82 replies to this topic

[greatfool1]

Is it possible to post screenies from left to right? For example:

Everything's possible (- that's my motto in life). It's just a matter of you guys telling us what kind of format you want, and we'll do our very best to step up and provide that.

What would be best is if you could give us a consolidated request with specific details as to how you want it to work - so that it's easy to understand, because reading this thread makes me personally a bit unsure as to exactly what you're looking for...

Well that offer is real good to hear!

Yeah, we are still fleshing this out. Kalia is the overall coordinator, so she will present a final proposal, I am sure. But what you just mentioned is a big help for us, as it will allow us to at least request our "dream scheme" (whatever that turns out to be). Thanks!

Edited by greatfool1, 11 May 2007 - 07:38 PM.

[kalia]

OK, so here's *my* picture - let's see if everyone agrees, and then we'll finalize it for the *very* kind folks here, no?

GENERAL -

Something easy to format for me, since I'm unfamiliar with Wiki stuff and the link sanityCheck provided about tables looked a bit like gobbledygook. I like where I can use a drop-down table or click on a button to do stuff. Or, re-reading what you said, a psychic person to read my mind & transfer that directly to your setup via *magic*! Editing restricted to authors. Do we want an area for people to comment/complain etc?

MAIN PAGE

Sexy
Cool
Outrageous
Oblivion
Pictures {<--- something like this straight across the top, not reading down}

What's the SCOOP?
A monthly collection of screenshots taken by players of Bethesda Game Studio's The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion.

Cool? Says who?
Screenshots felt to be SCOOPalicious_™ should be posted by the original "author" in the Possibles Page. {<--- link to page for posting "nominations" during the month} The current SCOOP author picks the 100 pics featured each month, perhaps by what's new, what's different, or what just has that indefinable something! Obviously, there are way more than 100 cool shots each month. Just about every Oblivion-related forum has a screenshots thread! There's one here; the official Bethesda forums have two - one in Cheats, Hints & Spoilers and a long-running thread in the Mods section; and one over at Canadian Ice, plus many many others. You're encouraged to check them all out!

How'd they do that?
Ready to try it out yourself? Check out the guides:
Screenshooting Guides
How to Make A Beautiful Character
And if you want to use a released character, Properly Transferring Faces
Now just pick the forum you feel most comfortable with, read the rules there, and start posting!

______________________________________{<--- some sort of division}

On To The Screenshots!
Screenshots are loosely divided into categories. There's a "sample" shot on this main page, along with a description of the category. Click on the category title or where it says "click here" to continue on to the rest of the pics!

Characters {<---linky to characters page}
[attached image - very cool character screenshot] [description of Characters category, next to screenshot, ending with a "click here for more cool charcter shots" link to page with all the character screenshots]

{Then a second category, also with a representative screenshot, next to that one going across. Probably 3 across, 3 rows down. So: Characters | Scenery| Action / Romance| Epic | Comic Books / Comedy/Glitches | Miscellaneous/Other}

example:

xxxxxxxxxx descriptiondescription | xxxxxxxxxx descriptiondescription | xxxxxxxxxx descriptiondescription
xxxxxxxxxx descriptiondescription | xxxxxxxxxx descriptiondescription | xxxxxxxxxx descriptiondescription
xxxxxxxxxx descriptiondescription | xxxxxxxxxx descriptiondescription | xxxxxxxxxx descriptiondescription
xxxxxxxxxx descriptiondescription | xxxxxxxxxx descriptiondescription | xxxxxxxxxx descriptiondescription
xxxxxxxxxx descriptiondescription | xxxxxxxxxx descriptiondescription | xxxxxxxxxx descriptiondescription
xxxxxxxxxx descriptiondescription | xxxxxxxxxx descriptiondescription | xxxxxxxxxx descriptiondescription

where the xx's are the attached images and the descriptions are the, uh, descriptions.

The linked pages would follow a similar layout, with attached images, perhaps a title to the image just above it, the "author's" name, and information about Mods used/photoshopping etc beside the image.


