What Justification Is There For No Mod Permissions?

[Codex Alpha]

8 hours ago, Kristy Aurelia said:

I've made a google doc a while back listing all the reasons why stuff should be mod (at least all the ones I could think of, I'm sure there's more):

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Kosnx9oPTZMrMixtH35zvKUhDC2XlVt2HKZ-uH7csOM

Since I've only noticed this thread now, I'll have to go through it later and add a few more points about stuff I noticed while skimming through it.

Edit: Also worth noting, I only buy mod stuff, with very very rare exceptions, such as a body, or something that does need tampering prevention - like a board game or a gift card.
And my own creations are mod-mesh, no-mod scripts and the scripts are even designed to not use specific link IDs, to allow people to do whatever they like with them.

Good stuff. Please comment as you edit that also on
Using a product intended to be one thing ; a house, a machine, a car... but users want access to unlink and use them as building sets, or as part of 'derivative works' that they may put their own name on. Surely this is not really what the creator intended, and the cost of allowing modify that shouldn't always include that ability.

Funny example. Creator puts out art on a frame, selling it as art.. but its purchased for the frame Yes it happens haha.
But was it supposed to be sold as an art piece for a wall, or as a customizable frame product? 2 end uses, and 2 prices might be asked.

End use affects the end price for the consumer. No-mods can be cheaper than mod items, especially if people do above.

"The creators vision": there is merit to this and should be some respect for this, regardless.

Then practical. Modify is nice, but not always necessary - and the custom textures will just override and ruin it anyway, especially for tiling vs baked, and more advanced texture methods. Most users only have ability to apply textures (even PBR) one way.. as the underlying UV determines.

I'm not whole or fast on the points I made, I'm making them for discussion, and to find my own way in the future on these matters.

[Kristy Aurelia]

8 minutes ago, Codex Alpha said:

custom textures will just override and ruin it anyway, especially for tiling vs baked, and more advanced texture methods. Most users only have ability to apply textures (even PBR) one way.. as the underlying UV determines.

This actually raises the point against people stealing textures, if someone acquires a UUID for a texture that only works on a specific mesh, they still need to buy the mesh.

One of my main use cases is removing textures with ugly baked reflections and highlights as PBR now provides actual real reflections (where people setup probes that is, we really need more sim owners to update their sims, but that's for a completely different topic.). (I really hate baked reflections/highlights, but that's also a different topic)

I'm hoping this is not too NSFW... but here's an example of how I updated one of my outfits with PBR:
Before, with baked in white blob specular reflection:

After just plain PBR material:

Also especially with PBR, I wish creators provided normal maps as well, so I could DIY PBR stuff properly. Since it is the normal map that holds most of the detail.

This is one of the reasons I've mention metals specifically in the google doc, as most metals tend to be smooth and do not require a normal map.

Also quite a lot of objects work really well with tiled textures like buildings, or any objects that have large enough details define by vertexes rather than specific normal - a flat floor in a house is really easy to swap from tiled tile texture to tiled wood texture and so on.

 

I have also updated my doc to mention what no-mod does to PBR materials, since I originally wrote it before PBR was released.

And I've also added that I believe, and based on my friend circle: vast majority of yes-mod supporters are concerned about mod clothes, furniture, houses. And we understand that there are things like vendor systems, various game related HUDs and so on, do need to be no-mod.

[Kristy Aurelia]

Also, I think I caught up with main points of the thread now.

Composition vs Build Kit is an interesting one, I personally would prefer building kits. Also I don't mind paying extra for mod. That might be different to other people. I guess this would depend on your business model, but I can see the same argument from Singles vs Fat Packs be applicable here - you could set 2-3-4 however many cheaper prefab no-mod homes, but also sell a kit that is mod, more expensive, but also designed to be used as a kit. So if I want to move a sofa to the other side of the room, it doesn't leave an ugly baked shadow on a wall.

Also, I have quite a few items that are 3-4 years old, a lot of them I can DIY PBR myself, it would be a lot of work for the creators to go through their entire catalogue and update all their creations. Mod is what enables me to do it myself.

From a creators point of view - I have only released one item, and nearing towards completion of my second one. I am completely talentless when it comes to making textures, so I've UV mapped the meshes in such a way that it looks decent with a tiled texture and I can use a CC0 licensed texture, which I am also including in the package, and if people want to change it - they can.

