Sprite Stealing
 

Recently a webcomic I've been involved with has been accused of using slightly modified sprites from FF VI (FFIII in America) by a person who is rather experienced with sprite comics. The sprites are original, but I wanted to see what others thought. Our sprites are on the top with the FF sprites on the bottom.

For now I'm not going to make any comment about the differences I see. I'm also using the sprites I thought looked most similar so that things like shoulder pads, pony tails, and eye formation could be compaired. It would be best to look at these in paint under a 8x zoom for comparison, it would also help if you looked at them side by side. I can post them larger, and side by side if requested.

If the person who's opinion about the sprites being ripped happens to read this I just want to let you know that I mean no insult, I am merely seeing if your opinion has merrit. If so we may make changes to our comic.

After looking at those sprites, I have no idea what this guy is talking about. "Oh, oh -- they both have a ponytail! It must be a ripoff!"

Wait a second... it's that jackass from Squidi.net, isn't it?

*GASP* I love squidi, I hope he isn't the asshole behind this groundless accusation.

Wow. You guys catch on quick.

I'm confused. What's wrong with using modified sprites in a comic? Don't all comics used a few custom sprites?

yup, those are definately ripped-off sprites. Why, they're nothing but simple recolors of the FFIII sprites. It's plain and simple...

(Crack I smoked three hours ago wears off)

..oh, wait. Nevermind. My bad.

lol k thanks guys, I thought it was just me. The guy really does know what he's doing with sprites, but after comparing them myself I was completely baffeled. Anyway thanks for the possitive responce, and I really appriciate the confirmation.

There's nothing really wrong with it. It's mostly just a pride thing. Obviously 8-bit uses a few non original sprites, and it's arguably the best web comic out there. So it's not all about the sprite creation. The reason it was brought up in the first place is that we had wanted to advertise, and we were told in responce that the site did not support comics that used ripped sprites.

You all should know that Frozen Chrono is handleing this acusation much better than I did.

Now, the question; 'Is there anything wrong with modified sprites?' has been posed, and while that really should be dedicated to an entire seperate thread (or not at all lest he-who-must-not-be-named appears) I have this to say:

The general opinion of mere sprite recolors and in some cases, edits, are low. I don't like seeing a green Miles 'Tails' prower with a Fox McCloud helmet and body, and I don't like seeing Kirby and Mario as roomates. Bob & George may be the grand-pappy of a genre, but I dislike it a lot for its sheer lack of origonal art. However, then we come to a comic, a very special one. One '8-bit theatre' has taken the sprite comic genre to a new high with not only custom sprites, but very impressive photoshoppery. One can rightly call 8-bit a peice of art, becuase it is as much art as is photography snapshots (i.e., the "ripped" sprites) and is as much art as painting is (i.e. the effects and drawings in photoshop).

So as far as being wrong in an artistic sense, it, too some degree, is a matter of personal opinion, although the black and white can be seen once you move beyond those personal shades of grey (sorry... bad metaphor). I'm not going to touch the legality side of it however... I don't want to attract unwanted attention.

Now on OUR sprites, I pose the question; Let's assume that one or two of those FFVI sprites WERE actually used as a base for our entire cast of charecters.
Is it artistically wrong/unethical that we did that and modified them to their current form becuase they aren't different enough?

Or is it wrong becuase we started out using that base to begin with, regardless of the outcome?

OR does the modified sprite eventually become so different from the base, that we could rightly claim them as our own?

Now, personally, I do think our sprites look similar, but that is entirly based on two things 1)intended effect of the sprite art (meaning, we like the video game look) and 2)the sheer tinyness of the sprites. Can you tell me how many different head shapes can be accomplished at that size, in the 2-dimensional appearance? It looks sufficiently different to me. But I was amazed at how similar the faces are to that of kid radd & company minus the extra colors in our palette... and I KNOW that Dan Miller did those sprites himself.

To me, the sprites in question appear to be loose edits of the default chipset used in the English version of RPG Maker 2000. I'm not saying that they were ripped from the spritesheets - I'm merely stating an observation.

actually
 

You are not completly incorrect. We needed a starting point, and a resized 'RPG maker' sprite served as that.

But to say that our sprites are DIRECT rips and re-sized/recolored images, is faulty. Loosely, the dimensions are the same. But since I'm not the artisit who did those sprites for our comic, I can't rightly go into a great amount of detail. All I know is, one day, we had about 14 VERY unique looking sprites to use for something cool. (our sprite guy has stepped back from full-blown involvment)

Once again, I will bring to attention the similarity of all sprites done at that angle, and of that size. Outfits, hair styles, limbs etc, of OUR images, are all different enough to merit a claim on them, IMO.

As a side point; If I'm not mistaken however, are not the images from the RPG maker game copyright free? As I understand it, RPG maker is akin to MTV music generator, in that the content can be published freely, no matter how modified it is.