PB2 Artwork Usage & FeedBack

[Tempus]

Hello everyone,

There has been discussion about the Artwork that's been going into PB2, some of it copyrighted, some of it inspired by other artwork.

The issue we need to focus on is anything that has been copyrighted

We feel your artwork is your own unless we open an update to artwork submissions & we note the artwork will be used in the next PB2 Update and therefore the artwork submitted is the Property Of PlazmaBurst2.com and no changes can be made once the update is finalized.

Please note that Lin is one of the developers of PB2 -- We are looking for constructive feedback & any posts that seem hatful or offtopic will be deleted.


Thank you!

[goeric54]

The problem with new skins are the lack of inspirations, bad proportions and too much animations onto them.

Let's talk about the inspirations, I know that original PB2 skins and arts use inspirations from other artists, 2019 was nice, however 2023 lacks inspirations from other artists, sure, the skins may not look bad but people might point out inconsistencies about the skins (lack of details, lack of touches exc). It's a problem if you're not careful with how your style should look like, not how it should look the same as the other.

Next, proportions, the original skins (and 2019's) have careful proportions unlike other games, the feelings and postioning are what makes it great when Eric was the skin implementer and importer. For 2023's, it's not way careful as before, the postioning for skins are not great and feelings starts to burn. It's way off from what I see.

Finally, animations, in the original skin ways, it should be noted that no animations are used in body parts whatsoever (unless if you're doing custom swords which won't happen I think). Eric won't like many animations to every body parts, sure, bring a lot of frames to body parts but that might cause performance loss, in that case, it should be reduced, however I prefer no animations as that gains performance.

Hopefully this is a valid crticism and feedback about new skins.

[mrmcshroom]

Just watching the situation from a third person perspective, at least a few things need to happen.
1. Rules for skin inspirations need to be made, or at least guidelines.
2. Artists should sign over royalties before having skins added, and be made to understand they no longer control it in PB2.
3. Skin thickness guidelines, animation standards, and other guidelines need to be made for these new artists to prevent future clunkiness.
4. Perhaps in the art chat or whatever a royalty free channel can be made for artists completely giving away rights to their artwork to prevent future conflicts.

[nightmar]

The problem with new skins are the lack of inspirations, bad proportions and too much animations onto them.

Next, proportions, the original skins (and 2019's) have careful proportions unlike other games, the feelings and postioning are what makes it great when Eric was the skin implementer and importer. For 2023's, it's not way careful as before, the postioning for skins are not great and feelings starts to burn. It's way off from what I see.

As far as the weird positioning of some limbs is concerned I am pretty sure this is a bug which was planned to be fixed had said skins not be removed (poor Oryx).

[broforce1]

one of problems is now that some copyrighted skins or that art stolen were removed, but they are returned just so they replace some skins that was removed after requests from the artists to get their art removed, however,



these skins arent pure and here is why:

first is sgt, johnson... he wasnt added until now and u can see how he resembles it, here is the source of the character https://facts-of-everything.fandom.com/wiki/Avery_Junior_Johnson



second is the slayer... u can see it resembles 2016 doom slayer

this skin was made by me but i requested it to be removed and eventually it was removed, however, it was brought back for some reason and i dont want that


evidence these skins are in the game:




even these skins resembles some parts from sgt johnson https://imgur.com/a/LatwtVC view this link to see the other skins that looks the same



and another one, they copy other details from other artists without crediting, and here is the 2nd problem
like this one:




that sword is copied from halo 3 energy sword too:
https://blog.adafruit.com/2013/10/01/stunning-halo-3-energy-sword-electronichalloween/

edit: the doomguy was removed after this post GG :d

[CakeSpider]

I stand on position that we shouldn't import skins that are highly inspired from other media. Examples are sgt.Johnson from halo, Doom Slayer from Doom. Also we can consider a scavenger falkok that was made by ditzy such, because it uses one element from MLP.
Better will be if we develop that we already have, for already existing factions. But I also dont mind if we got new stuff not related to any existing faction. Stuff for game must be more serious to Plazma burst universe.

The current drama blow up because of scavenger falkok that was reworked. The pretense was that it violates copyright while actually realone just didn't like it because of MLP. A long time they were trying to add sgt.Johnson, and its was clearly recognizable as the character from Halo but for some personal reasons of nehil/lin didnt see any violation of copyright.

Also ridiculous how Lin told she wouldnt allow furries in the game but they are trying to add a CATBOY, a damn anime neko boy, so cringe. This nekoboy even in the latest sfw file.

We must not allow this.

[LazyRain]

Right now I'll just post this Tumblr link to all evidence Ditzy gathered during certain period of time.

https://ditybean.tumblr.com/post/736090 ... ts-1272023

I think all people have seen it, but it's a good reminder of what this community is dealing with. And also a reminder that we lost one of its best people thanks to Lin.

