game in this universe. And PGD2 if my little chance to do this.

Don't give up just because of copyright discussions. Sure you can make a game, and PGD2 is a great opportunity. PGD1 was great fun and I learned several new tools when writing my game.

Just don't rip off others work. (Ideas not included. Ideas can not be patented. Artwork can, precise gameplay can to some extent, source code can.)

>First, you can ask for permission.
And wait for ethernity...

Likely. But if they do say yes, you can proceed using whatever they allowed you to do.

igmac you speak a right words (for a perfect world) but how the God I broke IP when I do content by myself? My drawings are copyrighted by Sony or someone else? Nonsense.

No, on the contrary, that's what makes it safe. When you copy images drawn by someone else, you can have problems. Keep drawing.

About servers confiscation it is funny, but if following your thoughts they can do this just because there written Stargete (it is trademark and copyrighted isnt it?)

Web server admin do not responsible for content that users upload to it. So why the hell he will have problems? Are you all mad here?

Theoretically everything is possible, but they will not grab a server because one person at the board mentions a game. They will grab it when someone makes a major infringement (like making a 100% clone of a significant game) and the admins don't mind. They will probably start by asking the admins to take the submission down, and continue with rougher actions if the admins don't do anything about it.

To be it sounds like you have little to worry about. But I would avoid the exact name of the original game. If you call it Stargoat, or Stargreat... There are plenty of people on AppStore making much worse things than that.

So start planning and coding, don't worry too much. We can tell you if there is a problem when you post the first screenshots.

[Darthman]

You overrated a lot. There is no need to noone to look at sites like that. It's too small for this kind of actions.

[Ingemar]

You overrated a lot. There is no need to noone to look at sites like that. It's too small for this kind of actions.

What are you replying to? Did I overrate something? What "sites like that"? I don't understand.

[igmac]

Ok, I found the DirectMusic test program I wrote.

Now, what I forgot, is that you can't save them as MIDI files, which is what I remembered wrong. So I can't "make you a few tracks". But, using the sample code I wrote, you can do your own stuff. Even better!

It uses data from DX90_DirectMusicProducer.exe from Microsoft's web site, but I somehow couldn't find it there. Maybe you have better luck tracking it down. If not, I'll package up the redistributables and upload it. You don't need them though, unless you want to compose your own styles.

Included is a file called uDirectMusic.pas which I got from who knows where, maybe Jedi, and also the DX9SDK header translations, these definitely from Project Jedi.

Keep in mind that this is a depreciated SDK from Microsoft. It doesn't have long term viability unfortunately.

I've stuck them on my dropbox in a few RAR files. The terms of the Microsoft licence is "These styles and chordmaps can be freely modified and redistributed with any Windows application.", so I've included the compiled version of my program with it :-)

Here are the links.
The MS redistributables - styles, bands, etc (1.11mb) - http://dl.dropbox.com/u/69365850/PGD...le-Library.rar
The Jedi Headers for Delphi - http://dl.dropbox.com/u/69365850/PGD/DX9SDK.rar
My sample program - http://dl.dropbox.com/u/69365850/PGD/DMusic.rar
And the compiled version of my sample program - http://dl.dropbox.com/u/69365850/PGD...executable.rar

... edit: (total download size 1.78mb) ...

Note that there are .EXE files in the first and last RAR files, so exercise the proper caution by scanning them before you run them.

If you run the StylePlayer.exe Microsoft program (first RAR file), you can browse all the styles and play away. Just off the top of my head, try the "Otherworld" style with the "modal interchange" chordmap and the "default" band. This might suit your theme.

Go knock yourself out with it!

You'll soon see why it's a pity MS went and depreciated it. Sodding heartless b*stards. Maybe DirectMusic Producer was too cerebral for us programmers. I know I had to dig deeply into my wife's grade 8 training to even begin to understand it :-)

Regards,

Ian.