First time I've ever seen proper use of the C word on ERA. Wow.
The burnt corpse texture from Half Life 2 & GMod is a real dead body (image is from a medical textbook)
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Wild that the game is 18 years old and people just discovered this. I also remember thinking that model was odd and stood out from the rest of the game.
Just because they took it from a medical textbook doesn't necessarily mean they have the rights / license to use it for the game.
Usually legal should do their job to clear all kinds of real photos to be used in game tho.
But only Valve or the book publisher probably know, and I don't know if we'll ever get clarification from them.
Usually legal should do their job to clear all kinds of real photos to be used in game tho.
But only Valve or the book publisher probably know, and I don't know if we'll ever get clarification from them.
I would assume that the permission was given to the supplier of the images, so they just need to be authorized to use it. Or do you think everyone making use of those images through those licenses need be be bothering the family members of that person or any others who ended out that textbook?
If they don't have permission we could be seeing a similar situation than the one that happened with RE4, so if that's the case, we will hear about that lawsuit sooner or later.
For entertainment media outside of the usual use of such medical journals? Yeah?
I'm not questioning the legality, but the morality. If the family was told upon giving permission to the authors that it would be OK for the images to be used for any and all reasons including entertainment media, then fair enough.
It's such a basic level of human empathy that I'm legitimately shocked at how so many people are handwaving it.
If its from a medical textbook and not sourced from some fucked up place online then its creepy, but not unethically so? Like id rather it weren't but im not sure what else can be said.
This is me too. I never played much of HL2, and now knowing this, it makes me less likely to give a proper shot.
It depends how it was licensed. For me, if I give my body to medical science then it's fine for it to be used in a medical textbook. It's not fine for an image of it to be the basis of an enemy in a videogame.
I really feeel sorry for the person who had the job to include it in the game I mean forensic and medical staff are trained to see such situations and still but a video game develeoper or atrist is not and it must have taken him a long time to deal with it That is why i think video game job could be a dangerous one This is both laughable and sad at the same time
i mean that's a completely different thing. one is a living person i naturally feel empathy to, versus a video game. someone enjoying virtual, fake violence doesn't mean they deserve to see the real thing. that's the entire point of engaging with fiction. it's essentially "you deserved it because you xxx"
it's also hard to recreate how a corpse really looks with video games. I'm not squeamish as in I can watch surgery and other lifesaving things, but seeing someone's real dead body is just a bummer.
reminds me of a story of an old lady who donated her body after death, and the family learned how her body was being treated was... not so good.
where's the official tier list of things we have to care about before we're allowed to care about this
Now wait for social media to realize what the easiest pictures to repurpose as textures for Necromoprhs are in the Dead Space games.
I could easily imagine it being the case where modifying/referencing it was supposed to happen, the image got used as a filler reference and then it just got missed and left as is for the final master. Temporary assets becoming not-so-temporary happens in the production of pretty much every video game, and given Half-Life 2s troubled development it all adds up.
Creepy? Yes, but I also find it creepy that people casually post images of dead people online and then start analyzing them. Just in time for Christmas too.
A lot of very casual reactions, to this and the implication of this phenomenon in other games too. Not to mention the much broader issue of real-life torture/murder/fatal accident victims being used as "reference".
None of those people ever consented to having their suffering used for cheap entertainment. Would anybody be so carefree about it if their own immediate family member died horrifically - and was either filmed in the process or afterwards - and had that material end up online by whatever means and be used by people making gore effects?
None of those people ever consented to having their suffering used for cheap entertainment. Would anybody be so carefree about it if their own immediate family member died horrifically - and was either filmed in the process or afterwards - and had that material end up online by whatever means and be used by people making gore effects?
That is why AI based creations is the future, it could be scary at some point but it will unshackle us from such situations. We have AI based crteaed characters, even now AI based voices so AI based gore could happen too without the need to involve any real person in the future.
That would involve dumping a whole lot of actual gore into a database to train one of their 'models'. Sounds diabolical.
You're kidding, right? Real gore would have to be fed into the model. AI doesn't just make this shit up out of things air.
Yeah, AI has been known to be indiscriminate with and type of nonconsensual pornographic and gruesome images. Some real person being beheaded ending up in an AI composite was possible.
Well. That sucks in that case. I was imagining things based on the multiple 3D mecial tools with advanced anatomy so I thought an artist could make 3D gore based on those, like multiple ones then the AI would generate stuff in random and new ways based on those combos, not real stuff. I mean it is still possible.
I doubt the family/victim gave consent that a photo of their corpse could be used in a videogame.
Wow. i didn't know this happened before. The way they always promote AI based revolution while hiding its scary drawbacks.
Indeed.
But then again in here people do shocking things in defense of their favorite company and/or game, so maybe it's not that surprising
Assuming this is real (I didn't check those images) and that the family of this person didn't give their consent to have their loved one's charred corpse used in a video game, then this is really disgusting.
