[Icons and Skins] Free-hand, tracing, CnP and exporting

[GhostThruster]

Then you are commenting in the wrong thread because here the subject matter is exactly that: allowing anything goes, allowing unedited, cropped, straight CnP images

You're deliberately being obtuse right? You're not actually willing to entertain an alternative point of view, are you, what with your successively reductionist blanket statements?
Because, while I can at least see a smidge of logic in the bafflingly weak statement "models aren't images", here you're outright wrong.

At this point, I'm fully prepared for a "no u" response.

 

[Misha]

I'm against lousy edits..
but on CnP, i know some people have done some really good textures out of it, a collage that turned out very well on the model.

so yes.. even CnP should have a good taste to it.. is that a good minimal amount of effort?

 

[Murlocologist]

You're deliberately being obtuse right? You're not actually willing to entertain an alternative point of view, are you, what with your successively reductionist blanket statements?
Because, while I can at least see a smidge of logic in the bafflingly weak statement "models aren't images", here you're outright wrong.

At this point, I'm fully prepared for a "no u" response.

Even though somewhat amusing, I'm not interested in trivial assumptions about my stance, neither in random and thread irrelevant interpretations of my words. As it gives an impression you ran out of constructive or at least content relevant posts, I'd like to point you to re-read the opening post and remind yourself of the subject matter and continue from there.

 

[Maxwell]

I don't see hive as factory that only serves the needs of the modder. It should serve as home for artist people, the guys who make the resources, too.

Totally agree with this point. Don't ban me @Ralle, but I think that we should care about resource creators a little bit more than modders. When I see that my Icon being overhelmed with 10 recolors/CnP/traced icons, it is kinda frustraiting. If such icons will be posted in same section as freehand, it can lead to amount reduction of quality freehand icons. Would it be better for modders? I don't think so.

I know they can copy and learn things at their own place, not here; but in my opinion, CnP makers should be allowed to contribute here, because many of them seek attention

I have never used CnP to make icons, but still I have learned a lot of things about drawing. The thing is that people who upload CnP to Icon section seek just for attention. They do not learn anything from it. They want to hide the fact that icon is CnP and present it as their own artwork.

So Yeah, I am 100% against allowing tracing/CnP/recolors in Icon Section. If you want to let them share this icons - let it be Substandart Icons section or Hive simple edits thread.

 

[PrinceYaser]

I have never used CnP to make icons, but still I have learned a lot of things about drawing. The thing is that people who upload CnP to Icon section seek just for attention. They do not learn anything from it. They want to hide the fact that icon is CnP and present it as their own artwork.

Not every CnP maker is like what you believe. Some are raw and inexperienced dudes seeking their work to be valued properly, not just sending them directly to substandard as a discouraging action for further works.

Some guys upload a Cnp/Traced icon to the section, and when they get their icon sent to substandard, they get discouraged and leave the section. Or.. some guys when see their icon sent to substandard, they become discouraged and upload more CnP icons again and again, without seeing what the actual rules behind the section are, without following them and the last result is ban because their work had been unseen, which is something terrible having some guys banned. Mods have to review the icons which are traced and are in the freehand section and the final thing is that they must send them to Rejected section, therefore everything comes to dissipation, both the review and the time of Mods, maker, and database. Apart from the fact that tracing is much better than making CnP icons because they draw.

I'm not sure what the most effective way behind this issue is, but we need to help the guys seeking attention (apart from those people that we truly can't help them) and want to contribute to Hive as their own artwork. Either a separate section (of course in the icons section) or some serious nice way.

 

[nedio95]

My whole point & contribution towards this topic is:
TL;DR Yes, allow such edits to be uploaded and approved, as long as they don't poke a knife into copy rights, IP, etc. BUT have them separated with tags.
Not section, because they will have to reform the whole site then...

Long time ago, when I first got into war3 modding, and did not know jack shit about anything, didn't know what GUI is or 3d Models or tga files, there was a post in Requests asking for a simple potion icon with a few variations (red, green, blue, red & green, red & blue, blue & green, red, blue & green, basically all combinations possible with 3 different potions).
There wasn't anything similar available on THW, so I thought, let's try this?
I followed a tutorial on photoshop, took a potion image from google, didn't work out well. Took a different one, meh, made like 15 different potions and did like a bajillion different sets, took me like a week or so to get some OK(-ish) out. My jpeg was ready !!!! Hold on, that does not work properly in game? Oh, ffs, where's the tutorial section... In the end, put out a few working icons. Guy was happy.