All the images/descriptions would be updated hopefully once per month, so either: the ability to edit those, or a "template" kinda thing where the old one could be archived & a new "blank" popped in & edited.

I'm not certain about slideshows, as I haven't made any real ones, just kinda popped some pics together on Photobucket. If someone can walk me through making them & share what's required for really cool ones, that'd be great. My picture would be that for the *slideshow*, it'd be just one big one - no need to separate by categories there, and just the screenshots, no text.

What does everyone think?

_____________
OK, second part - the "Possibles Page". I'm thinking this would be pretty much a standard thread, perhaps even here? - where folks who thought they had a particulary SCOOPalicious_™ piccie would attach the picture. Posting there would constitute authorizing their picture to be hosted on the SCOOP page, so pics would have to be submitted only by the person who originally took the screenshot. There'd be standard information listed along with the image - major mods affecting the picture (see greatfool1's great idea about that - beauty mods for characters, armor/weapon for action if applicable, etc), and if the shot was photoshopped (with a simple yes, no or yes but only for brightness/contrast being fine, but more detail also accepted). That'd give me one main place for all the pics to be gathered during the month, and make it much easier. Yes, it could be a "why isn't anyone telling me to put my pics in the Possibles Page?" kind of thing, but we're all adults, right? And we all know that some shots have that *something* extra. Personally, I think every person who takes screenshots has at least one of those per month, and yes - I do expect the Possibles Page to be very long.

Edited by kalia, 12 May 2007 - 06:12 AM.

[SeV]

scooopalicious! I love it! Bravo Kalia-bear, bravo!

And look at that attractive post..... *jots down notes*

[greatfool1]

Excellent ideas Kalia - all of them! Go for it, imo. And thanks for doing this!

By the way, is SCOOP some kind of dyslexic thing for Pictures Of Oblivion Characters Screenies? You are a trickster, aren't you?

(Also, SCOOP is definitely better than your first acronym POOP!)

Edited by greatfool1, 12 May 2007 - 02:38 PM.

[kalia]

Thanks greatfool1 & SeV! I know Wrye's eager to get something linked & going - perhaps we should just set this up as a thread for now, and then the people who make things here (love my technical knowledge? ) can get an idea of exactly what we're doing, and go from there?

If a thread is locked, can the original author still edit his/her posts? In other words, if the SCOOP was set up, then locked, could I still edit it? And actually, greatfool1, I hadn't even thought of it being backwards like that - I was just trying to come up with a cool acronym.

[greatfool1]

Thanks greatfool1 & SeV! I know Wrye's eager to get something linked & going - perhaps we should just set this up as a thread for now, and then the people who make things here (love my technical knowledge? ) can get an idea of exactly what we're doing, and go from there?

If a thread is locked, can the original author still edit his/her posts? In other words, if the SCOOP was set up, then locked, could I still edit it? And actually, greatfool1, I hadn't even thought of it being backwards like that - I was just trying to come up with a cool acronym.

Setting up a thread to get things rolling sounds like a good plan, Kalia.

That is funny you didn't do PoOCs backwards to get SCOOP.

Edited by greatfool1, 13 May 2007 - 08:35 AM.

[kalia]

Well, perhaps unconsciously. Really, I was running alphabetically through things that could end either in "op" for oblivion pictures or "os" for oblivion screenshots. Trust me to do it the hard way.

Mods - whaddya think of having a little subsection temporarily for this UESP thingy thread?

Hmmm.... perhaps movement on this will happen today. I should try to find something that'll wake me up.

[SeV]

I can ask Liam and SC how they want to handle it...

[Hector the Hooded]

We should probably ask Seb too, SeV.

[kalia]

Whatever the folks here want to do. I'm fine also with starting it here, just to get something going for Mr. God of the Monkeys to link to, and then moving/changing/developing however in the future. My only "rush" feeling is in responsibility to Wrye, but the folks here have been so generous in all their offers, I absolutely say it goes at their pace!

[SConrad]

I was summoned?

I can ask Liam and SC how they want to handle it...

We should probably ask Seb too, SeV.

Seb = SC = me.

