We need a way to put NOTES on specific assets, for copyright and license info

Probably. Maybe. But worth thinking through. It can be so much nicer to have something machine-readable for this type of thing.

There might also be an argument for adding creation and modified timestamps in there as well…

Here’s my perspective…

Open-source software is an amazing movement of free creativity, enabled by simple text copyright and license comments at the top of source files, that stay with the source files if you move them around or put them in a new project… but in 3d assets we don’t even have THAT.

In 3d assets, we have a total mess. There is no way to track even text copyright notices. They are usually outside the datafiles, and if they are inside, they are in text blocks with no way to connect them to the assets.

I like the idea of tools knowing what is a copyright notice, and what is a license declaration… but I do not like the idea of a finite set of licenses, because then the cost of adopting a license other than the “approved ones in the enum” becomes very high… and I for one don’t care for any of the CC licenses. (CC-Zero is okay, but I want something more like LGPL, so I’m writing a new license)

Your suggestion of tracking dates for the comments is interesting… and opens up another set of thoughts. open source code is normally tracked in revision repositories which provide this kind of “what happened when” history, but 3d assets are normally not. Perhaps a longer term vision for this is to create a way to track asset revision history over time. I don’t really know how this would work, so I’ll have to think on that.

@dgorsman - i personally don’t like viral licenses or rendering attribution. Of the licenses out there today, I prefer CC-Zero (basically public domain), and I discourage the use of CC-BY for all but the rarest of assets, (1) because attribution is a cost that is too high for most openly shared assets, and (2) because I want to encourage an ecosystem where people can edit and improve and remix and combine and share… and this really doesn’t work if every little edit is tacking on another rendering attribution requirements. However, an environment like this needs clear “open licensing” declarations on assets, otherwise people are afraid to use the assets at all.

2 Likes

Crap, I wasn’t suggesting that. More about have creation and modified on internal parts of the blend file (again, probably on the object struct). So you might make a new blend file but it could contain old assets and you could tell that you made the car last month, the street last year, etc. Sort your assets by date in a way that is independent of the file they are contained in.

Another thought: “How do you employ self discipline?”
Because GPL allows anyone to remove the whole shebang, if user wishes to. Ton did the Great Contemplation on all this. Every “mental simulation” ends & brings me back to “build a new app” - “Blender must die” :face_with_raised_eyebrow:

I like this idea.

My current thinking about a UI for all of this is to make a new “configurable” data-table editor type, where you can build a custom view by specifying a search/filter/sort and setup your own custom columns to display… Then i’d use it to create a “Licenses” workspace where you can see a big clear table of data-assets, with an icon or thumbnail, and you can see and edit their copyright and license notes. Create date would be a nice part of that.

In theory this data-table and the outliner could be one and the same, and the current outliner views could just be configurations, which would make them configurable… but in practice merging a configurable table with an expanding outline is very challenging from a code and UI perspective.

I don’t understand what you’re trying to say here. I’m interested in enabling freely usable, remixable, redistributable assets. I’m less concerned with enforcement of people removing the free declarations, i’m concerned with enabling people to remix and reuse them because they are clearly marked as free.

My concern for your idea is not about the idea itself. My worry is that as it gets complex and specialized to its purpose the less likely it can be something that will be accepted.

So I’m trying to think of parts of it that are more universal that can still be used for your purpose.

I find it interesting to think about having modified and created on objects. And the thought of setting some “owner” text in preferences that gets copied into new objects. So while looking at a complex scene that I am working on constantly I can still see that the car model was last edited a month ago, but was originally made by “davesf” two years ago.

If you then add a field to the object for a short freeform note, then it could used for any purpose at all. But a Licensing addon could use it for your specific purpose, and that might be enough, and it means that Blender doesn’t have to really concern itself with managing license information.

as @Harley just noted - scenes are getting more complex by day, just look at the scene complexity evolution of last couple of decades, balance of sources VS work invested becomes as tedious as is with master’s degree. it’s why i already noted, some of us do similarly as academics or as we must & are obliged for commercial projects (credits, contracts… human readable written form attached - ie. Disney’s Moana Island scene (readme & license))
So, if Disney doesn’t bothers to invest it’s tech/resources to ID it’s “free” stuff…

… to be aware (in case of butt-hurt), “officials” are employed only after certain amount of damage is done and can be retributed
:wink:
also to consider, ROI or “where there’s nothing, nothing can be taken”, but sometimes “Chicken’s head gets cut off to scare off monkeys”

Finally, it’s all about humanity and free spirit. Yet “WE” still wonder what that is :slight_smile:

@harley - exactly and I agree…Perhaps my strawman was not clear. I prefer not to add any “license” knowledge to blender at all.

I was talking about adding a new flexible “data table” editor type that could be used to configure a custom tabular display of any of the existing data in blender, with custom columns. You could use it to make a table of your meshes, with a column showing face count. In that way it would just be a new and generally useful part of blender, not a “license” feature. Or maybe I could extend the existing outliner to let users customize what columns are displayed and make your own outliner config pages.

On top of that, I could add a couple fields, such as create_date, and text_comment, and EXIF/XMP field support for images. These would just be regular blender data which could be seen in the outliner, and configured into the tabular display above.

Then the “Asset” workspace, would be something any users could make within blender using those features… make a table, filter what data-block-types you want to see, and configure what columns you want to see…

I’m not sure about all this… this is just what I’m thinking at the moment. No matter what solution I use, I agree it needs to be very small and conservative in order to get the patch accepted. Even better if I can start out as just a python addon.

1 Like

For game engine i think this is irrelevant since anything going trough the game engine format will erase any kind of data related to original model.

For other media department as long as it is not saved into another format data will still be readable.

Maybe You could use Custom property, thay are carred along with blocks

Eg. License value with license type description in tooltip

@polynut - custom properties could work for data wrapped in objects, though I think the custom properties UI would need some improvement to better deal with text notes. it’s more designed for numeric values, so when you put text in it you can’t even see the values.