Ok, I am going to try again as new post, just to see if that helps with the formatting...
I don't think it's useful to argue about what constitutes the 'preferred format of modification' for the various artworks on OGA.
Unless there's a golden table somewhere that specifies exactly what constitutes the 'preferred format' for every type of work, it's a moot point, you can't win the argument one way or the other.
As an example, gsliepen sites music stored as an .ogg as an non-preffered format.
As a developer, I can say that is exactly my preferred format for modifying game music. It's well compressed and it's a common file format. I can quickly and easily load it into an editor of my choice and make the modifications I'd want to make (most likely re-leveling the volume and some alight eq adjustments to make it match the rest of the game audio, plus probably slice a few bars off the front to make the song start faster). For me this is infinitely preferable to a MIDI or whatever file meant to be loaded into some music creation application I don't own or don't have installed on my PC.
So you see, you can argue the 'preferred format' from here to Eternia, unless you want to make a judge decide, there's no winning that one.
At the end of the day, you just have to take it on good faith that the artist has provided the work in the format they thought was 'preferred'.
Anyway, do we think some people are disingenuously posting works here as GPL while deliberately withholding the 'preferred format' source files?
Is OGA trying to make a mockery out of GPL by intentionally hosting works without source in 'the preferred form for modifications'?
No, of course not. Works are posted and hosted in the formats that submitters think would be most useful to others.
If you want the work in another format all you have to do is ask. You see requests like that all the time on here and artists generally oblige. And if they don't, it's typically because they literally can't, as in 'I found these .wavs on an old hard drive, they were part of an old project and unfortunately I've lost the .xyz files I used to make them'.
@bart: re: including GPL among the licenses, I don't support removing it (the original reasons for including it still seem valid to me) but I do support burying it a bit on the submission form and surrounding it with flashing neon lights that say 'don't click here unless you are absolutely sure you know what you are doing!!'
Shading on his body looks amazing!! Clint u r incredible!!!
Two thoughts on the head:
the highlight cutting right through the center of his face is a bit distracting.
Since it's a portrait his face should be the priority and the main thing that grabs your eye.
Right now, for me, the shading is what pops out and his face seems a bit either stuck on top of the grey bands or hiding underneath them. You might do well to dial back the number of bands/shades, and try to arrange them so there is a nice solid light grey piece right to the right of center for his face to sit on. If you donit right, you sbould still be able to imply the cone shape but with fewer bands.
This is also important because with the number of shades/bands you use on his face, you're setting the bar and level of detail you'll want to use elsewhere in order to keep the image consistent. There's some leeway there, but generally you want to use a similar number of steps from light to dark throughout the whole image. As an extreme example, imagine his head has 100 shades of grey from light to dark, but then his body only uses 3 shades from light to dark. They won't look like part of the same image at all.
Second, there's kind of a perspective cheat going on right now with his mouth and face in general being perfectly horizontal but the shoulders now tilted and base of head showing some perspective and rounding. You might try putting a little curve in his mouth and offsetting the eyes from one another in order to angle his face a bit to match the new angle of his head. This mismatch in perspectives may be part of the reason I am seeing the face as pasted over the shading.
Monday, July 18, 2016 - 05:41
Wow! Let me just say thanks very much for putting so much time into this! Even if we haven't licked the problem yet, your hard work is definitely appreciated!
Also, thanks for providing such a detailed write up of your work and the issues you've encountered! Hearing that kind of detail really helps the rest of us understand the complexity of the system and gives us a greater appreciation for how much work it will take to fix.
> What would we post to the main page?
I think a post on your search work would be perfect.
Something like 'Changes to Search Feature'
Noting the addition of the title search, and the change in sort criteria and min word index count. Maybe along with a summary of the other things you've tried or tinkered with. Really you could mostly just cut and paste from your posts in this thread.
That would:
a) let the community as whole know about your changes
b) let folks know there are issues with search
c) let folks know that the admins are aware of the search issue
d) let folks know the search problem is being actively worked on
I think that sort of update, even if it doesn't announce any concrete fixes or radical new features is exactly the sort of communication that's missing right now.
Sunday, July 17, 2016 - 04:44
These are great! Animations look great!
I'm guessing LA is Liberation Army, but what's the SB stand for?
Sunday, July 17, 2016 - 04:41
These look great! I love that they are modeled after real hardware instead of just sort of looking like generic 'computer parts'!
Thanks for sharing!
Saturday, July 16, 2016 - 14:37
:)
I don't know about way, way, WAY better, but I'm glad you found it at least useful!
Here's a really rough draft trying to apply similar shading as clint's tin can to Robo's head. The top is pretty much unfinished, and I don't know that I got the size of the highlights/etc. right. So basicaly it doesn't look very good, but hopefully it at least demonstrates the idea.
Something else to consider, the light currently comes from the upper left, but the character is facing the right. This means most of his face is in shadow. Might make more sense to flip the light to the upper right so the front of Robo's face is the lit up part.
I think the thing to notice is that in clint.bellinger's examples is that the gradient does not
move strictly from light to dark. This is true in the photos also. Not there is a small highlight, a large dark section, a stronger highlight and then another dark spot and then mid level at the edge.
My suggestion would be to make his eyes and mouth a bit bigger to fil in all that empty space. Might not be the look you are going for but worth a try.
Thursday, July 14, 2016 - 08:36
Well, we've had comfirmation that bart is ok which is great to hear, and it does sound like there are a few other admins in a position to help out with development and adminsistration, which is also great to hear...
but is there really no path forward from here for getting search fixed? or getting any kind of update posted to main page?
