Post by nanogyth

Posted: 4/25/2012 8:02 PM

Post subject: Depersonalizing logos

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turska

Experienced player (764)

Joined: 6/17/2008
Posts: 146

What's wrong with personalizing logos?

The viewer doesn't need to know who made the encode. Presenting unnecessary information is undesirable.
Identifying the encoder can easily be done in a way that doesn't burden the viewer while still making the information available to interested parties.
It's unnecessarily egocentric while allowing for ulterior motives and severe lack of taste; see YiffMan and PonyMoon.

As such, I propose that a generic TASVideos logoset be created and mandated.

Posted: 4/25/2012 8:05 PM

Post subject: Re: Depersonalizing logos

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creaothceann

He/Him

Editor

Joined: 4/7/2005
Posts: 1874
Location: Germany

turska wrote:

I propose that a generic TASVideos logoset be created

Agreed.

turska wrote:

... and mandated.

Not necessary, imo.

Posted: 4/25/2012 8:09 PM

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natt

Editor, Emulator Coder, Site Developer

Joined: 5/11/2011
Posts: 1108
Location: Murka

Obviously, some sort of encoder blame tagging needs to be available, but that can be accomplished by various metadatas and whatnot. I'm for this provided the logos created live up to extra-high quality standards.

Posted: 4/25/2012 8:12 PM

Post subject: Re: Depersonalizing logos

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Warp

Banned User

Joined: 3/10/2004
Posts: 7698
Location: Finland

turska wrote:

The viewer doesn't need to know who made the encode. Presenting unnecessary information is undesirable.

A moviegoer doesn't need to know who edited a film. That doesn't mean the film editor doesn't deserve having his name in the end credits. I'd say the situation is pretty comparable. You could argue that showing a huge encoder logo at the beginning of the video in a very "in your face" manner is ego-boosting, and a subtler approach could be better, but that's different from outright removing the right for an encoder to have credits.

Posted: 4/25/2012 8:37 PM

Post subject: Re: Depersonalizing logos

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feos

Site Admin, Skilled player (1254)

Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11475
Location: Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg

The viewer doesn't need to know who made the encode.

Have you asked them all?

Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.

Posted: 4/25/2012 9:38 PM

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Derakon

Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960

I want to know who encodes the movies I watch. It's a nontrivial amount of work and I need to know who to thank for it! TASVideos already has guidelines for how attention-grabbing a logo is, and what content it needs to include; that's quite enough IMO.

Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.

Posted: 4/26/2012 12:06 AM

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Warepire

He/Him

Editor

Joined: 3/2/2010
Posts: 2178
Location: A little to the left of nowhere (Sweden)

I believe every encoder should be allowed to put their own fingerprint on an encode. It makes it easier to follow an encoder you like better (if you do), I think they all do a most excellent job. It is also easier to inform the correct person if an encode for some reason turns out wacky and the encoder doesn't notice this. Also I do not think the logos are too attention stealing, so I say those guidelines are doing what they were meant to do.

Posted: 4/26/2012 1:01 AM

Post subject: Re: Depersonalizing logos

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nanogyth

Player (66)

Joined: 4/21/2011
Posts: 232

turska wrote:

Presenting unnecessary information is undesirable.

But what information is necessary? I think the encoder's name is as useful as the rerecord count. I'm all for a standard logo I could just drop my name in. Making an individual logo sucks, someone is sure to think it is tacky or bland. Finding placement for subtitles is more my level of artistic expression ;)

Posted: 4/26/2012 1:15 AM

Post subject: Re: Depersonalizing logos

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sgrunt

He/Him

Emulator Coder, Former player

Joined: 10/28/2007
Posts: 1360
Location: The dark horror in the back of your mind

turska wrote:

The viewer doesn't need to know who made the encode.

If there's something wrong with the encode (which can and does happen), having that info available is useful for troubleshooting in case it's being caused by something that encoder specifically is doing (which, again, is something that's happened in the relatively recent past).

turska wrote:

Identifying the encoder can easily be done in a way that doesn't burden the viewer while still making the information available to interested parties.

