82 replies to this topic

[SConrad]

With the recent split, I know that y'all are are little concerned about getting some attention here at SHS, so I'm going to take off my UESP admin hat and make some marketing suggestions. If you can host the picture collection thing here, that would do the most to help promote the site and the screenshot topics in it.

As I understand it, the owner here is being very flexible about type of hosting (forum, wiki, blog), so it should be easy to find a technical option that makes it easy for the designated editors to update the page as needed/desired. And inlining images really does help a lot -- and it's hard to do that at UESP.

From an SHS point of view, we're more than happy to assist in any way we can. We're very flexible, yeah, and are more than likely to be able to add/fix/set up practically anything.

We just need to know what you guys need.

[kalia]

So -- does anyone with more technical knowledge have some ideas of what would be best to set up here for showing off the piccies?

To recap: This'd be a place, linked from UESP, to show off cool Oblivion screenshots, hopefully inspiring others to take up the art! Things discussed so far: having some organization by categories, definitely rotating the shots (perhaps monthly) so that not only a few people's work gets shown & to keep up with advances in mods, perhaps highlighting new screenshooters (like the wonderful pic by Axil, here).

[lemonio]

maybe making power point presentations of the 100 best in each category?

or flash movies?

Edited by lemonio, 09 May 2007 - 03:03 PM.

[Soul_Slayer]

maybe making power point presentations of the 100 best in each category?

or flash movies?

I think this is a good idea.

[lemonio]

maybe making power point presentations of the 100 best in each category?

or flash movies?

I think this is a good idea.

if only flash did not cost gazzillions of dollars.

[Cosmic-Banana]

if only flash did not cost gazzillions of dollars.

Indeed but FlashSlider would do the trick

[lemonio]

if only flash did not cost gazzillions of dollars.

Indeed but FlashSlider would do the trick

flashslider? i am missing out on something.
edit
i meant flash movies not slideshows.

Edited by lemonio, 09 May 2007 - 05:05 PM.

[Cosmic-Banana]

flashslider? i am missing out on something.
edit
i meant flash movies not slideshows.

Oh yeah... those

Yup, we need some financing

[lemonio]

flashslider? i am missing out on something.
edit
i meant flash movies not slideshows.

Oh yeah... those

Yup, we need some financing

i tried to "acquire" flash, but i failed. i have it at school though, but quite inconvinient!
nevermind. i think i downloaded a free trial.

Edited by lemonio, 09 May 2007 - 06:37 PM.

[kalia]

Good ideas, keep the contributions coming! A concern, though: would flash or slideshow thingies be hard for people on dial-up?

Some things I'm nixxing: "best". I'd really like it to not even be part of the conversation. There's no way I could pick even 1000 "best" out of the great screenshots, let alone only 100 or so.

Also, I'd rather have the number limited but the screens changed out more often. I'm not sure I'd want to do 100/category even if the page only got updated once/year -- I know if *I* came across something like that, I'd be overwhelmed & probably not get through even half. I'd rather really *feature* some great screens, but change them out - maybe even once/month? Or once every 3 months? That'd give more opportunity to showcase new artists.

I definitely want something where you click & there's the screens(rather than a bunch of individual links), and that seems to be the consensus. What I don't know is what's possible & what the limitations are. I'd like the end product to be dial-up friendly, if possible.

I'd also like to get something going fairly quickly, or at least be able to tell the Monkey God there's a plan in place. I need my fingers!

[SeV]

Wrye couldn't have made a better choice when he appointed you for the tast kalia I think you will do an excellent job, and we all have faith in you Hopefully it won't take up too much of your time/energy, but thank you for doing this for us

I'd liek to hear GF1's input on this, he's excellent with these organizational deals....

[Hector the Hooded]

@ SeV - I think Layla is good with that! gf1 is sort of the stooge, ya know?

@ Kalia - I can't say it enough, thank you, thank you and thank you! But please don't wear yourself out !

Edited by Hector the Hooded, 10 May 2007 - 12:03 PM.

[kalia]

Wrye couldn't have made a better choice when he appointed you for the tast kalia I think you will do an excellent job, and we all have faith in you Hopefully it won't take up too much of your time/energy, but thank you for doing this for us

I'd liek to hear GF1's input on this, he's excellent with these organizational deals....

