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How lax are texture sourcing restrictions for character art?
When it comes entire textures and texture sets, I tend to use cgtextures and other free sources that are quite clear about usage restrictions, so this has not really been a problem. On the other hand, when creating photo-realistic character textures I tend to do a lot of fairly complicated manipulation from a much broader variety of sources. Many of them can be traced back to a random Google Image search: a small bit of an Alexander McQueen design here, a stamp sample of a bit of leather there; a particular hi-res likeness that then gets multi-layer blended into others and de-shadowed, mish-mashes of various fashion elements that get collaged into a single outfit design, seams from various hi-res sources, etc.
Sometimes, but not always, the end result can bear a recognizable resemblance to part of the source material. For instance, if somebody familiar with McQueen saw a boot I put together recently they could easily point out that the heel was from a McQueen shoe.
Up until now, I've been fairly lax about this with my own stuff, figuring that the final texture has so much additional work put into it that it would be hard to call it unoriginal in a legal sense. However, in conversation with a fellow game developer I had to admit that I was not actually sure about this, and I've been having a heck of a time digging up the official copyright/IP info that would apply to this kind of workflow.
Is this something I need to be careful of when making commercial game, or am I generally in the clear?
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