Demo restriction on animation import

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On 02/01/2005 at 11:47, xxxxxxxx wrote:

User Information:
Cinema 4D Version:   8.012 
Platform:   Windows  ;   
Language(s) :     C++  ;

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My plugin is currently in open beta-testing. And animation importation support is just about to be added. But I want to make 'hard' restrictions on the animation import (as an incentive for users to actually purchase the plugin when fully released).

What is meant by 'hard' restriction is one that can't too easily be defeated by deletion, insertion, merging, copying, and so on. The structure of the imported scene is a parent Null object with the geometries as children and, obviously, animation key frames in the Timeline.

I have considered a PluginTag attached to the Null object which would monitor for copies, copying, deletion, etc. of itself and other similar tags and react accordingly. But even this doesn't seem to be very complete. There may be ways to combine two or more separate documents' KeyFrames to defeat this.

Any implementation suggestions?

Thanks
Robert

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On 02/01/2005 at 17:35, xxxxxxxx wrote:

A new idea that I'm considering is monitoring the document's animation values (FPS, MinTime, MaxTime) and resetting to the restriction limit if the user changes them. Is this feasible at all?

Robert

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On 03/01/2005 at 09:56, xxxxxxxx wrote:

Hi,

I´d use an additional scenehook or MessagePlugin where you could check by a Timer if the "structure" is still valid, or if there are copies etc.

Just an idea.

Good luck!

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On 07/01/2005 at 19:58, xxxxxxxx wrote:

Is there any way to "lock", "protect", or "disable" changing of a Document (i.e.: BaseDocument)?

This would be a great addition to the SDK - for instance, a LockDocument() and UnlockDocument() pair requiring something (Plugin ID, password, license key, whatever) to lock and unlock it. Once locked, the user cannot change the document even upon reload - meaning that it would probably need to be added to the next C4D release as a feature. This would make it soooo much easier to write demo versions of plugins (which is what I'm doing) that can be unlocked or have the lock code easily removed from compilation of registered versions.

Otherwise, I have to think of the billion and one ways someone can thwart my attempts to limit their results and ability to extend those results. It is too easy to Copy-Paste, Instance-MakeEditable, and so on, in order to render even Draconian limits useless.

You guys, MAXON, should accelerate your use and understanding of layered programming-interface models. Everything is at the base level and we have to reinvent everything already within the application - since there is no access to these existing functions from the SDK. I'm not talking about functionality that exists outside the application - but that which already exists. And in some cases, like this one, should exist. I did not write the code for Cinema 4D, nor do I have all of the necessary information to make these kind of high-level interactions within it.

Plugin development, with commercial production in mind, requires commercial features - registration, licensing, demo-modes, encryption (which I will reserve as external), and more. If this were a stand-alone application, I could control all of this as God and Almighty. But I have little control over C4D.

Robert

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On 08/01/2005 at 06:40, xxxxxxxx wrote:

No it´s not possible currently. But a good idea.

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On 08/01/2005 at 08:54, xxxxxxxx wrote:

Sorry for the rant. Just frustrated. ;)

Figured as much. Maybe I'll submit the idea to MAXON formally. :)

Many thanks,
Robert

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On 14/01/2005 at 08:37, xxxxxxxx wrote:

For such an idea to be worthwhile it would mean that MAXON would have to put a lock on your computer. Otherwise the information can always be extracted and any system hacked, for example by writing another plugin or by using a hardware debugger.
My recommendation would be to limit the quality of the imported data instead, for example only allow the first second of animation. Or you could only allow a limited number of imports, storing it in the C4D preferences.
It will still be possible to work around, but too cumbersome for professionals to do. The rest probably wouldn't buy it anyway.

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On 14/01/2005 at 09:47, xxxxxxxx wrote:

Hi Mikael,

Well, you should know the realistic mantra: "software protection is only to keep the honest users honest." Obviously, even multi-billion dollar corporations who invest millions (M$) have done nothing to stop crackers from being able to crack their software and OS.

The idea is to make it just difficult enough that regular users respect the limit. There will always be those who try (and succeed) to circumvent and there ain't a darn thing to do about it (a good article and discussion is on codeproject.com:
Unconventional Wisdom).

A passworded/registration-number lock in the .c4d document (file) could be respected by the software. That would be enough to deter most users.

But, yes, for my demo version I have limited the number of frames imported among other things.