wc3sear.ch needs your help...

[Darky29]

... In setting up Rules for skin submissions and what skins need to be deleted.
With stricter rules we can prevent the flood of minor quality skins puring on the site lately.
Those Skinsubmission Rules will be collected in a website, so everyone can check if his skin match the rules or not.
Also when a Moderator deletes a skin it also can tell which rule the skin has broken, so the AUthor of the skin know why and how to improve his skin to fit.
You can directly write your "Rules" inside this News thread.

 

[VGsatomi]

I'll be going through the skins section from start to finish in the next few days, pending the outcome of this topic. I will also be doing daunting task of sorting out the bloodelf section. So yes, established rules would be a good thing to help me. Right now I will be going with the guidlines set up in the sticky "Skin guidelines" in the skins forum. As of right now that does not prohibit recolors and 100% CnP work, as long as they're good. If that changes, I hope to know soon.

I will no doubt be becoming a bad guy to a few people during that time, depending how much freedom I'm given to remove low-quality material. I am an artist, so I like to believe I can tell what had effort put into it and what was hastefully made. I agree that the skins section needs a major cleanup.
-VGsatomi

FIRST QUESTION: Is there going to be an upload limit? If so, will it be for the whole site or per-user?

 

[Moonblaze]

Few suggestions:

- Recoloring = No thx: Be original, please.
- Quality over Quantity: Rather one beautiful skin, over ten rushed ones.
- Shading and texturing: Skinning isn't about just messing a unit up in paint, it needs shades and textures to look somewhat realistic or decent in the game.
- No rips: Don't upload edited skins originally done by other users, for whatever reason, without their permission.
- Saving both time and space: Don't upload a lot of skins at once or over a very short time. Instead, upload packs.

 

[U.V]

the Skin section should have one simple rule:

if the skin looks good IN-GAME then it is worthy of wc3search's skin section.

recolors and C&P can sometimes look really good despite of what most people may think.

please consider is one rule seriously.
thank you and good night.

EDIT:
i believe that my skins set a fine example to my opinion.

 

[lllLSDlll]

Yes no more junk, finaly

 

[Zazzadar]

I agree with U.V on this one.

I remeber once someone had cut pieces of a dragon and just blasted them over a dreadlord. It looked terrible but when it was wrapped around the dreadlord model INGAME. It looked really really good. Sadly people didnt take it upon themselves to download and try it and instead just flamed him cause he copied and pasted it...eventough it was REALY good.

Recolouring in my opinion is fine as long as it looks good. Not jsut changing a litle bit here, a little bit there. Cause changing a NE wardens face to a woodelfs face by changing the skin is techinally recolouring is it not?

FIRST TIME SKINS: Please take this VERY seriously if someone posts up thier very very very first skin that !!!THEY!!! believe should be on the site nomatter how bad it is i think FIRST time skins should be kept otherwise if it gets deleted the people will leave the site alltogether no if ands or buts casue youll have upsetted them and theyll go play something else. (remember warcraft is agame not a job they dont lose anything if they go play another game)

 

[Muoteck]

- Saving both time and space: Don't upload a lot of skins at once or over a very short time. Instead, upload packs.

I cant find anything like 'upload skin pack'.

 

[Darky29]

there is no pack option yet and also not planned for skins yet
although the model pack script will go online the next weeks

 

[Zin-Creator]

Uhh.. I say that you should do something like this for the model section MODs. There is a bunch of gay crap in there that needs to be taken out, and rules to be enforced.

 

[N00001]

Basic ruleut the skins in the skins section, not in the model section, even if u want to make 2 same models with 2 different skins(like cloud, zack, tidus for exemple) PPl are good enough to do it themselves.

 

[phantom1412kid]

Wasn't there a thread like this sometime ago?

Repeating my suggestions.

Cut and Paste skins must have either some free-hand or recolor, preferably both. There are some great looking CnP+recolor skins here that got 5s.

No MSPaint skins and offensive/crap skins where the submitter claims to have uploaded just for fun.

No stealing of other people's work, though I guess its okay if you extensively modify their skin. By that, I don't mean recolor and CnP. Modify their skins by Freehand.

 

[armel]

Yes, delete all models that are actually only skins.
Also, remove all skins that are only recolors or cnp, except if there is some creativity, that means if there is an obvious good looking result. To leave a good looking cnp or recolor skin, skin moderators must all agree not to delete it.
Remove also skins that have no shading, or that have been made with mspaint without any research of realism or detail.
Remove all offensive content: nazi, porn, religiously or politically offensive.
Finally, delete skins that have no cohesion, like a skin that has only been edited on a part and not on the rest, or is using two very different styles. All blizzard skins look so that they have a cohesion, a unity of style. Here, all moderators should be of the same advice if they delete the skin.

