79 replies to this topic

[Emperor Krulos]

Great find about those .ase files. That means we can create them and the .gpl files from the same sources (maybe a peeron scraper).

Hit a bump with my Jenkins VM today. I created it on one computer but intended on running it on another. Forgot the other one only had 1GB ram, now the VM is way to slow to work with.   I'll have to see if I have any space left on one of the other computers.  

Also I posted two of my earlier ideas as rfcs on the wiki. So they don't get forgotten and are properly explained. If you read them make sure to add a comment to the wiki page.

Edited by Emperor Krulos, 14 July 2012 - 11:12 PM.

[Emperor Krulos]

Excuse the double post.

Just to let you know that I broke the Github-Page of the repository. GitHub Jekyll and local Jekyll are not the same it seems    I'll try to get it back up and running in the next few days. I hope.

The build scripts used are checked in as well. More of a hack job with poor description. Will fix that later.

[update]

WooHoo! Hooray for train rides.

Fixed the major problem on my way to work. Still a few minor glitches, but we're ready to go.

Minifig SVG Repository Homepage

So next would be: Collecting layout ideas. If anyone wants to implement those ideas, please volunteer. A basic knowledge of jekyll and liquid would be nice, but not necessary.

Edited by Emperor Krulos, 17 July 2012 - 08:14 AM.

[NickAb]

I've noticed that all downloadable pngs are at 300 dpi, ain't it too low, I believe modern printers operate at 600-1200 and more dpi. Maybe we should increase dpi up to 600 for generated png previews?

[Emperor Krulos]

NickAb, on 20 July 2012 - 08:44 AM, said:

I've noticed that all downloadable pngs are at 300 dpi, ain't it too low, I believe modern printers operate at 600-1200 and more dpi. Maybe we should increase dpi up to 600 for generated png previews?

I updated the site this morning.  

They were intended to be rendered at 600dpi and not 90. I was using rsvg, since it is faster than inkscape, but

• it ignores dpi settings
  
• it does not render clips and maskings

I tweaked the php build script a bit and will commit it in a few days. I chose php because it seems that it is (as usual) the common denominator. The Jekyll rendering engine is very limited and has some behavioral quirks, which gave me a few headaches.

I'll post a few articles to the wiki sometime next week.  

Still waiting for any design suggestions. I hope I can outline some and present them here the week after next.

[NickAb]

By the way great work on github pages. I'm not familiar with jekyll and don't know it limitations, but I'll look in layout designs etc later.

[Santaduckz]

I'm so glad I found this! Its awesome! I've printed off most of the superheroes decals and they all look sweet! This is so generous of all you creators, so I'd like to give you a huge thanks!

It would be really cool to see this grow though! There are so many talented decal creators on flickr who I'm sure would love to be a part of this, or would have something to donate towards it. I'd love to learn how to make decals, and I think I'll try my hand at it after my exams, I feel really greedy taking so many of them and putting nothing back in  
Maybe we could see if there could be a decal making contest or something? I'm sure this repository could become a huge part of the modding community with some creative marketing!  

[NickAb]

Emperor Krulos, on 21 July 2012 - 07:51 PM, said:

I updated the site this morning.  
...
Still waiting for any design suggestions. I hope I can outline some and present them here the week after next.

Here is my 2 cents regarding layout and design. First of all I think we should base it on twitter bootstrap. I archived basic example of layouts. It shows how easy it is to create layout based on bootstrap. Also I added masonry script so that thumbnails of different sizes stack well.
After we work out layout we can play a little with design (choose right colors, add logo maybe, etc), but it should be simple and clear.

Edited by NickAb, 24 July 2012 - 07:07 AM.

[Emperor Krulos]

Santaduckz, on 24 July 2012 - 07:01 AM, said:

I'm so glad I found this! Its awesome! I've printed off most of the superheroes decals and they all look sweet! This is so generous of all you creators, so I'd like to give you a huge thanks!

It would be really cool to see this grow though! There are so many talented decal creators on flickr who I'm sure would love to be a part of this, or would have something to donate towards it. I'd love to learn how to make decals, and I think I'll try my hand at it after my exams, I feel really greedy taking so many of them and putting nothing back in  
Maybe we could see if there could be a decal making contest or something? I'm sure this repository could become a huge part of the modding community with some creative marketing!  

We're happy you like them.   We're still trying to get things set up, markting, team-building and what not will come.

I hope to see you again after your exams. Contributors (not only decal creators) are always welcome. I also jut posted our second tutorial on creating decals to the wiki.

NickAb, on 24 July 2012 - 07:07 AM, said:

Here is my 2 cents regarding layout and design.  ...

