NicolaiB

Olanov is not staff, he's a tester and a former moderator. I'm not saying that we won't address the issue, but the solution has to be proportionate to the issue. The issue isn't as big as it's made out to be, the accusations were made on images uploaded by a handful of people. What I'm also saying is that we're not going to implement anything we know can't be enforced, we'll be back here if we do because we, yet again, refuse to take action. You're saying that people are free to break the rules if they disagree with them or disagree with how we deal with the issues we have. Where does that stop then, can a user do the same on your images? Can users abuse each other if they see topic bumping or someone uploaded ten images within 30 minutes to the gallery? Where's that line drawn of when it's acceptable to break the rules? Apparently it's okay for users to accuse other users and us of doing wrong, but it's not acceptable to do the same thing to them. The solution should reflect the scale of the issue, the solution shouldn't impact everyone else that aren't doing anything wrong. One very simple way to prevent the issue would be to prohibit any car mods (or any mod) that aren't released on LCPDFR.com or shown in a WIP thread. Then we could back up the theft claims in the images because it concerns material that's actually hosted on the site. We're damned if we do and damned if we don't. The "modders" will leave (despite you statement that they had left already) if we don't make drastic changes, but the same drastic changes are just as likely to cause the same number, or even more users to leave the site because they're now being mistreated.

There's no way for us to know if we're looking at the same 3d model in zmodeler as there's shown in the gallery image, we can't download the car and install it in the game, we'd rely on everyone being honest about the issue and that's not likely to be the case if it is a ripped model. In theory, my Charger model could be considered "stolen" by another user if he converted the same model to a police version, our models would look nearly identical in the gallery and the same would be the case if we compared images of their wireframes because we based our work on the same model. Ripping, theft and using models without permission is already against the guidelines: The definition of "respecting the work skill and dedication" is to not rip, to not steal and to not upload mods without permission from the people that made the original models. You're not respecting someone else's work if you rip a locked model, copy a skin or use anything without permission. We have no way of knowing if a model is ripped, it's not written on the model and very few people are likely to say that they ripped a model if we contact them, however, it's reasonable to assume that you don't have permission from the author to use the model if you rip it so it would be against the new rules. Permission can be as little as getting the model from the creator without being told not to include it in any mod releases. The same goes for unlocked models that are released publicly, they're freely available so it's reasonable for anyone to assume that they can freely use the model without being concerned about permissions as long as the creators are credited for the model when it's released. We can't address ripping on their own, we can make it clear when we consider something to be used with permission and encourage everyone to make sure that they have something to support their statement in case someone disputes it. The gallery is a bit more troublesome, partly for the reasons I talked about earlier in this post and in my earlier post. Any restrictions that would combat the problem would also place restrictions that aren't reasonable on the 99.9999% of users that aren't involved in modding or who are showing off mods that aren't ripped or used without permission. As you said, it's only a few people who do rip so the way we deal with the issue should reflect that. I'm not saying that we're ignoring it, but the way we deal with it should not punish the vast majority of users that aren't ripping and stealing.

Final update on the Chargers, they should be released on Saturday. I just made a few changes regarding the tyres, the car now rides higher, especially at the rear in order to look more like the real versions showed in the videos posted here. The old tyres are on the left car, the new tyres on the right car: Full side view.

Oh thanks for posting this, I noticed that the real car has more ground clearance than the model I use.

Regarding the rules, here's the current draft of the section pertaining to modding, credits and permissions. I personally that that is a reasonable way of addressing theft, the same rules can be applied to the forum sections that's designed to show off mods that are already hosted here or will be hosted here. The rule wouldn't work for the gallery as there's no way for us to know if we're handed the same model as there's shown in the images. The download section gives us a much stronger leg to stand on because we can take any disputed mods and put them in the game next to the claimed original mod as well as compare textures. In addition, permissions can be abused, a user could revoke "permission" after sharing a 3d model, part of a texture or a script with another user. 99.9% of modders wouldn't do it, but the possibility is there, pretty much everyone who gets 3d models or from other users could fall victim of it. My only suggestion is to make sure you can back up your permission with proof of it, it'd be mutual assurance that everything is as it should be. The same goes for handing models out, secure some form of documentations about it, even if you decline a request in case the user requesting it gets it somehow. In addition to the addition. Mods exclusive to multiplayer groups has caused reports in the past, they occurred as the creators of the mod changed his mind about it being exclusive to the group he is or were a member in.

