New Troll Portrait-Still in Making

[Valkier]

Is it really so offensive for an artist to hear that someone believes their work can be improved upon? Imagine if everyone who has ever contributed to this project behaved the same way: there would be no "Battle for Wesnoth".

Stepping in here, again. I think most artists here, with perhaps the exception of a younger more [censored] me, is pretty willing to admit when they've done a bad job. Hell, say it the right way and we may even laugh at our efforts. There is a difference between the well intentioned OP and what you're suggesting.

Kata was trying to modify an existing portrait for use in mainline. If it had been for his own private use or some other user made content, it would have been a non issue. Trying to assert his edits over a mainline piece is where the situation arises. If he had said he feels this portrait needs to be updated then it wouldn't have been much of an issue. Kitty or Lord Bob would have probably taken another look at it and, if they thought it was worth it, redone it. Or they would have decided other portraits needed the attention and nothing would have been done.

What you're suggesting is that the portrait artists of Wesnoth are such fragile creatures that we might crumble in to dust and blow away should anyone even consider their work is not 100% chocolate covered awesome. I assure you, this is not the case. Any decent artist thrives on critique. It's really the fuel we use to push ourselves to get better. It's why we do what we do in the first place. Kitty and Lord Bob have never ever been shy of critique in the years that I have been here. I may not know their politics on GPL, but I can tell you with certainty that as artists they are very genuine individuals.

[LordBob]

I'll just add that it's at the very least courtesy to the artist to not use their modified work without their consent, and in many jurisdictions doing so violates the author's right to the integrity of their work.

I should have clearly stated my awareness of the GPL, because that sentence really wasn't about what can or cannot be done in the context of Battle for Wesnoth and the GPL. I am well aware of that.

My point was, and remains, to emphasize that the work of artists should be respected. We care for it, we want to see it improved whenever possible, we really are open to critique - more often than not we ask for it and strive to get better in return. However, like any other intellectual property, misuse and abuse -be it malicious or well-intended- can hurt our feelings, our reputation, and sometimes our capacity to earn a living.
So yes, the GPL creates a particularily nice setting for free software, in which we agree to give away our work and see it modified. But in the profit-making world, laws have been passed to protect authors and that is a good thing. That's how important our work can be to us, and why I consider it polite to at least inform a fellow artist that we're replacing his/her pieces when they're still involved in the project.
Also, by "use", I meant "reproduce and distribute". What people do in the privacy of their home computer is their own concern.


That being said, don't misunderstand: I don't want to be treated as a sacred cow. Most of my older portraits would benefit from a revamp, Kitty herself seriously considered redoing the elves, but we don't have time to do so. If someone can improve Wesnoth I'm all for it, and if a derivative of coherent style and better quality is produced, I will happily replace older mainline portraits.
However we're in a shortage of candidates, and should a new talent arise I would definitely point him/her to more pressing matters.

Which brings us back to the subject of the troll. Both Kitty and I agree that the current troll line doesn't fit together and the troll whelp / troll portraits are open for replacement. If nothing happens I'll do it eventually, but if someone else produces a good portrait with a coherent style, I'll be the happiest.
But, what I see above isn't yet up to the task.

[Loci]

LordBob, thank you for your well-reasoned clarification; I apologize for my earlier GPL digression. I agree that it is polite and respectful to discuss modifying a portrait with the original artist, and I am heartened by your statement that a derivative of sufficient quality would be fairly considered for mainline. I suspect most of the authors who could produce such a derivative work find it easier to "start from scratch", but perhaps there are a few artists who could conceivably find it easier to update portraits like this troll. Unfortunately we'll likely never know if the only responses those artists receive on the forums are from people telling them that it can't (or shan't) be done.

[homunculus]

[...]There is a difference between the well intentioned OP and what you're suggesting.[...]

[...]Now please calm down and read a bit more before replying. This has nothing to do with the GPL.

Well, how do we know Loci was not well intentioned (because if LordBob had not heard that the game is GPL, it would be our well intended duty to tell him the news), and also, maybe my English is lacking but I am not quite certain Loci's posts did not fit in the bounds of 'calm'.
I admit I also got some 'how does this fit with the GPL thing?' experience myself for a moment.

So, does all this thing apply only if it is in Art Contribs, or would the same apply also in Workshop?

[...]Kata was trying to modify an existing portrait for use in mainline. If it had been for his own private use or some other user made content, it would have been a non issue. Trying to assert his edits over a mainline piece is where the situation arises.[...]

[...]Also, by "use", I meant "reproduce and distribute". What people do in the privacy of their home computer is their own concern.[...]