Going into extremes is... ridiculos... let me set the situation for you:
"He killed a lady" "You don't have proof, innocent, let him free"
"He stole a pencil, we have it on tape" "Guilty, Death!"

Let's not forget that CnP(&etc.) are a major part of making a war3 mod (what most people come around for and what the resource section is for, what a surprise...) because if you cannot make some yourself, employ the servises of somebody who can or find something in the resource section, then you are buggered. The only solutions are (That story in first paragraph) to either post a request, and engage all of the religious add-ons of your body that somebody would pick up and carry out OR grab the first tutorial around for something you don't wan't to do, or you can't or you'll never be any good at.
My point is, it took an idiot about a week to CnP + trace + recolour a bunch of small little things, that looked like came out of a grinder at the end. If anybody needs a bunch of potions now, they have to poke one of the icon makers or repeat the whole process while there are (unavailable) resources out there that satisfy their needs.

Also, if you have 0 knowledge of icons, art, photoshop, etc. and you see "Rejected: Not freehand" you are not going to use the resource. There is an expert who's said "Rejected", doesn't matter what "freehand" is, as far as you know it may be a virus.

On the other side, @Maxwell Have you ever tried freehanding? Do you know how hard freehanding is? (Joking, I am familiar with your works, love them, cant wait for you vs. @PrinceYaser to complete)
There is so much work & talent that goes into freehanding. It is impossible for some people (me) and I definitely can imagine it hurting at least a bit when you see a beautifully drawn icon next to a... Well, this:

Btw, I still have the potions (Forum does not take tga or bmp attachments lol)

regards
-Ned

 

[Rui]

I voted for. Before I go into details, a disclaimer: my positions on authorship & the intrinsic value of one's work are well known. Therefore, I believe we should all take into consideration, fully acknowledge and accept artists' right to feel compensated for their freehand efforts.

Reasoning behind my choice includes an argument I've presented in the past. When you're losing userbase, you've got to be more flexible about your policies. (This does not imply crossing the borders of morality.) In this case — like many have mentioned before me —, a compromise would be excellent. And the key word there is having good common sense. For example, last time we had this discussion, an administrator uploaded a Shaman Adept Training icon, identical to the original, but with painted nails, in response. That would be a counterexample.

• Having good sense means fine-weighting the factors of art, usefulness and, not shamelessness, but appropriate sourcing of everything the author used as base for his/her resource.
  
• Grabbing pieces of other works and assembling something that's simultaneously new, beautiful, pleasing and useful is, in itself, art.

In response to a few concerns raised here:

“People will be doing CnPs and using Google images and exports without anyone figuring.”
​

But how do we currently forbid them? When reviewing an art resource, we already have to know whenever we are looking at a piece of CnP or game export. So nothing really changes regarding shams.​

“But freehand artists will not feel rewarded.”
​

That's where the staff comes in. The first position I had in this site was World Editor Help Zone moderator. Part of my work was to reward people who correctly answered users' questions with reputation. Here's one of possibly many ideas: a yearly award for best freehand. Nominations must include WiPs. Following an excellent proposal by @Freddyk on contests, reward the top X of candidates (or don't reward them at all, as users will probably already be doing that themselves in the proposal submission thread).​

 

[deepstrasz]

Yeah.... I'm seeing a lot of so called enhancements to the original campaigns in the Maps section, and I really Substandard most if not all of them for not only being bad but for basically being CnPs with a slash of tracing too.

 

[Maxwell]

I extended the poll to run forever.

I find this poll kinda pointless.

In fact modders want to allow this and have acces to bigger amount of icons. They don't care about how it was created and how long it took. On the other hand, I believe that most of artist vote for "I am against this", becouse they don't want their icons be messed with CnP and etc. Maybe Icon Section isn't a gallery, But it isn't a trash can, and personaly I want to see here original, freehand and quality Icons only.

