RadiumRC

*DISCLAIMER: THIS THREAD WAS NOT MADE TO DISCREDIT THE WORK OF RADIUMRC, BUT TO QUESTION HIS WORK*​

As many trackmakers know, your best friend in drawing a cool-looking track is reference images. Many of these trackmakers draw a line at tracing though since it's stealing the work of someone else, and takes away from those who actually take their time to use references to create their own masterpieces. I don't follow the ghosting scene, but it looks like lots of people know RadiumRC for his cool ghosts. In the trackmaking scene, RadiumRC is someone who I think was really making a name for himself as a really good trackmaker. Until now. When RadiumRC uploaded his recent featured track, something about me said that his work kind of looked traced/unoriginal. Maybe it was because of his drawing style, but just seemed too fishy. So, I started looking at some of his old tracks. I started at the unfunny Moyai collab and I saw overwhelming evidence of tracing that I thought could possibly be RadiumRC, but was confirmed that it was traced by another person in the collab by an anonymous source. I then started to look at some of his solo work. I wasn't at all shocked to find an image that almost perfectly lined up to his drawing of the Aries-1B in his track "The Monolith". Take a look at the image yourself:



Just looking at this side by side makes it clear that it was most likely traced. There is a possibility that he did draw this on his own, but when you see that most of the lines match together almost perfectly, it just seems too good to be true. The sad part is that this isn't even the only example in the track I found. This example doesn't look as obvious as in the image above, but it's one to take into consideration in this accusation.



It's the same in this image, most of this just looks copied straight from this image I found on google. You can try to make an argument that he didn't trace in this one but you just have to take into consideration that so many lines are lining up perfectly with these images I'm finding on the internet. Back to his latest track, it seems as if he traced the map, of Senegal which I don't know if I should mind or not. I also tried to see if the mosque at the bottom of the track was traced. Congratulations you have found the secret code: 05A1X119 please PM me if you have found the code I'm not sure if it is traced or not, but it seems fishy that the right side of the mosque in his track lines up with the right side of an image I found on google.



My assumption for this one is that he either 1. used two images and traced it like that 2. has another angle of this image from google or 3. he didn't trace at all. There are other parts in this track that makes it seem like traced with multiple images due to how unnatural most of it looks.



I didn't want to keep digging on this track, so I cannot assume that this part or other parts in the track are traced. I also found two examples in his track that may or may not have been traced due to their slight differences from reference images. For example this in his practice round track in the Remix Contest 10:


You can see the big difference in windows but can't deny that these images are eerily similar as well. The other example was in his track Ivan which i heavily doubt was traced but can not rule out the possibility.

The only reason I can not say that this one is traced is because I couldn't find the exact frame from that set of photos, but it is very apparent that the photographer that took that photo is the one Radium referenced.

I tried privately messaging Radium on this topic, but he has not responded to my message. We all know he is still active as he is still participating in the ongoing FRHD World Cup, but it's odd that he has not been actively communicating with the community. As mentioned in the disclaimer, this is an assumption I have made, and stand by. You are free to judge for yourself, but it doesn't look good for radium based off of the information I have given in this thread. If the case is that he is not a tracer, I still feel like we as a trackmaking community should give him some sort of discredit for blatantly copying work off of the internet.

 

Rayb25 just because you can't draw as good as radium doesn't mean you have to call him out

 

I legit cannot tell whether or not this is real or if my lack of having anything to do with the discord server is catching up with me. regardless, well put together and I applaud the effort of finding all of the potential traced/reference images

 

i trace sometimes although i don’t really know if tracing means litterely tracing somehow with an image, but a lot of the times i look up how to draw something and use it in my tracks

 

thats not tracing. thats using a reference image/video whatever. tracing means literally tracing the reference image