Everyone is on the same page about theft, it is bad. The disagreements are about when something is considered stolen and what's acceptable behaviour when you see something that you believe is stolen.

No, "modders" are not supposed to stop "caring about their work", they're supposed to treat other users with respect. As you said, this issue has persisted for months, public accusations, attacks other users, it has been going on for months. Yes, it took us a while to look at the issue beneath the surface, the "surface" issue was bad enough (the accusations in the gallery). We're being accused publicly about not caring about the issue at hand and ignored the pleas that have been made as if we've deliberately done so. TThat the "modders" have done "nothing wrong", that they're the ones defending "what's right" by attacking other users. Are we not supposed to explain our side of the issues, to show what has been going on. We didn't make this announcement because we wanted to sling mud, we've been pushed and pushed even after the announcement. The hated is caused over gallery images, not mods that are uploaded to the site, but gallery images, that's what has caused all this. We're not desperate for anything apart from not having fights, accusations and drama every day over something as pointless as gallery images. As I said more than a week ago, we are working on new rules that will reflect the change in the community since the current rules were made. Modding has increased its presence on here so the rules should reflect that. The new rules will make it far clearer what "theft" is and how it's enforced and possibly most importantly, how it's dealt with by both users and us. It will also make it far clearer that everyone has behave respectfully towards everyone else. You say we've treated "modders" with no respect in this thread so why should anyone respect that part of the new rules or even the current rules? As you said, this issue has persisted for months, we've lashed out after months of daily accusations, of sanction evasions, and after failed attempts to resolve this peacefully without making a big fuzz. The "modders" wanted to take it public from the start so that's where we are now. Yes, it is absolutely pointless to go on any more, there's nothing to add. There's two separate issues and both issues needs to be addressed which they are going to be.

I certainly think that it's time to wrap up this issue at least in public. We could all spend our time on something more productive and I don't want to give those involved in the serious violations any more attention because they quite frankly don't deserve it. However this is degrading to mudslinging and that's not really doing much good, but it does go to show what's going on "behind the scenes" nowadays. Anyone who has constructive input concerning the issues discussed are more than welcome to PM me or Sam so we can take it into account when we work on the site.

Another kind message sent by a user less than 30 minutes ago.

This looks really promising, good luck. I think it would be interesting if the map assets that aren't used by LCPDFR were put some good use places like train stations, parks and interiors -TW@, Burger shots, Cluckin' Bell, laundromats could make for some interesting scenarios.

I'm not entirely sure who made the text bar, but there's a few options in our Dev resources: '?do=embed' frameborder='0' data-embedContent>> That's pretty close to what you're looking for, the font and colour can be edited to blue in Photoshop. There's also this Australian 'bar with a text board, it's a little different to the one used by the NYPD, but it looks nice: '?do=embed' frameborder='0' data-embedContent>>

Apart from lag, your game might become unstable if you use many high poly models. It's not much of a problem for IV to render one high detail model, but it does put up a fight if you're in a pursuit with 5/6 AI cop cars involved or you have a couple of back-up units on their way to help you out, the framerate might drop or objects (or even buildings) will "pop in".

