I wouldn't say I've joined the dark side... I still wear a big white hat and rose-coloured glasses and fight for puppies and christmas...  but some recent discussions have (at least partially) changed a lot of my previously-held opinions.  And though some of ya'll may act like gaping assholes a lot of the time, there are some interesting discussions that happen here among the stupid ones, which is mainly why I'm here.

I certainly won't deny that it's one hell of a good case for theft when so many meshes over and over and over on three specific sites can be associated with existing Poser hair, with definite similarities.  There are a few styles in particular that I cannot imagine were not at least copied from Poser hair, if not outright converted and stolen.

However, I cannot say for my own certainty that they are 100% for sure stolen.  If I had the Poser meshes in-hand I could do so, but I don't, so I can't.  And without being able to say, "This is stolen from you," I wouldn't go and contact Poser creators.

That's just a personal thing, having dealt with suspected thefts of all kinds of sim content for a while now.  I've learned not to say it's stolen till I've had it up in Photoshop or Milkshape to compare the actual pieces with my own eyes.

For what it's worth, I personally believe they are stolen, but that 1% of doubt for not having both to open keeps me from crusading about it.  That, and I would rather focus on the positive aspects and leave the crusade to someone who can't convert hair.  

We don't have specific plans to contact those who have had things stolen to do conversions of their work.  At this point in the game we are converting free work that we already have permissions for, and looking into getting more permissions for more items.  We may end up contacting some of the same artists that have had work probably stolen, but only to ask for permission, not to alert them to the possible thefts.  Certainly wouldn't shy away from discussing it if they brought it up, but, well...  I think we just want to focus on converting hair.

What we convert will be based, well, mainly on what Nouk and I look at and go, "Eee, cute!" as well as what we think would be easy/doable to convert, and what we can get permissions for.

Picture proof is one thing.  It goes a long way, and the fact that so many hair meshes have major elements in common with several Poser hair meshes is... a pretty damn good case for it.  

However, I don't think anyone with the skill and knowhow has actually taken the time to open up both the original Poser meshes (which are often pay - $5-10 per mesh) and textures and the suspected Sims 2 mesh and texture and truly compare them, mainly due to lack of having the Poser meshes in hand.

Without that, it's just accusations.

The Poser Initiative does not have specific plans to make contact with creators of original Poser meshes we suspect have been stolen and alert them of the theft.  I certainly wouldn't withhold any of the suspicions from their community (and I've been talking to several folks in chat and in forums about it and shown them stuff)...  

The goal of the Poser Initiative is not to expose these possible thefts, but provide a steady supply of quality free hair to the community, working together with the Poser community to do so with complete permissions, credits, and links.  The suspected thefts actually make it somewhat harder for us to get the permissions from the Poser community, I think, as if they have heard of the previous thefts, they may think we're just going to do the same thing.  I'm working hard to set things right and make it clear to them that that's not what we're going to do.  We'll see how it goes.

I haven't read through the whole thread, so I'm mainly just responding to LesserOr here, but... the Poser Initiative is just about making hair and trying to do it well and for free for everyone.  If other people want to get proactive about making accusations that they can offer to the original creators of the suspected thefts, that's their business.  

Well, I never claimed my approach was necessarily the only way to do it, just a lot more pleasant than pissing people off.  I would have hoped the tone of my post would have made it clear I wasn't entirely serious believing that positive forces for change would do it by itself, but I think sometimes the thieves' guild forgets that you can do good stuff and make a change that way, too.  

And no, Pescado, I wasn't expecting you to be nice.  I've dealt with you enough to realize that flowers are never going to sprout out of your butt, and that hostility is the way you do things.  I don't always agree with you, but you occasionally make me fall out of my chair laughing... However, I still think you're a chick.  Only a woman would have the drive to be this crazy over pixel dollies.  

Yes, Renatus, I did have an avatar like that... and my user title on S2C is currently "Sacrifices Children to Dark Powers" as a reference to part of my Queen of Evil contest entry, in which my Countess sacrifices a sim-child to, err, a demon-thing, in exchange for spooky power or... something.  

I flip wildly from being pissed off and angry at the world to wanting to hug it and give it a puppy.  I blame my uterus.

I choose to try to decrease the amount of people willing to pay by showing them the shoddiness of pay hair, and trying to get together a group of folks, myself included, to offer them a quality free alternative.

Also, we've got pie.  You like pie, don't you?  

I don't think it's a matter of fence-sitting.  One can believe paysites are a detriment to the community while not supporting filesharing.

While I have changed my mind quite a bit on paysites and would greatly prefer the community turn back to all free content, I'd prefer to see it done through positive works that make it so the player base doesn't feel they need to pay for content when they can get plenty of good stuff for free.  

While filesharing may result in paysite owners throwing fits and taking their ball and going home, I'd rather see their mind changed through hugs and candy and showing them that it should be done for the love of creation, rather than greed - and that the community will no longer accept paysites.  Idealist and unrealistic, I know, but I like this rose-coloured world I live in.  It's pretty, and all the boys wear Enayla skins and eyeliner.

Being a moderator in that area, I can see the deleted posts.  

Everything that was deleted in that discussion was either linking to this/the related site, which has been stated quite clearly is not allowed on S2C, or was flaming, inflammatory, or a response to flaming - posts that would not have added to the discussion and would have steered things toward insults, namecalling, or simply would have added very little or nothing to the matter at hand.

