Spring RTS Engine

Feel free to use this template. The gradient matches the site colors and it has the extra space needed for displaying on different browsers.

http://evolutionrts.info/random/banner%20template.zip

Site issue (tho not a large one):
The images for
learn more
download and play
see the games

the rollover images need to be preloaded via JS. It's not a big deal, it it's kinda tacky for them not to be preloaded.

Get that gradient bar off those screenshots and remove that rectangle behind the white text, just let that white text lie on the screenshot. It looked so much cleaner before. It's not a big deal to require a screenshot with a dark lower left corner.

Edit: Gross, I just hit refresh a bunch of times. We totally need to start from scratch, way too many amateur shots with cheap looking typography cluttering up our FRONT PAGE.

Neuralize wrote:Get that gradient bar off those screenshots and remove that rectangle behind the white text, just let that white text lie on the screenshot. It looked so much cleaner before. It's not a big deal to require a screenshot with a dark lower left corner.

Well forget about snow world screenshots then... Maybe make the text have an outline?

Actually, I have yet to see one where it's just the rectangle.. I'll keep clicking through, it might be okay.

Edit: Yeah, it is okay with just the rectangle, so stop screwing up your banners with weird gradient backings.

no the rectangle sucks too

Neuralize wrote:Actually, I have yet to see one where it's just the rectangle.. I'll keep clicking through, it might be okay.

Edit: Yeah, it is okay with just the rectangle, so stop screwing up your banners with weird gradient backings.

http://img508.imageshack.us/my.php?imag ... le2sc9.png

Non-wierd gradient backing that looks very nice.

I think it should join the left edge, and have a rounded corner, myself, like my second stab at this. It's not bad otherwise. You joined this a little late, Neuralize, our stuff was fine before Fnordia changed it again, now we're going to have to re-make our Welcome shots... again

Fnordia... just keep it like that, or improve it, but please, don't remove it utterly, I don't want to have to do this for a fourth time

oh crap, he did a div css container. Hadn't seen that. Well good then. I preferred it that way in the first place.

@neuralize, go back and read the last 4 pages please.

I would say the evolution RTS is too large and needs reducing in size. PURE only suited the size I resized it to because the logo is so simple. There's no need for a url either as there's a games page you can put it on with more details.

In the mean time your focusing too much on this middle banner, you should know by now that the spring site is not the most effective conduit for acquiring new users, and relying on the main site is like attaching a giant iron ball and chain to your project.

AF wrote:I would say the evolution RTS is too large

Too bad, and the URL stays. 18pt font followed by 12 pt font. It's not obtrusive.

The bar at the bottom has already been fixed by fnordia. It is a non issue. We just have to update our images.

remove the url and you'll be fine

URL stays. Period.

There's a games page for that which you can put urls and thumbnails and anything you want. And tbh your black and gold text clashes badly with the rest of the colour scheme more so than arghs giant text did.

May I remind everyone that the creater of the image is not in charge of wether its shown. If they dont modify the image to suit, that doesnt mean it stays as is itll probably just get pulled altogether.

I fail to see how this looks bad.


Secondly, who made you judge, jury, and executioner? The images look very nice. If you don't like it, hit f5.

While you're at it, visit the site. Maybe it will open oyur eyes a bit. Not everyone uses blue as the predominant color scheme. http://www.evolutionrts.info

This is not negotiable AF.

If someone uses pink then you can complain. Until then, quiet.

Ooh, now I'll have to make a pink map... thanks for giving me a good idea...

I already did

Crystal dream. You should know. One of your welcome pictures was taken on it.

Edit: THis one to be exact. http://nyspring.clan-sy.com/phpbb/downl ... php?id=640

Technically it's purple, but meh, who's counting

Machiosabre wrote:so just make a system thats inherently fair without a minimum of pictures per mod then, same result.

I don't know why you guys are popping your caps over this anyway, it seems pretty obvious.

+10million to machio

Yeah, I think a max cap of 10 is good, I'd go lower, but people seem to want a lot. It forces modders to be a bit more careful in their selection of pictures, rather then just putting everything up.

I think there definitely needs to be a cap, because 5-10 images it is not a pain to produce - but there's nothing stopping someone with too much time on their hands just whacking out 50 screenshots and sticking them up. That forces me to make another 40 shots that I just have no interest in making, but will have to in order to avoid a 1:5 showing of my images.

Ok, so so far there seems to be reasonable consensus about:

• Screenshots must be of good, professional quality, showing off games within the engine (no model renders etc)
• Game logos must be unintrusive on the main page and not conflict with the main page titles. Preferably =<18 point, preferably to one corner, out of the way
• For the screenshot area, there should be no photoshop 'tweaking' of images to make them look better then they look in reality. There is no problem with photoshop tweaking for the top banner area
• A limit of [X] images per mod

Not trying to throw a bunch of rules at you, just trying to put down the ideas that seem to be floating about so that people can either flat out agree or disagree.

Forboding: My personal opinion is that a 'credit' is all that is needed. The advertisement is your screenshot, you don't need any more eyecatching - if someone's interest is tweaked, their curiosity will be answered in less then a second by looking at the credit. I'm not going to name names for fear of offending anyone, but some of the logos I've seen have actually distracted from otherwise very sexy screenshots. If you look at most professional screenshots, the game logo will be very restrained - overly large logos look unprofessional, and are unnecessary from a design standing point.

However, if the majority of people really must have logos, I really think that they should be kept under a certain size, and your 18 points seems to be a reasonable compromise (though obviously I would prefer lower).

I would like to raise the issue of colour as well - most of us have colour in our logos, but the overall design of the website relies upon cool colours and white text. The result is that when you stick a bright, hot coloured logo, such as Forboding's evo logo (not a bad logo, just bear with me), the eye is immediately lead to the logo on the page. It just dominates everything else because of it's high contrast and hot colours. Great for evo, but not so great for the quality of the website.

I doubt I'm going to get anyone to change the colours of their logos - but what I think is a reasonable solution is if people can set their logos to say, 75% opacity, in order to create a slight watermarking. The result of this is to reduce the power of your logo on the visual hierarchy of the website.

Also, I will be committing images to this, I'm just waiting for everyone to come to some conclusion before wasting my time on something that I may just have to change in the end anyway.

How's this? :D




I really have no idea what I'm doing, though. Would help if someone could do this for me.

Could you see whether it would look acceptable with less opacity?

Looks fine though, just use forboding's template psd, it's all set-up.

Though probably wait for everyone to make up their minds about that bar thing (which really roflcoptr should be making the decision on... )