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Poll
Best Rob Reiner films?
Stand By Me
3%
 3%  [ 2 ]
Princess Bride
53%
 53%  [ 35 ]
Misery
7%
 7%  [ 5 ]
This is Spinal Tap
18%
 18%  [ 12 ]
A Few Good Men
9%
 9%  [ 6 ]
When Harry Met Sallly
7%
 7%  [ 5 ]
Total Votes : 65


garyt1



Joined: Mar 12, 2011

Post   Posted: Apr 06, 2019 - 03:30 Reply with quote Back to top

Great to see some progress on this! I agree with SzieberthAdam and Matthuey that ideally the sprites shouldn't be cartoonish to extremes. But oversized heads is still fine.

Though why do the sprites need to fit low resolution displays? Neither monitors or phones are low resolution anymore.
I presume the pitches would be remade as well as the sprites, if the pitches cause some limitation to the sprites size.

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The_Murker



Joined: Jan 30, 2011

Post   Posted: Apr 06, 2019 - 04:23 Reply with quote Back to top

After seeing the icon proposals, one question that immediately comes to mind for me is

"Would it be a significant EXTRA amount of work to allow each user to upload his own 'base set' of icons for each race, to be saved either on the user's computer, or possibly saved at FUMBBL, just like FUMBBL saves my skill markings for my teams, my pitch logo for each team, etc.

To be honest, if I knew I was going to be able to choose my own personal default icons for each race I were to play against in black box (assuming the .svg data was not too large and crippling) I would be tickled, and care very little about whatever style or color palette options were eventually chosen for the defaults.

Given the ability to customize, I'm sure some amazing icons would emerge over time, and become several people's default.

My leagues have great fun customizing the icons as it is.

Cheers.

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Garion



Joined: Aug 19, 2009

Post   Posted: Apr 06, 2019 - 08:19 Reply with quote Back to top

garyt1 wrote:


Though why do the sprites need to fit low resolution displays? Neither monitors or phones are low resolution anymore.
I presume the pitches would be remade as well as the sprites, if the pitches cause some limitation to the sprites size.


The pitches are being remade. The black box one is done, grass one is being worked on. Again this is tough, because it needs to look clean and good at high res, but then when lowering the res it still needs to maintain the detail, squares, half way line, end zone and so on, without the pixels becoming distorted.

As for low res. Around 40% of users are using low res devices. Sub 1080p.

There are still a number of people here using Windows xp, vista and win 7 pcs. Plus early 2000s Macs with leopard, or snow leopard OS.

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The_Carthaginian



Joined: Mar 05, 2015

Post   Posted: Apr 06, 2019 - 10:17 Reply with quote Back to top

SzieberthAdam wrote:
I myself feel the shown vector icons less attractive than the rasters. They are either thin or too kids cartoonish for me. The current icons do fill the field squares in a great way, their parts have nice ratios. I fully understand the concept and benefits of SVG icons and I cheer for all who put work into this enormous task.

One of the greatest benefit of SVG icons is that ideally anyone can assemble icons using premade parts (heads, torsos, etc.). Let me recommend you to just break apart the already great icons and vectorize those parts manually. [...]


+1 for me. I 100% admire and support the efforts being made, and do think a scalable client is the way forward, but I also feel that the current icon style is superior for displaying the differences between different players on the pitch than the proposed replacements. The new artwork styles are nice, but I'm not convinced they will work at the scale of a pitch in-game.

I also love the 8-/16-bit retro look of the current icons, and feel that they add a lot to the charm of FUMBBL, especially with the option to customise them. The throwbacks and references to the original miniatures are also important.

For me, the ideal would be to have the current icons in a scalable client, with options for players to customise them like they do now. Animation is less of a priority for me, but I think this is a decent example of how it could be achieved with the current style (though I appreciate that may not be technically feasible).

Just my 2p!
The_Carthaginian



Joined: Mar 05, 2015

Post   Posted: Apr 06, 2019 - 11:57 Reply with quote Back to top

(Just wanted to add that Christer kindly responded to my questions in a chat on the discord server. I'm sure he'll put his explanation in one of his forthcoming blog posts, but if anyone has similar questions as me, they can see the responses there.)
harvestmouse



Joined: May 13, 2007

Post   Posted: Apr 06, 2019 - 12:19 Reply with quote Back to top

I have a few points to add:

1. Firstly I think it is pretty vital to the site that it moves to a client that can scale. Mucking around with resolution on a high res screen really isn't ideal.

2. No icons so far, are being 'proposed'. If you looked at Garion's original post he showed that icons will be made up from parts. So spriters/iconers would be making parts; not icons.

I also have 3 questions:

1. With the change to SVG and a new client what does that mean for custom league? Custom league is pretty important to the site now (currently possibly even more important than being able to scale). Will the new client support custom league right away?

2. I don't actually hate the current icons turned into svg icons. Could this be an option?

3. 1 thing I have wanted to do is use already made 16 bit (gameboy advanced/SNES) style icons/sprites. There is a massive amount of them out there. Unfortunately they're too big really for 32 pixel squares. 64 pixel squares however they would work well.

a: Could the new client support the option of using png/jpeg sprites?
b: Could a league for example support 1 recommended size of client (to fit a batch icons).

This could be the standard sized client we have now and use the current icons or as to use imported icon sets as I described above.

c: Currently the pitch icons are SVG with a pixel outline. These are on the site in various sizes. Could icons be made in a few sizes to fit a few scales?
Christer



Joined: Aug 02, 2003

Post   Posted: Apr 06, 2019 - 12:43
FUMBBL Staff
Reply with quote Back to top

harvestmouse wrote:
1. With the change to SVG and a new client what does that mean for custom league? Custom league is pretty important to the site now (currently possibly even more important than being able to scale). Will the new client support custom league right away?


