82 replies to this topic

[kalia]

Hey all,

A little while ago, Wrye contacted me with the following:

Aside from working on Bash, I'm also semi-active at UESP. One of the things that I've been trying to beef up there recently is the recommendations page. That's mostly lists of recommended mods, but there's room for other stuff as well. (For example, I have a "Cool Videos" list page there.)

One of the things that I'd like to have added is a "100 Best Screenshots" (or something like that) page. And since you seem to be doing a lot of reviewing, seems like you're a natural candidate to make such a page. <edited the rest - it was quite long, actually>

I contacted gf1 about this, because really, shouldn't he? And he dropped me a quick note (he's still swamped with work, so hasn't made it here yet):

That idea of Wrye's is very cool - I think it would be great if you did it! Yeah, Wrye posted on the Screenshooter's Guides thread once, and I was really happy to see that too. Really great he asked you to do this.

Now, I have as everyone knows health issues that affect my energy. And work. And a *lot* of TV to watch. But y'know what? I love my little screenshooting community! And this seems a good way to give back. Plus, what the Monkey wants, the Monkey gets. Of course, I've never even edited a Wiki page, but I'm generally a very organized person, so I'm sure it'll be fine. Right? Right? <cue uncomfortable silence, crickets in the background>

Anyway - I'd like this to be a community thing! I'd like to hear tons of ideas, see what everyone thinks. Here's what I'm thinking so far:

It might be nice to (warning: irony ahead) list the mods used in each shot - just the main ones: for instance, a sword or armor set, the body mod used if any, Deadly Reflexes, Aic or AiM, etc. I am *NOT* thinking we'll go with the "100 Best" idea but instead just a "Cool Pics" thing - perhaps Pip's Outrageous Oblivion Pictures? No? Don't like the acronym? And maybe it'd be good to have several categories, i.e. scenery, potraits, action and of course the highpressure-dominated "Decapitations!" section.

What does everyone think? Yea? Nay? Other ideas? Rotten tomatoes?

edited to add a few more details: (and I'm sure I'll remember more I should say later, too.) Wrye is intending this to be an "authored" page like his Oblivion Videos page. So there'd be just a community representative doing this (currently li'l ol' me), and therefore more control over content/tone/etc. If I understand the whole thing, which I think is fairly unlikely.

EDITED again: I'm also intending to do links to photobucket/etc rather than host the images there. I figure that'll get us more piccies total, use up less of the UESP bandwith. Then part of the authorship duties will be deleting/updating links as people's pics move. Or could possibly set up a photobucket acct just for this - a free one - if people didn't mind the images going there.

Edited by kalia, 07 May 2007 - 01:33 PM.

[Victoria]

Sounds nice

[Hector the Hooded]

Yea! I think it is a great idea! Leave it to the monkey to upstage the rest of us!

[Rumpleteasza]

Sounds like a great idea! I think we should definitely add a scenery category in there. I've seen some incredible landscape shots.

I also have another idea for another category. How about 'epic'? Those shots that go one step further and evoke a really intense sense of atmosphere. An example would be some of Floydian's burning city/beam of light/dragon pictures, or something like this one I saw recently at the ESF screenshot thread. What do you think?

[kalia]

Sounds like a great idea! I think we should definitely add a scenery category in there. I've seen some incredible landscape shots.

I also have another idea for another category. How about 'epic'? Those shots that go one step further and evoke a really intense sense of atmosphere. An example would be some of Floydian's burning city/beam of light/dragon pictures, or something like this one I saw recently at the ESF screenshot thread. What do you think?

Really good ideas - keep 'em coming! My only concern about "epic" is that it might imply those shots are better than any of the others - or am I just being overly sensitive about that? Anyone have a thesaurus?

[Rumpleteasza]

Sounds like a great idea! I think we should definitely add a scenery category in there. I've seen some incredible landscape shots.

I also have another idea for another category. How about 'epic'? Those shots that go one step further and evoke a really intense sense of atmosphere. An example would be some of Floydian's burning city/beam of light/dragon pictures, or something like this one I saw recently at the ESF screenshot thread. What do you think?

Really good ideas - keep 'em coming! My only concern about "epic" is that it might imply those shots are better than any of the others - or am I just being overly sensitive about that? Anyone have a thesaurus?