Anyway, I'm not completely clear what it is you're looking for. Do you want some sort of website with a screenshot gallery, or do you want it here on the forums somehow, in a wiki or something else? If we start with sorting the base format out, we can take it from there and work out a solution.

[kalia]

I was summoned?

I can ask Liam and SC how they want to handle it...

We should probably ask Seb too, SeV.

Seb = SC = me.

Anyway, I'm not completely clear what it is you're looking for. Do you want some sort of website with a screenshot gallery, or do you want it here on the forums somehow, in a wiki or something else? If we start with sorting the base format out, we can take it from there and work out a solution.

Yes, well - the fact that I'm the same person confounded by buying a laptop should give you all *sorts* of confidence.

That's the problem - *I'm* not clear what I'm looking for. I mean, I have a very clear picture in my head of the formatting I'd like, but since I have zero programming/webwhatever experience, I lack the language to translate that. Or even to say - that's best done in a wiki, on a website, on a something else. You wouldn't happen to have any psychics on the staff, would you? 'Cause that'd be *such* a help . . . . Originally, it was just gonna be a page on the Unofficial Elder Scrolls Pages Wiki, similar to Wrye's Recommended Oblivion Videos. Basically a list of links to each image with descriptions/mods lists, sorted by category. No real technical know-how on my part required! Or vision. But then the move here happened, and Wrye thought it would be great for us to host the page here - advertising for the new home and whatnot - plus we could put images directly on the page, making it much more immediate & more visually appealing.

I'll try to better describe the current picture-in-my-head:

Title page, with information about what the page is & the selection process for choosing images, then some sort of demarcation & a list of the categories for pictures. Each category would have the category name, a short description of the category, and a representative screenshot (probably reduced & "click to enlarge" like the img tags here do) from that category. Somewhere in those would be a link to the category's main page. Some of my main page formatting thoughts can be seen in my orange/blue post above.

The category main page would have all the screenshots in that category, again reduced & "click to enlarge" like the img tags here. Each screenshot would have the "author" name above it, perhaps a caption below it, and description/mod information (perhaps links) on the right-hand side. Probably about 10-20 screenshots/page - except for the "comics" category, which I still have to figure out. That might just be one comic/month.

Then there's the updating. The screenshots selected for each category would be changed regularly - at this point we're thinking once/month, but perhaps once/quarter if that becomes too much work. That might or might not mean also changing the number of screenshots in the different categories (I'm sticking to a total of 100 screenshots, but might be distributed differently depending on what cool shots come in each month), but the rest of the basic formatting would stay the same.

Also, somewhere I'd like there to be a "nominations" sort of thread, where "authors" could post their screenshots for possible inclusion in the next month's collection. The main collection pages, however, should be editable only by mods/admins/the collection authors (currently me).

[SeV]

So it would be a seperate webpage altogether, and not aprt of the forum right? I mean part of the forum but not a thread?

[kalia]

Well, that's the thing - I can format a thread. I can't format a webpage. If it's a thread, substitute "post" for "page" above. And I don't know how easy updating a wepage every month would be - could I click & replace images & text, or would the whole page have to be redesigned? I simply don't know enough about all this. If someone else does, I heartily encourage involvement!

And definitely part of this forum - Spellhold Studios - as a whole. I was thinking lately that we might want it a bit separated from our specific screenshots thread to help deflect charges of partiality, but I'm not sure that's valid/worthwhile/would work anyways.

Psychics! I need psychics! I swear, the picture in my head is *so* clear. There's a parchment-y neutral background, nice little box outlining the "click to enlarge" sized version of each image, a nice readable font - not too many varying sizes, just a simple two-color contrasting color scheme (like the orange/blue), so the whole thing's classy but eye-catching. The description & mod list next to each image is contained in an area roughly the same size as the image.

This is why I suggested perhaps just starting a thread in the beginning. Then someone with more experience could see exactly what we're posting, and perhaps that someone would say "Ah-HAH! I see! This would work great set up like _____!" Since I'm not exactly going to be learning web design anytime soon.

