HWT userbar.

[MadMaffMan]

Just a thought but why don't you knock up a userbar for the HWT site, i could use it in my sigs on other forums then. Nothing like a bit of free advertising and you meet DoW players in the strangest places and a number of them i've met have no idea about the site.

A few didn't even know that you could mod the game or it's graphics.

[IBBoard]

Yeah, I could do one of those - see if I can get a Skins@HWT and a HWT one made up. I'll have to think on what's the best text to put on it, though. Something short enough to fit but long enough to tell people what's here

As for people not knowing about skinning/modding, that's one thing I brought up with Buggo on the Relic Forums (Relic's new "Community Liaison Officer" or similar title for those who don't know her). Relic really should make more of the moddability of their games - it's a great way to extend the life of them without them having to pay anything more, and you could potentially make extra sales out of the modders who buy games just to mod them.

[IBBoard]

Okay, here's some quick ones I've thrown together. Feel free to use the plain name ones, or the "contributor" one if you've contributed to the relevant site I should have hotlink protection in place, so you'll need to download them and host them somewhere like ImageShack if you want to use them in other places to advertise the site.

Suggestions and comments would be great.

[img]http://www.hiveworldterra.co.uk/images/UserBars/SkinsAtHWT.png[/img]
[img]http://www.hiveworldterra.co.uk/images/UserBars/SkinsAtHWTContributor.png[/img]
[img]http://www.hiveworldterra.co.uk/images/UserBars/HWTHive.png[/img]
[img]http://www.hiveworldterra.co.uk/images/UserBars/HWTHiveContributor.png[/img]
[img]http://www.hiveworldterra.co.uk/images/UserBars/HWTStripes.png[/img]
[img]http://www.hiveworldterra.co.uk/images/UserBars/HWTStripesContributor.png[/img]
[img]http://www.hiveworldterra.co.uk/images/UserBars/UberPainterUser.png[/img]

[MadMaffMan]

Early Christmas Pressies.....nice, now which one do i use.

I like the black and yellow design, very urban/heavy duty. The HWT dready is a little hard to make out and maybe it's my monitor settings but i have trouble reading the white writing on the cream background. Maybe you could make the userbar slightly larger so you can see the dread a little more, otherwise very nice.

What about a Halved and Quartered Marines bar as they are some of your best work. I have seen userbars before that were actually a link to a website, how do you do something like then That would bring people straight here then with out any effort, you know how lazy most peeps are now.

Well i'm off to advertise the site.....Happy Holidays.

[IBBoard]

The black/yellow is more for the main HWT site, but it works well on Skins@HWT as well (I was actually thinking of making things more uniform at some point and adding the HWT skin to the Skins@HWT site)

As for the text, I've just done a new version for Simguinus, a specific "Chief Historitor" one (for his post as official Encyclopedia contributor with direct access to the control panel) and did a quick swap of layers to put the text above the shine. I think it looks a better, and probably even better on the Dreadie colours

As for the image not being very clear, I wasn't sure what to work with. 19px high is normal size (although I did go for the black border as well, which a lot of people seem to drop). I used the Dreadie because he was easiest and most obvious as a new skin (and as a Skins@HWT thing).

The problem is that I need to combine something that is obviously a skin change (so that people can see what Skins@HWT can provide) with something that people won't mind me using in a sig (so basically my work or anyone else willing to let me use screenshots) at a scale that doesn't give you much space to work with! The user bars like your BT one are great because you generally know the image and can pick up the rest, but skins are a little more awkward in such a small gap. Any direct suggestions would be great

Final thing - linking it! the BBCode should be something like:

Code: Select all

[url=http://skins.hiveworldterra.co.uk/][img]http://location.com/of/your/userbar.png[/img][/url]

Although on these forums we're slightly strange (to stop wide images destroying the layout). If you've got a small image then we've got a [img] tag that works exactly the same as a normal [img] tag. The [img] tag makes a box around the image that fills the width of the forum, but allows it to scroll if the image itself is larger than the box. Hopefully that makes sense

Also, if you're using a "contributor" one then feel free to link to your downloads page

Happy Holidays, and thanks for the advertising

[edit] Here's a quick update to the contributor, not sure if it's any better on the text and impression of size (I reduced the border to a darkening, put the text over the shine and added a small black 'glow' to it)

[img]http://www.hiveworldterra.co.uk/images/UserBars/SkinsAtHWTContributorAlt.png[/img]

If that's better then I'll do more of them like that.

[MadMaffMan]

Ohh thats much nicer, i shall have to swap for that userbar and try and link it to my downloads page. I'll try that though when i have less red wine in the system.

Happy Holidays.

[IBBoard]

I'll remake the old ones as well then. And yeah, computers and alcohol can make work rather interesting At least no-one on here is likely to do the drunken rant (although I think TGSC made a slightly less sensical post than normal once after a night at the pub!)

[IBBoard]

As well as the previous set:

we also now have the 'alt' ones, which I've done a bit of graphical tweaking to (less shine, text above the shine and a less definite border):

[MadMaffMan]

Very nice work, and i think i got the linked userbar working OK as well.

I knew it was worth waiting until i was sober.

Hope Santa brought you lots of nice things to play with, i've been getting a sound thrashing at PES6 on the 360....by my sisters no less. Oh the shame.

[IBBoard]

Yep, looks like you got it linked okay, and on Hangar-8's forums

Still need ideas for other ones (either other images or other phrases etc).

As for Christmas, I might start another thread about that in GC.