RuneScape talk:Image Maintenance/Archive/Archive 1

Transparency


I personaly think some pics look better when not transparent. In some pics of small objects like this picture I think you need the surroundings to see that this is infact a boatman and not some green splot. Ether that or we need a much bigger immage of him standing upright? Am I the only one? 20:33, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

I totally agree- in fact I was just looking at this picture earlier today and thinking the same thing. the fact that this picture shows the boat and water in the background adds a lot to the picture. 20:35, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Images of NPC's and items should be transparent as the article is about the NPC or item, not the scenery around them. Personally, I believe each article should have a chat-head image and an image of the NPC as players would see them to better identify them. Items can have an inventory image as well as the enhanced detail or equipped image. But I believe almost all images need transparency to keep a sense of consistency throughout the encyclopedia. For this reason, I disagree. 20:38, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
 * True, i see your point, maybe then this image should be placed elsewhere on the page as a sort of "supplementary image" and have a larger transparent picture detailing the actual figure in the NPC box, along with a chat-head detail. 20:41, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Most of the time I look up NPC or an item to find them so that pic would help me find the boat man by some crates this is why I vow to add a map for each NPC  20:44, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I believe that a chat head and a full-body image of the NPC would suffice. 20:47, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Do you mean to say I shouldn't add maps? Am I allowed to add them? 20:50, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

No, I was just stating that we still need to add transparency to images, and that the main images should be, in my opinion, a chat head and body-shot. If more images are needed, a gallery can be created at the bottom of the page. 21:12, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

animated GIFs
Hi all, i have added a new template Template:animGif which is intended to highlight the inherent problem with animated GIFs, primarily in the fact that with the new RuneScape HD rendering of game play in millions of colours quickly loses it's quality when compressed to 256 colours. This does not show well on us a Wiki when we are attempting to deliver high quality content. One particular area of concern is that of the overuse of the Equipment Stats screen in 'rotating images'. Every player who has played will see this screen countless number of times. We should not be wasting bandwidth with such a redundant type of animation. Another issue that exacerbates this issue is that of player/editor vanity where the same character shows up repeatedly wearing the same outfit, which is easily remedied by a simple change of wardrobe before image captures. Different characters and outfits will tend to give the Wiki an air of freshness that invites readers and editors alike to return to our little corner of the web. Unfortunately, the combination of these two issues has seemingly led to a degradation of many articles in that often the LD still images were better quality due to the lack of the coarse-grained choppy pixels that are inherent in animated GIFs.

I would like to see that PNG is indeed the preferred format for images here as the PNG format is colour palette limited as GIF is yet can be rendered indexed for space saving where appropriate. Okay enough of my soapbox already, prowlingly 20:16, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Just a quick note.. I am really tired of seeing the same person in gifs where we clearly don't need one. This needs to be brought to the Yew Grove and a decision needs to be made immedaitely. It's gone overboard, in my opinion. 20:26, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Style
There are many here that believe in the idea of variety, you know changing things up. Even better is when the attire matches what is being presented. For an example look at the one and three feather chompy hat articles, same style of character picture for each article but with variety of clothing and avatar images. 07:04, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Needless Image Filetype conversion
I'm bringing this to light for a couple of reasons. First and foremost is the wasted time and bandwidth consumed in converting images that don't need conversion. Example given: Image:Elf god seren.png. This image consumes 429KB yet the original JPEG image is less than 66KB (more than six and a half times smaller than the converted PNG). Additionally the image is in no way improved over the original, since the original is JPEG the PNG version cannot be any better and thus still contains JPEG artefacts and yet is substantially larger. To this end I am going to write up a snippet that says not to convert JPEGs to PNG unless the image somehow actually becomes smaller, which would be a very very slim chance if that. 15:24, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Please feel free to correct or enhance the list of To Dos and Not To Dos as appropriate. 15:37, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Over-sized images
I've been adding categorizing uncategorized images for a while now, and I keep coming across images that are 1mb or larger and over 1k pixels wide, usually being screen captures from Runescape HD. (For example: Image:Plazarocker_pier_of_Trawler.PNG) Now, I don't know the first thing about how to make it happen, but I believe a category/template is needed so that we can have all the oversized images in one place so we can shrink them down a bit. --nekobawt 23:27, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