It's frustration all-round as I commented last night, there's some valid points on both sides of the argument when you dig below the surface. The "modders" (term used to loosely describe the people involved in this) believed that we didn't care and ignored them. It's not the first time we have different views on certain things, then again, I don't expect us all to agree on everything, only that we respect each other and accept the compromises that we can agree on. The CT tries to take the majority of our users into account when we make decisions about the site, we don't expect individual users to do that, it doesn't invalidate their views or experiences, however it does mean that we can't take exactly what they say and implement it if it goes against the core values we believe the community stands for. Someone mentioned that it's not just "what you say, but how you say it" that matters, that's also true, we wouldn't be here if the "modders" politely contacted someone via PM if they noticed that someone might be using their models or brought up their concerns with us instead of ignoring the rules because "we don't care about them" We've had a user that was targeted by a small modding group because one of its members believed that the user didn't have permission to use certain parts of a model, they called the user out in public, one of the involved users even threatened with that" I could DDoS'ing your clan to its knees, how do you feel about that?" That's the worst-case scenario, it can't really get much worse than that. I also think it's fair to mention that some of those that were involved realised that it was getting out of hand, stopped and fully co-operated with us, we took that into account and actually tanked them for doing so. The user that uploaded the image also responded back to the "attackers" before reporting to us which also escalated the issue, however the responses he received weren't proportionate to the situation, nor did the "attackers" contact us about it. That situation escalated over certain parts of a model, the user that uploaded the image received two different copies edits of the same base model, he had permission to share and publicly use one of said models at the time, but was asked to keep the other model to himself. He complied with that request and used the model he had permission to show and share instead of the "private" version. Those involved could have talked about the issue, either by asking us to sit in and moderate the conversation, instead they opted for the "effective" approach of calling him out in public. I'm not much for calling it "mod theft", theft is defined as: Source You're not "deprived" of your models if another user uses it without permission. I think it's more aptly described as exactly that, using content without permission. What we don't like about what's been going on is the lack of respect directed at us. I made it clear in the staff thread we had about the issue early on that the "modders" actions aren't acceptable but that I can understand their frustration, it doesn't excuse their behaviour, but we do understand that people get frustrated. That's a PM I received from a "modder", he wasn't banned, he didn't even get a warning for that, instead we exchanged several PM's (15 thus far). Here's another PM from a different "modder" in a similar tone: The user in question was given several in-thread warnings about accusations, he was one of the 25 modders we contacted, he was given several warnings, temp suspension,put on moderator approval, temporarily revoked posting rights, then created a second account to circumvent the sanctions (where he also posted a thread asking "where he can rip" mods). Some of the people we contacted were reasonable and were interested in engaging in a conversation about the issues, however the PM's above, especially the first shows the attitude by some people, being the majority of people that claim that we don't listen or care about theft. Those people are why this thread is here and that's why we're acting the way we are in this thread.

Photoshop can work magic, you can turn Susan Boyle into Carmen Electra or make a Fiat Uno look like a the new Dodge Charger. (or you can turn Susan Boyle into a new Charger or a Fiat Uno into Carmen Electra if you want) (no, really, you can!)(don't though) It can also be used to improve your LCPDFR screenshots, you don't have to use Photoshop, but my tips concern my experiences in Photoshop, I'm sure GiMP, Paint.net and other image editors does a fine job too (photoshop is best though) Pre-'shop, it's the new Pre-Crime! I get my screenshot from videos. Every now and then I record some LCPDFR without adding commentary, it's just a plain old LCPDFR gameplay video, no camera mods used. They rarely make it to YouTube, but they produce some fine screenshots Most recording software can take screenshots of your desktop or of VLC. Some editing software also takes screenshots of the video you're editing if you can't open the raw video in VLC (Action.exclamation-mark does this). It's a lot easier for me to do it this way, I don't have to take screenshots while I'm in hot pursuit of a fleeing car or bullets are raining down around my poor cop in-game. The video captures it all and I can grab all the images I want later so I can get the right image at the right time. I'll have a look at the video once I'm done playing, take the screenshots I need and open them in photoshop. At the 'shop Crop and rotate A simple crop and rotate can take this plain pursuit screenshot: It looks like a couple of tame(but fuzzy-cute) domestic cats as they lazily waft though the kitchen in search of their bowl of food. And make it this: Far more striking and dramatic, the Chargers are leaping onto the fleeing Taxi like a hungry pack of lions on a gazelle, they're angry, growling and panting for air as they make that final, deadly leap onto the terrified animal that's soon to be dinner. Image adjustments Another valuable tool in Photoshop is the image adjustment tools, you can ask photoshop to automatically correct the colours, tones and contrast or you can do it yourself, I can't give you any "perfect" values for each setting because it varies by image, everything from ELS, textures and ENB's change the ways the game looks (thus changing how your raw screenshots look. Keep the changes small, don't change the hues or adjust the colour saturation too much (it'll end up a franken-image if you do), keep it light and try and make it look as natural as you can, make changes that compliments the subject, don't alter the subject. There's several different features, you can apply, photo filters(different than Photoshops other "filters") warms, cools or adds a gentle colour tone to the image, curves is a good way to brighten shadows, small saturation or vibrancy changes can help bring out the colours or make a darker, more serene image if turned down It depends on how you want the image to be (using HDR is enough to revoke your photoshopping rights though, HDR kills every day.) It's far from being all Photoshop can be, but it should be enough to give your screenshots the pizazz they deserve (and hopefully get you to scavenge photoshopping tutorials online). Finally, don't add watermarks, I've done that on images in the past and those images are forever ruined.

