Avatar parts for cmc Guidelines

Here are the guidelines for Avatar parts for cmc Guidelines suggestions and submissions. If you intend on giving my a suggestion or submission, your chances for getting any sort of change to occur is greatest if you follow these guidelines.

Email
My avatar email is --- Don\'t message me over aim about it, I don\'t mean to be rude, but I\'ll stop talking to people who bug me about that stuff over AIM. I will read it over email, though I may not respond. Don\'t ask me if I recieved your email, if gmail doesn\'t email you back, I probably did. Maybe I should set up an automated responder for this reason.

Suggestions
I prefer all suggestions to be submitted by email, put suggestion in the subject. General suggestions are better, for example: Space suit is a better suggestion than \"commander keen\'s space suit\", because it isn\'t copywrited.

If you tell me a suggestion over chat or in game I might respond to it, but it is more convenient to be by email. Do not bug me repeatedly for suggestions, if you do, the chances of it being made will, if anything, be reduced. I may periodically post my favorite suggestions that I don\'t have time to make for others to make and submit.

Submissions
I will not add submissions often. Submissions will always be public and most likely more expensive than normal items; this is to discourage people from trying to get their own sets made. If you submit something, it is for everyone.

All submissions must be submitted as 60x95 RGBA transparent PNG\'s by email. Do not zip/rar/compress.

Making submissions
Do not make submissions in paint. Make submissions at a higher resolution, at least 120x190, using the given templates, and cubic, or linear resize them. If you cannot do this, then best to leave it as a suggestion, I apologize to whoever this alienates.

Attached are avatar PSD\'s in a zip.


If you do not have a paint program, use the gimp. It is free, and it is what I use. Here is a link for windows gimp: http://www.gimp.org/windows/

you should mention this is for AVATAR PARTS for the CMC system, not for the forum

masamunemaniac Wrote:Whether the submitter would get their suffix added to the partname. For example, were I to make a set, would an item be called \"Super Shadow Pants -K\" or \"Super Shadow Pants mmm\"? (Or
whatever my nickname shortening might be)

I don\'t know, -mmm would be unfair to people with the same characters, if there were another K, it\'d be unfair to him. Maybe we could bug webby for an author spot like in cmc card images.

masamunemaniac Wrote:Whether there are any general restrictions - would use of crazy transparency effects be allowed (eg a lightsabre submission?) Something from the comics (eg a Wrench set submission?). Something blatantly copyrighted (Darth Vader set submission?) Or will you just decide on an individual basis?

The requirement was RGBA,which means the alpha channel is not bitwise, in other words, yes, crazy transparency. But it has to be png. RGBA png.

Webrunner\'s comic submissions will not be uploaded unless webrunner really likes them, which means if you submit them, they will sit in my hard drive until I get the opportunity to compile and show them to him. Therefore, I don\'t recommend it unless he specifically makes a request. (This is because webrunner requested that I, myself, do not make certain things because he may want to, which included his comic)

Blatently copyrighted material won\'t be accepted. Lightsabers, I don\'t think are blatently copywrited, though darth vader mask would be. Weasel submitted a lightsaber but I may make it myself because it was one I planned to make and his didn\'t use crazy RGBA transparencies.

masamunemaniac Wrote:Should sets be sent in a single file with multiple layers (as per your examples) for easy viewing/assessing? Or in separate files for easy uploading? Or both?

PNGs, as stated above, 60x95, PNG\'s are not layered.

An author spot would be perfect, from the perspective of the person that wouldn\'t be coding it.
My bad on the layer/png question. What I really should have asked was whether you would appreciate having full avatar samples from the pieces as well (together in correct layer order and merged to give a better idea of what the piece looks like in context), or whether you\'d simply piece them together yourself to assess them?

I sent this in an e-mail to you, but it seems like an important enough question that other people might want it:

What is the policy on modifying another person\'s avatar part?
e.g.: Create an alternate coloration of an existing part (say a red wizard\'s robe)
e.g.: Use an existing part as a basis for your own (say changing the wizard\'s hat into a witch\'s hat with a wide brim)

Good question:

A ) if you use another item very clearly, then make sure I know and I will note this in the author section
B ) I may not add it because I will be trying to add only the highest quality submissions that I recieve. That means that recolorations of your favorite avatar part, though useful, will not be the first avatar I add.

I\'ll add to this a little..

Valid reasons why your submitted part hasn\'t gone up:
It looks good and original, but it\'s the wrong format. Formats are tricky in some programs (Fine in GIMP 2.0). An easy way around this is to open a blank rgba 60x95 png for editing, already correctly formatted, and \"Save As\" afterwards.
edit: Check bottom of this post for an example single-layered RGBA png. It\'ll work so long as the paint program you use is fully compatible.

The reason behind doing avatars at 120x190 or 180x285 and then cubic/linear resizing them, is to get good anti-aliasing. You\'ll be able to see the difference (for the moment?) between some of my own parts - some are blocky/pixelly, others look smooth-edged. A good cubic-resize will use transparency to achieve this. A non-scaled or wrong/smart resize will likely not.

It\'s too similar to something already up or submitted. Be sure to check the allparts.jsp before starting work on your parts.

It\'s a signature part of a well-known character. Cloud\'s Buster Sword and Spiky Hair would be blatant copyright infringements. Lightsabres, or a more common hairstyle would not, as these are seen in a number of things and not attributable to a single production. Don\'t cover up plagiarism by neglecting to mention your inspiration though - it\'s not about the Avatar Admin rejecting all \"inspired\" parts - it\'s about making informed decisions. If he could still say \"The similarity is just a coincidence\" rather than \"yeah, that\'s Vader\'s mask\" it could well go up.

The uploading/updating process is quite slow, and especially so when cmc is laggy. Some days it will be impossible to update. Nothing can be uploaded during unplanned downtime, obviously.

The point is to keep a steady flow of parts coming in, rather than the occasional burst of new parts. This will be achieved by releasing a few parts every week (few days?) or so, and keeping parts in reserve (artists won\'t work constantly, some will only do parts as a one off).

He may be unable to put a price on the item. You can compare one shirt to the next and say \"That\'s cooler than than one\". And price it up 300pts accordingly. But with more obscure items, pricing becomes harder. It\'s not just randomly chosen, if it\'s not been done before, how do you fit it into the curve? (It\'s the same problem as balancing new card concepts. Beatsticks are easy to balance, complex abilities aren\'t)

Your part is either rather boring, or just plain rubbish. Ask some others for advice or opinions, and improve it.

It may be originally made by webrunner (AFH, CMC, ADV inspired), or another locally available person (remake/paletteswap).. In this case he\'ll need to get permission, or if that\'s not possible, reject the part. And it\'d be silly to bother webrunner for each individual part, so you get a bunch to ask about at once... I think.

Kaddar has a life, and is not dedicated 110% to cmc (assumption).

To name just a few reasons. So there you go, and don\'t bug him too much for answers and opinions.

Quick note: the far/right shoe in the "Black dress shoes" set is too small to fully cover the foot.  Noticed this when I built a test server avatar. The other shoe also leaves maybe 1-2 pixels uncovered.

Same with the Dark Gauntlets.

(The right gauntlet, left side of the image.)

And the Argent Armor is slightly too small, and shows a few pixels width on the right side of any shirt you wear.

Yay! Maintenance >_>

You signed up for it, you get to do maintenence.