Character images

General out-of-character discussion among players of Cantr II.

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Neva
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Re: Character images

Postby Neva » Sun Feb 11, 2018 1:12 am

Are edited photos or images (with canvas, charcoal effects and so on) encouraged for ingame art?

I saw some of them and I didn't know how to handle them, because they're actually ooc material. Aren't they?
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PaintedbyRoses
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Re: Character images

Postby PaintedbyRoses » Sun Feb 11, 2018 3:30 am

Are edited photos or images (with canvas, charcoal effects and so on) encouraged for ingame art?

I saw some of them and I didn't know how to handle them, because they're actually ooc material. Aren't they?

Can you explain a little more what you mean? I'm interested to know if there are restrictions, also. I'm not sure what you mean by "charcoal effect." Charcoal exists in game so drawing with it should be fine, I would think.

Since there aren't any cameras, photos would not be appropriate, but I'm also confused about the character representations I've seen here. Is there some sort of generator online that produces the anime-looking pictures (with the big eyes and pointy chins, etc.)? So far I've only seen these and a couple of sketches that look like they could have been drawn with charcoal and were more realistically human looking. Is there some implication that drawings or paintings of characters should have have a cartoonish quality rather than a realistic look?

In RL very high quality art work has been produced since ancient times with improvised materials. Are Cantrians allowed to do that, too?

When characters write notes or draw maps in color, what materials are we supposing that they use? As far as I know it's rice paper (which isn't actually made from rice, but that doesn't really matter). According to Wikipedia "rice paper" has been used for artwork for many centuries so it seems legitimate to think that drawings and paintings could be made on the same (rice?) paper as the notes. Canvas exists in game (it's just starched cotton cloth) so it could be used for art, too.

Now, do the characters need to actually possess rice paper or canvas to make a picture? They all possess something to write notes on, somehow, and something to write notes with (an imaginary pencil?). I have presumed that they are using whatever it is that they use to write notes and draw maps to make art without actually making rice paper first. Maybe with canvas, you would have to posses some actual canvas material.

As for the colors, pigments can be made from all kinds of materials found in nature, so making a fairly realistic drawing or painting on paper or bark or wood or cloth or ceramic, etc. would be reasonable, IMO. Plus, many things can be fashioned into brushes. So, pictures that look fairly realistic (without looking exactly like a photograph) should be possible in Cantr.

I'm hoping we can get some actual, role-play art materials some day. Since it takes so long to get new stuff, I haven't been in a hurry to put it up as a suggestion but I will, eventually.
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the_antisocial_hermit
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Re: Character images

Postby the_antisocial_hermit » Sun Feb 11, 2018 5:04 am

They can use whatever is at hand. Since notes are abundant, there's no restriction on what materials they use. It really just depends on what you choose to do as far as RP goes. It is just assumed that they can make colors and do fantastic things on these endless notes, as that's been a part of it since the beginning with HTML support in notes.

We do have paintbrushes, so there's that at least, as far as specific art supplies go. I have a character that paints and one of the first things she ever asked for was a paintbrush. She always keeps it with her, though I haven't done much on the painting side for her in a while.

I think what Neva was asking about is more about where some pictures and "artwork" come from. There's original artwork in game, but some people use pictures they get online and use photo editing software to make them look more like paintings or sketches or whatever. There's not really any restrictions, as far as I know, aside from veering away from copyrighted items. Using very popular, well-known works would be very frowned upon (because that is more jarring than some generic landscape, i.e. Starry Night by Van Gogh). I know the few times I've gotten images from elsewhere, I've made sure they were free use for sure, and obscure or very generic. Not everyone is an artist IRL and might still like playing an artist IG (or has the time to do the artwork themselves if they are one).

I use my own work for the character that paints, though, or if I do a rough outline of some design specific to an item a character is working on.