So, returning to the point that this Poll is pointless - Of course the most voted position will be "I am for this", amount of modders and artists are uncompareable.

 

[KILLCIDE]

What gives you the idea that we would approve just any CnP icon? The icon still has to be good quality.

 

[chobibo]

"one man's trash is another man's treasure". I'm okay with it as long as the quality will indeed be moderated.

 

[Trill]

Look, while I'm a 100% for the proposal, I understand that some of the artists (rightfully) proud of their skills deserve some ego stroking as well.

At this point HIVE has "substandard" section, which has a lot of good stuff which is simply not artsy enough, mixed with completely broken, useless and/or extremely low-quality stuff. If you could at least sort submissions into "broken/trash quality" and "good and useful but not artsy enough" when marking them for "Substandard", it would please both parties. This concerns not just icons, but models too (because it is frankly weird to see incredibly useful and well-made models, like Ujimasa Hojo's "and Derivatives" series in Substandard because that particular bundle is mainly texture swaps at the moment).

Better yet, since whole crux of the problem is validation for people who put more effort than others, you can have three categories - Substandard (for actual trash and illegal stuff), Standard and, I dunno, Premium or Superb.

 

[Kyrbi0]

^^Comments like this are a good indication that words/names are important; simply renaming it from "Substandard" (which has some definite negative connotations) to... just about anything else that fits, would be great.

It's been long enough I don't recall my old suggestions, but perhaps shifting the perception 'up one', ala:

CURRENTLY:
	Substandard	(Approved) //wait, does it even have a name?
POSSIBLY:
	Standard/Approved/etc	Premium/Deluxe/Excellent/HQ/etc

Basically, what is "approved" becomes the 'higher-quality stuff', while what is currently called "low-quality" simply becomes "approved" (i.e. it has met the bare minimum bar for approval/is useful).

 

[stein123]

Premium/Deluxe/Excellent/HQ/etc

you mean, DC?

 

[Kyrbi0]

you mean, DC?

