"All our filter are belong to us!"

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Vladimir Golovin wrote elsewhere: Heh, there are people from iD Software, Epic Games, Nintendo, EA, Ensemble, Sony Computer Ent. America, Streamline Studios, Emergent (and many others, just can't remember everyone) among our beta testers [...]

*** Danger! Possible rant detected! ***

I've been thinking about this recently: What incentive would a big studio have to contribute to the Filter Library at all? Granted, which big business ever shared its proprietary software or its digital assets? Point taken. A rare one. But still, it's a point worth thinking about, because it has implications for the filter library...

Alright, let's see: A big studio can easily bulk-purchase dozens of FF licenses. For them, it's a piece of cake financially. Because of this fact alone, the incentive to get FF for free via Filter Library contributions will likely be close to zero. The filters that the studio's artists work on for any given project end up being the property of the studio, and are unlikely to be shared. Why? Because sharing filters would mean a better product for everyone else (a.k.a. the competition)... "Not good! Must... smite... competition!". Alright, alright, I'll put it in an unbiased way: It's their assets and they won't give them away voluntarily.

My assessment: I suspect 'Big Studio' incentive to contribute to the Filter Library will be close to zero, and its relationship to the Filter Library is likely going to be exclusively parasitic in nature. How wasteful! While we may see private contributions by artists working at Big Studios, I'll dare hypothesize that the development of the Filter Library will nearly ALWAYS be in the hands of hobbyists, enthusiasts, freelance professionals and lone artists. THEY will be the ones that make the product better...

... and thus spake Big Business: "All our filter are belong to us, and yours too!"

Now isn't that something to contemplate when dreaming of the future of the Filter Library?

Not sure but what if these are individuals working on these filters for the sheer challenge of it in their spare time.

Or have any filters by members of these companies been submitted?
It would be interesting to know which ones.

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Torley wrote: Also add Linden Lab (makers of Second Life)

Nice!

actually, dilla, there are 'big studio' people here on the forums contributing filters. you just gotta know what, and who, to look for. now, whether they're here 'for the company' or just because they're personally interested, i cant say.

Kraellin & Dilla, I agree with both of you.... There are 'big studio' people contributing filters just for pleasure and the challenge.....and maybe just to 'give back a little' of what they are getting from it

Like when an economy booms during war times, filter submission was rock'n during the beta period. After the beta period ended and all the free copies were handed out, there was quite a dramatic change in the 'activity' because there were no more incentives.....except for 'lifetime updates' which does not seem attainable....

Personally, I would like to see FF make 'lifetime updates' more attainable starting by giving a handfull this reward for their efforts in making FF what it is.....like CFandM, Voldemort, Crappadilla, Uberzev, Kraellin, jffe, ect..... This is just from what I've seen in the past month and a half, so please don't be offended if I did not mention you

Oh, I didn't think anyone had attained lifetime updates. Well then, congradulations!!!

I thought Vladimir was part of Filter Forge....and would go without saying that he had lifetime updates. I guess that I don't fully understand the roles and dynamics of FF, but I'm learning....

The pitfalls of only seeing type and not catching the inflection Anywho, again, congradulations to all of you who received lifetime updates!!! Well deserved for your efforts and contributions to a product that I think has real potential to go far.....

Just digging the old posts, and I think that this one has a lot of great points that may want to be re-visited.

First off, big bussiness will not contribute; that is well understood; however, many questions were posed of how to increase the volume and quality of the work done at filter forge and I believe this topic worthy to re-visit.

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True, and that's why we need official competitions with mainstream themes. The competitions - if made interesting and rewarding enough - would be ideal in fostering a 'breadth' development of the filter library, making it more generically useful for all. Fact is, a filter author likely will only build few 'brick', 'roof', 'metal' etc. filters before getting royally bored with those themes, looking elsewhere for fun. Contests would have many authors focusing on the same theme, thus building 'breadth'.

I think competitions would be a very fun idea to re-visit. I have seen other successful companies do this, Maxwell Rendering, and they have been very successful in expanding their library. For example right now Maxwell's theme is Cars and they have gotten textures ranging from oil to neon lights to painted flames. And while the competition is going it appears that not themed skins are still being added as well.So it would appear that a theme would give more breadth to the library.

Now the question of rewards is easy, have the FF team pick the winner and the winner's filter gets automatically selected as the editor's pick or better gets placed in a special library where only competetion winners get placed. Then FF wouldn't have to really worry about alloting free copies of FF because Uber or Crapadilla would win every time Just joking. I don't really care or want to try and define the prize, I would leave that up to FF; however, I would love to see a competetion that ran for a month every other month or something like that.

Last thought; if we could somehow get FF into a college graphics class the FF library would sky rocket! That would be sweet to have user named BSU or something like that

yes, i'd be real hesitant to say that no businesses contribute filters to the library. i also know of one person who has posted filters here that works for a large company that does graphics work. and like volde said, ID software has done some amazingly generous gifting of some of their stuff. take wolfenstein ET. that was going to be the multiplayer sequel to Castle Wolfenstein, a big game hit. they decided to simply release it for free and after what, ten years? it's still running strong on the net.

so, let's not get too much into the sterotype that all big business is a money-grubbing, back-stabbing, i-could-care-less-about-the-customer-and-only-about-profits type of thing here