In terms of creative vision, I have seen some people fail at resizing it... So I've facepalmed... and I will be adding a resizer script in an update. I also gave them some tips on how to resize it properly. But yes, it did annoy me a bit that they made it look worse, but if they're happy with it, I'm happy too. I've also seen someone remove a few parts completely to achieve a different look which made me think "Huh, that works I guess, I didn't think of that".

Also, in the circles I hang around, quite a few items we use have show/hide parts based on states. Old scripts do not support PBR, so me and my friends who wanted to PBR-ify those items, couldn't.... except... I made a helper script, that does make legacy and PBR alpha synchronize, which works okay for now, until LL do implement a proper fix. And we can just stick that script into any mod item we want, and mod PBR to our wishes, with old scripts functioning as intended.

[Rick Nightingale]

1 hour ago, Kristy Aurelia said:

Also, in the circles I hang around, quite a few items we use have show/hide parts based on states.

That reminds me of something I wanted to do with an expensive formal dinner jacket and trousers I was thinking of buying, but didn't (for reasons that will become clear). It was from a well-known maker who's been recommended on this forum before.

The jacket had open and buttoned options. If you ('you' as in anyone reading this) know etiquette, you'll get that it should be opened when seated and buttoned when standing; if I recall correctly it even had the correct button fastened. The jacket had a HUD to switch between the alpha states. Perfect, and exactly what I was looking for, except for the usual issue...

It was no-mod and the only way to switch states was to use the HUD. I wanted to script it (like I have other items) so that when I sat, it automatically unbuttoned and vice versa. I contacted the maker's CS (the maker was clear they did not want to be contacted by customers directly), said how much I liked the jacket, and explained what I wanted to achieve. I asked if I could either have a mod version of the fatpack (which was hugely expensive - I only wanted one colour but that would counter the fear of the dreaded tinting to save buying another tint), or at least be told the channel and command to change the state so I could add the commands to a script in my own utility HUD that I wear. I even offered to give them the script I wrote for inclusion with the item, free of charge.

The response was not very polite and certainly made sure I never even visited the store again, let alone bought the item. An unfortunately common response I've had over the years from those who knee-jerk to no-mod perms.

 

Edited May 3 by Rick Nightingale

[Zalificent Corvinus]

8 hours ago, Codex Alpha said:

and the custom textures will just override and ruin it anyway, especially for tiling vs baked, and more advanced texture methods

Tiled texturing IS an advanced texture method, it's designed to be more efficient in its use of VRAM, most games engines use tiled textures for a lot of the surfaces you see. It also offers the option for increased Texel Density.

It's the "baked" textures that are the old, outdated, and lower quality option, in modern rendering systems.

Basically, everything you said was wrong.

 

9 hours ago, Codex Alpha said:

Most users only have ability to apply textures (even PBR) one way.

Tiled textures are very common in REAL PBR implementations, again as they are MORE efficient.

 

Frankly, every time you use the phrase "advanced texture method" you clearly reveal that what you "know" of the subject is actually very little indeed.

 

9 hours ago, Codex Alpha said:

I'm not whole or fast on the points I made,

Really ? And yet no matter how many times people disagree with your points, and correct your technical mistakes, you keep repeating the same dogma over and over and over, as if it' set in stone.

 

[Thecla]

On 5/3/2024 at 12:16 PM, Codex Alpha said:

Good stuff. Please comment as you edit that also on
Using a product intended to be one thing ; a house, a machine, a car... but users want access to unlink and use them as building sets, or as part of 'derivative works' that they may put their own name on. Surely this is not really what the creator intended, and the cost of allowing modify that shouldn't always include that ability.

Funny example. Creator puts out art on a frame, selling it as art.. but its purchased for the frame Yes it happens haha.
But was it supposed to be sold as an art piece for a wall, or as a customizable frame product? 2 end uses, and 2 prices might be asked.

End use affects the end price for the consumer. No-mods can be cheaper than mod items, especially if people do above.

"The creators vision": there is merit to this and should be some respect for this, regardless.

Then practical. Modify is nice, but not always necessary - and the custom textures will just override and ruin it anyway, especially for tiling vs baked, and more advanced texture methods. Most users only have ability to apply textures (even PBR) one way.. as the underlying UV determines.

