Talk: Screenshots

It's somewhat ironic that I didn't have the time to put on any screenshots for this page yet! :-D -- Chalmo 08:44, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Missing standards Edit

The bulk of our standards are here. Thankyou for compiling them. Screenshots using the default UI would clarify a great deal I think. But the three things missing that I would VERY MUCH like to see (the bane of our existence) are:

1. turn off soga graphics
2. think about your screenshot and how it looks
3. don't sign your pictures (the history shows the credit similar to article histories)

About the first....SOGA graphics make it hideously difficult for most players to determine even the simplest things about NPCs and monsters. They need to be off because most people simply don't view them. We're going to implement a soga tag soon to place on graphics when we come across them so we can make sure those get replaced.

About the second....people don't think about what they're screenshotting. They dont' "frame" their shot with the wiki viewing in mind, and they REALLY REALLY need to. Good and bad shot examples would go a long way to demonstrating this. While we understand the heat of battle is the absolute last place it's practical to take a screenshot, people still do it and try to submit a shot. In general, all the comments on the main article page are followed about getting rid of extra windows, but there are other things....10 gazillion people in a shot trying to kill some uber mob doesn't help anyone understand much other than difficulty of a mob. If it's the *only* shot of a mob we can get (say it's a high end raiding zone), then we'll take it but we really like better shots. Or say it's just a screenshot of some NPC, but in a public area. People forget to move around until there aren't other toons in the way, if possible. There are more complaints about bad screenshots in this regard, but these are the big ones.

This is a great start. We should link it from the help pages (and likely the guidelines and rules at some point).-- Kodia 13:06, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Just to be clear: are SOGA models the same as "Alternate Models" in the Options Window? -- Chalmo 17:27, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

textures Edit

you can manually macro the texture qualities too

for object textures (wall/ground)

/cl_textureshrink #

for player/monster

/cl_charactertextureshrink #

the # is just like the UI menu

• 0 Maximum
• 1 High
• 2 Medium
• 3 Low
• 4 Minimum

secret: what they dont tell you, is that with this command, you can drop it lower them minimum. I cant tell any difference with anything lower then 10. textures are pretty much solid colors at that point (pretty low memory use too).

Rather then fight with the menus, i have a macro setup that has

/cl_textureshrink 0
/cl_charactertextureshrink 0

for when i need to take a screenshot of something in hires.

and another that sets it back to my normal settings when i'm done.

sometimes if i'm trying to take a pic of a npc/monster and the background is too "active", i set the wall texture to 10, and the char texture to 0, to force the emphasis of the target.

-- Uberfuzzy 17:35, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Non-default UIs? Edit

Should it be recommended that people use the default UI for screenshots? How bad is using custom UIs frowned upon, if they just modify the "skin" of a window for instance?

So far the customized skins don't seem to have much of an effect on the screenshots in general unless the article to which they're linked is specifically describing something about the game's operation. In those cases, we prefer the default UI to show players how things look. Examine windows and the like should show the bulk of the player base how an item looks, without substantial changes. I can't think of a single skin used by the majority of players that changes that. So, we'd prefer the default UI, but in those cases, skinned UIs (such as profit or fetish), are ok UNLESS they are describing how the game works. For screenshots of mobs, npcs, locations, and zones (among other things in game), the UI shouldn't matter much if at all. Uberfuzzy and Airlyth, feel free to chime in here.-- Kodia 15:14, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

soga Edit

• /soga_models on - to turn em on
• /soga_models off - to turn em off
  

-- Chillispike 22:26, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

ah, thanks, i was wondering what they were. i assume those turn them ALL on/off? know if theres a way to toggle the individual races? i'll let chalmo/kodia weave them into the main article. -- Uberfuzzy 22:46, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

only found that one out today, it seems to turn all on and off. -- Chillispike 02:36, 20 April 2008 (UTC)