While you may enjoy the ability to blast people without limit here, I think the fact that that thread was both allowed to go on, and kept from degenerating into a flamewar has been a great thing for the community.  

It has changed a lot of minds, and the fact that, despite having lots of heated discussion on both sides of the issue, it has remained, on the whole, a civil discussion surprised the heck out of me, and I'm darn glad it's been allowed to continue.  It has brought up a lot of topics that needed saying, and inspired the Poser Initiative to get started, which will be a great and positive thing for the community.  I can't say it has changed my mind -entirely- but I think myself and others are one heck of a lot less pleased with paysites in general (especially after seeing the way some major paysite owners think of the community), and I think it's about time some minds started a-changin'.

You may not like being able to see the flames and grumpities, but the fact that they were deleted allowed that thread to continue peacefully... And at the end of the day, S2C is Delphy's site and he can do as he pleases.  

Male/female toddlers and male/female children can share hair - they use the same head and skeleton and all.  No real conversion required besides linking the mesh to a recolour package and putting in the right textures.  It could be gender-flipped with settings pretty easily that way too if you wanted to just do those - technically there are female versions of my New Roman and Cherub hairs for toddler and child already, then, just with a bit of setting changes... But I'd ultimately like to have a full package that works right for all ages for females for them too, and one day I'll either get off my butt and do so, or find someone willing to do it right that I trust to not screw it up.  Just doing the gender-flip setting change for younger ages would work, if you removed the older ages, but then they wouldn't really age gracefully.  I'll remove younger ages if they're irrelevant but kid stuff with adult ages removed bugs me.

I'd certainly be willing to help if someone wanted to put a few brain cells toward it, or if people want to pester me more to do them myself, it'd probably help and I'd do them quicker.  I'm slow, but when I do it eventually, I want it done right.  

Male/female teen won't fit each other, nor will male/female adult/young adult/elder so those have to be reworked.  Not too hard a process depending on the hair, but the hairline's a lot squarer on males than females, so it takes some fiddling with there.

I usually retain the base scalp for everything so I just have to rework whatever layers on top to roughly fit around the hairline.  Works one heck of a lot better than trying to refit the whole thing.

Hehe, well, thank you.  I make and share it out of the love of creating, and a deep masochism that makes me spend huge amounts of time making pixel dollie hair from scratch.

I've had plans to cross-gender them for a while, it's just a matter of finding time and stuff - but I certainly would be open to someone who knows how asking permission to do so, and releasing them free with credit to a reputable site like MTS2, if I don't get there first.  I may be a little "Nyarr, terms of use!" on my uploads but I'm pretty open to just about anything with permission, credit, and a link.  

I don't mind my hair put on fat sims, but by god, at least turn up the graphics detail and work on the face sculpt.  I'm way more offended by slapping it on a Maxis Face 1 wearing mittens than a fat sim.

I've been part of gaming/modding communities before, and it gets very cliquey and odd, but never like this.  The Sims 2 community totally has its own culture, its own quirks, and I can't believe that we've gone on this long allowing paysites to grow and prosper.

As a digital artist before Sims 2 (not a very good one, but, hey, I like drawing pretty boys with pointy ears) and as a 3d texture artist now, I can understand at least partially why artists get so freaked out about defending their work and wanting to control it.  It's odd to release something you've made to so many people from so many different walks of life, to be used in stories and movies and pics and contests and all that stuff, and you never know if they're just going to take it and SUCK with it, which they often do.

But for me the whole thing, creating, being part of the community, writing tutorials, giving help and support... has all become a learning experience in dealing with all sorts of people, languages, and cultures.  I won't ever make any cash off what I do for Sims 2, but I've already made money off the -skills- I've learned from modding for TS2 (I did some simple 3d models for a logo design I made real money off of), so maybe someday the cute boy I love will stop making fun of my obsession with pixel dollies and realize that I've learned some useful stuff that can buy real pizza.


I think we all just need to remember to take a nice deep breath before signing in and getting upset, and realize that, at the end of the day, we're a bunch of dorks sitting at the computer playing with imaginary dolls in imaginary dollhouses, and getting all bent out of shape over pretty dresses  for our pixel dollies.  

I'm not sure what to think anymore, but I wouldn't be here if my mind hadn't been changed at least somewhat.

I create, and I spend a lot of time creating, so I understand why creators might want to get something back monetarily for their efforts.  I also have always created for free, and I don't think pay content is really any better than what's free - in fact often the opposite, so I wonder why certain creators decide that their work is worth money while what others make is not.  When I think of my favourite content, it is all free.  I've thought about doing pay content, but never have, because I just don't feel comfortable charging for something that shouldn't be paid for.

This is a game, and we are hobbyists, and if people are in it for the money, they're in it for the wrong reason.  Do it for the love of creation or not at all.  I've come to a point where I do sort of feel like it'd be better to have less content than to have this big pay silliness.

I don't agree with everything about the way this site is run, and I don't think that negativity will help anything, but I would greatly prefer to see the Sims 2 community return to free content, and to remove the greed from our hobby.  I want everyone to have nice stuff for their pixel dollies... so I'm just gonna keep on making free hair for everyone and hopefully everyone will end up better and smarter for the whole thing.

Just get decently drunk before you go out in the mobs of apes.  Makes it a lot easier.

I got a digital camera and a bunch of chocolate, and fed on bacon and wine until sated.  

The effort required on my part was minimal.  I wrapped some things, but I like tying bows.  It gives me a sense of accomplishment.

Besides, twinkly lights are pretty.