Some of the images in this thread are just from some generators. Most of them aren't likely IG as artwork; it's just people having fun recreating their characters as well as others' characters as best they can with generators and other programs and games. Second Life, Sims, digital art programs, etc.
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PaintedbyRoses
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Re: Character images

Postby PaintedbyRoses » Sun Feb 11, 2018 5:30 am

the_antisocial_hermit wrote:We do have paintbrushes, so there's that at least, as far as specific art supplies go. I have a character that paints and one of the first things she ever asked for was a paintbrush. She always keeps it with her, though I haven't done much on the painting side for her in a while.

I think what Neva was asking about is more about where some pictures and "artwork" come from. There's original artwork in game, but some people use pictures they get online and use photo editing software to make them look more like paintings or sketches or whatever. There's not really any restrictions aside from veering away from copyrighted items. Using very popular, well-known works would be very frowned upon (because that is more jarring than some generic landscape, i.e. Starry Night by Van Gogh). I know the few times I've gotten images from elsewhere, I've made sure they were free use for sure, and obscure or very generic. Not everyone is an artist IRL and might still like playing an artist IG (or has the time to do the artwork themselves if they are one).

I think that paintbrush is a big ole one for painting boats, isn't it? But you know what? Your character probably just cuts off a few of the fur bits and ties them to a stick when she wants to paint a picture.

It would be quite jarring to see a van Gogh laying on the ground. I'm a painter, so I have already made realistic watercolors of all of my characters (I only have four). I do put them through a Photoshop filter to make them look a little more crude, like they were painted with improvised materials.

I'm not much of a role player, really, so I don't describe every second of my character's waking life and how she gathers the pigments, etc. I don't have the time but, mostly, it's just not my talent. Kudos to those players who can visualize and then describe every moment.

I'm hoping that the other characters realize that my girl(s) were doing other stuff while they were interacting with each other and they just didn't notice it.
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Re: Character images

Postby the_antisocial_hermit » Sun Feb 11, 2018 5:49 am

I mix up how much I RP minute details. Sometimes I'll put in a fair bit, other times I don't have the time or motivation. When I do, it's still not too much, unless I'm RPing through a process for another character or something. I also tend to do it more if I'm in a small setting- only 1-3 other characters around. I think I'm more comfortable in that scenario than when there's 10-15 around.

As for the paintbrush, there's no description to say it's one kind of paintbrush over another (it only describes the bristles), so it can be whatever I imagine it to be. There's no need to pigeonhole it just because it can technically be used to change signs, especially since we don't have alternatives. My character would use a carving knife for that anyway. If I had access to labels on her (and if they work on paintbrushes- I know they work on a couple of tools), I'd put one on it describing it as an artist's brush. I might even make a couple of paintbrushes in that case for different sizes. But unfortunately I don't.
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PaintedbyRoses
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Re: Character images

Postby PaintedbyRoses » Sun Feb 11, 2018 6:01 am

I think the only time I ever saw a paintbrush was, somehow, on a project to paint a boat so I thought that's what they were for. I could be totally imagining that, however. There are so many items I haven't discovered yet! And I don't like to look them up on the Wiki because that feels like cheating and isn't as fun.
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Re: Character images

Postby the_antisocial_hermit » Sun Feb 11, 2018 6:32 am

Yep, they can be used to change the signs on boats, buildings and vehicles, but they don't speed the project up as much as a carving knife does. That cuts the project time in half. A chisel is quicker as well, but not by as much as the knife. Paintbrushes are also used to make sail cloth. I think those might be the only two actual uses for them, but I might be wrong.

Sometimes you just have to be creative with what's in the game, despite its technical uses or description. It's really fun to see how creative people have gotten within the framework to devise some of the things that have yet to be implemented.
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Neva
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Re: Character images

Postby Neva » Sun Feb 11, 2018 10:21 pm

There is charcoal ingame actually, not as a tool but a resource, I think a character can use charcoal to draw charcoal sketches.

I also saw a character who was painting the copyrighted images bought by the player, which could be one of the best methods if the player has no talent but wants to play an artistic character. Though I saw many amateur artwork ig, which were quite artistic and some of them were ugly in such a creative way. I appreciate both, but photo edited images make me cringe.
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Re: Character images

Postby the_antisocial_hermit » Sun Feb 11, 2018 11:05 pm

I’ve used the charcoal before, too. And, yes, paying someone is another great way to achieve that if you don’t have time or skill. Not everyone has money to pay a fair price, either, though, for something like that.

