Game developer licensing questions

legardien_97e0a33751

Hello all!

So I've stumbled upon this wonderful tool called DAZ Studio, which seems to offer an easy solution to a problem I have for my game: "realistic" character assets with interchangeable clothing combinations like most games these days do. Given that I am neither a 3D artist, nor have the time to master that trade in addition to all the other stuff I do, nor do I have a massive art team at my disposal, the indie and/or commercial licenses look very, very attractive. But there seem to be some caveats:

https://helpdaz.zendesk.com/entries/123839 <- This seems to put it very plainly that anything in the store CANNOT be used in games unless it's from the developer store. However, following the URL to the developer site dumps you at the main page! Does that mean that anything in the store is fair game now as long as you hold the appropriate game developer license?</p>

On the license itself, I see one stipulation that the license covers "Vendor = DAZ 3D" but not "published or brokered" by DAZ3D. In skimming the store, I see lots of content that lists DAZ3D as the sole "published artist" but nothing as of yet that explicitly lists DAZ3D as a vendor. What's the deal? Does publisher mean vendor in that case?

Given that much of the content in the store seems to be based on the V4/M4/Genesis meshes, it would follow that to be useful, one would have to bundle, at a minimum, derivative meshes and textures with the game (which could be encrypted or otherwise made more secure through obscurity but not entirely bulletproof). Given the amount of content existing for these meshes, it makes good sense to use them, or derivatives of them, as a framework. The tone I'm getting from various sources on the Internet is that distributing these meshes is punishable by death (or worse, a copyright infringement lawsuit). As a game developer, that's a dealbreaker - I need to be able to package assets in one form or another to end users! Is this untrue, or is there a "walled garden" of content that's safe to distribute, or what?

Thanks in advance.

Richard Haseltine

The Developer Store references are old, and refer to a time when it was possible to buy licenses for individual items. Now it's just the single license covering all items from the vendor, with DAZ 3D itself, Jack Tomalin and RawArt offering such licenses. The license covers items that, in the new store, list DAZ 3D as the Published Artist (or the vendor for whom you have bought a license).

legardien_97e0a33751

Thanks for the clarification, you've put my concerns to rest! It seems a lot simpler to put everything under one license or a few licenses, rather than per item. I guess now it's time for me to get to work...