Unneeded animations
I'd like a few of your thoughts on unneeded animations. We have a lot of them on the wiki (examples: 4 (1, 2 and 3 have since been deleted) ). Surely a few of them could be made into still images? I have a draft template over at my sandbox. What do you think? 17:08, 10 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree, there are many unnecessary animations that could easily be a PNG image. I feel that the template would also work well, but you should put that you should get a new image, and not simply save it as a still that is in gif format. That would only cause GIF differing or what it is called. 17:16, 10 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I added a note about it. (I should also add that you should feel free to edit the template, so long as it is explained here.) What are your thoughs on the image used (the godsword was the first thing I found), the category name (Category:Unneeded animations) and a possible template name (maybe Template:Needless animations or Template:Unneeded animations (leading to Template:Na and Template:Ua, respectively))? 17:49, 10 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree. Those examples you gave are clearly not needed as an animation. With exception of the last, but even that one has far too many frames.  [[Image:Magic.gif]]  Luvdogmilk  [[Image:Thieving.gif]] 22:05, 10 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I support as well. There are so many animations where I get the strong feeling that the only reason they made an animation was to leave a mark on the wiki, usually by wearing a standard outfit in all their animations. These kinds of animations send a bad message (that this is a place to come if you want glory), take up lots of space, and make some pages appear cluttered and unorganized (animations starting at different times make the page look like some kind of poorly-synced machine). That template you have looks great, however it might be more logical to include a very small animation of a player rotating as if they are in an equip screen, which is I believe the most common useless animation. --Psycho Robot 17:30, 23 June 2009 (UTC)
 * It was only a sample image. Thats a good idea; I had a look around the predicatable places (Equipment Stats and the like) but didn't find one. Seems they've all been deleted. We could probably upload a small one for use in the template (or a normal sized one for use on the afformentioned page, and scale it down for the template). 22:55, 23 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I'd create and upload one myself but I don't have any experience with animations. I also agree that the screenshot used could double as an addition to the equipment stats article and be scaled for the template, so the images doesn't get deleted for being unused in the mainspace (or do templates count for that?) --Psycho Robot 23:44, 23 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Oo, (File:Agile set.gif) I found one. Though maybe another way would be to animate this by making it rotate, though I also lack the nescessary experience to animate it. 16:10, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I like the idea of animating the logo rather than using an existing animation. Perhaps I'm over-thinking it, but I bet if we chose an existing animation, the person who made them might feel somewhat insulted that their animation was chosen to be the poster-boy of "useless animations". As such I've attempted to make the logo spin. Looky! File:Useless-anim.gif --Psycho Robot 20:01, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Nice. I assume you've seen that I added it to the template. I'm just about ready to roll this out, but I'd like a few more editor's opinions and/or the revised media policy to come into effect first. 10:15, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Fair enough. I think the biggest topic of discussion now is what exactly IS useless? I suppose the matter is up to debate, and will probably be decided on a case-by case basis, but I think a few guidelines could be hammered out here:
 * Images like this never benefit from being animated. All screenshots of armor and weapons should be taken as stills.
 * Monster images such as this one are never justified as animations. All monsters, with rare exception, can be demonstrated suitably with a still image. Even images of special features such as this can suitably be demonstrated by a screenshot taken during the right moment.
 * Magic spell images such as this can almost always be demonstrated by a still screenshot taken at the climax of the spell. Animations of the complete spell are rarely necessary.
 * Images of animated features of scenery such as this do not usually need to be animated.
 * Images which appear to be created for notoriety, like this might make one popular within the community, but send the wrong message that the wiki is a place to come for glory. They should be replaced with stills or re-captured without such self-promotion (granted this policy is a bit more... opinionated... but it really gets my goat the way some people use this wiki).
 * That's just a start, I imagine several policies will be added/removed before being finalized. Especially that last one *cough* --Psycho Robot 17:45, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
 * This is largely what Tien suggested on the media policy forum.
 * I believe animations are only needed for:
 * Special attacks
 * Special effects of enchanted bolts
 * Emotes
 * Other emote-ish animations (such as the Prayer book's "emote")
 * Maybe some exceptions, for example a demonstration animation of a spell (instead of all 16 elemental spells, maybe just use fire wave as an animation, the rest as stills). Some of the lunar spells are quite unique, too (like Vengeance), and should be kept. And some monsters, like the KBD's many attacks.
 * But, in general, the points you made above I agree with. Case-by-case basis it probably will be; I added a note to the template. 19:09, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I think the idea of listing what IS allowed is more logical than saying what is NOT allowed. That means we could base the policy on How-To rather than How-Not-To:
 * Animations are only fully justified for
 * -Emotes
 * -Special attacks
 * -Enchanted bolt effects
 * -Unique and interesting item animations
 * -Unique and interesting NPC animations
 * -Unique and interesting magic spells
 * Animations should be taken in an empty area with as few obstacles as possible, such as an empty field
 * Animations should be taken without any armor equipped so as to not distract from the actual animation
 * Make sure that your animation captures the entire length of the subject with around a second of buffer at the end (is that what its called?) before the animation loops to prevent hectic looking animations such as this
 * Also ensure that your animation only encompasses what is necessary. For an animation meant to demonstrate how shady strangers teleport away from battle, this animation captures too much at the beginning.
 * If your animation requires you to be in combat with a monster, please use a monster with a low HP and ensure that you kill it in one hit, so the monster's retaliation does not interfere with the animation
 * I seem to like making lists. --Psycho Robot 20:47, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Yeah, sounds good to me. Another point to add about the buffer is to not make the animation overly long; for example the subject of this animation is to show that the stranger will teleport away at low health, therefore the rest of the battle leading up to it is irrelevant and not needed. (Lists are good, btw) 21:09, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Ok I added that one in to... the list --Psycho Robot 22:45, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I added the list I made up to a sample Images and Media Policy page I wrote up in my Sandbox. Take a look and tell me what you think! NOW!!! 21:03, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