Later I'll post some information regarding recently added and planned skins. There are more things to say than just copyright issues.

[mahadavais]

From what I've seen, the argument that most people here use to be against the Johnson skin is 'copyright'. So, I've done some research and brought an argument that is against this. In my opinion, pb2 is not even popular enough to be recognized even if a skin was blatantly ripped from a different game or movie, even though the skin would be in 2D as well. The character Sgt Johnson is also heavily inspired and closely resembles Sgt Apone from Aliens, and not just that but a lot of stuff from Halo is inspired from Aliens and can be easily noticed. Well, did this pose a threat to Bungie when they made halo? No it did not.

"Sgt Johnson" has been found in multiple universes. I encountered him in Halo Combat Evolved, Raze 1 and also saw him in the Aliens movie, though he was under a different name with the same looks. So, I'm still struggling to understand how adding a skin that resembles Sgt Johnson would hurt plazma burst 2 in any way. From what I've seen, only people who do NOT play the game are the ones complaining about this.

I also feel like some of them have bias towards Lin and the art team who are doing good work while they are banned from PB2 entirely and from PBD. And because their skins weren't allowed, such as the MLP skin. That's also why I understand any criticism to the Kavat skin.

Johnson is also just a black man with a cigar and a hat, and armor. The slayer skin i can understand, if they try to add Master Chief from Halo then I would also understand the issues, but this is Sgt Johnson. There isn't really much to copyright in my opinion. Here is a comparison of images:

Sgt Johnson From Raze

Sgt Alpon From Aliens

Sgt Johnson From Halo

Sgt Davais made by Realon3


(I havent seen complaints on the purple variant as it looks much different but I just wanted to add it in here.)

Here is a link to a full list of Alien references in Halo
https://halo.fandom.com/wiki/List_of_references_to_Aliens_in_Halo#:~:text=Bungie%20even%20admitted%20that%20Sergeant%20Johnson%20was%20inspired%20from%20Sergeant%20Apone.&text=The%20Colonial%20Marines%27%20main%20weapon,rifles%20have%20digital%20ammo%20counters.

Some might also argue that the Sgt Davais skin made by RealOn3 lacks creativity, but are you really going to complain about creativity when they have worked on about 30+ pure skins? I think Sgt Davais would be a great addition to the skin pool in pb2, plenty of games have references to other games in forms of skins, characters, easter eggs etc. So why can't pb2 have a heavily inspired skin?

[ditzy]

There has been discussion about the Artwork that's been going into PB2, some of it copyrighted, some of it inspired by other artwork.

Hi, please don't downplay the situation as inspiration being taken from others. I don't think any artist here has a problem with inspiration being taken from their work. It's quite flattering, really. On the other hand, having one's character copied line for line with no credit is frustrating.

When the only differences between skins are the helmet and a few lights and lines added to the body the "artwork" is a copy, not inspiration. (See: https://ditybean.tumblr.com/post/736090 ... ts-1272023)

The issue we need to focus on is anything that has been copyrighted

We feel your artwork is your own unless we open an update to artwork submissions & we note the artwork will be used in the next PB2 Update and therefore the artwork submitted is the Property Of PlazmaBurst2.com and no changes can be made once the update is finalized.

And what about artwork that is used without permission? If someone adds my art to the game do I lose ownership of it, even if I didn't agree to it? I hope this stance on art isn't here just so the team won't need to remove artwork the next time someone points out issues with the team.

I feel the initial post is straying from the actual issue at hand. The problem isn't who owns submitted art, the problem is people submitting art they don't own. A problem that still hasn't been resolved, by the way.

(Skin ID 0189, exists in plazmaburst2.com site files as of writing)
As Broforce pointed out, this design is stolen from francis localhost. To be fair, the character started as Therealon3's OC, albiet the only similarities it shared with this current design is the toque. Using fan art as your own art, essentially.

Skin IDs 163, 174-212 are all new skins that currently exist in level editor files following a recent update from Lin, and a majority of skins found were contributed by Nehil and Therealon3. According to admins, art updates are supposed to be on hold, so this shows that Lin is still working with Nehil and Therealon3 and they are doing so behind staff's backs.

It should also be evident that whatever is do about the two art thieves I initially raised the complaint about, they can rely on Lin to bypass consequences. That is problematic.

Please note that Lin is one of the developers of PB2

Why? She's abused her powers multiple times now.

• Removed Nehil's permanent ban so he can be in the art team
• Approved all of Nehil's maps without going through proper approval procedures
• Continuing art updates with Therealon3 and Nehil in secret

There's a massive conflict of interest here. Lin and Nehil are clearly close, given how she's gone out of her way to use her admin powers on him as well as defend his character in PBD. These aren't new issues. Eric's admitted that Lin has favoured her friends over the staff team in past situations as well.