Two seconds of viewing time isn't exactly a burden

turska wrote:

It's unnecessarily egocentric while allowing for ulterior motives and severe lack of taste

...which is why logo approval is now centralised instead of being at the discretion of individual publishers. I also think a token degree of recognition for our encoders is appropriate, so long as it isn't taken excessively far. Remember, the point of a logo is threefold, with two of the reasons being decidedly more important than the third:

To present the run as a tool-assisted run;
To identify the run's association with this site; and
To identify who encoded the run, for the above reasons.

If someone passes to me a logo that ignores the first two points in favour of the third, I'm not going to approve it.

Posted: 4/26/2012 1:47 AM

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turska

Experienced player (764)

Joined: 6/17/2008
Posts: 146

blame tagging is useful

Agreed. The encoder can be named in container metadata, which also has the advantage of being parseable by machines.

this is a tool-assisted speedrun. for details, visit http://tasvideos.org/ encoded by friend

That's a shitton of text to read in two seconds. In fact, that's over 40 characters per second - in that time, many won't even be able to read which criminal encoded the release if the logo de-emphasizes the fact like it should. If the personalized blurb is removed and the duration is extended to three seconds, we're looking at slightly over 20 characters per second, which is barely readable. Logos present too much information in too little time; moving the encoder information to container metadata and extending logo duration would help greatly. Telling viewers to pause is not a solution.

Posted: 4/26/2012 3:09 AM

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Derakon

Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960

turska wrote:

That's a shitton of text to read in two seconds. In fact, that's over 40 characters per second - in that time, many won't even be able to read which criminal encoded the release if the logo de-emphasizes the fact like it should. If the personalized blurb is removed and the duration is extended to three seconds, we're looking at slightly over 20 characters per second, which is barely readable.

When reading you don't actually pay much attention to each individual character. Reading this would be more like "blah blah blah Tool Assisted Speedrun blah blah URL (encoded by Joe)". So there's four important "words" in there (given that the attribution is visually de-emphasized), one of which (the URL) doesn't get parsed unless you actually care about the origin of the video. This is not hard to read.

Telling viewers to pause is not a solution.

"Things that solve the problem I'm trying to convince you exists in a way that does not achieve the result I'm arguing for are not a solution."

Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.

Posted: 4/27/2012 9:11 AM

Post subject: Re: Depersonalizing logos

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nanogyth

Player (66)

Joined: 4/21/2011
Posts: 232

turska wrote:

I propose that a generic TASVideos logoset be created...

If you had made a generic logoset that looked awesome it would be easier to see a positive side to this proposal. A concrete solution would make your criticism more constructive. I'll start. Here is my logo, made more generic. http://i.imgur.com/CRWV6.png Gimp editable: generic.xcf

Posted: 4/27/2012 9:16 AM

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moozooh

Senior Moderator

Joined: 8/4/2005
Posts: 5777
Location: Away

While at it, I suggest that no more than three different font faces should coexist in a single logo.

Warp wrote:

Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.

Posted: 4/27/2012 9:29 AM
(Edited: 4/27/2012 9:40 AM)

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nanogyth

Player (66)

Joined: 4/21/2011
Posts: 232

Maybe drop the needlessly wordy text and just keep the high points.

P.S. thanks for the correction

Posted: 4/27/2012 9:31 AM

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moozooh

Senior Moderator

Joined: 8/4/2005
Posts: 5777
Location: Away

Psst: "tool-assisted" needs a hyphen. :P

Warp wrote:

Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.

Posted: 4/27/2012 11:52 AM

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creaothceann

He/Him

Editor

Joined: 4/7/2005
Posts: 1874
Location: Germany

Alternatively here's an Aegisub subtitle file: http://www.mediafire.com/?w1dwau3etwu3jqm

Posted: 4/27/2012 11:55 AM

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moozooh

Senior Moderator

Joined: 8/4/2005
Posts: 5777
Location: Away

I find that somewhat less than completely unreadable. What's the benefit in trying to stuff as much information on the screen as possible, all at the same time, overlaying the game image? Who wants to read all of that instead of watching?

