Well that's your oppinion. JJ3 had so much potential along the 3D games of those times. I preffer 2D instead of 3D but most of the people (especially youngsters) preffer 3D... If EG would do a new JJ game (but they will not...) the game would be similar to JJ3 or a 3D platformer.

As I said, I would love to see a complete version of JJ3. The game is simply great. Please don't be rude just because I share my oppinion.

I don't think the fans should try to finish JJ3 or reboot any of the Jazz games because, as a recently short-lived Kickstarter illustrated, it's property of Epic Games and the project will get shut down. This has also happened recently to Descent: Sol Contingency, a Descent remake in the Unreal engine. Sol Contingency got pretty far along. I knew it was a matter of time until the rights holders acted upon it and shut tho project down, and that finally happened recently.

They are now ripping out all the assets that are from the Descent universe and replacing it with original IP.

I think that's the way to go for any fan community (minus the getting shut down part): make a spiritual successor that feels like it's from the same universe and has the same gameplay, but has all original content. Freedom Planet did that; it came out of the Sonic community and it shows. The game is awesome, and they've made some good money off of it too.

I don't think a free non-profit game which starts with a disclaimer would get closed by Epic's copyrights. JJ Revival was a fraud, and overall it was a bad game in my oppinion.

Yeah indeed, it's not wrong to make new Jazz games. There are some on J2O, it's not illegal unless sold without a license. In other words you can do what you want for free, although you can't sell Jazz because it's Epic's intellectual property.

The only thing JJ3d needs is a save feature, and multiplayer can be removed as it's likely not been tested. Otherwise multiplayer needs an online server to host games. The single player campaign is impossible to beat without saving.

Granted Interplay is not Epic, but Sol Contingency did get shut down even though they had no plans on selling it, and it was Interplay's legal right to do so.

Once you make a derivative work, which all fanart and fangames are, you are at the mercy of the rights holders. Pretty much all companies turn a blind eye to fanart. It's how fans express their love for something. But once the scope gets bigger and the project has enough eyeballs, like a full-length movie or video game, they have to make the decision between letting it slide or shutting it down, and the latter happens quite a lot.

I figure most of the legal reasoning behind this has a lot to do with trademark law. Both names and character designs can be trademarked, but if you as a rights holder don't actively go after people infringing on your trademarks, you can loose your trademark. It's happened before and is how trademark law works. The rest I think has to do with creating dilution within a brand (people getting confused as to what is a fangame or not and the variations in quality, etc). Some companies care a lot less about this than others.

There was a King's Quest fan game that was shut down by the rights holders but later green lit after the rights holders instructed them to simply remove King's Quest from the title of the game. I imagine everything else within the game was pretty fantasy generic (like the original King's Quest games were) so trademarked character designs would not have been present, so brand confusion wouldn't have been a problem either.

There's no legal precedent that gives rights to derivative works to those with original ownership. You still can't sell someone else's intellectual property, but you have the right to make and distribute derivative works for free. The only counterexample is dangerous drugs which can cause bodily harm.

People get confused when they receive cease and desist letters from companies, which may be illegal in itself, as it's impersonating the law. A good, old example of this is debt collectors, who forcefully imprisoned people to collect additional interest from their debts. Nowadays, debts have no legal bearing, or so to speak, it's legal to refuse to pay a debt.

Furthermore, if your financial gains are inhibited by someone else's derivative works, you have the right to sue for some or all of the monetary profit claimed by the non-licensee. That's why companies give out or sell licenses, to avoid a later dispute, and create a contract that allows both companies to take part in the business.

Originally Posted by KRSplatinum

There's no legal precedent that gives rights to derivative works to those with original ownership. You still can't sell someone else's intellectual property, but you have the right to make and distribute derivative works for free. The only counterexample is dangerous drugs which can cause bodily harm.

no

Originally Posted by Primpy

[Defending JJ3]

I agree that JJ3D could have been good(Perhaps amazing) if it had been finished, although fans finishing it now as it is would be impractical.