 

tbh even if it isnt tracing (which i heavily doubt given the evidence), to reference something so much that it looks identical to a photo does not show you are a good artist - it shows you are a good copier. at some point with referencing, there needs to be some semblance of originality and artistic interpretation, which clearly is not the case here

the last time someone was caught for tracing who had featured tracks, was Stig on this track: https://www.freeriderhd.com/t/128626-super-mario-bros-1-gc it remained featured as the consensus from the community was that Stig could draw the stuff he did regardless of tracing, which has clearly been proven given the multiple other Mario tracks he made without tracing. however, in radium's case, when you take away the traced parts of the tracks, they are very bare bones; the focal points of these tracks is the difference between them being featured or not, yet they are the traced parts or at the very least are not the work of radium's. as such, i believe radium should be stripped of his features that include tracing, for they would not be featured without them, and are not his own work. we need to be as harsh about tracing as what Tremulant and Crypt were on Stig in this thread, as tracing undermines the entire trackmaking community just as TAS'ing undermines the ghosting community

i am confident that the above examples are traced, and will overlay the above examples myself to further illustrate the point. ill post the evidence in this message as an edit once i go through them

i would like to hear RadiumRC 's side of this

tl;dr - the chances of this not being the result of tracing is so small as to be inconsequential. whether radium traced or just references so exactly that you can no longer tell the difference, the result should still be the loss of features. eli's desperation 3, for example, would not be nearly as impressive as what it is if he simply traced everything. tracks lose their charm, originality and personality when traced.

 

wow.

 

I somewhat agree with Rayb25 on this one

 

Bro getting demoted, I ain't looking at Radium the same again, what if his ghosts aren't legit either!? Bro doesn't say anything nowadays, ngl he is kinda sus now based off this thread...

 

Cheating on ghosts is very different from tracing, I know many artists that may consider what radium did not a huge deal. It is a very different matter to fake ghosts

 

his ghosts are legit, just putting it out there that not everyone is clean in different ways and that some people may not be what they seem

 

ok yeah this sh1t is 100% traced LOL. the aeroplane track is likely either heavily referenced or only partially traced, as the fuselage lines up but the wings dont. everything else is super blatant

monkey bones (open) monkey bones (close)

my nama space chip (open) my nama space chip (close)

senegal deez nuts (open) senegal deez nuts (close)

sussy baka ivan (open) sussy baka ivan (close)

idk what artists you know but theyre either braindead as fck or tracers themselves, this **** is frowned upon heavily in all communities. it's absolutely comparable to cheating in ghosting, feat tracks (usually) take longer to make than feat ghosts and do just as much harm to the community

 

so i guess tracing is like spacebarring. theyre both cheating

 

id say spacebarring is still the greater sin...

 

******* wish I traced it, 10 months of drawing son is not easy. I've been in Radium's boat before where I've had claims that I trace my sprites and only to be told by stig that I do (I do not). I get it from his shoes but he needs to show that he's not, so I would like to hear from him.

As for this I'm a little disappointed and suspect to it. Like I understand how hard it is to draw certain things and for someone who references heavily, you can't just go around and go let's do the lines 1 for 1 and add a couple. Measure the bloody things out and draw them, it's not hard after a bit of practice.

 

well... this is disappointing

 

idk whats going on, but stig will pay the price

 

Really interesting to read, and now that you mention it I begrudgingly agree. That being said he obviously has skill and talent, but I think a large part of these are traced

I simply thought it was his style and he could just do it extremely well. Well this is unfortunate, up until now radium was one of my favorite authors. If not the first.

On another note I do want to get the opinion of you guys ( Volund Rayb25 Fluffysmack dantexpress Elibloodthirst , etc.) in a track I’ve been drawing I’ve been referencing the same photo, so much that if you guys found the reference you’d immediately be able to recognize it as my track with no doubt. There are differences, but it’s the main point of my track. It’s not tracing, but would you guys say it would be better to not do this?

also I draw very much irl. There’s lots of stuff that I could draw much easier that way rather than on Freerider. I currently have no way to trace, but if I traced my own original work would it be bad? Note: you probably couldn’t tell either way, because I wouldn’t release my sketches for my tracks, but I want to see what your guys’ opinion on it is. Thanks!

 

Something more that I found:

it's not a perfect match, for sure, my guess is that this was just referenced. However this could also be the first time that he traced. The reason I mention it is because of the antlers, but honestly the more I look at it the more I see differences, if it was traced large parts of it were drawn by hand

e; the more I look the more I think it wasn't. Sorry if this was clogging.

Also the more I look at radiums the more wonky and wrong it seems lmao