I'm not whole or fast on the points I made, I'm making them for discussion, and to find my own way in the future on these matters.

I literally don't agree with any of this. Here's why:

"but users want access to unlink and use them as building sets, or as part of 'derivative works' that they may put their own name on. Surely this is not really what the creator intended, and the cost of allowing modify that shouldn't always include that ability."

No mod does not mean full perm. We're not talking about distributable derivative works, we're talking about one-offs that are assembled from disparate parts which any user can see on casual inspection has multiple creators. When you say "surely" you're speaking for other creators, and as I've said several times, many of the best and most popular creators in SL *expect* their work to be modified and recombined with other pieces, and in fact welcome it and provide advice. For example, Jorge at MINIMAL has on several occasions given me advice on how to pull out one part of his backdrops for inclusion in something completely different.

"Funny example. Creator puts out art on a frame, selling it as art.. but its purchased for the frame Yes it happens haha.
But was it supposed to be sold as an art piece for a wall, or as a customizable frame product? 2 end uses, and 2 prices might be asked."

If something is sold as "art" then it can be defensible for it to be no mod, if the creator is so inclined. They may not be, and be comfortable with the frame being filled with another image. That's up to them. But SL is a funny place, where the distinction between what is art and what is not is often blurred. In any event, I do think that this is one area where "no mod" is defensible depending on the perspective of the creator on their work.

"End use affects the end price for the consumer. No-mods can be cheaper than mod items, especially if people do above."

I've never seen that, ever. Ever. Would love for you to point out an example. And you're hypothesizing that an object that is modify has more value than one that is not. Don't tell the artists that.

""The creators vision": there is merit to this and should be some respect for this, regardless."

This is true on a case by case basis. There is creative work where this is true. But there are thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of products on the MP that are entirely pedestrian what are no mod. I will say that in my experience, the majority of no mod items for sale are of generally lower quality. I think this is the result of less skilled and experienced creators just not thinking about the topic before they set perms for their products.

"Then practical. Modify is nice, but not always necessary - and the custom textures will just override and ruin it anyway, especially for tiling vs baked, and more advanced texture methods. Most users only have ability to apply textures (even PBR) one way.. as the underlying UV determines."

Again, you are making value judgements that you're in no position to make. "Nice but not necessary"? How do you know? This is entirely dependent on what the buyer wants to do with the product, and you have no insight into that. And custom textures do not unilaterally "ruin" a product. They may well improve it. Is it subject to the skill of the buyer? Yes of course. And you're in no position to say that baked lighting is superior to tiled. An example. I took this building and expanded it dramatically. There was baked lighting with bright sunlight and heavy shadows on the floor stones and it would have made no sense had I left it as applied. I used a tiled texture and it turned out very well IMHO:

Lastly, are some products difficult to modify the texture on due to the UV map? Absolutely. It's not incumbent on the creator to make textures easily modified, partularly if efficient usage of the space available in the UV map dictates otherwise.

Finally, I realize you're throwing out these ideas to promote discussion, but I think most of them are red herrings and don't lead to valid reasons for permissioning products no mod.

[Thecla]

A few more random but related thoughts...

Build kits. Yes they are great for objects that have repetitive parts...walls, caves, castles, etc. But in my experience there are VERY few build kits that are broadly useful. In some instances it boils down to the lack of creativity or foresight of the creator. But in truth it's because builds that don't incorporate repetitive patterns of parts are, generally speaking, more intrinsically interesting, visually and spatially.

As for tiling vs. baked textures, the "baked texture" fad was the result of SL not having shadows...so building/home creators added them to add more realism to their builds. They looked great in product shots, and in some instances worked well when you got home and rezzed the building, but more often than not you'd just go "ugh" and never rez that product again. And they were hugely inefficient. They are less of an issue with respect to household objects, if done well. But there are a lot of products out there that you can immediately identify as textured in Substance Painter where the creator has used a poorly lit environment and the AO make the product look irradiated from every angle. Very frustrating. Bottom line is that texturing is as much an art as a science, and tiled textures, when created and applier properly, are superior to baked textures...IF the rendering engine is advanced enough to provide real-time shadows and reflected lighting effects. PBR gets us partially there, mostly because of tonemapping vs. the improvements in reflectivity.

We'd all love for SL to run on Unreal 5, and maybe someday we'll have an engine that fullfills that dream. LL has to get there one way or another, sooner or later, or risk being seriously leapfrogged to the point of mass exodus of the user base.

