Improving the appearance of the Credits

[Eleazar]

In concert with this topic, i'd like to work on the appearance of the credits, perhaps in time for 1.2.

First i'd like to add a specialized background. I've already uploaded it to truck. In the maps folder, it's "credit-map.jpg".

This will allow the black box to be removed from behind the credits. It's not the most attractive solution, better that an image that's actually dark be prepared for that use.

I'd also like to see some formatting done to the credits text something like the quick example, but that may be too complex for pre-1.2.

[zookeeper]

What I've had in mind for the text (both for names and categories):

Centered. Centering the text will allow for multiple columns more naturally, and multiple columns would be very nice to have for translations and minor art contributors (these would be drawn with a smaller font, too), for example. I'd also, as I said in the other thread, rather like the descriptions of what everyone has done not be shown by default, since it'd just become quite messy IMO.

So, something like this (sorry, ASCII art was easier):

Code: Select all

 ___________________________________________________ 
|                                                   |
|                                                   |
|                                                   |
|                                                   |
|                     _Artwork_                     |
|                                                   |
|               Francisco Muñoz (fmunoz)            |
|              Richard Kettering (Jetryl)           |     <--- main artists, with 
|               Hogne HÃ¥skjold (freim)              |          normal size font
|                J.W. Bjerk (Eleazar)               |
|                      ......                       |
|                      ......                       |
|                                                   |
|       Eli Dupree              Gerald Clears       |
|   Michael Gil de Muro         Jesse Holland       |     <--- other artwork
|      Robert Bolin            Mark Goodenough      |          contributors, with
|    Christophe Anjard      Andrew James Patterson  |          smaller font
|    Johann de Venecia           Diego Brea         |
|         ....                      ....            |
|                                                   |
|                                                   |
|                                                   |
|   _Polish Translation_  _Portuguese Translation_  |
|       Agata Chmiel            Luis Passos         |
|         grzywacz                 ....             |
|           ....                                    |
|                                                   |
|                                                   |
|___________________________________________________|

[Eleazar]

What I've had in mind for the text (both for names and categories):

Centered. Centering the text will allow for multiple columns more naturally, and multiple columns would be very nice to have for translations and minor art contributors (these would be drawn with a smaller font, too), for example. I'd also, as I said in the other thread, rather like the descriptions of what everyone has done not be shown by default, since it'd just become quite messy IMO.

I wouldn't describe the descriptions in my example as "messy," but assuming that descriptions aren't included in the in game credits, yes, i'd agree with the centered / double-collumn concept.

here's a better, centered implementation of descriptions:

[Darth Fool]

In concert with this topic, i'd like to work on the appearance of the credits, perhaps in time for 1.2.

First i'd like to add a specialized background. I've already uploaded it to truck. In the maps folder, it's "credit-map.jpg".

This will allow the black box to be removed from behind the credits. It's not the most attractive solution, better that an image that's actually dark be prepared for that use.

I'd also like to see some formatting done to the credits text something like the quick example, but that may be too complex for pre-1.2.

Well, I don't think that there will be the coding changes necessary for many of these suggestions in time for 1.2. I believe that the changes would not be major, but they definitely would require new features. After I finish off my TC changes (probably by the end of thanksgiving weekend) I would be willing to look at these and a few of your other gui suggestions. I would generally categorize these changes in the "easy to code" realm and if there is a new coder who would like to work on these before than, I would be happy to give them help and direct them to the relevent bits of code that will need to be modified.

Ok, so now for the proposals themselves. As for background, currently the background for the credits can be a slide show, which I think is more interesting than just a single background image, especially with how long the credits are. This gives the gamer some small reward for actually sitting through all the credits. I am not sure if all the images that are currently used are appropriate for use as background, but I do think that we should try and maintain the slide show. On that note, if having the darkened box expanded to cover the whole screen or removed completely would help the appearance, that is easily done in the code. Keep in mind that the slideshow can be campaign specific, and the easiest slide show to do is just to include the story images from the campaing. Actually, this is what I did for HttT. In general, it is likely that these will not be dark enough to act as a background. Therefore if the current framed box is ugly, my temptation would be to just expand the dark box, effectively just darkening whatever the underlying image is.

I suspect centering the text would not be too difficult. Multiple columns would be a little more difficult. Having several different font sizes and other things could probably be done with a little bit of effort A really nice solution might be to enable complete text markup (including the ability to have images, colored text, colums, etc...). This in some sense would be the most difficult, but it might be easier than making a lot of small changes that are a subset of the text markup language used everywhere else, and undoubtedly in the long run would be easier to maintain. It would also allow for an even bigger range of incentives. Contribute enough and you will be invited to add an image to your credit line. Of course, this could make having a script to translate into html more difficult.

I don't think that the list of an individual's contributions should be displayed in the in-game credits, but they should be stored there in some form of comment such that a script to convert from the WML to html can easily recognize it.

[Eleazar]

Hmm, i hadn't realized that the credits could be a slide-show. That would would favor the black box method, since the slide-show would generally contain the images from the cut scenes, not ones specifily prepared for being backgrounds. Anyway, if there is a black box, it should probably fill the screen.

Including the avatar with the credits would IMHO be very nice. Personally i find it easier to remember avatars than most forum names. And i think avatars are more interesting to look at than names. Who would have guessed that i'm an artist?

[zookeeper]

One highly theoretical idea: the main developers and core contributors would scroll on the left side of the screen, and the minor contributors and translators would scroll on the right side. Both would be synced so that the scrolling finishes at the same time on both sides: therefore, as there are more minor contributors, that side would scroll faster (main contributors would get more "screen time").

Now, this would be quite complicated to code, I'd imagine. It might also be harder and more clumsy to split people into two main categories, since we'd still end up with two sets of "art contributors". So consider this more like just me recording this idea (which I don't recall ever seeing used anywhere) in this post, instead of me actually suggesting we should go ahead and implement this (well, unless people widely liked the idea, which I very much doubt).

[Darth Fool]

Hmm, i hadn't realized that the credits could be a slide-show. That would would favor the black box method, since the slide-show would generally contain the images from the cut scenes, not ones specifily prepared for being backgrounds. Anyway, if there is a black box, it should probably fill the screen.

Here is a link to the relevant forum post.
http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic. ... 468#144468

[Neoriceisgood]

I want to feel important

[Jetrel]

I'll repost an ancient demo I had given about a year or more ago, suggesting some major improvements to the credits.

This demo is almost a better suggestion for the "Help-database" version of the credits, but it's worth posting anyways.