PM'd him, had the same thought myself, and he'll stop by when he has a chance. Thank you again for your kind words and confidence.

Maybe people could link to some examples of what they think it might/should look like? I don't know what different possibilities there are here, the technical stuff's a bit beyond me.

[SeV]

I'm not exactly sure what the Wrye-monkey has in mind actually. He wants a collage of screenshots to put up on the Wiki? Am I getting it rite?

[kalia]

OH, I see part of why there aren't that many post! No, no - he wants me to set something up that shows off the great screenshots. Originally it was gonna be on the UESP wiki itself, so probably just links to the original piccies. But he's all about hosting the actual page here now - so we can have the screenshots themselves directly on the page. And then he'll just link to it from the UESP recommendations page. I'm thinking we'd update it with new shots about once/month. I'm just posting this quickly -- perhaps I can detail it more tomorrow.

[Kaelis Ebonrai]

We could set up our own little website, for this, if you'd want? (hosted at SHS, of course?)

[SeV]

so would it be a thread of great screenshots or a webpage or great screenshots?

[Hector the Hooded]

You forgot to log in lemonio!

[greatfool1]

Just as I suspected, Kalia, when you wrote me today - you all have already figured this out far better than I would have. I read all the preceding posts, though my head is a bit mushy right now, so please forgive any repetition.

I like the 100 shots max for the same reasons already mentioned. More than that will not likely even be looked at, and will get unwieldly. Also, changing it out once/month or so would be great!

I think categories are good, in the long-run for sure. I personally would try to do categories from the beginning because it organizes it for the viewer, and few people will look at 100 shots all in a row. Also, a non-categorized approach will not be so good for the last 50 shots or so. Some peeps like looking at landscape/sunset shots; others character shots, etc.

I think these categories have been mentioned:

Characters
Scenery
Action/Battle
"Epic" - maybe hugely populated battle shots - like Treetop's and Floydian1's?
"Comic" Books

How about these too:

Romance
Comedy/Glitches?

I assume there will also be captions allowed with the shot, along with a list of the main mods. I would also assume in the Character category, the Beauty mods would be listed for sure, but this kind of listing would not be necessary in the Action category, for instance. In Action, the armor and weapon would be listed. In Romance, the size of the ... oh nevermind.

So, using the above categories as an example, that would make 7 categories with approximately 14 screenies/category on average. Of course, not every category would have/need that many, and some would have more.

E.g., I would think Characters should have at least 20-25 screenies. Action also, maybe 20, etc. Anyway, like you said earlier, we can adjust as we go along.

The img approach is best - one click per category.

I think the Flash SlideShow presenter is also a good optional link to provide. Definitely only broadbanders on that one. What is cool about it, is you can add music and just sit back and watch the show. It is free, and easy to use, though it gets buggy when using more than 40 or so shots, in my experience. Highpressure introduced us to it ages ago, and I have made at least 5 shows with it. But definitely only as an optional link - no way for dialup users on that one. (So a warning about this would be good.) You could also have each category made into a slideshow presentation to keep the size down.

Also, once I get the Screenshooter's Guides on this site, we may want to provide a link to that, along with SeV's Character Guide, and an invitation to post on the screenies thread.

Regarding dialup users - Even the 500K size screenies we post are probably a pain for them. My dialups are about 125K and still look ok, imo. Also, I have mentioned this, but about 1/3 of my website hits are on the dialup versions of the screenies. There are more dialup users than I tend to think. Maybe Wrye could also check at UESP to see what their stats report on this. Or perhaps a google search could tell us something.

OK, Kalia, you got me hooked into this! I think it is a really great idea to do and I will now be obsessively thinking about it for a while! Thanks a lot!

Btw, as others have mentioned, please don't overdo it health-wise.

Edit: Also, what are the rules relative to how scantily the characters can be dressed? I think a warning about even that would be considerate. You can look at my web page (see sig) to see my warning there. Also, there are slideshow presentations there if you want an example, along with the dialup warning.

Edited by greatfool1, 10 May 2007 - 08:43 PM.