 

[Hueter]

example for bad cnp that should be taken out in the future:
http://www.wc3sear.ch/?p=Skins&ID=931

stupid skins like this one (i guy spammed a few of that but they r deleted allready:
http://www.wc3sear.ch/?p=Skins&ID=2004

senseless recolors like that one:
http://www.wc3sear.ch/?p=Skins&ID=1978

 

[HeldderWelt]

- a recoloured skin should have a certain amount of changes in it, preferably on the portrait-part of the skin

- overall shading and proper detail shading should be required to a certain amount (just no 1-stroke-textures or ugly gradients)

- has to have a good screenshot, where the skin is visible on a large-enough-area (viewer or ingame)

- no rip-offs of other people's work without changes and credits

- no 1-2-filter skins

- no cut and paste from real life photos, the skins should fit in the comic-style of warcraft after all

 

[Wormskull]

what i would like;
-a skin with atleast 40% freehand on it (if you edit the paladin, make him a brand new armor)
-skin that apparantly took time

what i wouldn't like;
-persons with paint, im highly against that since ingame its a horrible thing, its rather easy to get another painting program that fits skinning.
-skins that relativly took time to make based on the authour's skills.
-something that doesnt involve the authour's freehand ( cnp from any forms, (im highly against that ) recolors, invert, filters, texture via filters. ). If you're ordered to do a drawing on a sheet are you going to CnP something from a magazine? or take a sheet in a color book and color it blue?

however beginners should strongly pratice on skins, but not submit them, after a certain amount they judge enough, they can start submitting if it's decent..

in a nutshell, there must be a minimum quanitity of quality, everyone is tired of those horrible skins, on newgrounds, a minimum quality is required otherwisely it gets automaticly deleted

 

[EvilYardGnome]

I think the biggest problem with skins is these people that submit 30 + of them and alot of them are "skin requests" geez send them in an email or something. No need to clutter up the site with stuff meant for one person.

Ok now onto the rules for my thoughts.

-CnP is ok, as long as it isn't obvious and bad.

-Freehand if done needs to be shaded correctly or at least somehow shaded not this one color blob crap.

-No more skins where it's like "Paladin Arthas without a book" "Blademaster without a sword"

-No more badly colored obvious recolors, where they just used the hue/saturation button on photoshop.

-No more badly filtered skins, where that's most of the skins just one or several big filters.

-No more barely different skins like "Demon Hunter with white hair"

hmm that's about it.

 

[VGsatomi]

So far most everything sounds reasonable.

Keep in mind if you make the quality requirements too strict, you'll end up like Warcraft III Warehouse where they only get like 1 new submittion a month, and give little incentive for users to go back on a daily basis.

This is just a cautionary note to all...

 

[EvilYardGnome]

well wc3 warehouse is very picky, and has to be aproved before submitting, our main goal here is not to be all superb skins, but just weed out the tons and tons of not even average quality ones. I have no problem keeping around the average looking ones. It's just that there's so many bad that look like they took under 10 minutes to do. No one should submit something that only took 10 minutes to make. They can just keep that to themselves.

 

[Sopho]

I have a problem with this.

Skin requests in my workshop are being deleted, and the requester may need the skin in the future or it may be deleted before he downloads it.

I try to do it in my best quality but its the request (what the person says) that matters. Can skin requests from me which are done in my workshop (I always add the information on Skin request from XXXX in my workshop) not to be deleted?

Requested skins which are uploaded on wc3sear not also helps the requester but other people who may need it and the most reliable download for anyone. I don't want to ask for many e-mails.

This has been a problem since the new section moderator came. I understand violated skins are to be deleted and requested skin requests to be deleted are just not to worth it.

Could skin requests in workshop's be NOT deleted?

QUESTION: How about a category for completed skin requests in skin workshops such as mine? It'll sure prove useful and non-skin requests will be deleted.

 

[EvilYardGnome]

I try to do it in my best quality but its the request (what the person says) that matters

I agree with this somewhat, It's good that you do people favors like requests, but sometimes you just do a slap together job, I don't know if it's because you get alot of requests or what, but if you are going to do something don't do a 5 minute job or don't do it at all please. like that doctor thing you put up recently had a white coat, and absolutely no shading and it just looked horrible.