[Codex Alpha]

Cool.

 

Edited May 4 by Codex Alpha

[Gael Streeter]

Just to "bring more grist to the mill"...

 

[Kristy Aurelia]

1 hour ago, Gael Streeter said:

Just to "bring more grist to the mill"...

 

I've replied to that post that explains how it works and how it is not a problem for mod stuff. Materials can be a bit weird to figure out...

[Rick Nightingale]

Hmm... so we get yet another largely incorrect reason for makers/sellers to knee-jerk to no-mod and impose restrictions  on others' abilities to use what they have bought.

I've been using PBR since it was in beta and Kristy's answer is correct.

 

Edited May 18 by Rick Nightingale

[Rick Nightingale]

If someone is keen enough to steal your textures to go dropping in reader scripts (which as shown isn't effective anyway)... there are far simpler ways to obtain the texture UUIDs. Anything that a viewer can render is trivially easy to extract, so supposed attempts to use no-mod to protect assets only hurts those who aren't trying to steal your precious textures, but just want to be able to use what they bought in the best way for them.

 

[Kristy Aurelia]

2 minutes ago, Rick Nightingale said:

If someone is keen enough to steal your textures to go dropping in reader scripts (which as shown isn't effective anyway)... there are far simpler ways to obtain the texture UUIDs. Anything that a viewer can render is trivially easy to extract, so supposed attempts to use no-mod to protect assets only hurts those who aren't trying to steal your precious textures, but just want to be able to use what they bought in the best way for them.

I wish creators provided the textures... 99% of stuff I bought is mod, and I would love to be able to quickly convert quite a few of the items to PBR... but I need the original normal maps for whole bunch of them as not all of my wardrobe is smooth latex/plastic/metal

[Rick Nightingale]

2 minutes ago, Kristy Aurelia said:

I wish creators provided the textures

The enlightened few do... but they are few and far between (and often furry).

[Kristy Aurelia]

Just now, Rick Nightingale said:

The enlightened few do... but they are few and far between (and often furry).

I was really happy when I found out that there even is an event themed on 'Mod stuff'... I can't remember the event name right now... but then I was sad as it was mostly furry stuff... maybe I should grow a tail...

I've recently updated the one item I've made for SL, and because I don't know how to make textures myself, I did my best to UV map the mesh so tiled textures look good enough, and I've used some CC0 PBR materials, which I've included in the box, as well as the raw textures and I did provide the link too -> https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/AmbientCG-PBR-Material-Megapack/25595913

[BillFletcher]

On 4/16/2024 at 4:28 PM, Kathlen Onyx said:

Maybe they don't want people messing with their creations with their name as the creator on it. If I made a box and colored it red I would hate that someone could just color it neon green and my name as the creator would still be on it. I HATE neon green!

I sell pictures, I haven't made them no mod, but i have considered it, the reason is that someone might stretch the picture to fit a particular location, and doing that distorts my image. I don't want people seeing an image attributed to me that has been distorted into something I didn't actually put out there.

[Rick Nightingale]

18 minutes ago, BillFletcher said:

...I don't want people seeing an image attributed to me...

While I do see the point there to an extent (and genuine art was one of the possible exceptions I made at the start), I think overall that it's a complete non-issue and insults people's intelligence...

In all my years in SL I've inspected a lot of things to see who made it, but never because I thought there was something wrong with it. Only ever because I liked it. Has anyone here done it because they didn't like the thing (other than to AR it if appropriate)? Besides, people aren't stupid. If something looks like it might have been modified (and in this specific case, a stretched image is reasonably obvious), they will know.*

*Edit to add: and if the mod perms issue were more widely realised, something being modified would not be in any way unexpected.

Edited May 18 by Rick Nightingale

[BillFletcher]

1 minute ago, Rick Nightingale said:

Has anyone here done it because they didn't like the thing

Ok so they ruin it, and then no one checks to see who made it because it is now awful, I don't get potential new customers because they didn't even bother to look. 

[Rick Nightingale]

Now the naughty side of me wants to buy a no-mod artwork, and rez a transparent overlay on it with some graffiti 🤣😈

[Rick Nightingale]

6 minutes ago, BillFletcher said:

I don't get potential new customers

But my house and purchases are not an advert for your store, nor is what I am wearing an advert for the clothing store it came from. No-one paid me to advertise it for the seller's benefit. Again that comes back to one of the thread's original points: you want to control what I can do for your benefit.

