Celestia Forums

Hey all. Been a long time since I've done any Celestia work, but recently I started messing about with things again, and these are the results. Hope they are liked

Alpha Prime: Orbitting Alpha Centauri A, this was the first world colonised during the Basket Project, and is now the capital of the Centauri Hegemony. The Colony Revolution was also sparked on this planet, which many cite as the real reason for the downfall of the Solar Commonwealth.



Ariel: Ariel is an old-marslike world, orbitting Alpha Centauri A. There are many scattered colonies over the planet, mostly sponsered by the government of Alpha Prime, some of them refugee colonies built for escapees from Earth during the time of the Great Collapse. There are many plans for eventual terraformation of this frozen desert world.



Coribus: Coribus is the third most populous world of the Hegemony, after Earth and Alpha Prime. Originally called New Earth, the planet was renamed during the Colony Revolution, and was the second founding member of the Hegemony itself.



Mars: Mars has been terraformed for nearly two centuries, and has always been heralded as one of mankind's greatest achievements. Mars joined the Hegemony after Alpha Prime brought in military aid to Sol to secure the inner solar system, and quel the rioting and destruction that threatened the engulf all of Earth space.

Image Removed

Rendevouz: Rendevouz got its name after the colony ship heading for the world crash landed on its single small moon. The escape ships on the colony ship designated an area of the planet as a rendevouz location, and the name stuck. It was the third signatory to the Hegemony, and orbits Proxima. It is famed for its spectaculor ring system.



Albion: Albion orbits Barnard's Star. During the Great Collapse on Earth, the planet descended into anarchy, with the colonial government being overthrown. Due to a lack of communication from the world and the ceasing of transports to and from it during the Great Collapse, it took many years for information about the dire situation on the world to finally leak out. Eventually, the Hegemony came in force and took over the planet, destroying the violent and brutal dictatorship that had grown up over the years. Now the world contributes a great deal of heavy metals to the Hegemony.




I'm working on night maps for all of the inhabited worlds, and also on more uninhabitable planets and moons, as well as an Earth suffering from environmental and social collapse. I may post more some time.

Wow. Those planets are beautiful. How did you do the textures, particularly the textures on the Earthlike worlds?

Not familiar with the story ... but very beautiful work!

Thanks!

@ bdm, i clonestamped bits of Earth's bump map in paintshop into a single bumpmap for a new planet, then used layers with different blendings to build up colour on the surfaces. Of course that wont make sense if you dont use paintshop

@ Lordferret, the stories still mostly in my head at the moment

Neethis wrote:...the stories still mostly in my head at the moment

Have you considered writing them down? It would provide a bit more substance to the politics of your add-on, as people would be able to view the history and such. I've often considered writing my own fictional history of space exploration and colonization of extrasolar planets.

Well I've wrote quite a lot of stuff already about these worlds, and the other worlds I have planned, yet I can never seem to form it all into a coherant story only works well in my mind.... lol

Well,
The Mars texture looks familiar, so no points on originality there. You shouldn't go out of your way to copy other people?€™s hard work. You could have created a Terraformed Mars that looked nothing like mine. There are many ways and directions you could have taken. But this is almost a total copy of my work. I am sure you didn't do half the research I did in the creation of mine. Well there goes 2 years hard work out the window. This is the kind of blatant rip off that really makes artists mad. Sure I got the basic idea from other images of a Terraformed Mars. But I built on top that with a great deal of research, to make it as realistic as possible. But this, this is just plain ripping off. You saw what you liked and copied it for your own use. He even had the audacity to use my cloud texture on the thing.

I am now going to have to consider how I am going to move forward at this point. I am seriously considering not publicly releasing any more textures at all. I have more than enough people requesting my work at the professional level that I don't this kind of treatment. And yes I know it?€™s possible to for two artists to create something that in the end looks similar, But I have been posting pictures of my texture for almost 2 years now. So in the end we can see copied who here.

At this point all can ask is that the Celestia community to take sides on this issue. Stand up for what is right and put our collective feet down when it comes to rip offs like this.

Don. Edwards

Don. Edwards wrote:Well,
The Mars texture looks familiar,

...