 

[Sopho]

I never work on a skin done in under 30mins or a hour.
I try my best, sticking with the request. If something is like that, you cannot change on making it better because it is like that. Nature is nature.

I never rush my requests.

 

[EvilYardGnome]

ok, well I apologize, but it just looked very quickly done that peticular one. If you took an extra few minutes and shaded that one, it would have looked a hundred times better just in my opinion.

 

[Sopho]

Well in my experience (not good in this particular category) its what I thought it looked like. Its all freehand and theres no copy and paste. I obviously could do it better.

Well, back to the subject. Will a new skin cateogry as I said Skin requests be good? Skin workshops are getting big and requests are getting deleted because of what people think towards " quality " but again, as I said, it depends on the request (it does improve depending on what the requester wants of course)

 

[VGsatomi]

Sopho: You should get the email of the person who requested the skin and send it to them.

In fact...that's a rule I would like to propose...requests must be emailed...not posted.

 

[Sopho]

Well;

- some people may not have a working email or their correct email.

- Its the most easiest way to upload their skin on wc3sear anyway.

- Its saves time and fuss for the requester at any time.

- It will help other people who may need it.

 

[VGsatomi]

You have to have a working email address to even register on this site...so yes, they should have a valid, working email address.

 

[Saikann]

damn, sorry for being this late. Most of my points are taken now

- I actualy think recolours should be banned in total. None of them change the shading made by blizzard. If a person needs (read: needs, not wants) a recolored skin badly for a map, them im sure that person will take 20 minutes to read about the very simple process skinning is today.

- CnP is probably the hardest one to crack. Look at the skins by Hueter, lovely CnP and original too. Then take a look at the noob passing by on occasion, with randon CnP that doesn't fit in anywhere. I think we should allow about 2/3 of CnP in a skin as a max. (CnP from other skinners work (without permission to use it) should of course be removed imidiately.

- Freehand is also a tough one, it can look as the crappiest on earth, or look better than any CnP or recolour. Mweh, i guess its about evaluating the skin, but freehand in paint should certanly be removed on sight. And now i have a liiiittle thing id like to say.


There are no excuses for making a paint skin. There are actually freeware programs that can skin (like www.gimp.org) so dl one of those instead of complaining about not having Photoshop or anything

 

[SeaGull1723]

Good point. It's best for personal skins to be emailed rather than become posted to be criticized by me. As far as skins go, we should have a good amount of the skin freehand. That way it would look better.

Models should be applied to this rule too. I've simply seen too many recolors rather than something special. And icons could also apply to that rule. Maps are another thing. as they sometimes never get finished and are rather just betas.

@Wormskull: A flaw in your statement about not submitting practice skins is that people will not know what to expect about their skins. Without the criticism, they will never improve, and they won't learn how to improve their skins.

 

[HeldderWelt]

how about making a button to let the reviewers decide whether a skin is worth staying on the site or not? it would need to be public who voted to remove a skin, and there should be a sound reasoning about what doesn't fit into the skin. it could also feature a delay of some days giving the author the ability to enhance a skin (so he doesn't have to resubmit it and the comments won't be deleted).

edit: alternatively, just the addition of sorting by rating would improve the section, because it brings up some competition, i believe

 

[GreyArchon]

One very important rule that should be followed when deciding whether or not to delete a skin:

Usefullness > Artistic Value.

You can make a skin that looks fantastic as a blp, with shading, little details, small wonderful bits of shading and texturing and what not..

... But if it's a useless skin (PEON DEMON HUNTER!) as a result, it should not get any extra special treatment just because it has high artistic value.

It can be artistic, yes, but it isn't not a piece of art. It's a skin for a 3D model to be used in a 3D game.

I rather have a usefull CnP in the skin section, than a useless artistic skin which cant be used anywhere. Usefullness is more important. For modellers, terrainers, and mapmakers alike.

ALSO:
Unless the ability to rate a submission by day is removed, and replaced by the ability to rate ONCE, ratings are useless. You can use ratings to decide which skins are good, and which are bad, but as the rating system works know, it's just asking for cheaters.

 

[Sopho]

My question has not been answered.
Should there be a new category for Skin requests then?

 

[Saikann]

As far as understood. Requests we're to be send my email to the requester.

 

[Sopho]

*sigh*

wc3sear here offers a skin section easy upload for anyone and I have to email the requester his/her skin thats just abit...

 

[EvilYardGnome]

I think having a section for skins requested isn't a bad idea. As long as it wouldn't show up in any kind of public appearance with the ones meant for public DL.