Long GIFs
I have seen over the time that I have been here is that there are many GIFs that have too many frames as a part of it. 1 is a good example, as from the time that the animation begins to the time before the stranger gets hit the last hit should only be needed. I think that we should create a new template and category for these types of images. Anyone feel the same way about this? 13:06, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I only seen 2 very longs GIF's (one was 2 mb big) and I replaced them both with a still or smaller image. The example you give is only 231 KB big. It coulda been improved a little maybe, but .. I don't think its necessary. (And before Hapi comes around with his Pith helmet to 'improve' it, you can save the uploaded image and make it shorter/crop) If this template will be released I hope! that not every1 is gonna place it on every GIF.. We need to put priority on updating the old graphic images. -- 15:04, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Anti aliasing for animations only?
I found this image which had no anti-aliasing and hence looked very jagged and unpleasant. I remembered seeing an anti-aliasing tag and found it here but its specifically says its only for animated images or images with backgrounds. Still images with transparency look bad without anti-aliasing too, why have they been excluded from this policy? --Psycho Robot 20:26, 28 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Have you added transparency to images with 4x AA? It's difficult and often turns out looking horrible. 17:08, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I've added transparency to quite a few of them. I just uploaded File:Chompy-hat.png which has transparency added and is 4x AA. It wasn't that hard, I just put it in photoshop, used the eraser on the brush setting, and traced around the edge. --Psycho Robot 23:40, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Oh yeah, and look at the favicon of the RSWiki with a dark background underneath. I sense some irony here. 23:29, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

After closer inspection of the AA tag it doesn't even make sense. "...still image anti-aliasing causes a blurring that makes lines and images less succinct. These artefacts are left behind by the graphic rendering method when anti-aliasing is enabled." And yet here we have "...the lack of anti-aliasing causes this animation or image to appear less smooth..." Seriously what are we trying to do here, confuse our readers/editors? Let's get rid of this tag, it ain't helping and nothing much is going to improve with it. I'd rather have smooth lines instead of a jagged pixelated mess any day. 23:34, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

Obstruction tag
Wondering is we should have a tag for the subjet of the picture being partly blocked from view by something (noramlly tall blades of grass) or do you think this is fuss over something little - bearing in mind it would look weird to add trans if there was a blade of grass across someones leg

MASSIVE IMAGE FIXES REQUESTED!
Please help make all of the Standard Detail or Low Detail images in this article become "fresher". Thanks. -- 04:19, December 5, 2009 (UTC)