The real issue at hand is art thieves running the game

[Sinclair-Speccy]

I’m going to be real here. It feels like this situation is never going to get the desired outcome as all the usual community do is defend a dev because “they can code” and whatnot. I’ve been mostly a lurker to this drama but even without me being directly involved, it still gets to my head because 1, I’m discord staff and 2, I see people bring it up over and over.

I called out Lin because she unbanned Nehil and all now I get told I’m a bad mod and don’t do anything in PBD because of me calling them out?

https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/701395842451505183/1189819441450586122/IMG_7354.png?ex=659f8cb4&is=658d17b4&hm=e216e671223c5608317f05f4279e45440e73c8066af5a6b42ddcfb74168f72fd&

Anyways as for art, I think the people part of the situation should be held accountable as they’ve stolen art and all. It doesn’t matter if you’re a dev or a member, it seems like the best interest to staff right now is letting them get away and no one is properly interfering after I expressed this to staff and got met with a lot of blocked messages.

And like Ditzy said, the real issue at hand is art thieves running the game. Why would people want to play a game that is run by people who steal art, aren’t held accountable and the current Dev condones this? I’m standing with people like LazyRain and Ditzy in this situation as this just proves how dysfunctional the staff team is in its current state and it’s a shame I’m somehow part of this staff team as a discord mod

[ditzy]

From what I've seen, the argument that most people here use to be against the Johnson skin is 'copyright'.

Actually, it was Nehil's rule (it was highlighted in big bold in the server rules) that no submitted skins were to contain any copyright materials. It's quite the double standard that Nehil selectively decided which skins broke copyright (mine) and which didn't (realone's).

The original point I was making with the sgt johnson skin was how the team had double standards. I hope that hasn't been lost in translation.

Some might also argue that the Sgt Davais skin made by RealOn3 lacks creativity, but are you really going to complain about creativity when they have worked on about 30+ pure skins

He should make less skins then. Focus on making a few good ones. Work with other artists to produce more quality skins rather than spam cheap clones behind staff's back and permission. Of course, it would be easier for him to find people to work with if they didn't have to worry about him stealing from them.

[mrmcshroom]

From what I can tell, I agree that realone and nehil have been unfair, at the least, to the artists and haven't approached the situation with the level of professionalism needed to lead the art team. In my opinion, someone well versed in skin implementation, animation, and someone who doesnt make skins should oversee the operation to prevent confllicts of interest. Pb dman checks alll these boxes and is already known to the artists submitting content for the game.

[Kiriakos Gr96]

blake should return as head admin
poll:
yes
no

pb dman as head skin manager
poll:
yes
no

and in nineteen ninety eight when the undertaker threw mankind off hell in a cell and plummeted sixteen feet through an announcers table

was it your divorce from TemPISS that cost you your pb2 staff role Madam blake? LONG LIVE OUR GLORIOUS DARK CLAN hahahaha, watch me get banned from here

Hello dear mrblake213 and paulstin please rrefrain from misusing and/or flooding threads in the forum this hurted me a lot thanks you

mrblake213 paulstin PeacyQuack
Dont freepost please

[goeric54]

Time for a revisit!

The problem with new skins are the lack of inspirations, bad proportions and too much animations onto them.

Looks like my assumption was... Almost correct.

Let's talk about the inspirations, I know that original PB2 skins and arts use inspirations from other artists, 2019 was nice, however 2023 lacks inspirations from other artists, sure, the skins may not look bad but people might point out inconsistencies about the skins (lack of details, lack of touches exc). It's a problem if you're not careful with how your style should look like, not how it should look the same as the other.

Looks like inspiration was kind of used in the update but not done very well, it's still noticeable which can be a big problem.

Next, proportions, the original skins (and 2019's) have careful proportions unlike other games, the feelings and postioning are what makes it great when Eric was the skin implementer and importer. For 2023's, it's not way careful as before, the postioning for skins are not great and feelings starts to burn. It's way off from what I see.

The proportions are still suffering, but it kind of improved.

Finally, animations, in the original skin ways, it should be noted that no animations are used in body parts whatsoever (unless if you're doing custom swords which won't happen I think). Eric won't like many animations to every body parts, sure, bring a lot of frames to body parts but that might cause performance loss, in that case, it should be reduced, however I prefer no animations as that gains performance.

This is correct - they brought many frames into body parts and impacts performance.

Here's my score:

188 - Sgt. Davais head has smoking effect which lasts about 120 frames

196 - Body and legs have almost about 90 frames (271 frames in total)

187 - Crab's PSI Sword which lasts about 120 frames

This costs 511.
On topic of performance, try
goeric54-performance_enemies
goeric54-performance_enemies_alt
on all high settings and see if your CPU can survive.

My conclusion: The skins were poorly handled and managed.