Ok, I am going to try again as new post, just to see if that helps with the formatting...
I don't think it's useful to argue about what constitutes the 'preferred format of modification' for the various artworks on OGA.
Unless there's a golden table somewhere that specifies exactly what constitutes the 'preferred format' for every type of work, it's a moot point, you can't win the argument one way or the other.
As an example, gsliepen sites music stored as an .ogg as an non-preffered format.
As a developer, I can say that is exactly my preferred format for modifying game music. It's well compressed and it's a common file format. I can quickly and easily load it into an editor of my choice and make the modifications I'd want to make (most likely re-leveling the volume and some alight eq adjustments to make it match the rest of the game audio, plus probably slice a few bars off the front to make the song start faster). For me this is infinitely preferable to a MIDI or whatever file meant to be loaded into some music creation application I don't own or don't have installed on my PC.
So you see, you can argue the 'preferred format' from here to Eternia, unless you want to make a judge decide, there's no winning that one.
At the end of the day, you just have to take it on good faith that the artist has provided the work in the format they thought was 'preferred'.
Anyway, do we think some people are disingenuously posting works here as GPL while deliberately withholding the 'preferred format' source files?
Is OGA trying to make a mockery out of GPL by intentionally hosting works without source in 'the preferred form for modifications'?
No, of course not. Works are posted and hosted in the formats that submitters think would be most useful to others.
If you want the work in another format all you have to do is ask. You see requests like that all the time on here and artists generally oblige. And if they don't, it's typically because they literally can't, as in 'I found these .wavs on an old hard drive, they were part of an old project and unfortunately I've lost the .xyz files I used to make them'.
@bart: re: including GPL among the licenses, I don't support removing it (the original reasons for including it still seem valid to me) but I do support burying it a bit on the submission form and surrounding it with flashing neon lights that say 'don't click here unless you are absolutely sure you know what you are doing!!'
Shading on his body looks amazing!! Clint u r incredible!!!
Two thoughts on the head:
the highlight cutting right through the center of his face is a bit distracting.
Since it's a portrait his face should be the priority and the main thing that grabs your eye.
Right now, for me, the shading is what pops out and his face seems a bit either stuck on top of the grey bands or hiding underneath them. You might do well to dial back the number of bands/shades, and try to arrange them so there is a nice solid light grey piece right to the right of center for his face to sit on. If you donit right, you sbould still be able to imply the cone shape but with fewer bands.
This is also important because with the number of shades/bands you use on his face, you're setting the bar and level of detail you'll want to use elsewhere in order to keep the image consistent. There's some leeway there, but generally you want to use a similar number of steps from light to dark throughout the whole image. As an extreme example, imagine his head has 100 shades of grey from light to dark, but then his body only uses 3 shades from light to dark. They won't look like part of the same image at all.
Second, there's kind of a perspective cheat going on right now with his mouth and face in general being perfectly horizontal but the shoulders now tilted and base of head showing some perspective and rounding. You might try putting a little curve in his mouth and offsetting the eyes from one another in order to angle his face a bit to match the new angle of his head. This mismatch in perspectives may be part of the reason I am seeing the face as pasted over the shading.
Wow! Let me just say thanks very much for putting so much time into this! Even if we haven't licked the problem yet, your hard work is definitely appreciated!
Also, thanks for providing such a detailed write up of your work and the issues you've encountered! Hearing that kind of detail really helps the rest of us understand the complexity of the system and gives us a greater appreciation for how much work it will take to fix.
> What would we post to the main page?
I think a post on your search work would be perfect.
Something like 'Changes to Search Feature'
Noting the addition of the title search, and the change in sort criteria and min word index count. Maybe along with a summary of the other things you've tried or tinkered with. Really you could mostly just cut and paste from your posts in this thread.
That would:
a) let the community as whole know about your changes
b) let folks know there are issues with search
c) let folks know that the admins are aware of the search issue
d) let folks know the search problem is being actively worked on
I think that sort of update, even if it doesn't announce any concrete fixes or radical new features is exactly the sort of communication that's missing right now.
These are great! Animations look great!
I'm guessing LA is Liberation Army, but what's the SB stand for?
These look great! I love that they are modeled after real hardware instead of just sort of looking like generic 'computer parts'!
Thanks for sharing!
:)
I don't know about way, way, WAY better, but I'm glad you found it at least useful!
Here's a really rough draft trying to apply similar shading as clint's tin can to Robo's head. The top is pretty much unfinished, and I don't know that I got the size of the highlights/etc. right. So basicaly it doesn't look very good, but hopefully it at least demonstrates the idea.
Something else to consider, the light currently comes from the upper left, but the character is facing the right. This means most of his face is in shadow. Might make more sense to flip the light to the upper right so the front of Robo's face is the lit up part.
oh also, the highlights run along the length of the cylinder as opposed to forming a tight ball.
I think the thing to notice is that in clint.bellinger's examples is that the gradient does not
move strictly from light to dark. This is true in the photos also. Not there is a small highlight, a large dark section, a stronger highlight and then another dark spot and then mid level at the edge.
My suggestion would be to make his eyes and mouth a bit bigger to fil in all that empty space. Might not be the look you are going for but worth a try.
Well, we've had comfirmation that bart is ok which is great to hear, and it does sound like there are a few other admins in a position to help out with development and adminsistration, which is also great to hear...
but is there really no path forward from here for getting search fixed? or getting any kind of update posted to main page?
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