Solved Publishing Looks and Licensing: How to resolve discrepancies with native VaM skins

[Metix]

I'm currently working on a custom look that I plan to publish in the next few weeks.

Perhaps I should have known better, but I started with one of the native skins that come with VaM, in this case the Kayla skin. I have made an entirely custom set of face textures, but do not plan to change the rest of the body textures, other than perhaps a few transparent decals.

The first issue arises when addressing the seams at the neck, scalp, and ears. If using a native texture, there is no way to access the actual texture data, since they have been turned into binaries. However, RenVR, the original creator of the native VaM skins has all of them available for download on his Patreon, which can all be accessed for an extremely reasonable $2. Another issue that I discovered is that the native Kayla skin has a built-in seam on the inner thighs. This appears to have always been there.

So, in my explorations, I played around with blending the trouble seams by using the Kayla textures from RenVR's Patreon. Also to note, the diffuse Kayla texture from Patreon solves the inner thigh seam that is baked-in to the VaM native skin. Simple enough to resolve locally, but this brings up several questions, especially when considering publishing the look:


- The first issue is licensing. Are these RenVR's skins? Are they VaM's skins? How are these skins licenced? Am I allowed to use them to blend seams at all?

- The second issue, dependent on the first, is how are creators expected to manage these sorts of issues? I can't be alone in trying to use custom face textures with native skins, and I also can't be alone in being confused with the lack of clarity around the licensing involved.


Of note, none of the skins from RenVR's Patreon have any licensing attached to them. They are just zip files with the textures inside, not even with a var extension. But, they do come with the implicit distribution license of having acquired them through a paywall from RenVR's personal Patreon.

Is the lesson, or takeaway "Just don't ever use any of the native VaM skins when making custom looks"? I really hope not, as that seems to go against the intent of VaM as a creator sandbox.

I have sent a message to RenVR both through Patreon (many months ago when I first wondered about this), and here on the hub, but have yet to get a reply.

Any clarifications welcome.

- Metix

 

[hazmhox]

- The first issue is licensing. Are these RenVR's skins? Are they VaM's skins? How are these skins licenced? Am I allowed to use them to blend seams at all?

Kayla is Ren's. It has been licensed by Meshed but falls down to Ren's licensing. For any licensing enquiries on it, contact Ren. Without any "deal" made with Ren, you can't use them to derivate/republish these skins.

- The second issue, dependent on the first, is how are creators expected to manage these sorts of issues? I can't be alone in trying to use custom face textures with native skins, and I also can't be alone in being confused with the lack of clarity around the licensing involved.

Creators don't use native skins, they build a full texture set. They just use the UV set, and that's pretty much it.

There is no real "lack of clarity" on licensing. Ren's texture sets have a specific license (which is mentionned on the patreon or the vars) which is what gives you how you can use them. And for vanilla textures, if you don't have access to the data itself, this means that you simply don't have the rights to access this data, contrary to the "Custom\Atom\Person\Textures\FemaleBase" one provided by Meshed for this situation.

And I think Ren is pretty clear on the license through some posts of his, which is : even tho you're allowed to use them personally, you might not be able to redistribute them "as is" or even with slight modifications. Some people have been authorized to redistribute them, but with extensive modifications and ND-NC licenses only.

"Just don't ever use any of the native VaM skins when making custom looks"? I really hope not, as that seems to go against the intent of VaM as a creator sandbox.

The way VAM was made at the time was simply to allow custom texture sets. Which gives you full freedom on coming up with your own full texture set. VAM 2 might fix that as you'll be able to build your own shaders and merge some channels.

But it's not because you "perceive" a way VAM is meant to be/work, that it's the actual way it works
In the current state, VAM 1 gives you all the freedom you want, as long as you build a full texture set. Or you can derivate from Custom\Atom\Person\Textures\FemaleBase.
It is already (imho) a pretty solid base to create nice skins.

Feel free to ask more if you need : )

 

[Metix]

I kinda went a

Kayla is Ren's. It has been licensed by Meshed but falls down to Ren's licensing. For any licensing enquiries on it, contact Ren. Without any "deal" made with Ren, you can't use them to derivate/republish these skins.

Creators don't use native skins, they build a full texture set. They just use the UV set, and that's pretty much it.

I kinda went all over the place trying to track any of this info down. And none of it is really clearly stated anywhere. Yes, the Daz skins that have been binaried are mentioned multiple times as untouchable, but the Ren skins aren't so obvious. There's not a single mention from RenVR about licensing on his patreon, except a request from Juno to publish is expired PC EA skins on the hub.

The skin, Kayla, that I was specifically trying to figure out, even though my initial question was phrased in a general sense, happens to be only sitting in a zip file on RenVR's mega. There's no meta.json or anything describing its licensing status. Of course, acquiring it through a paywall implicitly grants distribution and IP rights to RenVR.

I also realize that VaM has evolved a lot since its early days before the hub, when much of this stuff was originally shared on Reddit, and that not all of the integrated systems necessarily kept up with some of the larger changes that have come to pass. Unfortunately I was not around during those early days and didn't see any of the discussions in real time to better understand how certain things came to be, or not. A whole lot of this knowledge has essentially become institutional, and is not easily discovered, even with assists from the Wiki and various guides and policy statements.

And yes, the way I "perceive" VaM, is coming from a somewhat aspirational place, in the sense of noticing places where seemingly unnecessary friction could strengthen the hub and the community, and how some of the systems that protect the community can also have a hampering effect at the same time. It's more nuanced than that, and I've touched on it before in other posts.

All that being said:


The solution to this question is: Never start a new look, intended for publishing, with any of the native skins.


Thanks Hazmhox