What if I modify a mainline portrait and distribute it in UMC?
Posting a modified image in forum is also not in the privacy of a home computer.

And I have seen such statements (that make sense IMHO) in some licenses (don't remember if it was also in GPL) that demand that the user should not make any hint at the original author supporting the use of the item (or modification).
This frees the original author from responsibility for how the item is reused.
Is it implied in Wesnoth that when a UMC author reuses a modded mainline portrait he has asked for approval of the original author, and therefore the original author would take responsibility?
Why would, say, kitty be bothered with some placeholder portrait issue in some crappy WIP UMC campaign and even more, take responsibility?

[Dixie]

Well I thought the Loci's tone was clearly aggressive, for one.

And I'm saying the following with a bit of "restrain" for I do not want to relaunch the debate too much but here anyway:

I haven,t read the whole GPL so I'm not sure how this applies, but as a professional musician I had a legal course at the university. It said that an author has two rights on his work. I'm not 100% sure of the name of the first but let's call it "legal" or "finacial". This right is what the author gives away or deals in contracts: the right to diffuse, to reproduce, collect money from etc. And there is the legal right, which in theory should be non-givable. The author retains it no matter what. In essence, this moral right is about a) the integrity of his work and b) the right to object certain uses. For example, let's say I signed a song to Warner. Warner exploit it for some time, and then decides to sign it to the New American Nazi Party (I hope this doesn't exist) for a publicity. I, as an author, am pretty much opposed to this party and have the right to object the use of my work for such a cause, I can object my work being associated with that party. Well that's what I remember anyway. I'm not sure how it applies with GPL (which is firstly about code and much less adapted for art, let's not hide our faces here), and I might remember a bit wrong, it's probably much more complicated than just objecting some uses, but still. Also, I doubt Wesnoth UMCs would be polarized enough for an author to be able to use that moral right, but who knows...

PS: I'm no legal expert)

[Loci]

[...]I admit I also got some 'how does this fit with the GPL thing?' experience myself for a moment.

What I saw in this thread was a well-intentioned OP who identified an outdated portrait that pretty much everyone agrees no longer matches the current Wesnoth style of "troll" and proposed an attempt to update it. Other posters responded to the suggestion of an update with: "lack of respect for the original artist", "effectively saying, 'I can finish this artists work better than he/she can.'", "I have never seen this act accomplished", "you will never be as good at drawing like Lord Bob as Lord Bob" and "in many jurisdictions doing so violates the author's right to the integrity of their work"--all of which I see as transparent justifications for an unofficial "thou shalt not modify our portraits" policy. I believe that such a policy is in fundamental conflict with the spirit of the GPL, and I felt compelled to post my opinion even though I knew it wouldn't be popular. Every contributor to Wesnoth eventually has to deal with modification of their work, and yes, I believe it is elitist to say "our GPL works are 'unmodifiable'".

[...]What if I modify a mainline portrait and distribute it in UMC?

In short, the GPL grants you the right to "reproduce and distribute" a work with very few limitations. Presumably LordBob is again talking about non-GPL work (which has little-to-no bearing on any artwork in Battle for Wesnoth, and generally confuses the issue). Modifying GPL works (like Battle for Wesnoth portraits) and releasing them in UMC is certainly allowed, as is using them in other GPL projects, posting them on the forum, etc. Some people have even used Wesnoth artwork in their own games, and that is considered acceptable as long as they follow the terms of the GPL. As LordBob has stated, it is polite to inform the original artist; but if they try to tell you their GPL work cannot be included then they are wrong.

[LordBob]

Let us please drop the GPL argument. Nothing we write here will change its flaws in regard to authors' rights anyway, and it won't craft a better troll either.

As for that other thing, I don't mind being labelled an elitist. Over the past four years, we were lucky to have enough artists onboard (and I'm refering to more than just portraits) to be able to chose what would or wouldn't be used in Mainline. Not every opensource game can afford such luxury. If choosing to use good artwork and making sure it's subsequently replaced only by better stuff is being elistist, then I will proudly wear the title.

[nuorc]

Yeah, my 3 cts...

1. Has someone willing to contribute been scared away and is that a desirable approach?

2. Licensing seems to be an unsolved issue I'm not aware of being handled.

3. I can see how people get a feeling that some contributions to BfW are treated different from others...

[Thrawn]

Guys, lets focus on not harping over perceived elitism and return this thread back to it's original purpose.

Lord Kata, welcome to the forums, and glad to see an aspiring artist trying to help improve the quality of the game (even if off to a kinda contentious start)! I think that better than editing an older work, showing your own original work will better help us see what you can do--even if your skills aren't quite up to the rather high main-line standards, there are always UMC creators that would love to have artists help them out, but we'll never know without a larger selection of work on your end.