As for fan projects, it would have to be on a rather small scale for Epic to not cancel it, but it could be done. As Metsys said, though, the best thing would be to do something like Freedom Planet. Although, the JJ community already tried that, and that fizzled pretty fast(Although, let's be fair, it was being made in Visual BASIC...).

I played Jazz3D around 14 years ago and I still remember the way it was. I also have some of the previous builds somewhere as well.
I looked at the videos and I must say you have done a fantastic job with the patches you released. I remember fixing a few bugs like not saving and "falling thru the floor on the castle level" as well but nothing like you did.
Keep up the good work!

Originally Posted by Alberto

I also have some of the previous builds somewhere as well.

Of the original JJ3D? If not, your phrasiology is confusing.

Also, your praise is a little late; the guy stopped development because it's really hard to do with the super-outdated UE1, which is very hard to upgrade to later versions because of weird modifications the guys made to the engine in '99.

Hey, it's Alberto! Long time no see

Hope you guys are alright

Yea, I had 2 different builds if I can remember properly. The main differences I remember were slightly differences on the title screen. Jazz was running in a platform which spinned 360º and in the other one he was heading to the right all the time and the level before the rocket was different and it had a big door that was closed.

Yes I remember that too, I couldn't upgrade it to newer versions of the Unreal Engine. But this guy did really nice things on the game itself. Wished we could have seen this game complete.

I see you're still around, Stijn

Heh, nice to see you Alberto! I remember your detailed guide on port forwarding to make JJ2 work behind a NAT really helped me back in the day.

I too saw potential in JJ3 when I first played the leaked demo. In fact, I believe a third person shooter with platform elements was the best initial choice for Jazz's transition to the third dimension. After all, I always saw JJ1 as a platformer with shoot 'em up elements, so I loved how your primary means of interaction in JJ3 was shooting. You could even shoot the friendly rabbits to make them panic, I loved such little details!

I am glad it helped.
Yea, wished we could have seen a full game.

You know... Unreal Engine 4 is out, is cheap ($20 for a 'subscription', which means you can cancel it right away and still have access to that version forever), and is very easy to use (as long as you have some experience with 3D gamedev)...

Hey guys!

I can't believe we're still arguing about whether or not 2d is better than 3d and vice versa. There are good reasons why there are so many game franchises that switched from 2d to 3d and failed, and it isn't the 3d part.

It's just that there are still people that think 2d is better simply because it started out that way and it did it well that first time, but the reality is that some people just aren't exactly open for changes, especially big ones, like changing gameplay from a 2d platformer to a 3d one. Heck, there are lots game franchises that switched to 3d and actually became even more successful than ever.

Anyway, I just thought I'd check in after all this time, and it's cool to see people at least discussing JJ3
JJ3 actually did lots of things right. I'm not sure if it would've gone in the same direction I was going with it, but now it almost feels as if I actually really worked on it, like... not just a patch, but the game itself, because I wasn't just modding things, I was adding some new content as well! I just wish it wasn't for nothing and it might inspire someone to actually build something instead of asking others to do it for them... though it seems it's not exactly going that way. But who knows, maybe someday! =)

Anyway, if anyone's interested, I'm actually working on a bunch of things right now. I think I mentioned this before, but I'm working on this one 3d project. I learned a lot while working on JJ3Patch, and there are actually some things in my current project that are directly influenced by JJ3.

If you want to learn more, you can follow me on my twatter @CloverGruff
I'm trying to post new updates as frequently as I can, and who knows, maybe I'll post something Jazz Jackrabbit related in the future!

Originally Posted by JazzGruff

Hey guys!

I can't believe we're still arguing about whether or not 2d is better than 3d and vice versa. There are good reasons why there are so many game franchises that switched from 2d to 3d and failed, and it isn't the 3d part.

It's just that there are still people that think 2d is better simply because it started out that way and it did it well that first time, but the reality is that some people just aren't exactly open for changes, especially big ones, like changing gameplay from a 2d platformer to a 3d one. Heck, there are lots game franchises that switched to 3d and actually became even more successful than ever.

I actually don't have much of an opinion on JJ3. I felt like it was too much at an unfinished state to say anything.