Valve need to patch this out. It's incredibly disrespectful and strips this person of their dignity.
Also, wtf at all these sort of posts:
Can't believe how many of you seem to lack a fundamental understanding of consent and empathy.
Valve need to patch this out. It's incredibly disrespectful and strips this person of their dignity.
Also, wtf at all these sort of posts:
Can't believe how many of you seem to lack a fundamental understanding of consent and empathy.
We don't know the circumstances of how the image was licensed to the medical journal. However, it is not a stretch that the family/estate didn't envision that the image would go on to be used in a violent video game many years later where people could virtually reenact the killing if they so chose. There doesn't seem to have been informed consent.
Because it seems highly unlikely that a family would be happy for the corpse of a loved one to be used in an entertainment product, especially given the in-game contexts the image is used in.
Perhaps they did. But again, I think it's reasonable to assume that this would be highly unlikely.
Does the medical journal say how the original guy died? I'm having a hard time looking at the photo and piecing together what could have caused that, with the surrounding areas being relatively unscathed.
Side note: Yes, it's fine. No, there's no moral issue here. No, of course don't remove it from the game.
Side note: Yes, it's fine. No, there's no moral issue here. No, of course don't remove it from the game.
Seems like if there's an ethics issue it's from the textbook company licensing out sensitive pictures to an entertainment company. Hard to imagine they would go to the family for that. But it's also really easy for me to believe that an unlicensed image slipped its way into HL2's development.
I gotta be honest if a gory texture looks kind of real then I assume there is an actual photo in there somewhere. I'd be willing to bet this is a fairly common thing.
You know, I suspected as much because I thought it was strangely detailed and realistic compared to the rest of the game.
Unnecessary, and I'd rather not know tbh.
In fact why spread this. People were fine not knowing.
If it's from a textbook, the rights to that corpse aren't the issue probably. Developers having to look at it is another story but who knows, might have been the artist's initiative to go looking for photos.
Unnecessary, and I'd rather not know tbh.
In fact why spread this. People were fine not knowing.
If it's from a textbook, the rights to that corpse aren't the issue probably. Developers having to look at it is another story but who knows, might have been the artist's initiative to go looking for photos.
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I dont assume it was done with I'll intent but in terms of usage right and then the morality issues … its gonna hit everyone differently. I would think it was permissible legal wise and I can pretty much guarantee you any game that shows a somewhat photorealistic depiction of violence has done something similar in the past, especially around 20 years ago when textures came mostly from photos
You know, going out of their way to get consent from the family or permission or w/e just doesn't strike me as something they'd bother to do. Probably thought that if it's already printed in textbooks it's already "out there" and fair game.
"One of our team members had a nightmare folder full of people with bizarre diseases and injuries".
Uhhh, ok...
"One of our team members had a nightmare folder full of people with bizarre diseases and injuries".
Uhhh, ok...
I don't understand all these "lol it's a 20 year old game" takes. Wasn't that the whole point of Steam? Giving publishers the means to swap out something as simple as a 256x256 texture and pushing that out to folks as quickly as possible? Valve goes back and updates their games over the dumbest shit all the time, so quickly changing a low res player model should take all of 5 minutes. I think it'd be a shitty thing to look past considering how painfully easy it'd be to fix. No one here would be cool with it if it was their loved one's charred face in the game.
It's been a long time since I played Half Life 2 but next time I do, I'm going to think of this and it's going to bother me a little.
Ignorance was bliss in this particular scenario. Now that we know, I think they should probably patch it out.
The problem is a lot of other games have probably done similar things and we don't know about it. In this particular case we know Valve actively still support their older games so it would be nice if they patched it out.
Ignorance was bliss in this particular scenario. Now that we know, I think they should probably patch it out.
The problem is a lot of other games have probably done similar things and we don't know about it. In this particular case we know Valve actively still support their older games so it would be nice if they patched it out.
this is gross for me as a player but it's also something that must happen all the time. When I bought HL2 I didn't sign up for a guy showing me photos of real dead people like I was in high school and some edgelord brought this medical book
the issues with consent for the family of the burned person are minor given the corpse was already being sold around in the first place
another reason to stick with Destiny 2 and its whole cloth created dead robot/astronaut textures and I guess skeletons
skellys are fine. Everyone loves a good skelly
the issues with consent for the family of the burned person are minor given the corpse was already being sold around in the first place
another reason to stick with Destiny 2 and its whole cloth created dead robot/astronaut textures and I guess skeletons
skellys are fine. Everyone loves a good skelly
Internet and drama
The most iconic due
We have no idea if it was taken from a database so any speculation is meaningless.
The most iconic due
We have no idea if it was taken from a database so any speculation is meaningless.
This is disappointing and it taints HL2, I hope they end up patching it out, I don't want to see real gore in one of my favorite videogames ever. It's bad enough thinking about the fucked up stuff devs have to look at to recreate gore in games.
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