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Tequila Works (Rime) Has Pointed out Theft of Tree Assets by Developer Behind "KUMO" Up: Dev admits fault, see threadmarks
- Thread starter Dancrane212
- Start date
I downloaded the demo and although its hard to get the perfect angle it became fairly clear very quickly that it is the exact same model just retextured, starting to think TW had a good reason for requesting he change his models
Fucking TWIST. This thread is a roller coaster.
It does appear that way, maybe he bit off more than he could chew in regard to the kickstarter..
The if is pretty much out of the question at this point, if he didnt outright steal the model, then he looked at it and recreated it basically poly accurately.
TW actions before he went and made it a big deal were correct.
When he made it a big deal, their response was again correct.
Most of this thread....shit.
Claiming stress to stop production and never have to deliver on the money he was given....shaddy as shit.
As for how to steal trees:
Kumo and Rime are both Unreal Engine games with not too too much custom work.
Extracting stuff from Unreal Engine isnt very hard.
Cause it's not the first time a bigger fish would try to fuck over a smaller fish, and it's not like Tequila Works has had the best of statements before, they're right on this one though apparently, it's not really anyone's fault here they didn't present a stronger public case.
I downloaded the demo and although its hard to get the perfect angle it became fairly clear very quickly that it is the exact same model just retextured, starting to think TW had a good reason for requesting he change his models
lol that's pretty blatant indeed. Just use speed tree dang it! D:
I still think its shitty for a company to threaten legal action against a single person from the get go but at least they have a case I guess.
Just don't steal assets. You can buy plenty of them and sure, using public assets is shameful, but no where near as shameful as this fucking shit.
Just don't steal assets. You can buy plenty of them and sure, using public assets is shameful, but no where near as shameful as this fucking shit.
That's the thing, they didn't threaten anyone with legal action. They saw the trees were the same and contacted the dev for them to be changed, that's it.
At least going by Tequila's words, but considering the other party, I'm inclined to believe it.
Oh, yeah. I forgot I missed the initial tweet. The first thing I saw was the Kumo dev's post so I assumed that's what Tequila did. Maybe that's not very trust worthy now.
That's not going to be very much. :P
Better off hoping Google is in the mood for Gylt 2 if they want some real income.
Public case?
Kumo.Dev wanted this public so that when they pulled the plug they were already planning on pulling they had an excuse.
TW was doing this silently behind closed doors, they didnt even involve lawyers, they just asked directly, "If you used our trees please get them out", Kumo.Dev goes on to make a public big deal about it, then claims the big deal they just created is a reason they are taking a hiatus for however long it takes for people to forget they already paid money for this.
Shady from top to bottom man.
We don't know the exact wording that Tequila Works used when they contacted the KUMO developer about the very similar trees, it's however pretty likely that they made it clear that not responding to their request could force them to look in to taking legal action.
Most likely their request was something similar to this:
It's not super uncommon for this to happen as it's not in the best interest for everyone to directly pursue legal action straight away and TW seems to have a case here since the assets are very similar in comparison, if anything TW chose the right approach with what is publicly known as of now.
Do you know them?
I don't know these developers, but I have seen enough from people I thought harmless that I'm careful not to casually vouch for their character.
Oh no I wasn't saying if as in maybe it wasn't the same tree. I only mean like, I don't know if the tree was pulled from somewhere like an asset store or maybe it's pulled from a tree generator with a not so random algorithm.
But you're right it looks like its a model Tequila themselves made.
Also thanks for the answer. Didn't realize it'd be that straight forward. Genuinely crazy if the Kumo guy was trying to do this he wouldn't try to modify the trees. I mean clearly he has resources for getting things modeled.
Gotcha. That makes total sense thanks.
Games with ripped/stolen assets
Let's get the most well known one out of the way first. Limbo of the Lost was a notorious point & click adventure coming out of development hell in 2008 shortly before the genre's resurgence in the market. The internet wasted no time in absolutely tearing this game apart and finding out all the...
www.resetera.com
Someone add it to this thread.
I mean TW did hand out some stuff for educational use, I downloaded their water shader to learn from it. Or you can rip models directly from games 🤔
oooooh interesting. I wonder where if the educational stuff might have included this tree and that's kind of where this started?
But yeah since I didn't realizing ripping models was so easy, that makes sense.
This is why I think its super super shady whats going on.
Even a one man team with little to no resources could spend minutes ripping and modifying a model as simple as a tree to atleast make it seem like "inspiration". Pull it into Studio Max and apply an FFD to it you could make it look different.
But this looks like a direct rip, the model is already UV unwrapped and prepped for the Engine they are both using, so an easy retexture and reinject the model into the engine.
It super shady, because Unreal Engine subscribers have access to a vast vast library of models for free, he legit could have just gotten one of those models and retextured it.....but im guessing RIME and KUMO share an artstyle so a model from RIME would fit in better.
So dirty, Backers have already paid and he gonna use this as an excuse to delay indefinitely.
Such a blemish on gamedev honestly.
Ill take the L if he did indeed make his own model and it coincidentally looks exactly the same.......but its a frikken tree.
Well I think he probably at this point did not make his own model. Although apparently someone just mentioned Tequila did some educational stuff? Maybe he got it from there?
It's not a absolute truth but in general, when justice is engaged or lawyers in discussions, both side tend to stay silent, because it's easy to fill a case against any sort of public babbling when a legal procedure is on the grill (depends on countries but it turns around "attempt to moral integrity", "defamation" etc.).
As far as Kickstarter is concerned, its involvement with projects begins and ends with the crowdfunding campaign itself. If the Kumo dev uses this situation as an excuse to cancel or otherwise indefinitely delay the game, the only recourse backers will have is to take legal action, which, for obvious reasons, almost never happens.
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Is Tequila Works in a bad way or something? Seems like a pretty ridiculous lawsuit that won't pass muster. Especially something as generic as a cartoon tree. Unless there's proof that they straight up we're ripping assets right out of Rime. Which if that's the case is an issue, but seems like it would be hard to prove unless the assets are literally 1:1.
Damn, well as others mentioned, my guess is he didn't want to work on it anymore anyway.
Public case?
Kumo.Dev wanted this public so that when they pulled the plug they were already planning on pulling they had an excuse.
TW was doing this silently behind closed doors, they didnt even involve lawyers, they just asked directly, "If you used our trees please get them out", Kumo.Dev goes on to make a public big deal about it, then claims the big deal they just created is a reason they are taking a hiatus for however long it takes for people to forget they already paid money for this.
Shady from top to bottom man.
I still stand with what I said.
RiME is fucking garbage.
He's not gonna be poplar once the backers find out, that's for sure
I downloaded the demo and although its hard to get the perfect angle it became fairly clear very quickly that it is the exact same model just retextured, starting to think TW had a good reason for requesting he change his models
Yep, that's the same tree.
Here's the link to the files for the water shader that was given out https://simonschreibt.de/gat/stylized-vfx-in-rime-water-edition/ if anyone wants to do some digging there? I may later but busy atm
You'd think after it happens like nine times in a row some of us would just learn to not post as quickly
Like it's one thing to want to extend faith to the smaller entity in a situation like this but don't do it in the most boneheaded, uncritical way possible.