*ducks back into the shadowing obscurity*

[Jetrel]

I think recoloring existing portraits is a great learning opportunity. I sincerely hope that this forum finds a place where this practices could be shared with no negative feedback.

Yes; this is important. Feel free to modify our works however you want. You can feel free to do this to anything, commercial or not, illegal or not - this is the age of the internet, no army of lawyers and no mountain of cash to pay them can realistically stop it, any more than the catholic church can stop people from having sex. Not only is it impossible to stop, but it is an important right in itself; the right to study from the masters is a key ingredient in educating our next generation of artists. It trumps any protectionist measures towards said master's rights, perhaps most ironically because it is, itself, the ultimate protectionist measure. It is the means by which others revere, learn from, and carry on the spirit of our work, rather than our work being an evolutionary dead end. Most dangerously, a forgotten dead end, of which recordings get lost - it is this enduring love of a line of related works that drives people to curate and preserve the originals. We shouldn't attack people for this.

The primary reason people attack them on any project, is a fear that the people who run that project (generally non-artists, themselves) will make bad decisions, and replace good work with something inferior. People try to make the editing so culturally unacceptable that any potential "bad replacements" get nipped in the bud before someone even makes a serious try. We don't need to be scared of that here. We have actual artists on our core team. They "get it". We don't need to be defensive; the work that's in the game is being responsibly curated.

So really ... relax. We're not stupid, we're not gonna put any frankensteins in the game, and it's healthy to have people free to do wacky experiments. Such stuff (this thread included) should go in "Art Workshop" though, it's why we made it.

Just to make this clear, Kitty created the old troll portrait and I wouldn't replace it with a revision by someone else unless she specifically agreed to it. Valkier tells it better than I would. I'll just add that it's at the very least courtesy to the artist to not use their modified work without their consent, and in many jurisdictions doing so violates the author's right to the integrity of their work.

I agree with this entirely, and would add some additional points:

- frankensteins of portraits are never gonna go in the official game. Theoretically speaking, yes, there's no reason why we shouldn't accept them; if someone provides something slightly better, then it's theoretically a benefit to put it in. Pragmatically, though, there are several reasons that doesn't actually happen:
--- The first and greatest reason is that anyone good enough to do a truly flawless, indistinguishable edit that doesn't look like a photoshop hack job, is by definition going to be good enough to do a new portrait in their own right - at least certainly when we're dealing at the quality level we're asking for.
--- The second reason is that we need need to pamper our hardest workers, and respect their emotional concerns (like artistic integrity) over the concerns of others. Not only is it a machiavellian, political move to keep them producing art for us, it's also something they've legitimately earned and deserve.
--- The final reason is that we really do a pretty good job of eliminating flaws before they go in. I haven't had to come back and modify one of kitty or lordbob's portraits after they've been declared final. Ever. With that kind of a track record, the likelihood of having a real need is nil.


- We generally never want to move "sideways" with submissions, rather than "upwards". That is, we're never going to replace someone's work unless the new stuff is unequivocally much better. The one and only exception is if something is dramatically out of style, like the old portraits we're replacing. I can see an argument that this troll portrait is slightly out of style, but it's not remotely near the level of mismatch we'd need to justify replacing it.

[Jetrel]

[...]I admit I also got some 'how does this fit with the GPL thing?' experience myself for a moment.

What I saw in this thread was a well-intentioned OP who identified an outdated portrait that pretty much everyone agrees no longer matches the current Wesnoth style of "troll" and proposed an attempt to update it. Other posters responded to the suggestion of an update with: "lack of respect for the original artist", "effectively saying, 'I can finish this artists work better than he/she can.'", "I have never seen this act accomplished", "you will never be as good at drawing like Lord Bob as Lord Bob" and "in many jurisdictions doing so violates the author's right to the integrity of their work"--all of which I see as transparent justifications for an unofficial "thou shalt not modify our portraits" policy. I believe that such a policy is in fundamental conflict with the spirit of the GPL, and I felt compelled to post my opinion even though I knew it wouldn't be popular.

Protip: don't try and convince people to share your beliefs by appealing to those very beliefs. It's a tautology. It's like telling people they should do what god says because god says they should.

This is a common failing of GPL advocates, door to door ministers, scientists trying to prove to skeptics that they should care about some piece of science they don't trust, and anyone stuck in that general uphill battle. You need to leverage something they believe in. Not something you believe in. Especially not the very thing you're trying to convince them of.


