I was reading the theft of models opinion earlier,and I have this suggestion to make. Most of our models are in obj format it is quite easy to add a line such as this. "Made by DMayberry 12/30/1999 send inguires to dmayberry@home.com" while not fullproof it would facilitate finding ,giving and recieving proper credit for ones own work. Merry Christmas everyone

I agree , Also posting the Symbol and Your name /or nickname with in your Read me text. read about it today in Copyright Law books, that will help just in case legal matters need to be taken.

All copyright info is lost when someone converts the OBJ to another format.

true but a lock only keeps an honest person honest but we still lock our stuff up. I know its not fullproof but it should help remedy some misunderstandings,hardfeelings and excuses about not knowing who gets the credit.

There is a way to put a unique ID in a model that will not go away when it is converted to another format. Simply attach a very small group of vertices in a distinct pattern in an obscure area of the model (for example, in the toe). Under normal magnification it will appear to be a single point, but when zoomed, the pattern will be obvious. If you didn't want a pattern, you could even do your name in vertices. It would add more bulk to the models size, but it is an elegant way to "watermark" a model. If Renderosity would be willing to keep an archive of patterns, it would even be possible to "register" them. Of course they would have to be sure your pattern does not match any submitted to approve the "registration" and they would either have to not give anyone access to the archive or password protect each individual "registered patterns".

not a modeler, but something I was trying with watermarking images was incorporating the ascii values of the letters in my name as RGB color values in a tiny string of pixels in the image. Sort of a BarCode technique. Works pretty neat - but only until the image is compressed or rescaled - so actually worthless. However, was thinking perhaps something similar might work with models - using ascii values of alpha characters as XYZ coordinate values for just a few verticies. Or, arrange a few verticies in an inconspicuous straight line segment, but vary the distance between them by the letters in the author's name as represented by the ascii values (or even just a=1, b=2 etc. or some multiple for appropriate scale). By adding a few control points at the head of the string the original values should be able to be restored even after rescaling. Again, not a modeler so you guys would have to tell me if something like that might work.