In that case, maybe not. I don't want a sense of elitism to come out of it. But I think there is a definite difference - epic shots would be wide panoramas, scenes of intense action or emotion - just ones that have moved people, I suppose. It's a different genre. For instance, you wouldn't describe portraits as epic, but they are just as beautiful and shot with just as much care and attention as all the others.

Oh well. It's just another idea to add to the melting pot!

[kalia]

Sounds like a great idea! I think we should definitely add a scenery category in there. I've seen some incredible landscape shots.

I also have another idea for another category. How about 'epic'? Those shots that go one step further and evoke a really intense sense of atmosphere. An example would be some of Floydian's burning city/beam of light/dragon pictures, or something like this one I saw recently at the ESF screenshot thread. What do you think?

Really good ideas - keep 'em coming! My only concern about "epic" is that it might imply those shots are better than any of the others - or am I just being overly sensitive about that? Anyone have a thesaurus?

In that case, maybe not. I don't want a sense of elitism to come out of it. But I think there is a definite difference - epic shots would be wide panoramas, scenes of intense action or emotion - just ones that have moved people, I suppose. It's a different genre. For instance, you wouldn't describe portraits as epic, but they are just as beautiful and shot with just as much care and attention as all the others.

Oh well. It's just another idea to add to the melting pot!

Actually, I really like the idea of the category, just perhaps not the name. I agree -- for instance, Shadow's recent Lord-Drad-fire shots would in my mind belong in that category. If no one comes up with a better name, we could just stick your description under it!

[SeV]

I support the project 100%.

BTW, GF1 isn't going to come down here to say hi?

[Spike4072]

I support the project 100%.

BTW, GF1 isn't going to come down here to say hi?

Yes GF1 is coming when he gets time He told me in a PM yesterday. He said he has already been looking around here just hasent got around to regeristing yet. Sounds like he has a lot of work to take care of now from what he told me.

Edited by Spike4072, 07 May 2007 - 08:55 AM.

[kalia]

I support the project 100%.

BTW, GF1 isn't going to come down here to say hi?

Yes GF1 is coming wen he gets time He told me in a PM yesterday.

Yes, exactly -- he's still very very busy at work & just dropped me a quick note, but I couldn't start this thread without mentioning him! I, uh, should probably update my first post.

I'm even more scatterbrained than usual this am. Really confidence-inspiring, huh?

[SeV]

I support the project 100%.

BTW, GF1 isn't going to come down here to say hi?

Yes GF1 is coming wen he gets time He told me in a PM yesterday.

Yes, exactly -- he's still very very busy at work & just dropped me a quick note, but I couldn't start this thread without mentioning him! I, uh, should probably update my first post.

I'm even more scatterbrained than usual this am. Really confidence-inspiring, huh?

they picked the right girl for the job Kalia I think that you'll do just great in representing us Have a little more confidence in yourself

[cyborgakadjmoose]

This is a great idea!

[Treetop Smoker]

Sounds really great to me I hope GF1 can stop by to say hi

[DS Divine]

Its a great idea!

How bout actually a several "Best Of.." titles?

Like "The Top 100 best character"

and

"Top 100 best scenic shots"


?

EDIT: On other hand, I agree about having "Cool Pics" instead.
Its a EXTREMLY hard work to choose top 100 pic

Edited by DS Divine, 07 May 2007 - 10:43 AM.

[DIE 75]

Its a great idea!

How bout actually a several "Best Of.." titles?

Like "The Top 100 best character"

and

"Top 100 best scenic shots"


?

EDIT: On other hand, I agree about having "Cool Pics" instead.
Its a EXTREMLY hard work to choose top 100 pic

I would agree with DS, categorizing is probably a good idea...

[kalia]

So it seems everybody likes categories -- but I do *not* think we're gonna do a "100" in *each* category -- I think Wrye wanted it to be around 100 *total*.

So far categories suggested are: Character/Portrait; Scenery; Epic (Or some other name for the big-grand-story-kinda shot)

I'd also like some category for the picture-stories. Unless hosted somewhere else, I don't think we could really do the written stories, but Rogue Sun's comic's gotta be there, right? And VanQa's stuff? So some sort of category for that.