[SConrad]

Ah-HAH! I see! This would work great set up like a gallery!



The CMS we use for the website has native support for a gallery, and that works very well. My suggestion would be that we do it that way... We're going to overhaul the website completely in a week or two, and I think there's definitely a possibility to use the built-in gallery to achieve what you want to accomplish. We can format the look pretty much how we want (we're not restricted to any kind of design).

As for updating, that's fairly easy. You'll log in to a control panel, where adding/editing/changing/tweaking images/categories/etc is pretty straight-forward. It automatically resizes images in two additional sizes - thumbnail and medium. It supports batch upload (so you can add many files at the same time). It supports custom fields for author and other captions.

I can talk you through the process over IM when everything's set up, too.

[kalia]

Sconrad - sounds perfect! I guess you're the on-staff psychic.

I don't have IM. Yes, I am *completely* behind the times. But the editing sounds basic - I'm pretty good at using interfaces, if that's what it is. I can figure out using most programs pretty quickly, so not very concerned as long it's *editing* a setup & not *programming a website* - or even the second, if it's just the same stuff reused. Whatever, I have complete confidence in your suggested solution. I did look over the member gallery here, but didn't see the sort of text space I wanted - goes to show that I know little of the customization-ability of such things.

So I'm thinking we should pick a spot for the Possibles thread & get that going, then once the gallery is set up (in a couple weeks, after the site overhaul - which is fine with me) we can start the official SCOOP, tweaking as we go. I've got a few peeps in mind I'd like to get on that possibles page (Basho, I'm talking to you!) (yes, I did just address the character rather than the creator) - and I'd really like those active on the other boards to get some folks sent over as well. Greatfool1, what do you think? Spike, I know you're active on all 3 of the pic threads I'm aware of - what's your opinion? Could the possibles thread just be a thread in this section, or should we put more space between it & our picture thread? Will people even post into a possibles thread, or do you think we'll need to contact folks by PM to get OKS to use their pics/mod lists/etc? I'm especially concerned as it sounds like the gallery would work best with attaching/uploading pictures here directly, in which case we can't just img-tag the original image location. Of course, always possible I'm misunderstanding that.

And can I just add again that all the folks here at SHS rock? Like, majorly hard?

[SConrad]

Sconrad - sounds perfect! I guess you're the on-staff psychic.

That's a title I can live with!

I don't have IM. Yes, I am *completely* behind the times. But the editing sounds basic - I'm pretty good at using interfaces, if that's what it is. I can figure out using most programs pretty quickly, so not very concerned as long it's *editing* a setup & not *programming a website* - or even the second, if it's just the same stuff reused. Whatever, I have complete confidence in your suggested solution. I did look over the member gallery here, but didn't see the sort of text space I wanted - goes to show that I know little of the customization-ability of such things.

That's fair enough. The interface is easy, sholdn't be a problem.

As for the member gallery, that's really not an example worth looking at. It's rather horribly done (and there's no one to blame but myself), and although it's using the same gallery module, the entire design of it can be changed in any way you might want.

So I'm thinking we should pick a spot for the Possibles thread & get that going, then once the gallery is set up (in a couple weeks, after the site overhaul - which is fine with me) we can start the official SCOOP, tweaking as we go.

That sounds cool to me. I need to reinstall the whole system when doing the overhaul anyway, so there's no point in setting up anything prior to that as it will be wiped anyway. As for when the overhaul will happen, well... that's up to K'aeloree.

I'll get khayman on working out a design for it, too, as I suspect you don't want it to look like the rest of the site.

And can I just add again that all the folks here at SHS rock? Like, majorly hard?

Thank you! We do our best.

[kalia]

Everything sounds perfect. Yeah, I- uh - didn't want to say too much about that picture gallery . . .

So to the mods here: shall I set up a thread for possible screenshots to go in the eventual first SCOOP, or should that be handled in pms to the "authors"? Or do we want that possible screenshots thread to be somewhere else?

[Hector the Hooded]

You should do it, Kalia!

[SeV]

Do you guys think we should promote this over at the ESF? I would make a good campaign for this board...