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+--- Thread: Model acquired from commission was rejected by Models Resource reviewer, so was I sca (/thread-37851.html)
Model acquired from commission was rejected by Models Resource reviewer, so was I sca - AllHallowSteve - 09-12-2020
Model acquired from commission was rejected by Models Resource reviewer, so was I scammed?
I posted a commission for a model of Ly the Fairy from Rayman 2 for $25. Someone got in touch with me and offered to extract it for me, and I paid them a $10 deposit. When they sent me the model it seemed to look alright (it was the PS2 version), so I sent them the remaining $15 then. (They also offered to rig it for me for an extra $15 which I agreed to).
However when I uploaded the model to The Models Resource, it was rejected since it wasn't identical to the in-game model (the reviewer said specifically "This is either heavily edited, or it's some kind of recreation"). The reviewer showed me the comparison between this model and the in-game model and there was a noticeable difference alright. At that point I thought that I must have been conned by someone who just created a fake model in order to swindle me out of my cash.
I tried getting in touch with the extracter again to see what they had to say about this. I showed them a comparison image between their extracted model and the in-game model (which I've posted below also). They claim that they did extract the model from the game. They say that they don't have the files anymore to prove it (which is believable to be fair since it was from about a year ago), but they gave a small explanation of how they did it. I've never extracted anything myself though so it's all greek to me, they could be talking nonsense and I wouldn't know either way. Even if they are describing a genuine extraction process, I still wouldn't know whether it would work with this particular game. The explanation they gave is:
"every emulator renders its view by using the native machine rendering system (DirectX or OpenGL). That allows a third-party process to hook in the graphics pipeline, and so I did using a modified version of Renderman that has the ability to export a textured mesh with proper UV, in Wavefront OBJ (available on Github)"
"the only special thing about PS2 is that a Stereoscopic Plugin needs to be added to PCSX2 so depth is conserved for a non-flat ripped model"
They also claim that there could be a secondary model of this character used in the game for specific purposes, which explains the differences. I had realised this already, but after looking through clips of the game I couldn't find any other model anywhere. All the Ly models in the game appear to be the same, which is different from this extracted model. They also claim that it could be from a different level of detail, which I'm not sure about. They said specifically:
"it's possible that the model is from a different level of detail (LoD) or multiple versions are used in-game, maybe because cutscenes plans needing more suitable details as it does happen in multiple games. If you would like a proof that it does happen, please check The Cutting Room Floor (TCRF) to see some examples "
I know I should've examined this model more thoroughly and compared it with the in-game footage myself when they sent it to me (I could've then refused to give them the remaining $15 and asked for the $10 deposit back), but I fully trusted that everyone would be above board here and that everything would run smoothly, so I just had a quick glance over it.
I thought I'd ask all you your opinion on this though. Does this extracter's explanations make sense or do you think they're just transparent excuses? Has anyone had any experiences with receiving an unsatisfactory model or ripping an unexpected model themselves? Are people known to scam others here by creating fake models for their commissions? (I would've thought that that'd be too much effort to be worth it, that it'd take about as much work as just figuring out how to extract the model). Has any situation like this happened before that you know of?
Thanks for taking the time to read this, I know it's a lot.