 

Edited May 18 by Rick Nightingale

[Henri Beauchamp]

IMHO, ”no-mod” shall be reserved to closed sources scripts....

However, there are other assets types, that can (even if IMHO they should not) be sold in SL and can only be ”protected” by a no-mod flag: (legacy) wearables, Extended Environment settings, and now PBR materials...

When set ”no-mod” these assets cannot be edited (at least in theory) and their respective ”knobs” value cannot be seen by the end user (and thus not reproduced in a newly created mod-ok item), meaning you can protect a set of sliders/spinners values (which these assets are, with the textures/maps exception, but textures can themselves be protected) by making the inventory item bearing that asset (the inventory items, for these, are just references to an asset UUID) no mod.

Now, who ever bought or is ready to buy a no-mod shape, a no-mod sky settings ?... I didn't and never will !

Beside, there is an issue with how no-mod objects are dealt with, between their in-world, rezzed versions, and their inventory version: as soon as you got or put a no-mod item inside an object, the said object (which is itself mod-ok, i.e. that you can resize/modify, and for which you can change the inventory contents) becomes no-mod when you take it back to your inventory !... The creator of the object can still make it mod-ok for the next owner from their inventory, but as soon as they give it away (or sell it) to the final user, the said user will always be bothered with the ”no-mod” flag after they rez and take back that object in their inventory (where it cannot be renamed any more and its description cannot be changed any more). This means that mod-ok objects that bear closed source scripts suddenly inherit the no-mod flag when taken into the inventory while it was not even the original creator's intention !

The no-mod permission of an item shall not be inherited by its container. THIS IS A BUG/SHORTCOMING of SL's permission system; I am pretty sure I did file a JIRA for it, but now that JIRA is dead and that half (if not more) of its issues never got ported to the new ”feedback” system, I guess this got lost too...

Edited May 18 by Henri Beauchamp

[BillFletcher]

11 minutes ago, Rick Nightingale said:

you want to control what I can do for your benefit.

True you have a right to do whatever you want, but then again so does the seller, its a two way street. 

[Theresa Tennyson]

23 minutes ago, BillFletcher said:

Ok so they ruin it, and then no one checks to see who made it because it is now awful, I don't get potential new customers because they didn't even bother to look. 

Isn't thinking a customer will want to change and "ruin" what you sold them a reflection on your own confidence in your work? They bought the thing in the first place, didn't they?

[Rick Nightingale]

15 minutes ago, BillFletcher said:

its a two way street.

It actually isn't; in SL's flawed system a seller has the ability to control me (assuming I buy their no-mod item); I do not have the ability to control them (and do not want to).

Perhaps this is a more philosophical view; it comes down to who is trying to control whom. I am not trying to restrict what someone else does with their things. They are trying to restrict me. Saying someone should not be able to control me (by not setting no-mod), is not me trying to control them. It is me trying not to be controlled by them.

Those arguing for no-mod in general seem to believe it is their right to be able to control others. I vehemently disagree. Just because the system allows it, doesn't make it right.

Edited May 18 by Rick Nightingale

[BillFletcher]

51 minutes ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

Isn't thinking a customer will want to change and "ruin" what you sold them a reflection on your own confidence in your work? They bought the thing in the first place, didn't they?

I actually don't sell them no mod, my desire that the customer be able to resize. or change the mat or frame color, outweighs my concern about changing the aspect ratio. I just gave that as an example.

49 minutes ago, Rick Nightingale said:

It actually isn't; in SL's flawed system a seller has the ability to control me (assuming I buy their no-mod item); I do not have the ability to control them (and do not want to).

Perhaps this is a more philosophical view; it comes down to who is trying to control whom. I am not trying to restrict what someone else does with their things. They are trying to restrict me. Saying someone should not be able to control me (by not setting no-mod), is not me trying to control them. It is me trying not to be controlled by them.

Those arguing for no-mod in general seem to believe it is their right to be able to control others. I vehemently disagree. Just because the system allows it, doesn't make it right.

Ultimately  you as a consumer can refuse to purchase, and if there was a demand for mod products sellers would provide it, they are all competing for your dollars.