Your above statement assumes they care about a right to modify. Just because they were involved in a GPL project doesn't mean they automatically care about the GPL and the ideals it represents - it instead just meant they wanted to be part of that project, and it happened to have that license. We don't choose these projects for the license, we choose them for what the project is trying to create. It's an easy mistake to assume we go out looking for only GPL projects, and then narrow it down to ones that are GPL and happen to meet other interests, but we don't - we value the other stuff first. If the people you're arguing with don't care about the GPL, you can't invoke it as a moral authority.

Frankly, I'm kinda indifferent to the GPL, myself, and I'm hostile to people who treat it as a moral absolute; I work on this project only for the sake of the end-game we're able to create and play. Open-source was just pragmatically the easiest way to develop it.

Every contributor to Wesnoth eventually has to deal with modification of their work, and yes, I believe it is elitist to say "our GPL works are 'unmodifiable'".

This is factually incorrect; the vast majority of submissions to open-source projects are never modified or altered in any way, just moved around. Most lines of code aren't even moved (if you don't count insertions beforehand that aren't related same function/block). Serious refactors are pretty rare, and most refactors don't touch a lot of code. Rewrites, furthermore, don't recycle much (if any) code.

[Wussel]

Wow great discussion. Could we have simple rules?
Like: Post art-manips in workshop. Never aim at official replacement. Please respect the artists. Please do not be offended if someone practice recoloring with your art.

I give you an example from my hard drive. This is practice. This does not aim at replacement. I respect the original work and its creator.

sylph.png (75.48 KiB) Viewed 4127 times

[Loci]

I believe that such a policy is in fundamental conflict with the spirit of the GPL, and I felt compelled to post my opinion even though I knew it wouldn't be popular.

Protip: don't try and convince people to share your beliefs by appealing to those very beliefs. It's a tautology. It's like telling people they should do what god says because god says they should.

Meh. I think the conflict is quite clear: GPL says "modification = good"; Wesnoth Art forum says "modification = bad". You need not "believe" in the GPL to note this conflict any more than you'd need to "believe" in the Bible to note the conflicts therein. I am not trying to "preach" or "convert" anyone to "GPL-ism"; but the fact that Wesnoth is a GPL project means that the GPL applies whether you "believe" in it or not. You don't have to accept modified work into the project, but you don't get to tell people they can't modify your GPL work.

Every contributor to Wesnoth eventually has to deal with modification of their work, and yes, I believe it is elitist to say "our GPL works are 'unmodifiable'".

This is factually incorrect; the vast majority of submissions to open-source projects are never modified or altered in any way, just moved around. Most lines of code aren't even moved (if you don't count insertions beforehand that aren't related same function/block). Serious refactors are pretty rare, and most refactors don't touch a lot of code. Rewrites, furthermore, don't recycle much (if any) code.

Do you have any actual facts to support your "factual" assertion? It seems highly unlikely that more than half of the 55,000+ commits to the Wesnoth repository haven't modified existing code. Considering there are likely much less than 20,000 contributors, I'd say the odds are good that most of them have had their work "modified" at one point or another (and new contributors can have their work modified before it even reaches the database). Even LordBob's recent portraits for EI have already been changed in the database (compressed for size in revision 55522). Given those numbers, I find your claim that most submissions are never modified to be quite incredible.

[Speedbrain]

I can understand both viewpoints in this debate. However, I don't think any more arguments will persuade one side or the other.
I agree with Wussel:

Post art-manips in workshop. Never aim at official replacement. Please respect the artists. Please do not be offended if someone practice recoloring with your art.

[pyrophorus]

Meh. I think the conflict is quite clear: GPL says "modification = good"; Wesnoth Art forum says "modification = bad".

No. Linux project is open source too, but this doesn't means everyone can equally contribute. It's not elitism or anything of the like but pragmatism: it would ruin instantly the whole project if anyone could commit 'improvements' in it. Same with Wesnoth, it would become quickly a large heap of junk.

And what Jetrel said about code is true. Because the same thing he said about artwork applies to programs. It's not that easy to modify correctly a well written piece of code. Most often you introduce bugs doing that, and people who really can modify good code without introducing a lot of bugs prefer to rewrite it fully or use it as is.

Because the tools (texts an picture editors) are very easy to use, many people are tempted to imagine their modifications are valuable and can improve the work. They don't even see or understand what LordBob and Jetrel say: any Photoshop hack is not an improvement. They miss the existing consistency of the artwork (or of the code) and it results in a mess, even if they're happy with it.
IMO, the good thing to do is not to bash them, but to drive them to a deeper understanding of what is a good piece of art/code. Because this leads to respect skillfully done works instead of messing them blindly, and even to the first step to become a real artist or programmer.
And it is what was said to the OP: Photoshop hacks are not art and here, we want art. Nothing rude or elitist here.