I have taken some of the vehicles off the net at 3dcafe and other sites and have cut them up and re-textured and re-material-ed them. I then made them into figures for Poser. The doors open, the front wheels turn and so forth. These are models like the Chevy Van, LeBaron, Mecury Grand Marqui and so forth. I'd love to share these since they are very well done and very handy (what villain doesn't need a kidnap van?) but they are not my original meshes nor can I find who made them. Any clue on how to distribute if any possiblity?

Also, is there now a set limit on the message area? Anyway, I'd love to distribute these but don't want to rip off meshes.

If you've done your best to find the original mesh holder, and have contacted 3dcafe about this issue,AND your not selling them, then I don't see what it can hurt to post them on your own site and link to them with a disclaimer saying were the original meshes were obtained. I doubt 3dcafe would have any objections to this unless they want to be really petty.

Someone could dl the originals and go through any readme's and report to the creator and ask permission. If I find time I'll do it. We all need more cars. :) I'll e-mail any results I find. feb

The ones you mention...I'd stay away from posting. The meshes are from a Russian site that has had them posted for some time...but they aren't his meshes. He has brought them into Max and textured them, but it only takes a little sluthing to figure out they belong to a certain commercial mesh maker. I'm just surprised 3D Cafe accepted them in the first place. I expect you will see them eventually "disappear" from there before long.

Foxhollow: I saw those there in december last year. I don't think they're in any rush to remove them. For good or bad. Always wondered how a guy in Russia got so many well detailed models of cars that are very hard to find in Russia.

febbrus, if you're looking for cars models, pick up the inaugural issue of 3D World magazine... among other things, on their "freebie" CD they are giving away 15 Viewpoint models, 6 of which are late model vehicles (sedans, pick-'em-up trucks, motorcycles), in .dfx format. Alternatively at their website, http://www.3dworldmag.com they have a few of them posted you can d/l but I don't know if the entire set will go out that way.

Well its more of an issue that the vehicles I'm adjusting are Poser ready with doors and wheels and materials. This makes it real easy for us to use but, since the original mesh is not mine I guess its not distributable. Oh well, I guess I'll have to keep them for myself :)

... I don't think you'll find the original creator of these meshes is inclined to distributing these meshes freely. say...VP

I know the Feeling Mason! I modified a ton of MAX meshes for poser(at my son's request!). But, after contacting the creators of these meshes. I got either no response or an absolute "NO" for sharing them... That's why i'm slowly building my own collection from scratch(Should have a few ready in september). Now if i could just marry a Rich woman, quit my job! Then i'd work fulltime on these & flood this place with props... Happy Modelling! Marc

Could you not use Objaction to distribute a .pcf, then point the Poser users toward the original object to download? It add an extra step, but it should work, as long as the meshes remain available. Or would conversion from .3ds to .obj not be consistent enough from user to user for this to work?

It would be if we were all instructed to use the same program to do it. I think Cage's idea is great. If not, you might post them to alt.binaries.poser in an anonymous way so that those of us who understand you've done your best can get them and use them until further notice. I say if they are at 3-d Cafe, are free to download there, and have been there for a long time, definately post them somewhere. If you don't want to take any responsibility, send them to me in a big zip and I'll post em to alt.binaries.poser (or if they don't want them there...alt.binaries or somewhere else.) -Darth_Logice

The ObjAction Mover suggestion sounds sounds great. (Maz da Man!) That program continues to amaze me. Does it add all the Poser-Ready stuff even where none existed to start with? & just an aside, but would the authors that you could find not even consider posting your Poser-Ready versions themselves?

Thanks for the tip, cooler. Too, bad. I got all the viewpoint models, but the idea that we'd be able to poserize them sounded great to me. As foxhollow mentioned, VP aren't going to approve of it. The objaction mover workaround should be ok since no mesh. Who knows. It's freestuff in dxf at such a well known site as 3D Cafe?

personally I feel if you have gone well out of your way to find original modeler for some meshes (that contained no claim of ownership or even read me files) especially things you downloaded from freebie sites and have modified putting them up with a notice of what has been done to them and that you will take them down all the orignator needs to do is contact you and you only host them on your site relieves you of much responsibility, but not all. I mean I am thinking of putting up half a terabyte of models that I have collected over the years that have no claim of ownership, partially to find the owners and get updates. The were free to start with, with no restriction on use, I considder them abandoned claims that should be shared with the world like any other archealogical treasure.

I'd have to agree with Brad on this one... With no readme within the zipped file.. it's been abandoned... and we all know what to do with orphaned props.. When I DL a prop/figure/texture.. all the readme's go into a directory called Information.. that way I just have to slog through 1.2 Meg of files... ) I'm still pushing for UNIQUE readme names.. loike Mypropreadme.txt etc... Soooo much easier to referance.. than "readme.txt".. Cheers, Wizzard

bradthedog, that's cool. I'd love to peek at that pile of goodies. Being a poser3 user I can only dream of the stuff you might possess. If you decide to put them up, please let us know. thanks, feb

I'd love to see what you've collected, but still a no-no Brad. & - IMHO - Not the sort of respect for authors' rights that an artist's community should really be expressing. Sorry, no litmus test. Only a court can determine that a rights-holder has abandoned their copyright claim. Besides, if I took some of Bushi's work and posted it without permission in a newsgroup with no readme - and some unsuspecting innocent soul, such as yourself, were to download it and find no readme and could not contact me - then, by your standard, you would consider Bushi to have abandonded his copyright. ...I think not. On the other hand though, you'd probably be a very popular site and, if you were not profiting & you removed any item immediately when requested by an author, then you are right, that the worst you would get is some nasty letters and the reputation as a thief. I doubt anyone (short of Disney) would actually pursue legal action under those circumstances.

Mason, have you done around a 20% change to these models? If so, then you could claim them as your own, and I don't think anyone would complain too hard, if at all. Plus you have to consider that the person that posted them over there in the first place may have done the same thing- Changed a bit here and there. Therefore, in addition to his changes and your changes, it's that much changes from the original. Just be sure to place in the readme the little history in how the models came into existance on your DL page.

Nance, I wasn't talking about improper re-posted figures etc.. I was talking about the legitamatly posted ones .. lik e in here and poserworld.. too many just use readme as a name.. and I was being a little selfish about unique naming.... there's a lot of people that do indeed use unique names... and that just makes my task a little easier... If the original posting dinnae have an information file included.. that I'd consider abandoned.. I've only sent out one prop.. the info file just said... it's "yours don't sell it"... It can get a bit rough at times... working in a typed medium where inflections are lost.... I'll endeavour to pay closer attention to my words to avoid displeasure on any one's part... Cheers, Wizzard