Great! From the looks they are drop in replacements . I was also looking at bootstrap and fontawesome. Good call on masonry, never used it before. I'll try  out the designs and let you know how it worked out.

[NickAb]

Emperor Krulos, on 24 July 2012 - 07:36 PM, said:

We're happy you like them.   We're still trying to get things set up, markting, team-building and what not will come.

I hope to see you again after your exams. Contributors (not only decal creators) are always welcome. I also jut posted our second tutorial on creating decals to the wiki.

Great! From the looks they are drop in replacements . I was also looking at bootstrap and fontawesome. Good call on masonry, never used it before. I'll try  out the designs and let you know how it worked out.

Ok. But note that I forgotten to nest menus (ul) correctly.  If we nest them correctly, then we would be able to enhance it with javascript, so that user can collapse categories that he don't want to browse now (it will be especially useful when library growth).

Edited by NickAb, 25 July 2012 - 02:26 AM.

[Emperor Krulos]

Guys we're in the official index. Awesome!

And I think we're nearing the end of the initial preparation phase. Nick and I have been working on the website. (Hopefully there will be an update soon). Vynsane almost single-handedly added templates for just about anything. Also we've been adding a bunch of stuff to the wiki. And we got a truck-load of decals done.

You guys are awesome!

Please keep adding decals. And take a look around the wiki.

Also if you create decals using svg and you're not a collaborator to the repository yet. Consider joining. Don't worry about someone biting you, the others already keep me restrained.  

NickAb, on 25 July 2012 - 02:24 AM, said:

Ok. But note that I forgotten to nest menus (ul) correctly.  If we nest them correctly, then we would be able to enhance it with javascript, so that user can collapse categories that he don't want to browse now (it will be especially useful when library growth).

I hear you. Nesting will be difficult with our current approach. So we either make the Javascript understand the special CSS-Classes or the php-build has to become more memory intensive  . I'm thinking of switching the build from php to ruby. To test the site locally you have to have ruby installed anyway. If we do that then after we have a working php build.

[NickAb]

I've created twitter @minifigsvgdecal for our project. So we can get feedbacks and keep everybody updated, provide statistics (how many new decals), share links (like useful tutorials, decals from all around web etc). Share your ideas what to include in tweets.

Edited by NickAb, 28 July 2012 - 12:43 PM.

[Emperor Krulos]

NickAb, on 28 July 2012 - 12:43 PM, said:

I've created twitter @minifigsvgdecal for our project. So we can get feedbacks and keep everybody updated, provide statistics (how many new decals), share links (like useful tutorials, decals from all around web etc). Share your ideas what to include in tweets.

NickAB have I ever told you that I like your thinking? You're a machine.    

I just added a wiki entry in regarding promotion, which also covered a possible twitter account.

I've also edited the first post. Thoughts?

[NickAb]

Thanks.

Nice job, now it is even more clear what it is and what it is for, and you covered most first-timers questions.
As you said It would be nice to have introduction into github, but my english is not good enough to write nice and easy to understand tutorial.

Quote

Joining Github to be able to commit might seem a burden. Especially with technically non-saavy people. I don't see a reasonable way around this.

I think if somebody have a bunch of svg decals that he/she want to share but don't want to bother with github, he/she can contact one of collaborators and send zip archive to be added to repository.

[Emperor Krulos]

Just updated the site. Sorry it took so long.

NickAb, on 29 July 2012 - 03:08 PM, said:

Nice job, now it is even more clear what it is and what it is for, and you covered most first-timers questions.

Hope so. In any case it's a work in progress for now.

Quote

As you said It would be nice to have introduction into github, but my english is not good enough to write nice and easy to understand tutorial.

It's a win-win situation. I don't have too much trouble writing it. My problem is that I might write it so it could be understood, but I believe in educating people so I add in too much extra information. This in turn makes for a long and exhausting read.

Maybe we just have to explain it to one person and have him or her write it down.  

Quote

I think if somebody have a bunch of svg decals that he/she want to share but don't want to bother with github, he/she can contact one of collaborators and send zip archive to be added to repository.

Sure that's possible. I'm more worried about attribution, but that could be handled in the svg-metadata as well.  


Also santaduckz made the following suggestion:

Quote

Also, I've been thinking about what I could do to contribute to the library. Would you be cool if I created a sort of 'gallery' to display each of the designs on the library on a real fig? I feel like this would be a good way to publicize the library and the requests page in a better way than we could do through Facebook or twitter, which although being excellent forms of social media, do not allow us to address our target audience as directly as advertising on EB would be. What do you think?

