Watermark Mesh?

Xhynrae
by Xhynrae · 17 posts
10 years ago in 3D Meshing
Posted 10 years ago · Author
Been reading of meshers watermarking their meshes, but do not reveal how they do it. All i can think of is adding an extra hidden poly or other to stake claim. Anyone know how to do this? Doesnt sound like imvu recognizes it as proof of original owner of mesh work but perhaps DMCA would if it ever came down to who is original owner. Anyone know how to do this?
Posted 10 years ago
I can't say exactly how they do it but I can think of a few ways:

1) Etching the creator name into the mesh.
2) Meshing the creator name in the product then hiding it using opacity maps or other techniques.
3) Embedding data into the mesh file (like your own hidden phrase or password).
4) Putting the creator name in the mesh file name.

Just a few things I came up with off the top of my head.


If you want to pm me the names of the creators doing this, I can take a look at their products and see if I can discover their technique.
Posted 10 years ago
xhynrae wrote:
Perhaps theres a way to add a script to mesh? But not sure if would be imvu would be able to identify since things are encrypted.


You can add "scripts" to your product but I don't think you can add them to the mesh file themselves.
Posted 7 years ago
how do you remove it? and replace it?
Posted 7 years ago
I was working on a custom shirt project and discovered inside my avatars body was the original devs name just floating in there.. When I took the item off, the name went away of course.. This was awhile back and Id have to do some digging to find the mesh again because I chose not to use it for that reason. It really frustrated me seeing the name attached to the product & I could not figure out how to get rid of it.. Any suggestions for this aspect?
Posted 7 years ago
Here is what info I have found on the web for how to Watermark your meshes:

Here in the first pic I have my 3d model. lets say its done,mapped, unskinned and all but ready to export.

Now on the Create rollout pick shapes, its the second tab. or you can do this from the top menu, then pick Text. Try to use just initials or something that identifies you as too much can be alot of poly's you dont need. I chose M3d for this example. Made it renderable under the top menu in the rollout, then hit the pro optimizer modifier to get it down to a managable poly count, as lo as I could go and it still be legible. Then using scale I shrink it to fit inside the mesh so it won't interfere with anything seen. I would go much smaller than this example, so in case it gets ripped the thief wont see it. Then selecting my original mesh, I right click, select attach and click on my spline, then you can weight it how ever you like and export, no one will be the wiser that you "signed" your work.
There are other and perhaps better ways to do this, and I invite you to come up with them, this is not the method I use, I have little bit different way of doing it that saves a few more polys but, this was easy to demonstrate. It will add a few polys, but hey, you are protected, and if it takes .004 more seconds for someones room to load so that I can prove a 3dmodel is mine, well then so be it. Smile Good luck, sign your work, and have some sense of security. oh and yea if you aren't looking for it for hours, you probably won't find it lol.. you can shrink it that small. right center the mesh on 0,0,0 then put the spline at 1.89,1.89,1.89 or whatever scale you wish, annotate it, put it with your files for that mesh, I usually keep the max file, the exports, the icon, in the same folder anyways. and almost all my sig splines are in the same relation to the mesh center so I don't even have to look. (Mod3d)

The name in Italics is the person that had done this tutorial on how he does it although most of us do not have this program perhaps contacting him on iMVU he has knowledge of how to do it on others or someone here could try and do so.

I like the idea of meshers Watermarking thier items as there are alot on here that will rip thier complete mesh off and not Derive from it as it was intended. The key word to Derviing is to alter what exists as the base form not to copy it exacty even down to the colors etc that is duplicating someone elses work even if it is set to derive. Alot of people do not understand that and have a tendency to just see something they like and open it in create ode and then save it give it a new name higher the price and sale the exact same thing the mesher did. To me that is not creating that is copying. I guess this is why when I am Deriving that I find meshes I like and MOST not saying all do not bother to put up Maps. Now when they do the maps this makes it easy for me to change the colors to what i want as well maybe to make a few slight changes to make it my own.

I was in shop today and I saw 12 gown exactly the same each a different price and then I took them all down to the mesh and found they were identicle to the mesh., Now although "Copying" them the mesher still gets a little change from it as well as from the sells it takes away from thier item if they have done it to sell as a completed item and allowed to mesh off of it. But Honestly speaking after what I saw on alot of things alot of these so called Creators should give it up because there is alot of UGLY items there and then priced so high a hair for 3k and yet hairs are normally 500 to 900 for them depending on the texture used. But this one person did the one hair in several colors and other hairs in several colors to sell trying to sell them for 3k each who would buy those and if they were just for that person or friends then why make them available to the public why not place them in catty but display only or for that matter hide them if only for yourself.

Alot of the so called Dev's now adays are worthless while alot of the greats have left and moved on. I have seen some by some old Meshers that people have redone and claim they are the orginator now of them since the orginal Creator is no longer on IMVU. I have been creating for years now and I understand as looking back to 10 years ago when I first started creating how things looked then to the way they look now. and I know we all start out and our stuff looks like crap..because we are learning but once you start making quality items go back and revamp the old items to bring current Or as I do Hide them...lol

I cannot say I am the Best creator but I believe I rank up there with some of them now as I only do quality work. Am I always learning and improving oh hell ya and I do take the time to teach those about me how to create so that it is done right and not to be a copier
Posted 7 years ago
Well if its on the inside, it shouldn't matter much, I commend devs that do this, I have several meshes made with my name inside them as protection. Sadly for you, if the dev did it correctly, you can't get rid of it, you can only hide it with opacity. However some are good at this and you can't even do that.
Posted 7 years ago
Also, the newest exporter for SketchUP "iPort" requires you to watermark your mesh. One of the reasons I don't like it.
Posted 7 years ago
Hi all.

I am back after a long sabbatical. I used t make meshes using Sketchup. There was a guy called Merlin and he wrote some plugins for sketchup called Merlin Tools. I remember that it was free but just prior to me leaving IMVU he had some fallout with someone and removed his site. Sadly my pc crashed and I lost the tools. There was a function in his script that added your avatar name to the mesh and you could position it inside your mesh somewhere. It was cool and worked like a charm. I'm not sure if he is active again or if one can even mesh with sketchup anymore. Might be worth pursuing.

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