I don’t have a problem with photo edited (which can be artistic) as long as it isn’t an already famous work or subject matter that could never be found within the context of Cantr. I figure that if I look at it from my character’s POV, they would never know the difference because they don’t know where those things come from. They are going to see some art they may or may not enjoy, and I attribute value to them that way.

It’s good that there’s are multiple means to an end.
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PaintedbyRoses
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Re: Character images

Postby PaintedbyRoses » Mon Feb 12, 2018 1:38 am

Neva wrote:I also saw a character who was painting the copyrighted images bought by the player, which could be one of the best methods if the player has no talent but wants to play an artistic character. Though I saw many amateur artwork ig, which were quite artistic and some of them were ugly in such a creative way. I appreciate both, but photo edited images make me cringe.

I haven't actually seen many images in Cantr, yet.

How did you know that the images were copyrighted? Or not?

I'm not sure what you mean by photo edited images? I mean, I know what photo edited images are but, if they are done well, I'm not sure why they would make you cringe. Do you mean they are recognizably famous works or the subject matter is not something that would be found in Cantr? Or maybe they are using a little photo editing but not enough to disguise that it is a photo of a famous person or something? If the right kind of photo editing were used, the image could look like just another drawing or painting (unless it's a famous person or place, maybe).
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Neva
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Re: Character images

Postby Neva » Mon Feb 12, 2018 2:35 am

PaintedbyRoses wrote:How did you know that the images were copyrighted? Or not?


There was a footnote about it.

PaintedbyRoses wrote:I'm not sure what you mean by photo edited images? I mean, I know what photo edited images are but, if they are done well, I'm not sure why they would make you cringe. Do you mean they are recognizably famous works or the subject matter is not something that would be found in Cantr? Or maybe they are using a little photo editing but not enough to disguise that it is a photo of a famous person or something? If the right kind of photo editing were used, the image could look like just another drawing or painting (unless it's a famous person or place, maybe).


No, none of that I've seen were famous works or photos of famous people as far as I know, I just think that's an open ended issue. They weren't just like another drawing or painting, I couldn't say that they were edited photos, if they were. Appreciating machine edited art pieces with an excuse of being untalented or not having enough time to produce authentic drawings or paintings sounds like appreciating the machine translation with an excuse of not speaking that language. As I've mentioned before, my characters encountered ugly in dignity art ingame, I'd prefer that way if I was untalented or busy but still wanted to have an artistic character.
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PaintedbyRoses
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Re: Character images

Postby PaintedbyRoses » Mon Feb 12, 2018 4:42 am

Sorry, nothing to see here.
Last edited by PaintedbyRoses on Mon Feb 12, 2018 10:26 am, edited 3 times in total.
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Bmot
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Re: Character images

Postby Bmot » Mon Feb 12, 2018 9:53 am

You've at least shown why you shouldn't use out-of-cantr picture hosts :lol:

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PaintedbyRoses
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Re: Character images

Postby PaintedbyRoses » Mon Feb 12, 2018 9:55 am

Oh, hmmm. It shows for me. I'll look into it.

I tried reattaching them. Does it show now?

Sorry, I don't know what's happening.

I just don't know how to add them without using a 3rd party site.
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Bmot
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Re: Character images

Postby Bmot » Mon Feb 12, 2018 11:05 am

Well, for the forum you can use a third party site without much problems. Though i found you can also use the Cantr systems, and use the link you get from there.

But for here you can use a site that does work, have you tried Imgur?

EDIT:

How to use Cantr image servers:

1. Go to make or edit a note.
2. click on the pictureframe symbol:
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3. follow the instructions (choose an image from your computer, click upload)
4. for use in note, use the white string of characters to paste into your notes.
5. for use on the forum you can right-click the orange link, and copy the link address. (I'm not sure if this is recommended though. Preferably don't do this too much so we don't fill the servers too much.
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