Warp wrote:

Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.

Posted: 4/27/2012 12:14 PM

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Noxxa

They/Them

Moderator, Expert player (4124)

Joined: 8/14/2009
Posts: 4090
Location: The Netherlands

This is somewhat related: I made a more game/TAS oriented logo back when I encoded my April Fools submission. Rather than just introductory TASVideos text and encoder name, I also included game and player name, and a game series-related theme/image.

I don't think we need to overdo the amount of information (as in creaothceann's image), but I think some stats like these could possibly be handy in the introductory logo.

http://www.youtube.com/Noxxa <dwangoAC> This is a TAS (...). Not suitable for all audiences. May cause undesirable side-effects. May contain emulator abuse. Emulator may be abusive. This product contains glitches known to the state of California to cause egg defects. <Masterjun> I'm just a guy arranging bits in a sequence which could potentially amuse other people looking at these bits <adelikat> In Oregon Trail, I sacrificed my own family to save time. In Star trek, I killed helpless comrades in escape pods to save time. Here, I kill my allies to save time. I think I need help.

Posted: 4/27/2012 12:37 PM

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creaothceann

He/Him

Editor

Joined: 4/7/2005
Posts: 1874
Location: Germany

moozooh wrote:

I find that somewhat less than completely unreadable. What's the benefit in trying to stuff as much information on the screen as possible, all at the same time, overlaying the game image? Who wants to read all of that instead of watching?

It would start at frame 0 when there's only a black screen; viewers can pause the video there and read the info. Only the intro is overlaid, which anyone who knows DKC2 already has seen before. Unfortunately this doesn't satisfy the "text cannot be removed from actual gameplay" guideline, so this is just an alternative suggestion.

Posted: 4/27/2012 12:46 PM

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moozooh

Senior Moderator

Joined: 8/4/2005
Posts: 5777
Location: Away

The fact that the underlying game image makes it much harder to read, and that the viewer is supposed to pause the TAS (and thus stop watching anyway), renders it pointless to cram all of that text into the video stream. It can be read on the video description page, or publication page at TASVideos.

Warp wrote:

Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.

Posted: 4/27/2012 1:45 PM

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nanogyth

Player (66)

Joined: 4/21/2011
Posts: 232

moozooh wrote:

I find that somewhat less than completely unreadable.

That is being generous. Imagine after resizing to 256x224 and compression, lol. p.s. sorry if you were making a serious suggestion, but it seems ridiculously bad IMO or maybe you thought I was trolling and you're just counter-trolling me =_=

Posted: 4/27/2012 5:45 PM

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creaothceann

He/Him

Editor

Joined: 4/7/2005
Posts: 1874
Location: Germany

moozooh wrote:

The fact that the underlying game image makes it much harder to read

I already said that it looks better on frame 0.

moozooh wrote:

the viewer is supposed to pause the TAS (and thus stop watching anyway)

Those who want to use the info will pause the video anyway. As nanogyth said above, "people don't read text in a video on the internet because they don't want to, not because they can't".

moozooh wrote:

It can be read on the video description page, or publication page at TASVideos.

Then a link directly to these locations should be included, and not just the base URL. That's fine, too.

nanogyth wrote:

Imagine after resizing to 256x224 and compression

I would never distribute at 256x224 anyway because of YV12 colorspace degradation and less space for text.

nanogyth wrote:

sorry if you were making a serious suggestion, but it seems ridiculously bad IMO

It's a serious suggestion (at least the "use Aegisub" aspect - how else will non-static info be included, via image editor?), though I don't expect people to actually use it. The exact parameters are of course just my personal preference.

Posted: 4/27/2012 5:50 PM

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