Regarding custom assets...

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TheDoctor
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Regarding custom assets...

Post by TheDoctor »

An idea I had about custom assets in cases, be they sprites, backgrounds, music, or sound effects.

Would it be possible to add a credits section to custom submissions that can be accessed by clicking a "credits" button on the trial?

For example, you add a custom Phoenix sprite, and there's a box that asks you who designed the custom sprite, and you can type in a name which will display under the "sprites" section of the credits popup.

Ideally, this could lead to custom assets being hosted on AAO, and whenever someone uses an asset created by someone on the site, it would automatically add that person's name to the credits popup.
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Enthalpy
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Re: Regarding custom assets...

Post by Enthalpy »

Can you elaborate on "accessed by clicking a "credits" button on the trial"? It isn't clear to me what set-up you're envisioning.
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TheDoctor
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Re: Regarding custom assets...

Post by TheDoctor »

For example, in the editor, you could place the credits box just under the external url box. In the player, you could place the credits button to the left of the health meter. Clicking the credits button would show a popup, telling you who contributed custom artwork and sound, but not exactly what artwork and sound they contributed, just so as to avoid spoilers.

To illustrate my point about the spoilers, let's say someone wanted to add Professor Layton to a case, but people aren't supposed to know he'll show up until late in the game. The case writer would enter "Level 5" as the sprite contributor, so if the player were to click the credits button, they'd see that Level 5 provided custom artwork of some kind, as opposed to custom sound, but they wouldn't know if Level 5 provided a background, a character, or even just sprites for hint coins.
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Enthalpy
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Re: Regarding custom assets...

Post by Enthalpy »

It's technically possible, but I have two reservations.

First, Unas would need to approve hosting this much content on the server, since this would consume space and bandwidth. We have a lot of custom characters.

The other scruple is that I'm not convinced of this feature's usefulness. Attributing work to somebody without telling what that work is seems to defeat the point. It seems like this would just clutter the interface, and there are more pressing features to work on.

If there's more demand for this feature, that will overcome the clutter objection, but for the other two, you'll be waiting on this one.
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TheDoctor
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Re: Regarding custom assets...

Post by TheDoctor »

Well, I wouldn't say to host all the custom content on the server. Just a few select ones, decided by a contest or something, like we did with The Bright Age of the Law.
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Enthalpy
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Re: Regarding custom assets...

Post by Enthalpy »

Any special reason for wanting some of these assets to be AAO-hosted? How many things do you imagine being hosted?
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TheDoctor
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Re: Regarding custom assets...

Post by TheDoctor »

It's mostly sound I'm thinking of, since imgur is readily available to host images, but hosting sound is a little trickier. So, things like custom objections or the like.

Also, if someone was able to figure out how to implement features native to AA5 and beyond, it could be useful to host those to make them more readily available to everyone (like Mood Matrix, for instance).
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Enthalpy
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Re: Regarding custom assets...

Post by Enthalpy »

TheDoctor wrote:Also, if someone was able to figure out how to implement features native to AA5 and beyond, it could be useful to host those to make them more readily available to everyone (like Mood Matrix, for instance).
I'd sooner see those added to AAO directly, rather than host the graphics but have people cobble together the control frames themselves.
___________________________
This discussion is starting to split into one about doing more filehosting on the AAO server and one about adding the credits feature. For the sake of organization, I'll split the topic in two if things continue like that.
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TheDoctor
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Re: Regarding custom assets...

Post by TheDoctor »

Good to know.

Anyway, regarding your counter that people should know who created what content, as opposed to it being kept vague for the sake of avoiding spoilers, perhaps inside the credits pop up, there could be a "Detailed Credits (may contain spoilers)" button to satisfy that.

It's not a feature I'd consider urgent by any means, just one that might be nice to have eventually.
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