It won't be a "new" client. It's the same one we have but with support for scaling. No change in features other than the graphics.

harvestmouse wrote:
2. I don't actually hate the current icons turned into svg icons. Could this be an option?


That wouldn't add anything significant over a simple bicubic scaling of the PNGs. No point doing that work.

harvestmouse wrote:
3. 1 thing I have wanted to do is use already made 16 bit (gameboy advanced/SNES) style icons/sprites. There is a massive amount of them out there. Unfortunately they're too big really for 32 pixel squares. 64 pixel squares however they would work well.


64 pixel squares would mean a 1664x960 field. That would leave 120 pixels at the bottom for the "status bar" and chat/log. Even at 60 pixels, there's not enough space to render things on 1080p resolution (the most common one), and above 1080p is a vanishingly small subset of users on the site.

harvestmouse wrote:
a: Could the new client support the option of using png/jpeg sprites?

Again, it's the same client. It'll continue support pixel sprites at a minimum during a transition period (which will be a very long time as I don't expect SL to convert in a heartbeat).

harvestmouse wrote:
b: Could a league for example support 1 recommended size of client (to fit a batch icons).

This could be the standard sized client we have now and use the current icons or as to use imported icon sets as I described above.

As above, no plans to stop supporting league. It'll work one way or another.

harvestmouse wrote:
c: Currently the pitch icons are SVG with a pixel outline. These are on the site in various sizes. Could icons be made in a few sizes to fit a few scales?


In theory yes, but icon makers have been pretty clear that they don't want to build another size just for the sake of it. A future-proof design is worth the time, another size of icon simply isn't.
Balle2000



Joined: Sep 25, 2008

Post   Posted: Apr 06, 2019 - 13:09 Reply with quote Back to top

Garion wrote:
because it needs to look clean and good at high res, but then when lowering the res it still needs to maintain the detail

To avoid the necessary quality and detail drop you get from making just one adaptive pitch, you can instead make two versions, one for "high res" and one for "low res". The results will be richer.
Garion



Joined: Aug 19, 2009

Post   Posted: Apr 06, 2019 - 16:33 Reply with quote Back to top

Balle2000 wrote:
Garion wrote:
because it needs to look clean and good at high res, but then when lowering the res it still needs to maintain the detail

To avoid the necessary quality and detail drop you get from making just one adaptive pitch, you can instead make two versions, one for "high res" and one for "low res". The results will be richer.


yeah that's possible. Though Christer's desired goal is to have a scalable client. I'm just a dogsbody. I'd be more than happy if people would help share the load.

To anyone - I'm usually about on discord, so feel free to contact me if you want to contribute anything

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Garion



Joined: Aug 19, 2009

Post   Posted: Apr 06, 2019 - 21:08 Reply with quote Back to top

just to be clear - when I am asking people to contribute I am not being arsey, I would genuinly be happy for someone else to come forward to help produce a different concept for us to work from.

Just keep in mind they HAVE to be visible at low res which is very very limiting.

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finsterface



Joined: Apr 29, 2012

Post   Posted: Apr 06, 2019 - 21:29 Reply with quote Back to top

Garion wrote:
In the long run we will be creating character cards of sorts, a bit like this - https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/437815923949174796/559764051337674792/Skeleton_character_sheet.png


I personally really like this kind of graphics, mainly because I think it's in the spirit of the somehow rather cartoonic art we have atm and also in the spirit of how I see bloodbowl: A humorous take on life and death staged on the green grass of a football-field with bombs, skellies, dumb Ogres and slick elfs fumbbling their way through their existence of fantasy-characters trying to score and providing the setting of a tactically rich 2-person-game.

I also think it's a rather appealing contrast to how the current mainstream implementation is taking everything a bit too "realistic" where realism kind of conflicts with the actual content of game-plots (Gobbo's being eaten instead of thrown across the field, chainsaws cutting off limbs, animosities hindering the cooperation of players on the same team or even the characters themselves: decaying tomb guardians, zombies, vampires with hypno-gaze, etc.)
The_Murker



Joined: Jan 30, 2011

Post   Posted: Apr 07, 2019 - 02:24 Reply with quote Back to top

"It won't be a "new" client. It's the same one we have but with support for scaling. No change in features other than the graphics."

Ah.. I was mistaking this thread as including the totally new HTML version of the game, as opposed to just a graphics update, when I was pondering new 'personal icon' features.

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Garion



Joined: Aug 19, 2009

Post   Posted: Apr 07, 2019 - 08:58 Reply with quote Back to top

The_Murker wrote:
"It won't be a "new" client. It's the same one we have but with support for scaling. No change in features other than the graphics."

Ah.. I was mistaking this thread as including the totally new HTML version of the game, as opposed to just a graphics update, when I was pondering new 'personal icon' features.


Personal icons could still be possible in this client. The icons are kept on the site and uploaded to the client. However allowing this level of customisation is likely not going to be top of christer to do list.

As I under stand things - scalable client with new pitch and icons is first. Then some limited customisation options will be offered a bit later. Then who knows what down the line.

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Last edited by Garion on Apr 07, 2019 - 12:59; edited 1 time in total
Calthor



Joined: Jan 24, 2006

Post   Posted: Apr 07, 2019 - 10:36 Reply with quote Back to top

I kind of hope 'customisation' will actually be very much not-limited from the get-go.
Garion



Joined: Aug 19, 2009

Post   Posted: Apr 07, 2019 - 17:13 Reply with quote Back to top

Keep an eye on christers blog series guys and gals - https://fumbbl.com/p/blog?c=Christer&id=22171

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