I am now going to have to consider how I am going to move forward at this point. I am seriously considering not publicly releasing any more textures at all. I have more than enough people requesting my work at the professional level that I don't this kind of treatment. And yes I know it?€™s possible to for two artists to create something that in the end looks similar, But I have been posting pictures of my texture for almost 2 years now. So in the end we can see copied who here.

At this point all can ask is that the Celestia community to take sides on this issue. Stand up for what is right and put our collective feet down when it comes to rip offs like this...

Don, I do understand your point, but indeed apart the colors I think you should not try to find any comparison between Neethis's map and yours! Neethis do have a long way to go before hopping to achieve a map similar to yours (sorry Neethis, from quite far your maps could look ok, but I doubt about the result approaching the planets).

For a newbie, it's quite normal to take as reference the best material available, so I don't find the above really shocking; at best he could have added a little note kind "based on Don.E texture" (or something similar) but you must know very well that today people tend to forget the good manners...

Anyway, I think that you still have our preference concerning beautiful handcraft maps. (at least you have mine! )

ElChristou wrote:you must know very well that today people tend to forget the good manners...

They do, but they should not. It is one thing to build on someones work, another not to acknowledge it.

Don., don??t get too upset... It looks like a "rookie mistake" to me...

- rthorvald

Don,

I understand your feelings VERY well, notably since I experienced similar situations. I think this sort of happening is a typical downside of the OpenSource/ GPL philosophy. Someone could even copy your code/image and sell it under his name (provided he respects some rules).

I have a lot of problems with this general attitude when it comes to snatching people's ideas and their tedious work over months and years yet being perfectly within a license agreement!

No matter what the license is, it is a matter of fairness and good upbringing to acknowledge other people's original work!!

Bye Fridger

rthorvald wrote:Don., don??t get too upset... It looks like a "rookie mistake" to me...

Be that as it may, if it's Don's work he has every right to
complain if he has been infringed. I personally don't give a didly if any
of my work is ever copied, but - then again - I don't have half the
talent that most you you people have.

Here, I find myself in complete agreement with the good doctor...

Who wouldda thunk it?

Thanks, Bob

I don't have much time for Celestia of late, but I certainly have time to support Don's claim.

Guillermo

Don,
I've removed the Mars picture. I apologise, I didnt intend for my work to be a "rip off" of yours, I was just making textures for fun, and for my own stories, and wanted to get peoples impressions of how I was doing My textures no where near approach your own in terms of detail, obviously, they are only like 4069x2048, and as I say I do my stuff for fun... I dont put serious time and research into them. I wouldn't want my fun to make you stop publishing your own work.
As for the cloud textures, I dont know how to make my own, so I use ones I think look good - its been on my system for ages, and I didn't know where it came from. I apologise again if you think its wrong of me to use it, and I will take down the other pictures if you want me to.

I would like to say though that I didn't intend to go out and copy your work - what I've done is a project of Mars being terraformed in the most likely way that it will be. Tharsis is always going to be above the bulk of the atmosphere, and glaciers will always form around its edges. Hellas will always become a sea, and the biggest ocean will always be in the north, thats just how Mars is. Also, I wish you had contacted me personally and let me explain all this, rather than berating me and calling me a fraud out in the open...

Anyway, once again I apologise Don, and hope that you continue publishing your work. I didn't intend to try and steal your thunder, or anything so petty and childish. I was just attempting to make some textures for fun, and to hopefully improve my own skills so I may someday make textures as beautiful and as accurate as your own

Neethis

Neethis,

let me take your defence here, despite the fact that I'm not a fan of your textures (yet). Contrary to Don's over reacting claims, you DIDN'T stole anything from anyone. All the published textures, from ANYBODY in the Celestia community, are totally free. You can use them and edit them AS YOU WISH, without even having to ask the premission from anybody, as soon as you don't sell the textures or make money from them. Of course, giving credits is better, but no "law" is asking you to do so, since it's all about free, fantasy addons for Celestia, and that anybody could do the same with your own creations (if published for Celestia).

