Wanted. New Unit Librarian

[Dom Pedro II]

Ok, so if I do provide a preview pic (and I was thinking of doing this as well) maybe I can make it like one large image file with cells for each of the preview icons in the order in which they appear in the list... and there will be an image for each list (ancient foot, modern foot, etc.).

And so maybe I should provide both the thread for reference and a straight link to the download as well if they just want to take it and run?

 

[GIDustin]

Originally posted by GEChallenger

It just occurred to me, though, that making such images would probably be incredibly time consuming. It would involve someone downloading every unit, extrating the storyboards, selecting the frame, cropping it, and then filling in the pink with gray. For cut-n-paste units it goes pretty fast, all you do is fill in the pink with light gray and the shadow with dark gray. However, custom made units often have a weird sort of distortion around the edges that must be filled in pixle-by-pixle. When making unit previews for my civ3K unit list I got it down to about 2-5 minutes per this type of unit. There's about 500 such units in the library, so you'd be looking at 25+ hours of editing, not including the download times.

It would probably be much too time consuming for a single person to do.

Actually, you dont have to extract the storyboard. Just open the FLC in Animshop3, delete all but one direction, replace the pink, resize, save. Insta-Animated gif. If you want static, then you delete all but one frame instead of one direction. It does take a bit of time, but the users will thank you for it (I have first hand experience in this.)

ACTUALLY, I would not be offended it you "steal" the gifs from civ3files.com as long as I know about it. Right there is 503 that you dont have to do . . . (I just saw the civ3000 site that uses some of my site graphics . . .) Well, there is 503 now, but I have to do a few more here pretty soon.

GIDustin

 

[GEChallenger]

Originally posted by Dom Pedro II
Ok, so if I do provide a preview pic (and I was thinking of doing this as well) maybe I can make it like one large image file with cells for each of the preview icons in the order in which they appear in the list... and there will be an image for each list (ancient foot, modern foot, etc.).

Yeah, that was what I was thinking. It would be much easier, probably, than posting a separate image for each unit. I might (and only *might*) be willing to compile the charts... but it will take awhile, as I said above.

Originally posted by Dom Pedro II
And so maybe I should provide both the thread for reference and a straight link to the download as well if they just want to take it and run?

Yeah, this is also what I meant. The name, when clicked, brings you to the thread, and the Download, when clicked, dowloads the file directly.

Anyway, this is just my take on how the library should look. You're in charge.

Originally posted by GIDustin
Actually, you dont have to extract the storyboard. Just open the FLC in Animshop3, delete all but one direction, replace the pink, resize, save. Insta-Animated gif. If you want static, then you delete all but one frame instead of one direction. It does take a bit of time, but the users will thank you for it (I have first hand experience in this.)

Heh. All you guys with those fancy tools make me so mad...

All I have to play with is MS Paint, Flicster, and some sort of cheap shareware program that can save PCX images, so I do have to extract the storyboards, unfortunately. It makes things interesting. And I still don't think that animated gifs are a good idea, since it takes a loooong while for slow modems like mine to upload all of them.

 

[Lab Monkey]

Hiya, guys. Thanks for the support. I havn't totally left, in fact you may see my fantasy mod soon. It's loosly based around the elemental system of Populous 2 (anyone else remember that game?).

I should say that I found two big problems with the library.

1. Ask Thunderfall to extend the character limit on the posts, or you'll run out of space really quickly. It's one reason why the contents posts in my library wern't hyperlinks.

2. You can only attatch a limited number of images to a post (about 10 I think).

See ya around.

 

[Hunter]

Why even use images at all every thread should have them any way so just do this:

Modern
Foot units
Parachutiste and Peacekeeper
Armor units
Leopard 1 tank
Air units
UH 1
Sea units
4 Missile launching Ship
Other units
missiles and so on...


And just do that for each era listing each unit under the aproprate catagory foot, mounted, armor, sea, air and so on. minimal work and if people are interested they will visit the thread for images info and the download. this system would make the library easy to update and remove the image size issue.

 

[Drift]

*bump*

After a fun session of searching for units manually with the search function disabled, I decided to bump this in case someone takes up the challenge. Or is Dom Pedro still on the case? The long silence suggests otherwise..

