RigsArena - Free Character Rigs, But Is It Legal?

Rigging
1

Hello,

My lecturer gave the class a link to RigsArena (http://rigsarena.blogspot.co.uk/) which is a website that has a vast amount of characters which are fully rigged (usually with Biped and the skinning sometimes isn’t very good). On the surface this sounds like it could be a greate site for animator (looking for characters to breath life into), riggers (who can analyze the non-Biped rigs) and modellers (that want to examine the edgeflow of game- or cinematic-res characters), but there are several models on this site which I have seen for sale on Gnomon Workshop and TurboSquid (RigsArena - Free Rigs for 3ds Max: Fully Rigged Troll 3ds Max and http://rigsarena.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/ironbaby-rigged-3ds-max.html, respectively).

I’d like to suggest this website to other users, but what’s stopped me has been not knowing whether these characters have been uploaded to the site legally or illegally - I’m not sure what the repercussions would be if someone used one of the models on this site in a demo reel and later was told that they were not uploaded legally, but if they had to take down their demo reel (for example) that would be a lot of time wasted.

Thanks,
-Harry

2

If it’s legal , there is currently a similar post on tech-artists.org,
Animator Meets Rigger Idea: Based on another individual's question - Rigging - Tech-Artists.Org

If it’s not , these guys are fool to publish stolen work.

(But after all, a lowDef Vegeta modeled 10 years ago … if it’s not free it should be ! :eek:)

3

Yeah, I saw that and that’s what made me think about this website, I was going to post it there as a place where riggers could get high quality models but I wasn’t sure if this site was known to others as a site where models are uploaded without permission from there creators.

4

yes i edited my post , it is important to mention , what is free and what is not.