Larger Avatars?

[James Latimer Cockney Rebel]

Does anyone think it is a good idea to have a larger Avatar? 60X60 is sadly small and only if you zoom right into the characters face you want to use, then you can make a pic thats recognisable (or looks decent). The only practical sigs I've seen are those with small sprites like Unne's and Blackmage II. Gamingforce Forums have considerably greater avatars and in my opinion look a lot better.
I know there is an issue of greater size= greater loading time but I don't think there would be a massive difference.
Anyone else in favour of larger avatars? and what do you mods think about this?

[Rampala]

I know what you mean, it could be beneficial.
Although, since EoFF has a large selection orginally, and since it's still practical enough that you can make your own (i did), I think it's alright. I mean, maybe increasing it to 64X64 should be a definite, but at the same time that's hardly significant enough to make a big deal over.

[Agent Proto]

Well, I certainly don't mind if we largen the size for avatars. I'm for it.

[Frihet]

I post a lot at the 'Shrine, and they use 100x100 pixel avatars. But even though it gives me more, um, artistical freedom, I don't think it's necessary.

[Sakura Yume]

<font color=#AFEEEE>I don't think we need larger avatars. Just for having some extra pixels, we slow down browsers loading (for those of us who use slow computers), also, it may involve redoing all the default avatars which I would imagine would take an incredibly long time which isn't fair on admins. A few extra pixels really won't make that much difference to what your avatar looks like.

[BlackMage II]

I say we make it 64 x 64 pixels...

Most avaters are that size anyway. I have a lot of problems trying to find a avater of that size that I like.

*Does not like the avater he has now*

[Daryl]

Y'know, the standard size at the majority of fora is 60x60. I think it'd be simpler to not change our avatar size. If we changed the size, some people would keep their 60x60 avatars, so we'd have multiple avatar sizes being used, and that'd look... well, sloppy and unpolished. Just my opinion.

[crono_logical]

I think if you <I>really</I> want the avatars to look neat and tidy, the board should place them all in a box (not necassarily visible) so even smaller avatars will take up the same 60x60 space as an actual 60x60 avatar.

[The Man]

I know that I wanted to make a custom FF5 Gilgamesh avatar so that it could match with my screen name and be different from everyone else's Gilgamesh avatar, but it turned out that I'd need at least a 80x100 pixel avatar for poor Gilgamesh to be recognizable, so I had to scrap that idea. I went with Hawkeye as a Nightblade from Holy Sword Legend 3 because, after Gilgamesh, he comes closer to being The Man than anyone else, except for FF4's Cain Highwind, does.

I think you simply need to be creative when creating your avatars. It would probably require a tremendous amount of recoding for the boards to support larger avatars, and although larger avatar size would be nice, I just don't think it's necessary. EoFF probably wouldn't resize their standard avatars, but there's still so much innate script involved with placing avatars anyway that it would be a complete nighmare to change it.

But woteva.

crono_logical has a decent suggestion, and Daryl has a point, too -- there's something about having 120x120 boxes and 60x60 boxes side-by-side that simply doesn't seem quite right.

Peace
The Man

[crono_logical]

Originally posted by The Man
It would probably require a tremendous amount of recoding for the boards to support larger avatars...

Actually, I think it's as simple as one of the admin's changing just one number in the board settings somewhere :p Doesn't mean it should be done though, I'm fine with them te way they are at the moment :)

[Shlup]

Originally posted by crono_logical
I think if you <I>really</I> want the avatars to look neat and tidy, the board should place them all in a box (not necassarily visible) so even smaller avatars will take up the same 60x60 space as an actual 60x60 avatar.

Like at Daryl's forums, so my cute little monkey can be all stretched without me having to resize his cuteness. I like that idea better. Screw bigger avatars, got enough problems with too big sigs.

[Cz]

It would be nice to enlarge avatars. I wouldn't keep my 60x60, I'd simply enlarge it. My current avatar causes no problems, but some of my previous, DigiCam photos, looked awful.

[Calliope]

isn't the point of a message board what you say and not what your silly little picture looks like xD?

ditto what tammy said: imagine all the trouble the staff would have to go to to enlarge all the default avatars when most of the time they aren't even used...

[crono_logical]

Originally posted by Calliope
isn't the point of a message board what you say and not what your silly little picture looks like xD?

ditto what tammy said: imagine all the trouble the staff would have to go to to enlarge all the default avatars when most of the time they aren't even used...


Yes, but people do still like to have some way to express their individuality here :p


As for resizing 600+ avatars, if I had the files on my HD I could do resize the whole lot with no more than a few mouse clicks - the wonders of batch image processing :D

[Drex]

Yes, Gamingforce uses larger avatars *and* a table-box that makes it so that set amount of space is taken. The box took a lot of coding, though. *shrugs* Personally, I like the bigger avatars. It leaves more room for creative flair and detail. *nods*

[Mikztsu]

If it really wouldn't be much trouble, I would be for it also. It would be nicer of course. =)

[Citizen Bleys]

c_l is correct. It would take me longer to log into the admin control panel than it would to increase the avatar image size limit. However, Daryl is *also* correct--most members would keep their current 60x60 avatars, and all those different av sizes would give the board a really sloppy look.

60x60 is the *standard* for almost all fora on the web. ezBoard uses it. Bastardly uses it. Animeglobe uses it. I think even FFWA and FFO still use it, but I haven't visited the competition in a long time.

And I think that auto-stretching avatars to fill the same space *would* require modification of the board's .php files, *and* it would probably make all of the board's current 60x60 avatars look like crap. *I* for one, do not want to be the person who has to make all those avs look good at the new size.

[Drex]

Get members to make new avatars that look decent. Most non-staff members would kill to help out in the smallest way. Somehow makes them feel useful, or something. That's how we got all of our avatars (essentially) at Gamingforce. Not that anyone uses them anymore. -_-

FFWA uses the 60x60s, yes, but it's a dying forum. Or was when last I checked. I haven't been back for months. I was demodded for negligence of the forums. It doesn't really interest me any more. *shrugs* Besides, they'd been contending with server space issues forever, so the 60x60s were the way to go. They're very stuck in their ways.

FFO...no one cares about. I think. *shrugs again*

[Chaos]

I'm not fussed. I like them the way they are, sure it distorts it a bit, but well, you cant have everything.

Chaos

[Britt]

FFO has always used 64x64 avatars, to my knowledge, though all of their avatars had 1 pixel black borders around the outside.