Just wanted to open this up for some public discourse, as it’s something I’m encountering as I near
a big release of a new patch. A little background to explain the issue at hand:
For almost 2 years, I used almost exclusively F2U portraits and graphics for my hack. Naturally, upon
a new public release of the hack, I credited all artists. But over the past few months, I’ve put in a
significant effort to improve my own spriting, and have replaced almost all of the F2U mugs with mugs
of my own creation. Thus, in the case of many of the artists I’d previously credited, their work no
longer appears directly in the hack.
The idea to completely remove these artists from the credits has occurred to me… However, this feels
wrong to me, as I’m grateful to these artists for providing assets that served as placeholders
and helped to give me vision for the characters; a vision I was able to translate into a portrait of my
own design. And it’s also true that there will always be earlier patches out there that DO contain their
work, as we know that nothing is really ever gone on the internet, even when a link is taken down.
So, my query for the FEU community, both hack creators and artists, is this: Should I continue to credit
people whose assets are no longer directly in the hack? And if so, how should I do it? Should I give
them some sort of “legacy” credit for contributing to earlier builds?
Artists, how do you feel about all of this? Would you like to still be credited? Or perhaps, to avoid
confusion, would you prefer your name be left off of the credits if none of your work directly appears?
I’m curious to hear people’s thoughts, as this isn’t something I’ve ever seen discussed as it pertains to
credit and assets. I’d like to do right by the people who helped my hack get off the ground with F2U assets, in one way or another.
I’d rather a credits list be too long than too short. It was easier and to your point, felt right, to leave credits in for artists whose work did not end up in the final project. Their work was at one point there, and those versions are still out there, so it felt right.
Additionally, doing anything besides adding to the credits list feels suspiciously like work.
I don’t think you need to go through giving any special credit to the artists outside of standard credit alongside yourself.
Whenever I replace an asset completely I remove the first artist from the credit list (unless they’ve contributed elsewhere). If you only ever intended to use their work(s) as a placeholder, well that’s just kinda how the cookie crumbles.
If another artists edits somebody’s F2E art (or something I’ve commissioned) I’ll credit both (as you should).
The problem with leaving the OG artist/their work in the credit list if you remove said work is that you’re kinda falsifying the contents of your project. If somebody looks at your list of credits and sees ‘x animation’ made by ‘y artist’, they’ll expect to see it somewhere, no?
Regardless, you do you.
Like anyone actually reads the credits list anyway
If a work of mine was in an earlier version of a hack and it was completely removed in the final version, I wouldn’t mind my name not being in the credits, because, at the end of the day, my work doesn’t appear in the hack.
I think it would be cool to add a special thanks list of some kind. That would be up to the creator though.
I feel like if you released something with F2U assets and replaced them later, you DONT need to put them in the credits because you stopped using their asets,
BUT in this community where alot of our stuff is F2U (thanks talented ppls), you SHOULD leave them in the credits with a nice homage. credits: arcaneeli omega-dragon-lord-a-z-dragon-cannon: sprite replaced or something like that, because their work did get you more noticed whether you knew it or not.
I think your idea of having a ‘legacy section’ is great. It both shows that these particular contributions are no longer in the hack, but also doesn’t erase the contributions of these creators that had shaped the hack while it was being formed.
Best of both worlds I think.
If it was made or edited with your hack in mind, I would keep their name in credits, even if you end up replacing their asset.
If it was just a placeholder that you replaced after a short time, then do as you please imo. If it never appeared in a public release, for example, I probably wouldn’t keep their name in the credits.
Just leave the credits in there with a note after the person’s name that’s something like “{Release versions 0.1.8 - 0.5.6}”, especially if you have patches for previous builds still available or in case an older version circulates around (or if you still have old screenshots posted places that might have the assets in them).