That's another suggestion, sure (though personally, "Director's Cut" kinda takes it to the next level; even if you ignore the socio-emotional baggage that phrase has on this site, the words alone have the connotation of "absolute best/cream of the cream of the crop/utter zenith", which would not apply to all the (currently) "Approved" stuff).

~~~

Basically I'm saying that right now, we (essentially) view it as "Bad & Good".
What I'm suggesting is we pick words that instead say (essentially) "Good & Better".

 

[deepstrasz]

Basically I'm saying that right now, we (essentially) view it as "Bad & Good". What I'm suggesting is we pick words that instead sell the message of "Good & Better".

So, there's no bad anymore? Rejected, no normal user can see, substandard (bad), anyone can.

 

[Kyrbi0]

So, there's no bad anymore? Rejected, no normal user can see, substandard (bad), anyone can.

If it's truly "bad", why is it on our resource section?

Better to say: Rejected still exists. And we don't have to change anything about how things are organized; literally just swap the names.

I would ask: why are we focused on 'bad'? Why is "Approved" the place for the the good stuff? Let's call it what it is: "Approved/Standard/(Decent/Sufficient)" for the current 'Substandard' section (after all, it *did* make it in)... And something better for the current 'Approved' section. Instead of "Bad/Good", focus on "Good/Better". A paradigm shift to the positive. : )

Suggestions abound. A quick Google Thesaurus check:
Quality, Choice, Prime, Select, Deluxe, Optimal, Advanced, Superior, High-Class...

We could even do a sort of Warcraft-themed thing: "Tier 1" and "Tier 2".

 

[Trill]

So, there's no bad anymore? Rejected, no normal user can see, substandard (bad), anyone can.

That's tricky. On one hand, as long as server space is not an issue, deleting stuff should be last resort. On the other hand, if I remember correctly (can't be bothered to go through whole folder), there's still rejected stuff in Substandard folder - including things which include CnP from other games, which is actually illegal. Which kinda defeats the purpose of banning illegal stuff, if it is still available from Hive!
As such, logical approach would be to have two rejection categories - Illegal, which is outright deleted from Hive, and simply Rejected, which is really useless and bad, but still gotta be retained for variety of reasons:
1) So others can see what exactly gets rejected and what they shouldn't do.
2) Bad or not, useless or not, it is still some author's work, and by uploading it to Hive, they can secure copyright, AFAIK.
3) Bad icons/models sometimes still have interesting concepts or ideas behind them. Someone may find them useful and replicate them in approvable form.

 

[deepstrasz]

On the other hand, if I remember correctly (can't be bothered to go through whole folder), there's still rejected stuff in Substandard folder - including things which include CnP from other games, which is actually illegal. Which kinda defeats the purpose of banning illegal stuff, if it is still available from Hive!

Report it.

3) Bad icons/models sometimes still have interesting concepts or ideas behind them. Someone may find them useful and replicate them in approvable form.

Substandard is available to all.

 

[chobibo]

I think the segregation of the resources based on artistic quality is going to be management hell.

Still:

Patrician's Choice*	Director's Cut
Pontifex Maximus**	Director's Cut
Patrician	High level resources.
Plebs	Mainstream level resources.

 

[Rui]

there's still rejected stuff in Substandard folder - including things which include CnP from other games, which is actually illegal.

Hoping that ain't true... If it is, something should definitely be done about it.

Pontifex Maximus**

Love this

 

[Trill]

Hoping that ain't true... If it is, something should definitely be done about it.

I'm not 100% sure, but I think I've seen words that resource is stolen or something in mod's verdict on a resource or two.

 

[Daffa]

I'm not 100% sure, but I think I've seen words that resource is stolen or something in mod's verdict on a resource or two.

Left over from the merge.

Report them so the team can remove them.

 

[MasterBlaster]

I think both perspectives are right.

I fully understand that someone who spends his time drawing everything from scratch would like to get some reckognition for their work. And I wholeheartedly agree that he should. I also understand that people who come to the site looking for assets doesn't really care where they come from if they fill his needs and thus I also agree that making it easier for them would be a welcome change.

Thus, I agree with the suggestion to create a separate category for the original/freehand art. Personally, I'd split the Icon Section into 4 categories:

---

1. Approved (All) - default repository for search purposes; it would be a place for all icons of sufficient quality and verified copyright status; obviously this would include both the freehand icons and ones that are edits of someone else's art.

2. Approved (Original) - a place for all freehand icons of sufficient quality.

3. Pending Update - a place for all the icons that are either awaiting update or haven't been reviewed by a moderator yet.

4. Substandard - a place for all low quality icons or the ones that don't have a verified copyright status.

---

There might be some controversy as to why the Approved (All) would be the default repository - the reason is simple: I think that we can all agree that there's more modders than artists and thus the majority of people who browse the Icon Section are likely people who are just looking for something that fits their project, not art that they could admire. That said, making this repository the default one instead of Approved (Original) would likely be more helpful for more people.

However... I do reckognize the issue that freehand icons could potentially get lost in the sea of edits and thus I would like to suggest one more change - something that would make original work stand out a bit more, even in the Approved (All) repository.

Remember that little thumbs up icon that shows up next to the resource's preview to indicate that it is approved? I would suggest creating another version of it, perhaps one that's a bit golden-ish. This new version would be there to indicate that an icon is a freehand work, thus it would only show up next to original icons.

From a psychological point of view, most people associate gold color with something extraordinary, so it's pretty safe to assume that having such an icon next to the preview image would automatically highlight freehand icons and make people notice them more, thus giving more reckognition to our artists.

---

I think this solution should satisfy both the modders and the artists. The first group will get access to a wider range of icons without worrying about a convoluted search engine, while the latter will get their own unique category and a special icon to highlight their work among the rest of the icons.

---

I don't see hive as factory that only serves the needs of the modder.

Absolutely. Hive shouldn't serve only the needs of the modders - but it also shouldn't completely ignore them to please the artists.

I think that we should care about resource creators a little bit more than modders.

I respectfully disagree - I don't think the Hive should favor or discriminate either group. I think the site should be a home to both.

After all, it's not like modders and artists are enemies or something. It's fairly obvious that modders will appreciate if the artists continue to make more amazing icons, but I'm also pretty sure that the artists also like it when their work is being used in some project, because that's a sign that someone really liked it.