It doesn't have to be anything fancy. Just a collection of links that help people find what they need. I'd do it myself if I were more dedicated to the unit creation and could trust on my patience and interest lasting.

 

[Emperor550]

Wouldn't it just be easier if we kept the current format, but seperated that humongous libary into several smaller ones? Like the first thread would only be one post with links to the smaller libaries. Like this:
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Welcome to the Unit Libary where every user created unit can be found. Please click on the link to open the libary with the units you would like to visit:

Modern Foot
Ancient Foot
Tanks
Cavalry
Artillery
Misc

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dont click on any of those links they lead to nothing.

Once you open one of the libaries, the units would be displayed the same way they are displayed currently, but you'd only have to search through like 2 or 3 pages instead of 35. This will result in like 15 libary threads, but they can just be pinned to the units board or something like that. Actually since you can just go the main libary thread and then select the libary you're looking for, it wouldn't even matter where they're located.

This may not make the units as organized as some of the other ideas, but it'll be A LOT easier, and still make the libary much more organized.

 

[Drift]

I don't know.. all I would personally need is a list of links. Lab Monkey style unit library with links instead of direct downloads would be nice, but it's ten times more work and ten times the possibility that the librarian becomes fed up with his job or has the time to update the library about once a month.

Links could have just a short description instead of a preview.

You know:

Modern Infantry by Balou
- Great modern infantry unit armed with an assault rifle.

Ratings with for example stars would be nice, but they might raise some issues..

 

[Emperor550]

Why should the libarian have to get fed up doing all the work? Once the libarian sets up the initial infrastructure, why cant the unit creator add the unit to the libary himself? How long would it take? An extra two minutes after making thier own thread?
Otherwise I agree with you. If people want the format of more, smaller libaries where the creators add the new units themselves, I might be willing to help start it up and reorganize the units into the new libaries.

 

[Don Uittone]

Is this plan going anywhere? This seems like the community and interest to Civ3 are fading away...in the time of Civ3 release there would've been tens of candidates I think...

 

[Dom Pedro II]

Sorry, sorry, sorry... Yes, I'm still on the case, but I've been rather busy lately, but no, I haven't given up.

I think for the time being, I'll just add all units posted after May 20th to the Unit Library

and then I'll create the new Unit Library.

 

[Gogf]

Originally posted by Lab Monkey
Basically I havn't been here for months now, and with my other commitments I really can't afford the time to regularly update the unit library. Especially since my connection speed is so low that it takes literally hours to actually get anything done.

I also havn't actually played Civ3 for ages, and to be honest I've lost interest in the game as it is. Also, the library's so big now that it's got impossible to easilly find anything in it.

My suggestion would be for newbies to use the search function to find the thread that they are after, and if there is a library, keep it as just a list of existing units that they can search for.

However, if it can be fixed for another user to take over the existing library thread, then that's fine for me.

Sorry to be leaving you all like this, but it's really not worth me doing this if I'm not able to put in the time.

Cheers.

Search has been disabled now . Also, in the first post of the Library, you should make a link to a later post by someone new. They would constantly update this post, and have an alphabetical link list of all of the units there. This would be very helpful.

@Drift: You need a preview to see if it will fit into your mod by the way it look. For example: I look at the preview in the current library for my WWI Mod.

 

[Mobilize]

It's about time for another unit librarian. The last library was to mixed up and out of whack.. plus you had to go through to find page 22 and then go back to page 1 and then go to page 16.

Hopefully the library will be sorted like this:

Ancient:
Infantry-
-A
-B
-C
Calvary-
-A
-B
-C
Artillery-
-A
Naval-
A-
B-

etc. You get the point. And hopefully they will be linked rather than going manually through the page of the thread.

Cheers!

 

[Drift]

Originally posted by Gogf
@Drift: You need a preview to see if it will fit into your mod by the way it look. For example: I look at the preview in the current library for my WWI Mod.

Including previews is something of a hassle for the librarian and the unit's thread has them anyway. The library will have a steeper learning curve if it doesn't have previews, but once you get the hang of it, you really won't miss them.

Naturally, library with previews is nice, but I'm trying to be realistic here: librarians tend to get overwhelmed by their jobs and the more work the library requires, the more probable that option becomes.

CEChallenger has the best proposal so far in my opinion. Direct download link should be in, because old threads are removed. And if they are that old, the download hasn't probably changed.