I like the idea. Since this would be beneficial to the group I'm also putting it up for discussion.

As I see it, if he wants to he can do it anyway with or without our permission. Which he isn't asking for by the way. It fits in with what we already thought about here.

[WetWired]

so I just uploaded my ghostbusters decals and would love to contribute them, however I'm not sure how to export an SVG file from photoshop? I created them all with vector shapes so hopefully it's possible but I have no experience with SVG and my limited google search skills only came up with plugins I'd have to pay for to use.

[NickAb]

So I've been thinking on creating a few video tutorials on using Adobe Illustrator for creating decals. But it turned out that even a simple camo shirt might take up to 30 minutes of air. And because I'm not a native English speaker I'll need to re-dub my video quite a few times, so the full version can't be expected soon, but I've uploaded a time-lapse of the video which demonstrates a technique for creating camo splats (I used same technique when creating SW delta troopers). So here is a timelapse http://youtu.be/yPo7zSoiOJY?hd=1.

Also I've got planned out a tutorial on creating a torso decal for Sheik from Zelda (which I'll probably will separate into a few videos). I don't know when I'll be able to finish dubing and proceed to Sheik, but I hope to do it foreseeable future.

WetWired, on 04 August 2012 - 10:09 AM, said:

so I just uploaded my ghostbusters decals and would love to contribute them, however I'm not sure how to export an SVG file from photoshop? I created them all with vector shapes so hopefully it's possible but I have no experience with SVG and my limited google search skills only came up with plugins I'd have to pay for to use.

I would recommend you to save your files to PDF or EPS file format (they can contain vector graphics and are supported by Photoshop). From this point you have two ways. You can either download inkscape and try to import EPS or PDF and save it SVG or you can send it to any of current contributors who will resave and upload SVGs for you. But I recommend you the first option, cause you''ll get to know Inkscape which is better suited for vector graphics than photoshop.

Edited by NickAb, 04 August 2012 - 10:55 AM.

[Emperor Krulos]

NickAb, on 04 August 2012 - 10:53 AM, said:

So I've been thinking on creating a few video tutorials on using Adobe Illustrator for creating decals. [snip] because I'm not a native English speaker I'll need to re-dub my video [snip] I've uploaded a time-lapse of the video which demonstrates a technique for creating camo splats

Also I've got planned out a tutorial on creating a torso decal for Sheik from Zelda.

You've out trumped me again.  

Just watched the video. I think that the time lapse works fine for showing how to create a camo pattern. But of course for an intermediate understanding of Illustrator or Inkscape (works mostly the same, but then there also is a pretty good camo generator already built in ).

By dubbing you mean you'll need several tries to record your own voice? Or are you looking for a speaker? I don't think you need either, really. Except if you're using this to improve your English pronunciation of course. Personally I prefer subtitles in tutorials.

Just for the records I have attempted a tutorial too. It just so seems no one cared. When you're done with your tutorials maybe we all should put our heads together and outline a very basic beginners tutorial, which we'll then adapt to Inkscape and Illustrator (so we end up with two almost identical tutorials).

Looking at the video reminded me of something. I've created patterns before for chain mail shirts and scale armor, etc. Should we open a pattern library? I'm not sure if it's useful, or not. One could just grab it from an existing figure.

WetWired, on 04 August 2012 - 10:09 AM, said:

so I just uploaded my ghostbusters decals and would love to contribute them, however I'm not sure how to export an SVG file from photoshop? I created them all with vector shapes so hopefully it's possible but I have no experience with SVG and my limited google search skills only came up with plugins I'd have to pay for to use.

Like Nick said, if you don't want to learn Inkscape or Illustrator (You should seriously consider it though) then just mail someone of us (I'd be happy to) the eps or pdf file.

[NickAb]

Emperor Krulos, on 04 August 2012 - 05:56 PM, said:

By dubbing you mean you'll need several tries to record your own voice? Or are you looking for a speaker? I don't think you need either, really. Except if you're using this to improve your English pronunciation of course. Personally I prefer subtitles in tutorials.

Yes, I want to record voice commentary, because using subtitles might increase video time and it is very long already (as reading subtitles and watching video instructions require more time than watching and listening). Also I would like to practice my English. But I was thinking of adding subtitles later.

Emperor Krulos, on 04 August 2012 - 05:56 PM, said:

Just for the records I have attempted a tutorial too. It just so seems no one cared. When you're done with your tutorials maybe we all should put our heads together and outline a very basic beginners tutorial, which we'll then adapt to Inkscape and Illustrator (so we end up with two almost identical tutorials).