Also wanted to say, I'm dead-set against the "Best" idea at all - agree w/ you, DS, too hard to pick! I'm picturing this being more like "Here's a bunch of cool stuff we hope inspires the reader/viewer to start taking screenshots!"

Edited by kalia, 07 May 2007 - 11:39 AM.

[Wrye]

Hi y'all. Just dropping by briefly -- glad to see you folks settling in here -- and definitely nice to have a screenshots topics on a forum that allows images! Some truly gravity defying images in there.

Re the page, I've PM'ed with Kalia a couple of times about it, but I have only a few ideas of what should be there. My attitude tends to be start small, get something out there, and then get more complicated if need be (but not too complicated). I like the Kalia's point about not saying "Best" -- it really is hard to decide such things.

My thoughts were just as an occasional passerby of that the POOC topics -- Wow, a lot of these are awesome! And I just don't want them lost in the sands of digital time. Since I'm an admin at UESP, that's my first thought for a location. But that's just my idea. There are some advantages and disadvantages (which I covered earlier with Kalia). One of the strong advantages is the ability share and pass editorship on as people who were original leaders get busy -- that's something that's very natural and easy in a wiki, and in line with something I was trying to do at UESP -- host and link to more recommendation pages. But whether the main page is hosted at UESP or not, I'm hoping it reaches the point where we can link to it from our (somewhat misnamed) Recommended Mods page.

That's about all I've got. I probably won't be dropping by here very much (like once a week, maybe! ). Best way to contact me is still by PM to the BGS forums, or by posting on the relevant topic there. If you're totally fed up with that, second best way is to drop a message on my UESP talk page. But, PM at BGS is definitely better/faster.

PS/OT: I've released four separate mods in the last week plus an update to Wrye Bash (and I've still got two in the wings.) Particularly relevant: The Wrye Bash update improves race change merging (now handles body and voices). PC Sleep Disrober makes your PC undress when sleeping. Summon Bed gives you a fine looking double bed (room for you and your companion) anywhere you go (not available in cities, but oddly makes an very nice bandit trap in the countryside). (Now, back to your regular topic.) Cheers... Wrye

[Xetirox]

I see no reason why it shouldn't be done. As for categories, they're not a bad idea, but how exactly would they work? Would there be something akin to say, a maximum number of pictures per category in order to fit under the 100 maximum limit? Or would all pictures accepted be labeled as nominees and categorized appropriately before the best among them are incorporated into the list?

[kalia]

OK, so here's what I'm thinking:

Total of around 100 pictures. Separated into categories, total number of piccies per category determined by the number of categories. Updated perhaps once/month if I (or the next author) can keep that up, with new piccies, so it wouldn't be static, new mods would get shown off, everyone's cool pics would eventually get up there (cause I know there's more than 100 talented screenshot-takers).

Perhaps we could start adding some pics in here? One thought I had was that we'd do a first run of pics we'd like to see up there, and then we could sort those out into categories, and *that* would determine the categories. Rather than setting up all the categories first & then trying to fit pictures into them.

If people agree about that approach, then what I'd like to see would be either the image or a link to it. From either the person who took the shot, or someone else -- though of course I'll want to get the original shot-taker's ok before linking it on the wiki. And if you want, a suggestion of category name you think the shot'd go in.

Right now, I'm picturing linking to wherever the images are currently hosted. Any problems with that? I mean, I've never done this sort of thing before, so I mean that in technical/bandwith/computer-knowledge-y ways as well as idea-wise.

Edited by kalia, 08 May 2007 - 07:38 AM.

[Wrye]

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.

If the page looks good (and personally, I'm expecting it to be awesome!) then I'll just link to it from the (somewhat misnamed) recommended mods section of UESP. And of course, folks can add it to their sigs and stuff like that. That should all add up to a pretty decent promotion for SHS.

[Taking off marketing hat, putting interested sidewalk superviser hat.] Some additional ideas:
* Pictures once posted don't have to be kept up eternally. Cycling pictures once a month or so would help keep it fresh, and reduce the competitive aspect somewhat.
* You might also include a new poster section, i.e., five pictures from people who are new or relatively new posters. It might work best to put those at the top (and conversely the Holy Shit, I'm so Jealous! pictures at the bottom. (This is just an idea, and might not work depending on how you categorize the page.)