+Inu Angel+

Now… I’m researching, right? Looking at pages and pages of stolen mesh by Cowbuild that I have seen 1000x and even own in my SL… but this one… this one made me lol.

Hmmm… where have I seen this mesh before?……

OH yeah! Our favorite “original mesher”, clover19_sims.

So, not only did clover 100% definitely did not mesh this “bearbrick”, but it is unlikely that Cowbuild did, either.

And the question becomes more convoluted: did she buy the $12 mesh herself? Did Cowbuild by the $12 mesh? Did the SL creator buy it? Did she rip off Cowbuild or the SL Creator? Did Cowbuild rip off the SL creator? Did the SL creator follow TOS?

…This mess is shocking, I know. /s

Listen guys, all I’m saying is stop inflating who you are. I understand that providing for various online communities beautiful things to enhance their gaming experience comes with some sick idolization. It’s rampant in the SL community, too.

There’s a massive problem within SL of what I call “creator vs consumer”. Creators there also struggle with exploiting their customers for every penny, outing them for pointing out the creator’s mistakes, setting insane standards that makes average consumers place creators on a god pedestal and are afraid to complain. Entitlement for a hobby. The list goes on... The stakes are much higher in SL because RL money is the nature of the economy there; there’s no “motherlode” and you can afford everything you see in the market. And as someone on “both sides of the fence” (“creator” and consumer; more the latter) I get it. We’re all wanting to find a buck in this horrendous time. And making things takes time. It takes even more time to make sure the thing you’re making WORKS, isn’t borked and is something people would want to pay for.

And in a predatory capitalist society where we’re suppose to put dollar amount on every move we make, or it’s not valid, I get exactly why hobbies have become main incomes. We’ve been told that if it doesn’t make us money, we’re wasting time. Which is false, IMO. But, predatory capitalism is a whole other topic.

What I’m saying is: this is the system. Stealing from other creators or buying mesh on CGTrader and claiming it as your original work isn’t just unethical, it’s crime in virtually every country on the planet. It’s also unfair to consumers and their right to make informed purchases.

You’d make A LOT MORE MONEY with honesty. What’s so hard with saying “hey guys, I found this really awesome object on CGTrader by XYZ creator and I know we’d all love to have it in our games. I happen to have the knowledge and skills to convert this amazing object to The Sims (or whatever platform here). And I’m going to do it for us. However, I did have to pay for this object and its rights myself and I would like some compensation for my purchase and my skills, but if I sell X amount at 0.50¢ a pop, I’ll make my money back and then some in no time.”

No, conversions and optimization is not an easy feat. It does take knowledge and skill. But you’d be wildly more appreciated and respected if you were honest. If your fear is that others will just buy the original mesh themselves, thats a very unwarranted fear. Odds are they’d rather pay your SMALLER fee of <$1 to ethically own it and be able to use it immediately than the $12 to get the mesh themselves, or the time it takes to convert and optimize. If your fear is that you’re taking the mesh and violating the original creator’s TOS, then that’s a very warranted fear. And you shouldn’t be using their mesh PERIOD. If the original creator has any rules in their TOS that would prevent you from buying it and converting it as is into another 3D platform, then you have to respect that because it is a legally binding contract once you are in possession of those files.

We all should be creating and enjoying our communities and each other. We shouldn’t have to fear that this or that person is going to steal what we make. If we want to make something similar that could even be construed as a rip off of another person’s idea, just ask. Nine times out of ten, they’ll be flattered you like their stuff so much. Doing it the right way protects not only the original creator and the consumers of both of you, but it protects YOU. And it allows you to set your own TOS, legally. If you break the original creator’s TOS, then legally your own TOS is not legally valid and you cannot be angry at someone for putting them in builds when you don’t “allow” that. Or recoloring and including the mesh. You have no legal right to that object. And you’re putting others as risk for violation of the original creators LEGALLY BINDING TOS.

Not only that… but you’d save yourself this insane drama.

Stopping Shadows from Showing Through A mesh

@floppant was having an issue where the SSAO was projecting through their mesh when it should have been cutting it out from view. This seems to have become a problem since the last patch, so I helped out and found a solution.

This may not work for all meshes as I have seen a few people saying this is now an issue. It is worth a shot though and might resolve the problem.

Note: this is designed for creators not downloaders are it requires some knowledge of the warehouse section of S4S to navigate and change values.

Basically the method is:

Open the package and go to the warehouse tab.

Find the model lod entry with a group ID of 00000000. Click on the data tab then the edit items button.

Navigate to the phong mesh group then the material resource and click the edit items button. 

Find the variantID for your object (not the ones with default in the name) and click the edit items button under materials. 

Find the SSAOIntensity setting. Change from 1 to 0. 

Save and repeat for other variantID entries.

Save to exit all popup and repeat for other lods. 

Save then test ingame.