Your Inkscape walkthrough is pretty cool, I hope it will bring more and more customisers to use Inkscape. Also its a good idea to make same tutorial both for Inkscape and Illustrator , we should think about it later.
I believe making a video version can bring more exposure to our project.

Emperor Krulos, on 04 August 2012 - 05:56 PM, said:

I've created patterns before for chain mail shirts and scale armor, etc. Should we open a pattern library?

We can add a few files to the library where all kinds of belts and other similar accessories will be gathered together, so that the users don't have to scout all files.

[purpleparadox]

I won't lie. I'm not great at designing decals. But I love seeing them, and I like this idea, this repository of svg decals. And so, I'd like to help.

I can't make any promises on this, but I did have an idea (that I'd kinda like to try) to promote the Repository. I thought it'd be cool to make a "commercial" advertising it, in the form of a brickfilm. Some kind of Lego stop-motion animation commercial about the site? It could go on YouTube, and we could post it on various Lego forums/sites, along with a link to the Repository.

Like I said, no promises for sure, but it'd be a fun little project. I'll do my best to get to work on it...writing it is the easy part. The animation/film part is going to the challenge. I guess we'll see how it goes!

Edited by purpleparadox, 05 August 2012 - 04:25 AM.

[Emperor Krulos]

purpleparadox, on 05 August 2012 - 04:24 AM, said:

I won't lie. I'm not great at designing decals. But I love seeing them, and I like this idea, this repository of svg decals. And so, I'd like to help.

I can't make any promises on this, but I did have an idea (that I'd kinda like to try) to promote the Repository. I thought it'd be cool to make a "commercial" advertising it, in the form of a brickfilm. Some kind of Lego stop-motion animation commercial about the site? It could go on YouTube, and we could post it on various Lego forums/sites, along with a link to the Repository.

Like I said, no promises for sure, but it'd be a fun little project. I'll do my best to get to work on it...writing it is the easy part. The animation/film part is going to the challenge. I guess we'll see how it goes!

Wow. Somehow I missed your post altogether.  

That actually sounds like a great idea. If you have any ideas regarding the script, please post them. I'd really like to hear them.

Edited by Emperor Krulos, 07 August 2012 - 07:42 PM.

[purpleparadox]

Emperor Krulos, on 07 August 2012 - 07:42 PM, said:

Wow. Somehow I missed your post altogether.  

That actually sounds like a great idea. If you have any ideas regarding the script, please post them. I'd really like to hear them.

I do indeed have some ideas, scrawled in my notebook. I'm leaving on a short (5-day) vacation today, but I'll type them up when I get home!

[vynsane]

Sorry I've been incommunicado - was on a road trip then incredibly busy at work (because of the trip). Will be going away again next week, which means another incredibly busy week at work after that  

At least next week isn't another road trip, but a stay-in-one-place vacation, so maybe I'll get some more templates made.

[Emperor Krulos]

purpleparadox, on 08 August 2012 - 01:48 PM, said:

I'm leaving on a short (5-day) vacation today

Bon voyage! Be safe.

vynsane, on 08 August 2012 - 06:07 PM, said:

Sorry I've been incommunicado - was on a road trip then incredibly busy at work

Busy at work myself, which explains my late reaction.



@nickab
Saw that you gave me credit for a face based on catwoman. Have a look at faces/faces.svg.

@all
I'd say we're done with setting ourselves up, except for one thing; a logo. I'd say we start our first activity and get a few more people involved at the same time.

• Start a separate dedicated thread
  
• Ask people for sketches (Enough people around to flesh them out, if the idea behind the sketch takes off)
  
• Give everyone 3 weeks to come up with something
  
• Every entry must be licenced under a cc-by-sa so we can use it
  
• There will be no prices, except for honour

What do you guys think? Personally I like the idea, because that way we get a logo and can involve more of the EB community. I'm just unclear on who has voting rights.

Edited by Emperor Krulos, 12 August 2012 - 09:49 AM.

[NickAb]

Pretty good idea, it will bring more eyes to our project, and maybe eventually more contributors.
But how the voting will be done? Will it be done by community?


Update:
I found a small bug. Sometimes inkscape adds unnecessary attributes to SVG files (e.g. inkscape:connector-curvature="0") which prevents files from being rendered in browsers, but SVGs still can be opened and edited in Illustrator and Inkscape. So should we bother to delete such attributes before posting to repo or leave them as is?

Edited by NickAb, 15 August 2012 - 09:42 AM.

[Bricky0]

This is great, I just have no clue how to edit the elements and such... I probably should read into it more though.