[mrmosky]

I don't know how you would do this.

[QJ-6811]

and why? :unknw:

[eric from trainsim]

No. This is an open system with non-proprietary formats, so if it can be rendered at runtime, it can be deconstructed to the vectors that make up the mesh.

For 20+ years, the honor system has worked fairly well with respecting others work.

[mrmosky]

When the model is converted to a .s file by TSM, a lot of the individual objects are combined into one matrix. If Blender works in the same way, that makes it difficult or impossible to reverse engineer into the original parts. That, in turn, makes it difficult to edit or re-texture the parts, I would think.

Geoff

[Fleegle411]

Preventing editing of ace files is pretty simple, just use one of those wild codings that makes the more common pieces of decompression software go nuts. That being said, I usually don't have any use for equipment I can't repaint unless it's either EXACTLY to my personal specifications, or it's going to be far enough in the background that I don't really care about it anyways.
As for preventing the reverse engineering of .s files, the file format itself does a pretty good job of it. I am only aware of one program that can convert a .s file into a format that can be read into a 3d editor, and the end result is a file that requires a lot of work to return it just to the base level it was already at. All the smoothing gets lost and the textures always seem to require adjustment. (I am referring to a project from years ago where we got the OK from the original creator to do this and tweak the models to our needs.) To make something usable out of such a mangled file requires just about the same level of skill required to build a model from scratch to begin with. It's not terribly practical.

[Genma Saotome]

eolesen, on 23 October 2023 - 04:55 AM, said:

For 20+ years, the honor system has worked fairly well with respecting others work.

Within the MSTS/OR people, yes. But our modelers get little respect in the Tranz world where MSTS/OR models are often reverse engineered.

[QJ-6811]

Are we now going to encrypt .WAV files or .SMS or .ENG files as well, so that no one can modify them?
Or are we going to encrypt certain facilities in OR with passwords in order to use them, because someone has spent hours/days of effort on this?
I find it strange that .ACE and .S files need to be protected?
In my opinion, if someone wants and can adjust something "for their own personal reasons", that should be possible, that is OR's great hobby.
Of course, it is not the intention to put something from someone else on the site under your own name. Or use it commercially.!

As already said, for 20+ years, the honor system has worked fairly well with respecting others work.
Let's keep it that way!

[pwillard]

After 20+ years of MSTS and now this locking of files is important? No, its not. Anything you do to LOCK the files down, makes them incompatible with MSTS, MSTSBIN and ORTS. I doubt you have created something that someone else couldn't replicate from scratch anyway... if they were so inclined. Worried about theft? Well, what's left of this community, (and it is small), has a zero tolerance for it.

If you are trying to coverup some thing YOU borrowed without asking... well, that's a whole different scenario.

Look at it this way... Erick and I are giving the source to some of our models away... You are bucking a trend... big time.