Posts by Fergo

  • File formats and name licensing

    Hey ppl, sorry if it's not the right place to post this kind of topic.

    I'm about to start a new project with some friends and we are gonna try to do things in "the right way". On our old project we had some licensing problems because we were using an already registered trademark. Despite having good download counts, we decided to close and abandon the game (it was as buggy as hell anyway...)

    To avoid that kind of issue, we decided to take the copyrights and licenses stuff seriously. It's a "home" project, so we don't have the budget to buy rights to use some format or resource. So my question is: which file formats I can use without having to pay for the rights or that I'm not getting in trouble using it (basically 3D formats, audio and textures)?

    Is there a place where I can check for stuff like these?

    I was wondering using the .3ds format for the city model (it's a racing game), .md5 for vehicles and common models (md5 is the format used by iD's Doom 3), .dds for textures and .ogg for audio (as far as I know MP3 is a proprietary format owned by MILES or something like that). How can I check if I can use these formats without any legal problems?

    The reason for using these formats is that they are pretty common, so we don't have to write our own format, plugins and converters to use in 3Ds Max, for example.

    I'm going to use this same topic to another question, which is also related to the trademark stuff, so I don't need to create another one.

    We already decided the codename for the project (which could probably become the final name) but after some google search I found a song and some other things (not game related) that already used that name. In this case, can I use the name for my game or I have to choose another one? If so, the world is going to run out of names very soon I guess.

    We don't really know yet, but depending on the final result, we have plans of selling the game.

    Also, if you have some link or something that deals whith this kind of issue, I would really appreciate (and I don't know if this stuff differs from country to country, as I don't live in US).

    Thanks in advance.

    Fergo

  • Crysis Map ~ Operation Codename: Vulcano

    Amazing work HP, a way better than the original Crysis maps imho. Where is the Intel C2E logo? I couldn't find it

    Your map is also the most downloaded one in your category

    Btw, on those final screenshots, are you using your custom cfg or crysis default? They look very good (I'm using your cfg and it looks a way different from those shots, with a lot more contrast, I'd say).

    Congratz again!

    Fergo

  • Forum links, open in new window?

    There is a mod for phpBB called "Prime Links" that checks if the url is an external link or not. If it's external, it opens in a new window, otherwise (pointing to another page that "belongs" to http://www.mapcore.net) the page loads in the current window.

    I don't really like links opening in new windows/tabs. When I want a new one, I just use middle-click, as Bicball mentioned (but yes, it's annoying if the user is not used to the "middle click").

    Fergo

  • My new portfolio - www.fbirck.com

    Thanks.

    @kt: you mean to merge the tab-button with the current page, like the tabs you see in Windows?

    The host is a bit slow, but I'm using a reseller account that I have with some friends (including Min0) to host our brazilian game art community (HP knows), so I'm saving some money

    Fergo

  • My new portfolio - www.fbirck.com

    Hey everybody!

    A few days ago I finally finished my portfolio, where I'll keep my game art/level design work. I did this mostly to practice some Photoshop web layouts (I like simple and clean visuals) and Ajax programming. The website was entirely made by me (code, layout, content), except for the splatter brushes and title font. It may have some english mistakes, as it's not my main language, but I'll be glad to hear some comments, suggestions, etc.

    Here's the URL, hope you like it (compatible with every browser I guess, except IE6, as PNG alpha channel does not work on it):

    http://www.fbirck.com

    Fergo

  • Welcome to the New Forums!!

    We (me, minos and mamus) had some troubles on our forum trying to swap this border too, but the easiest solution we found (I don't know if it was already told here) was to use the old fashioned subsilver2 style. It's not that pretty, of course, but if this update was only for the security and not the visuals, may be an option (and its very easy to customize).

    Fergo