IMPORTANT! People that have been using Kaus's "Asteria Tileset" DO NOT USE IT!!

[Celianna]

Asteria's Tilesets uses stolen artwork, please do not use it!


This is an important notice to our members here who have been using tiles from a member named Kaus (also known as Hanzo Kimura), which he dubbed "Asteria's Tilset Expansion". It's been very popular among you all, and Kaus claimed it was either RTP edits, or original artwork.


It is not, a lot of it is stolen artwork. I noticed the familiarity of the art when he posted a screenshot, but I couldn't place it exactly, so I couldn't claim it was stolen. Not until I finally recognized some of the art and where it came from.


Here are some samples:

Spoiler

Kaus's tileset:

Note the cliffs and the palm tree's leaves, and the ice pillars.


Stolen artwork:

Link to original artist here.

/monthly_2016_06/ninogame.PNG.6c742ae92323732e079af6d0f25928d5.PNG


Cave tiles ripped from the game Ni no Kuni.

The above image shows Avery's beds on the right (blue bed), and Kaus's edit on the left (red bed). Avery never gave permission.


A tree that he found on a book cover, shrunk and colour edited:

Original:

Many of the other tiles look super familiar to me as well, I just can't recall where I've seen them before. I also know Kaus's own artistic ability is nowhere near that good, and he's been known for claiming other people's artwork as his own under his previous name, Hanzo Kimura.


People who have been paying for a commercial license and are using the tiles in their commercial game, CEASE AND DESIST IMMEDIATELY!! You are using artwork that you do not have the rights to use! Please stop using all of his tileset completely to be on the safe side. Ask for a refund through PayPal if you've recently purchased a license.


To the members who've been using it for free, please do not use his tileset anymore and do not share it with other people (you're not going to get in trouble for continuing to use it, it's just very disrespectful to the artists). If you see someone post a screenshot with his 'tileset', please remind them that artwork was stolen and they should probably stop using it.


Please share so that people know his tileset is mostly stolen artwork.

 

[Mato]

thank you for telling me i was not using it but i am sooo  going to make sure i don't now

 

[McTricky]

Oh, fun.


My game is only made up of about 80% of the VX Ace tiles. Sweet.


EDIT: I got linked to this thread by Chaos-Avian and I didn't realise this was in the MV section. Apparently the VX/Ace ones are fine?

 

[bgillisp]

Any chance we can get this to be a sticky under featured topics on the front page for a while? Otherwise I see a lot of posts of people asking for the tileset or links to it over the next week or so.

 

[Nat0327]

This sets the progress on my game back by so much that it's insane. Hours, days, weeks of work. Gone.


Here's hoping I can find an alternative with an art style that'd fit my game.

 

[Cats777]

And here I thought he was going to be the Yanfly of tilesets. What a sad day indeed.

 

[mlogan]

@McTricky If you are referring to the ones for Valkyrie Series that were put out under the name Hanzo, then no - those contain a lot of stolen material as well.

 

[Noctis]

Is it okay to use it for non-commercial use and put something on the credit like "credits to the original owner" or something like that? Hard to redo all the maps 

 

[Jeb]

Thank you. I was actually considering subscribing.

 

[Kyuukon]

Is it okay to use it for non-commercial use and put something on the credit like "credits to the original owner" or something like that? Hard to redo all the maps all over again 

It's not like you're going to have legal issues, but no, it's not really okay to use those resources even for free projects


What bothers me the most about all this, is that he scammed the people who bought the "license" :s You can't do that man!

 

[ultipoter]

@Noctis I wouldn't do that since it's not really proper credit and isn't helping the original artist at all.   


Damn, I really loved those tilesets.. But I hate art thieves more. Good thing I haven't done any actual maps yet.

 

[Noctis]

Oh okay, so last question.


Are all those tiles stolen?


It might be great if Kaus can clarify which are stolen and which is not.


It's not that I'm trying to defend him, but I really like the village trees. Just want to know if those are stolen as well 

 

[Asuras]

This is just going to suck for everyone who were using those tilesets in their games. I personally liked them and the game I was working on used the tilesets. Now the entire game is scrapped and have to be built up from scratch again.

 

[kovak]

is it possible to find the original owners of those assets? 


The insides were good enought to make me to look for the permission To use those walls 

 

[Eilwyn]

Thanks for the heads up!

I'm glad I still haven't made any real mapping progress on my game yet.  I'm super crushed though (though I know a lot of other people are too) as I've spend years trying to make my own tiles, only to not be good enough it... so when I saw these I subscribed.  Suddenly I went from "I'm never ever gonna get my game done" to "Yeah!  Now my project has a chance at being completed"... now I'm back to "Never ever gonna complete it am I"

PayPal won't let you dispute it... at least they wouldn't let me dispute the cost of the license.  
So I went to my Credit Card company, as I did the PayPal transaction through my Credit Card and they are fortunately looking at trying to get my money back.

I hope all those who paid for a subscription like myself find a way to get refunds too.

 

[Alexander Amnell]

   Wow, I just downloaded those tiles this very evening and was sifting through them when this topic appeared. It's a real shame Kaus did this, I've always been impressed with his scripts and it's unfortunate he couldn't just be satisfied being recognized for his actual talents which weren't unimpressive on their own.


   I did kind of have a sinking feeling that there was something wrong with the tiles though, individually they look okay but when you have a bunch of them up at once in photoshop a lot of inconsistencies in style begin to stand out.


@kovakIt is unlikely that the original artists have any intention of seeing their work in rpgmaker, likely he reformatted artwork ripped from unrelated resources as any theft from artists within the community would have stood out immediately. Unfortunately the best thing to do is just get rid of all his tiles at this point and look for alternatives.

 

[kovak]

Which also means that using them as reference may be bad... i guess 

 

[Henryetha]

If stolen artwork specially for bayer ruins or bayer dungeon are found, would you mind to post it?


I didn't purchase a license yet (tho I asked him for a non commercial license to be able to use the premium tiles), but created 2 very big maps with them (each 80x80).


Each one of them took several weeks in creation.. and as these tiles are quite complex, a simple replacement in the tileset won't do it and I'll probably have to remove them completely.


However, my game won't be finished this year and probably not next year either, so.. I'm not in a hurry, tho I guess, that sooner or later I indeed will have to replace them which is really a pain.. All these hours of work - 70$ doesn't even come close to this value -.-


Atm I'm still considering trying to get permission from the original artists - once found - oh well.. It'd take probably a whole month to replace those maps to the standard they've been before, so.. that might be worth a try, no?

 

[Noctis]

We should probably make a thread where people can help each other find the original artist of any of the artwork used in the tilesets then compile it, so we can properly ask for permission. This is for those still want to use some part of the tilesets and don't want to redo their maps. Just saying o.o

 

[Mr. Bacon]

Oh my...


What a sad day. I never expected someone in the community would do this :/