Of course, it's not reasonable to expect or require modders to release their models unlocked, it brings a different set of problems along. It also sounds like "the modders" think that we ignored their input because we didn't use their suggestions directly. That's not true, we still use the input, the opinions and experiences you all shared when we're making decisions. Some of the feedback concerned that we haven't adapted to the shift from being mostly oriented on LCPDFR to a more general IV modding community with emergency services being the primary focus with LCPDFR the mod being a good part of that. That's something we are working on changing, the upcoming forum structure will move all the modding related sections further up the broad, the download section will also get a small overhaul with new categories that makes it easier to find mods. Another part of the feedback concerned the rules, the general tone among those that responded reasonably felt that our rules also hadn't adapted to the change, they were especially concerned that mod theft was not specifically prohibited or that our definition of mod theft aren't specific enough. Again, that's very reasonable, we're going to make the rules a lot clearer to avoid any confusion as well as explain the consequences of breaking them, the current rules are very ambiguous because they were made when the community was ten times smaller and vastly different than it is now, you could count the mods hosted on here very quickly three or even two years ago. A new set of rules haven't been that easy for us to do, we've tried during the autumn, but the rules I ended up with were far too complicated to have any practical use. The new rules also have to take LCPDFR's core values in mind, the rules has to be fair on everyone, we can't have rules that are unenforceable or applies unreasonable restrictions on the vast majority of members that aren't doing anything wrong. It's a lot easier than it sounds, everyone on the CT is here because we care about LCPDFR and the community we have, but we're not professionals and we've been incredibly busy for a long time, we used to be 10 mods (including management). for 100k members on the forum, the gallery, the group system and the file section to maintain. We now have 13 mods,111.827 members with more registering every day, more posts, gallery images and files posted every day. Especially December was hard on us, Sam let us know that 1.0 were close to release and asked us all to do as much testing as possible. That's around the time the public accusations took off on here. During the month of December we tested 1.0, we dealt with all the accusations at first, then we started a very thorough process of contacting over 20 modders for their input where we partly asked them kindly to stop the accusations, the accusations continued, albeit slightly reduced, usually one to tree fights happened every day. That's a lot of work for us, we barely had time to actually work on the issues that was brought up. We all have real lives (with Christmas as well, not everyone could be here), the accusations that we had to intervene on, the correspondence with everyone and our own conversations about the issues, testing 1.0 and taking care of all our other CT duties while subsequently handing everything when 1.0 came out. I know that the majority of the Community Team feel that the recent events haven't been fair on us, I especially think it's wrong to say that we're ignoring or not caring about the issue,we've done a lot to be as nice as possible, we understood that some people were frustrated for the reasons described above, I understand that frustration can be rushed out on the internet and we cut those involved a lot of slack when they repeatedly went against the rules and a number of personal requests to stop it. We hoped that everyone would calm down after a while. We haven't changing anything concerning the issue because we simply haven't had time, we contacted the first modders on the 18th of December, today is the 22nd of January.

Everyone who accused in public were contacted about mod theft, not only to stop the accusations but to talk about the underlying issue. Very few listened but carried on doing the same thing. We did hear their opinions about the issue, but nothing changed on their side. We gave them what you claim they wanted, to hear them out, to listen, yet a lot of them didn't care. It's nice to hear that someone who is experienced in modding agree with us about the image >Sam posted here or the majority of the images that has caused accusations as no statement was made about the origin of the model(s) shown. That's what we've been saying all along. Yes, it would be far, far easier for everyone involved if nothing was locked, mod theft certainly wouldn't be a problem if that was the case. It would be far easier for us to enforce rules regarding correctly crediting users for their work if we can easily verify the origin of the various 3d models, cars and equipment alike than it is for us to rely on screenshots and statements about permissions. It would also help out the community as everyone who is interested din making mods can easily access a wide array of models.