If you really want to hear me have an opinion though; His running appears to be too slow, compared to the predecessors. I also greatly dislike the jump mechanics, which are really floaty and you don't have much control over changing the momentum and height. But then again, it feels like they were never actually complete, so it feels unfair to review it.

Also, "twatter"

I guess I have a soft spot for 2D games, though.

How did JazzGruff made the patch for JJ3? I actually saw a comment on the first page but... I didn't really understood much. (More exactly, did he decompile the game?)

From what I remember, he edited most of what he could with the original Unreal toolset, which were painfully buggy compared to later revisions of even Unreal Engine 1. Additional models were made in Blender(?) and imported with Unreal too (again very intolerant software with it's polygonal bugs).

I recall some other changes were simply made by optimizing .ini files used by the game.

hello guys, I still struggle to put new characters in the game
does anyone have any idea if I did give them give up now.

Originally Posted by ionut jazz

hello guys, I still struggle to put new characters in the game
does anyone have any idea if I did give them give up now.

WTF are you saying? lol

According my experiences by making the JJ3DX, one thing is truth - sometimes it's better that make a new game than modifying someone's game.

who knows how to work on Unreal ED 1?

Originally Posted by ionut jazz

who knows how to work on Unreal ED 1?

I don' get it. Are you asking someone to help you with it, or are you just telling someone else to make it?

Originally Posted by Jelly Jam

I don' get it. Are you asking someone to help you with it, or are you just telling someone else to make it?

He's asking for help to understand how to use it.

SFX Sound works very clearly,but Music Sound is muted.Save game feature is in need.Exploring old unreal editor I can find more enemies voices and playable character voices.I really want to know how to make Spazz,Razz and Lori character 3d models in classic unreal editor?

really enjoyable models.Is it Blender? now it's my turn

I'm sorry. I couldn't resist...

Yeah, Eva looks awful.

Haha that Eva model made my day! And I'm afraid that face will also make my night. Eek!!

Well I need to make basic human 3d model.UV mapping and textures.

How to not make a toony character model: Use a human base. It will always look out of the uncanny valley that way. Or just incredibly awkward (i.e the original JJ3DX models).

"But I suck at distorted anatomy" too bad.

Well I don't have problems of mark seams in blender with human base model.I have problem making textures from Photoshop to blender since importing earthbound 64 body textures using MakeHuman application.

Ay gurl

The turtle, lori and spaz look great . but lori has no nipples

Originally Posted by Jelly Jam

The turtle, lori and spaz look great . but lori has no nipples

Do you expect models to be made nude and then the clothes to be added? That would be kind of odd :l

At this point I think it'd be better to just remake JJ3 from scratch in one of modern engines rather than trying to polish the turd. Let's face it - engine used to make JJ3 is OLD and no matter what you'll try, it will never look nearly as good as it could be if made in a modern engine such as Unity.

I could take care about coding as I'm a programmer, but there would be need for level designers, people who'd make textures/models, etc.

Originally Posted by Primpy

Do you expect models to be made nude and then the clothes to be added? That would be kind of odd :l

It wouldn't be odd. When cloths and boobs will start shaking while running with lori, you will be able to see the trace of nipple over the cloth. [Provided that th game is made in that way. If not, then yeah, its odd]

Originally Posted by SAMI

It wouldn't be odd. When cloths and boobs will start shaking while running with lori, you will be able to see the trace of nipple over the cloth. [Provided that th game is made in that way. If not, then yeah, its odd]

I mean in that case, lets add crotch bounce to all male characters with pants. REALISM!!

On a serious note: Most bras have a thick enough material (for support reasons) that hide nipples. She probably wears a sports bra, as you don't want to be running around with a bouncing chest (it would ache eventually). There's no point in adding details no one needs to see anyway.

need=/=want

Originally Posted by Darkhog

At this point I think it'd be better to just remake JJ3 from scratch in one of modern engines rather than trying to polish the turd. Let's face it - engine used to make JJ3 is OLD and no matter what you'll try, it will never look nearly as good as it could be if made in a modern engine such as Unity.

He's right. There's only so much you can do with a relic of an engine.

Perhaps there could also be nipple stiffness and a more modest crotch bounce in icy levels?