Since it was already implicit in this topic, that your textures were made just for fun without any commercial intention, I really don't understand Don's excessive reaction. If someone don't want his/her textures to be edited and used by someone else, I don't see why he/she published the textures in the first place. Really, this isn't the first time Don is reacting like this.

And why this reaction, if it prevents a new creator to learn texture creation for Celestia ?

Of course, the risk to see the textures going into some commercial product is another thing. But this isn't the source of the reaction here.

Cham wrote:Neethis,

let me take your defence here, despite the fact that I'm not a fan of your textures (yet). Contrary to Don's over reacting claims, you DIDN'T stole anything from anyone. All the published textures, from ANYBODY in the Celestia community, are totally free. You can use them and edit them AS YOU WISH, without even having to ask the premission from anybody, as soon as you don't sell the textures or make money from them.

Since it was already implicit in this topic, that your textures were made just for fun without any commercial intention, I really don't understand Don's excessive reaction. If someone don't want his/her textures to be edited and used by someone else, I don't see why he/she published the textures in the first place. Really, this isn't the first time Don is reacting like this.

And why this reaction, if it prevents a new creator to learn texture creation for Celestia ?

Of course you are formally right, Martin (see also my way of writing the same)

BUT still

Fridger wrote:No matter what the license is, it is a matter of fairness and good upbringing to acknowledge other people's original work!!

Bye Fridger

Fridger,
As I said, I never intended to copy Don's work, I just made a texture that happened to look a lot like his, from afar, for my own purposes. I've apologised to Don, but I never set out to 'copy his work' in the first place. I didn't even have it in mind when I was mucking about in Paintshop with maps of Mars. It was only the cloud map I used that was his actual work, I didn't know it was his, and as I said I only used it because I thought it looked good, and dont know how to create my own. If I was to release this addon on the Motherlode (which I wont be doing) or elsewhere I wouldve made a consciece effort to track down where I got it from and included it in some sort of readme, or at least said that I didn't make it.

Its also a bit rude of you to insult my upbringing when I made an honest error of judgement

Neethis

Hey guys... chill... I have to agree with Cham. Let's put it to rest eh chaps?
I'm listening to Biosphere - Dropsonde - People Are Friends.

Neethis wrote:Fridger,
As I said, I never intended to copy Don's work, I just made a texture that happened to look a lot like his, from afar, for my own purposes. I've apologised to Don, but I never set out to 'copy his work' in the first place. I didn't even have it in mind when I was mucking about in Paintshop with maps of Mars. It was only the cloud map I used that was his actual work, I didn't know it was his, and as I said I only used it because I thought it looked good, and dont know how to create my own. If I was to release this addon on the Motherlode (which I wont be doing) or elsewhere I wouldve made a consciece effort to track down where I got it from and included it in some sort of readme, or at least said that I didn't make it.

Its also a bit rude of you to insult my upbringing when I made an honest error of judgement

Neethis

Neethis,

so you state that in your terraformed Mars texture the similarity to Don's is purely accidental? I.e. that you never used his texture in any way?

(forget about the clouds)

I am sure Don will be able to find out whether his texture was used explicitly or not.

As a scientist, I may have a considerably stricter view about people tacitly profiting from the ideas or the work of others....

No matter whether your published images were merely for fun or for some other purpose, I remain with my above statements, if Don's terraformed Mars texture was used in a major way.

Bye Fridger

Fridger,

How could I have actually used Don's texture? It hasn't even been released yet, has it? My biggest influence was Kim Stanley Robinson's Red/Green/Blue series - my texture includes a fairly dry Argyre Basin, like in the books. Also, I think its got a lot lower sea level than Don's. If you really want, I will post the actual texture?

Neethis

Neethis wrote:Fridger,

How could I have actually used Don's texture? It hasn't even been released yet, has it? My biggest influence was Kim Stanley Robinson's Red/Green/Blue series - my texture includes a fairly dry Argyre Basin, like in the books. Also, I think its got a lot lower sea level than Don's. If you really want, I will post the actual texture?

Neethis

Let's see whether Don agrees to your statement. If correct then of course the situation changes significantly.

Bye Fridger