QUOTE(MaxtorAG @ 03/30/08, 09:10 PM) [snapback]283439[/snapback]
Well, I am not sure how it works in your country, but under European Copyright Law (which is based upon the same conventions as the USA Copyright Law is) you are generally allowed (even without an explicit agreement with an author) to decompile and recompile a program or its part if you meet specific condition, e.g. if you are its authorized user and you do it in order to achieve mutual compatibility of 2 independently obtained/created computer programs;
Yes but theose conditions aren't met in this case, the interfaces are public and known. But why not ask the original ayuthor for the source?
In Europe you can decompile something to get interoperability (1991 Software Directive, this does NOT apply to USA or the rest of the world). like you say, this could technically apply here if it were not for the second clause. Which states that you can decompile ONLY in the case that no api or documentation exist to make it compatible. And thsi is NOT TRUE here all inetrfaces are dcumented as part of maya api docs. The interfaces are all known and public. In any event you cannot decompile the WHOLE software and reuse it you must investigate the interfaces and build NEW code form that. So you must still do the work.
See this grant only applies to the data acces and reuse mechanisms not the code used to manage or modify the data. So yes your allways allowed to mine data provided you have some reasonably legal reason for it but your NOT grantted the code that computes on basis of it.
But see maya ships with code that is 6 lines off form being exactly what the solid sampler does. Since using the decompiler is actually harder than writing the code its a moot point.
Read: particleAttrNode.cpp in your devkit\plug-ins\ directory. Then change the sampling to use MRenderUtil::sampleShadingNetwork, and make one array interface more that takes 3d data in. Thats it.
PS: yes i live in europe, but you'd still be making a copyright violation here. Nodes would only ever fall into this category if they read data from some obscure format.