Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Magic Circle Generator

game-dev-goose.itch.io

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

1–10 of 14 posts

Re: Magic Circle Generator

#5

Post by donatj »

The output is pretty neat but not nearly neat enough to justify the draconian licensing rules on using the output; rules both needlessly complicated and blurry enough to probably a be nonstarter for a lot of people and far moreso companies.

I can use the images in a product, but not sell them directly? The transformative line is ill defined. Can I sell the images if I use them in an artwork? If it’s a major part of my game can I sell t-shirts with it? Other merch? If so the question becomes where’s the line shifting back the other way. Surely I can’t just apply a filter to the images and then sell them. There’s a completely ill defined line, it’s a dumb restriction.

You’re better off just spending 20 minutes making something similar in Illustrator yourself and avoiding the silly legal minefield this thing is trying to set out for you.

Re: Magic Circle Generator

#7

Post by krapp »

stingraycharles wrote: post #4

Can someone explain what a "magic circle" is ? I have no idea and the website doesn't explain it, but since it's on the frontpage, I assume I must be out of the loop.

It's a circle containing arcane symbols used in ceremonial magic[0,1] also used as a common visual shorthand for magical effects (particularly area of effect spells) in video games and anime[1].

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_circle

[1]https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Magic_Circle.png

[2]https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GeometricMagic

Re: Magic Circle Generator

#8

Post by bb88 »

donatj wrote: post #5

The output is pretty neat but not nearly neat enough to justify the draconian licensing rules on using the output; rules both needlessly complicated and blurry enough to probably a be nonstarter for a lot of people and far moreso companies. I can use the images in a product, but not sell them directly? The transformative line is ill defined. Can I sell the images if I use them in an artwork? If it’s a major part of m…

I get what they're trying to do, and that is to help the gaming industry while trying to keep the NFT people from using it. I could see a lot of fantasy games using this as part of an occult theme.

I think a better approach is to have a website where you can track the creation of the images, and then look to see if any NFTs were created with the software in violation of the license.

Re: Magic Circle Generator

#10

Post by catach »

donatj wrote: post #5

The output is pretty neat but not nearly neat enough to justify the draconian licensing rules on using the output; rules both needlessly complicated and blurry enough to probably a be nonstarter for a lot of people and far moreso companies. I can use the images in a product, but not sell them directly? The transformative line is ill defined. Can I sell the images if I use them in an artwork? If it’s a major part of m…

> I can use the images in a product, but not sell them directly? The transformative line is ill defined.

I think the intent is the same as we frequently see with stock images and clip art, and sometimes with other art assets. It's a "no compete" clause. They don't want someone using the tool to, say, generate 500 circles and then try to sell that for $5, undercutting the sales of the tool.

Post reply on HN